NRC cuts resident baseline inspection hours 42% after reorganization
The Chief Nuclear Reactor Inspectorate has 530 staff in 28 states, providing more than 65,000 hours of direct inspection at 55 reactor sites.
Key facts
- Annual baseline inspection hours fall from 2,018 to 1,162, exceeding earlier NRC projections
- Commissioners met staff October 15 at the Region IV office in Arlington, Texas
- All four regional offices now report to the new CNRI
- DFMP issued 40 new licenses and performed more than 400 inspections so far in 2026
- Materials users regrouped from six geographic regions to three: East, Central and West
The five NRC commissioners met officials and staff at the Region IV offices in Arlington, Texas, on October 15 to assess the reorganization the agency began about 100 days earlier. The reorganization grouped work around core business lines and created two offices: the Office of the Chief Nuclear Reactor Inspector and the Office of Advanced Reactors. All four regional offices now report to the new chief reactor inspector office.
Baseline inspection hours fell 42 percent
The chief reactor inspector office has 530 staff in 28 states and provided more than 65,000 hours of direct inspection at 55 reactor sites. It oversees operating reactors, including nonpower reactors, reactor security inspections, operator licensing and vendor inspections. Jeremy Groom, the office's acting director, said the central difficulty was gathering oversight functions that had been spread across several divisions.
Revisions to the Reactor Oversight Process cut annual baseline inspection hours from 2,018 to 1,162, a 42 percent reduction, larger than NRC staff projected earlier in the year. Amber Donley, senior resident inspector at Turkey Point in Florida City, Fla., said reactor safety inspection hours fell 36 percent.
Materials users consolidated into three regions
Under the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, the Chief Nuclear Materials Inspectorate oversees the Division of Federal Materials Programs and the Division of Fuels, ISFSIs and Transportation. ISFSIs are independent spent fuel storage installations. Nuclear materials users, previously sorted into six geographic regions, are now in three within the federal materials division: East, Central and West. Commissioner Bradley Crowell said the three regions could cause confusion alongside the NRC's four regional oversight offices.
Jared Heck, director of the federal materials division, said it issued 40 new licenses and performed more than 400 inspections so far in 2026. Panelists acknowledged increased workloads and larger staff-to-supervisor ratios in each regional branch.
Chairman Ho Nieh said: "I didn't hear anything that suggests we have fatal flaws with this reorganization, but I recognize it's not perfect. ... We have to check and adjust."
