A licensing decision for the proposed William States Lee III nuclear plant has been pushed back to at least 2016.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission notified Duke Energy that a mandatory hearing for the plant's combined license — one of the final steps before a decision — is now scheduled for 2016. It was initially scheduled for March of this year.

The NRC issued a revised timeline for the COL in correspondence with Duke dated July 22. It read, “The staff’s revised schedule reflects the availability of NRC resources and recently imposed budgetary constraints resulting in substantial impacts on licensing activities associated with combined licensing reviews.”

The NRC also said the delay was caused by a decision to move the nuclear islands for the two proposed Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, as well as additional seismic analysis requirements following the Fukushima Daiichi accidents in Japan.

Duke has not made a final decision on whether to build the plant it proposed southwest of Charlotte, N.C., in 2006. A Duke spokesman told the Charlotte Observer this week that the company does not expect the licensing delay will change the current mid-2020s target for completing the reactors.