Two nuclear energy-related bills passed out of the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee on July 12 and have moved to the House floor for consideration. Both measures, the Nuclear Utilization of Keynote Energy (NUKE) Act (H.R. 1320) and the Advanced Nuclear Fuel Availability Act (H.R. 6140), were approved by voice vote, after also passing unanimously out of the committee's Energy Subcommittee on June 21. H.R. 1320, introduced in March 2017 by Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R., 111.) and Mike Doyle (D., Pa.), calls for revising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's fee-recovery structure and making the agency's licensing procedures more efficient, including by establishing deadlines for the completion of major licensing milestones, allowing certain hearing procedures to be conducted more informally, and revising the regulatory framework for decommissioning reactors (NN, Apr. 2017, p. 23). The fuel bill, H.R. 6140, was introduced in June of this year by Reps. Bill Flores (R., Texas) and Jerry McNerney (D., Calif.), and directs the Department of Energy to establish a program to support the availability of high-assay low-enriched uranium to help enable advanced nuclear energy technology development.
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