Commerce official urges subcommittee to back DOE ‘life-cycle innovation campus’ RFI; voice vote approves support

A Commerce representative told a legislative subcommittee that South Carolina should signal interest to the U.S. Department of Energy’s recent request for information on a life-cycle nuclear innovation campus, and asked the General Assembly to support a joint resolution backing the state’s RFI response.

The witness said the DOE solicitation is a fact-finding step and "our response expresses interest in outlining our existing capabilities and does not commit the state to any project funding or policy action at this time." That, the Commerce representative said, is why the resolution is being sought: to show the state’s capabilities without binding South Carolina to a future project.

Members followed with questions about whether the RFI would implicitly invite storage of spent nuclear fuel. The Commerce representative confirmed the RFI asks about reprocessing and reuse of spent fuel but repeatedly said the RFI itself does not establish a federal storage program nor require the state to accept spent fuel. The representative pointed to South Carolina’s existing nuclear assets — including the Savannah River site and training streams through Joint Base Charleston — as reasons the state should be eligible to respond to DOE’s information request.

After discussion, the chair called for a motion to register the subcommittee’s support for the joint resolution; the motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. The record does not include text of the motion, and no roll-call tally was recorded during the hearing.

The subcommittee adjourned to take up additional items and indicated related, more detailed federal-state conversations would continue if the DOE process advanced.