NRC publishes Federal Register notice proposing license-amendment reviews for multiple U.S. reactors

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a Federal Register notice dated Feb. 24, 2026 that it has received requests to amend operating licenses for multiple U.S. nuclear stations and is proposing determinations of no significant hazards consideration. The notice makes clear that “Before any issuance of the proposed license amendments, the NRC will need to make the findings required by the Act and the NRC's regulations,” and it was published “Pursuant to Section 189a.(2) of the Act.”

The notice singles out three license amendment requests related to reauthorizing power operations at the CCEC and identifies the requested amendments as modifications to “RFL No. DPR-50 for the CCEC” submitted by “CEG.” Those three LARs are listed in a table in Section III of the Federal Register document; the excerpt provided here does not reproduce that table or the specific reactor/unit names, docket numbers, or technical scopes of the amendments.

Although the applicants for the three LARs asserted a categorical exclusion, the NRC staff explicitly rejected reliance on that approach in this instance. The Federal Register states that “although the three LARs state that a categorical exclusion applies, the NRC staff is not relying on a categorical exclusion for these actions.” Instead, the staff “will complete an environmental review of the potential environmental impacts of the proposed Federal actions related to reauthorizing power operations at the CCEC, which include the three LARs, and will document its findings in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA), and the NRC's regulations in 10 CFR part 51, ‘Environmental Protection Regulations for Domestic Licensing and Related Regulatory Functions.’”

The notice reiterates the Commission’s statutory authority on timing and hearings. It quotes the Act’s publishing and emergency‑effect provisions: “The Act requires the Commission to publish notice of any amendments issued or proposed to be issued, and grants the Commission the authority to issue and make immediately effective any amendment to an operating license upon a determination by the Commission that such amendment involves no significant hazards consideration, notwithstanding the pendency before the Commission of a request for a hearing from any person.”

The environmental review will also address interagency consultation obligations, with the notice saying the staff’s review “will also document the NRC's interagency consultation requirements in accordance with Section 106 of the National Historic ...” (the excerpt truncates the statutory reference). The Federal Register excerpt does not include public comment deadlines, hearing procedures, or definitions for the acronyms CCEC and CEG, so the identities of the facility and applicant are not specified in the text provided here.

As procedural context, past NRC practice has included hearing orders and firm milestone schedules; historical documents cited in background materials include 74 Fed. Reg. 38052 (July 30, 2009) and 69 Fed. Reg. 5873 (Feb. 6, 2004), and commentators have noted Commission expectations for “prompt and efficient resolution of contested issues” and even 30-month milestone schedules in prior proceedings. For this set of LARs, the timeline hinges on the NRC staff’s NEPA work, the Section 106 consultation outcomes, and the subsequent NSHC determinations that the Commission must make before any amendments can issue.