State of Wyoming: NRC Staff Assessment of a Proposed Amendment to the Agreement Between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the State of Wyoming

<NOTICE> NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION <DEPDOC>[NRC-2025-2062]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>State of Wyoming: NRC Staff Assessment of a Proposed Amendment to the Agreement Between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the State of Wyoming</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Nuclear Regulatory Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed amendment to state agreement; request for comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> As required by Section 274e. of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (AEA), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is publishing the proposed Agreement for public comment (Appendix A). The NRC is also publishing the summary of a draft assessment by the NRC staff of the State of Wyoming's regulatory source material program. Comments are requested on the proposed amendment to the Agreement and its effect on public health and safety. Comments are also requested on the draft staff assessment, the adequacy of the State of Wyoming's source material program, and the adequacy of the staffing of the State's program, as discussed in this document. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Submit comments by March 2, 2026. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the Commission is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this date. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments by any of the following methods; however, the NRC encourages electronic comment submission through the Federal Rulemaking Website: • <E T="03">Federal Rulemaking Website:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for Docket ID NRC-2025-2062. Address questions about Docket IDs in <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> to Bridget Curran; telephone: 301-415-1003; email: <E T="03">Bridget.Curran@nrc.gov.</E> For technical questions, contact the individuals listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section of this document. • <E T="03">Mail comments to:</E> Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN-5-A85, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff. For additional direction on obtaining information and submitting comments, see “Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments” in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Allyce Bolger, telephone: 301-415-0855; email: <E T="03">Allyce.Bolger@nrc.gov</E> and Huda Akhavannik, telephone: 301-415-5253; email: <E T="03">Huda.Akhavannik@nrc.gov.</E> Both are staff of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Obtaining Information</HD> Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2025-2062 when contacting the NRC about the availability of information for this action. You may obtain publicly available information related to this action by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal Rulemaking Website:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for Docket ID NRC-2025-2062. • <E T="03">NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS):</E> You may obtain publicly available documents online in the ADAMS Public Documents collection at <E T="03">https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html.</E> To begin the search, select “Begin ADAMS Public Search.” For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, at 301-415-4737, or by email to <E T="03">PDR.Resource@nrc.gov.</E> For the convenience of the reader, instructions about obtaining materials referenced in this document are provided in the “Availability of Documents” section. • <E T="03">NRC's PDR:</E> The PDR, where you may examine and order copies of publicly available documents, is open by appointment. To make an appointment to visit the PDR, please send an email to <E T="03">PDR.Resource@nrc.gov</E> or call 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. eastern time (ET), Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Submitting Comments</HD> The NRC encourages electronic comment submission through the Federal Rulemaking Website ( <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> ). Please include Docket ID NRC-2025-2062 in your comment submission. The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact information that you do not want to be publicly disclosed in your comment submission. The NRC will post all comment submissions at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> as well as enter the comment submissions into ADAMS. The NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to remove identifying or contact information. If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons for submission to the NRC, then you should inform those persons not to include identifying or contact information that they do not want to be publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to remove such information before making the comment submissions available to the public or entering the comment into ADAMS. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> By letter dated August 5, 2025, Governor Mark Gordon of the State of Wyoming requested that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) amend its Agreement with the State of Wyoming as authorized by Section 274b. of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (AEA). Under the proposed amendment to the Agreement, the Commission would discontinue, and the State of Wyoming would assume, regulatory authority over source material recovered from any mineral resources processed primarily for purposes other than its uranium or thorium content. Since 2018, Wyoming's existing Agreement allows the State to assume regulatory authority over byproduct materials as defined in Section 11e.(2) of the AEA, and source materials involved in the extraction or concentration of uranium or thorium in source material and ores at milling facilities. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Additional Information on Agreements Entered Under Section 274 of the AEA</HD> Under the proposed amended Agreement, the NRC would discontinue its authority over source material recovered from any mineral resources processed primarily for purposes other than its uranium or thorium content and would transfer its regulatory authority to the State of Wyoming. There is currently one NRC licensee that would be transferred to the State of Wyoming under this proposed amended Agreement. The NRC periodically reviews the performance of the Agreement States to assure compliance with the provisions of Section 274. Section 274e. of the AEA requires that the terms of the proposed Agreement be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> for public comment once each week for four consecutive weeks. This document is being published in fulfillment of that requirement. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Proposed Amended Agreement With the State of Wyoming</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Background</HD> (a) Section 274b. of the AEA provides the mechanism for a State to assume regulatory authority from the NRC over certain radioactive materials and activities that involve use of these materials. The radioactive materials, sometimes referred to as “Agreement materials,” are byproduct materials as defined in Sections 11e.(1), 11e.(2), 11e.(3), and 11e.(4) of the AEA; source material as defined in Section 11z. of the AEA; and special nuclear material as defined in Section 11aa. of the AEA, restricted to quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass. The State of Wyoming has requested authority over a subcategory of source material in this amendment to its Agreement, specifically: (a) source material recovered from any mineral resources processed primarily for purposes other than its uranium or thorium content. (b) The proposed amended Agreement contains articles that: (i) Specify the materials and activities over which authority was transferred in 2018 and in this amendment; (ii) Specify the materials and activities over which the Commission will retain regulatory authority; (iii) Continue the authority of the Commission to safeguard special nuclear material, protect restricted data, and protect common defense and security; (iv) Commit the State of Wyoming and the NRC to exchange information as necessary to maintain coordinated and compatible programs; (v) Provide for the reciprocal recognition of licenses; (vi) Provide for the suspension or termination of the amended Agreement; and (vii) Specify the effective date of the proposed amended Agreement. The Commission reserves the option to modify the terms of the proposed amendment to the Agreement in response to comments, to correct errors, and to make editorial changes. The final text of the proposed amended Agreement, with the effective date, will be published after the amended Agreement is approved by the Commission and signed by the NRC Chairman and the Governor of Wyoming. (c) The regulatory program is authorized by law under the Wyoming Environmental Quality Act, Wyoming Statutes §§ 35-11-2001 through 2004, §§ 35-11-101 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> and §§ 16-3-101 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> which provides the Governor with the authority to enter into an Agreement with the Commission. The State of Wyoming law contains provisions for the orderly transfer of regulatory authority over affected licenses from the NRC to the State. In a letter dated August 5, 2025, Governor Gordon certified that the State of Wyoming has a program for the control of radiation hazards that ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 43k characters. 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