I received a comprehensive letter from Director Les Foldesi, Division of Radiological Health regarding progress toward revision of the nuclear license fees. There are appears to be good news, so I would like to thank Director Foldesi and look forward to working with him.

I assume the information in the letter is public, so the pertinent part I copied below to be part of the Town Hall.  I have some follow-up responses and will add them here later.

Harvey V. Lankford MD

Endocrine and Diabetes Management Center, Inc, 7231 Forest Ave Suite 103, Richmond, VA, 23226    804-288-0202         h_lankford@comcast.net

****** from Mr.Foldesi letter:

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has received about 18 complaints regarding the fee schedule. All of the complaints have come from those licensees who were granted a small business fee reduction under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)  and now pay a higher fee to VDH. During the rule-making process for establishing the fee schedule, a provision for a small business fee was not included and the projected impact was estimated to affect about 25 licensees who would pay a higher fee.  After the agreement with the NRC was implemented, VDH learned that 103 of the 429 licenses that transferred to the Commonwealth of Virginia received the small business fee reduction instead of the 25 previously thought. There are now 65 licensees whose fees range  from $1,000 to $8,000 and are higher than those of the NRC. The remaining 38 small businesses' fees range from $500 to  $2000 and are less than what they paid to the NRC. Those 323 licensees who were either not eligible for the small business fee or did not  apply for it, received substantial fee reductions under the Agreement State Program; even more so next year since NRC published a new fee schedule with an approximately 50%  increase in their fees, although the small business fees remained the same.

Meanwhile VDH staff has developed a proposed fee schedule which will further reduce the radioactive materials licensing fees and provide relief to many of the small businesses. The definition of a small business stated in the Code of Virginia (Section 2.2-4007) includes those business entities  that are (i) independently owned and operated and (ii) employs fewer than 500 employees or has a gross annual sales of less than $6 million. This definition could very well apply to most of our licensees. Your comments regarding how best VDH should address small business's fees would be greatly appreciated  as well as any other concerns you may have with the fee schedule.

If you have any questions regarding the fee schedule or the petition for rule-making, please call me at 804-864-8151, or by email at Les.Foldesi@vdh.virginia.gov or send a letter to the address below.

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                    Leslie P. Foldesi, M.S., CHP, Director

                                                                                     VDH-Division of Radiological Health

                                                                                    1090 Governor Street, Room 730

                                                                                     Richmond, VA 23219