State takes some nuke duties from NRC

Almost three decades ago, Pennsylvania’s capital region gained international attention as the site of what remains the nation’s worst nuclear incident when a reactor at Three Mile Island near Middletown partially melted down.

Nuclear issues are back on the radar in Harrisburg now that the Commonwealth has taken nuclear regulation into its own hands.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state Department of Environmental Protection announced Monday that more than two decades after state legislation directed it, Pennsylvania has become the 35th “agreement state.”

That means the NRC and the state have signed an agreement that Pennsylvania will assume regulatory authority over almost 700 radioactive-material licensees, most of them in medical or industrial uses and including licenses for academic study.

Times Leader