The nuclear industry's lobbying arm today called for expanded tax incentives, a more efficient regulatory process and an additional $100 billion in loan guarantee authority to be included in the Senate's climate change and energy bill.

The Nuclear Energy Institute proposal expands on the industry's request for financing incentives and regulatory changes in reaction to lawmakers' questions about what the nuclear industry needs, according to Alex Flint, NEI's senior vice president for governmental affairs.

"We think a consensus is beginning to develop in Washington that nuclear incentives must be in climate legislation," Flint said in a teleconference.

Flint said NEI is "encouraged" that Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) placed a nuclear title in their climate bill last month and Boxer's staff is open "to include more substantive provisions."

The proposal should help interested lawmakers "put some meat on the bones" of the nuclear title language to reach the goal of building 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 -- the number of new reactors necessary to decrease carbon emissions to reduce climate change, Flint said.

"These are the things that are necessary to build new plants on schedule for what is needed for the climate change space," he said.

NEI wants an additional $100 billion in loan guarantee authority for clean energy technologies under a "Clean Energy Deployment Administration" (CEDA), on top of the $111 billion that Congress has already granted, Flint said. NEI supports a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee provision for CEDA, which does not set a cap for financial support by technology type and would integrate the current DOE loan guarantee program.

NEI is not saying how much it wants to go to nuclear projects beyond the $18.5 billion already in place, Flint added. The industry would also like an extension of the production tax credits for new nuclear reactors through 2025; the removal of the 6,000-megawatt limitation for those credits; a 30 percent investment tax credit or a grant in lieu of the production tax credit; tax credits for new or expanded manufacturing and worker training; and the reduction or elimination of tariffs on nuclear components under certain conditions, according to the proposal.

While the solution to nuclear waste is contained in the proposal, NEI's demands are much milder than what some Republican lawmakers have recently called for, including creating a private corporation to manage the waste. The proposal states that "restructuring" of the used fuel management program is necessary, but says such decisions should be made after congressional hearings and the proposed "blue ribbon" commission.

The proposal also includes details on what industry would like to see in creating a "more efficient, transparent" -- what members have referred to as "streamlining" -- licensing process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. With improvements, the licensing and construction process should be cut down from up to 10 years to about six years after the "first wave" of combined construction and operating licenses are completed without "in any way changing the standards or not addressing issues," Flint said.

NEI would also like to eliminate mandatory uncontested hearings, which it says are redundant, and to make informal hearings on the inspections, tests analyses and acceptance criteria -- reviews of meeting NRC licensing requirements -- instead of leaving it up to NRC's discretion to have them be formal or informal.

Edwin Lyman, a scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said having Congress dictating regulatory requirements to NRC is dangerous and unnecessary. "NEI's free to petition for a rulemaking, and that allows for public comments and resolution of that process," Lyman said. "It's not a perfect process, but it is better than Congress telling NRC what to do."

"A lot of these [suggestions] are really technically based issues, and we just don't think the regulatory agency should have its ability to make inquiries limited in scope. You have to trust the agency to make its own decision about what is significant," Lyman said.

Click here to read the proposal.