Federal regulators this week may approve construction of the first new U.S. nuclear reactor in more than three decades.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a tentative "affirmation session" at its headquarters in Rockville, Md., on Thursday to consider Atlanta-based Southern Co.'s application for two combined licenses to build the $14 billion Vogtle Units 3 and 4 near Waynesboro, Ga.

If approved, the two new reactors would be the first built in the United States since 1978.

Marvin Fertel, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said last month that NRC's approval of the license is "imminent" (E&ENews PM, Jan. 18).

Southern Co.'s Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power Corp., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and Dalton Utilities applied for the license in March 2008 but began planning the project three years earlier, said Steve Higginbottom, a spokesman for Southern.

The companies are negotiating the final terms of an $8.3 billion federal loan guarantee with the Department of Energy and expect to complete the process once they receive an NRC-approved license, he added.

"We believe [the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has] all the technical information they need to issue the [license] to construct and operate the reactors," Higginbottom said.

There are currently two operating reactors at the site. Southern has been prepping the land for the two additional Vogtle units under a limited work authorization, mainly removing earth and doing some foundation work, Higginbottom said.

Southern expects to begin construction immediately and bring Unit 3 online in 2016 and Unit 4 a year later. Each of the units will produce 1,100 megawatts of power each, he said.

The loan guarantee, however, has sparked concern among some lawmakers and environmental groups who say DOE should provide more information about its financial support.

Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee and a longtime nuclear critic, has said Congress should take a closer look at supporting the new reactors in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the government's pledge of more than a half billion dollars to bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra Inc. (E&E Daily, Sept. 15, 2011).

Separately, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an environmental group based throughout the southern United States, said in a statement today that DOE did not provide enough information about the loan guarantee after the group submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in March 2010.

DOE was obliged to respond in full by April 22, 2010, but the group filed a lawsuit in the D.C. District Court in August 2010 after the agency did not respond.

SACE said DOE recently released final documents on Dec. 8, 2011, and that most of the pages were heavily redacted and loan guarantee terms and credit subsidy fee estimates were withheld as confidential information belonging to the power companies.

"Given some of the lessons learned and political games developing from the Solyndra loan guarantee case, it's unacceptable and inconsistent that the much larger Vogtle loan isn't getting more intense scrutiny when the potential risk to taxpayers is much greater," said Stephen Smith, SACE's executive director, in a statement. "The DOE needs to operate with more transparency now -- not less."