[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 246 (Friday, December 20, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 67354-67355]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-32350]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Availability of Final Branch Technical Position on the Use of 
Expert Elicitation in the High-Level Waste Program

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is announcing the 
availability of NUREG-1563, the ``Branch Technical Position (BTP) on 
the Use of Expert Elicitation in the High-Level Waste (HLW) Program.''

ADDRESSES: A copy of NUREG-1563 and the staff's responses to public 
comments on the February 1996 draft BTP are available for public 
inspection and/or copying at the NRC Public Document Room, 2120 L 
Street (Lower Level), NW, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Copies of the 
NUREG-1563 may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. 
Government Printing Office, P.O. Box 37082, Washington, D.C., 20013-
7082, telephone 202/512-2249. Copies are also available from the 
National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, 
Springfield, VA 22161.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael P. Lee, Performance Assessment 
and High-Level Waste Integration Branch, Division of Waste Management, 
Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, 11545

[[Page 67355]]

Rockville Pike, MD 20852-2738, telephone 301/415-6677.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is 
conducting a program of site characterization to gather enough 
information, about the Yucca Mountain (Nevada) site, to be able to 
evaluate the waste isolation capabilities of a potential geologic 
repository. Should the site be found suitable, DOE will apply to the 
NRC for permission to construct and then operate a proposed geologic 
repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level 
radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain.
    As with other licensing decisions, NRC's decision to grant or deny 
a license for a proposed repository will be based on a combination of 
fact and judgment, as set forth by DOE in any potential license 
application. The subjective judgments of individual experts and, in 
some cases, groups of experts, will be used by DOE to interpret data 
obtained during site characterization and to address the many technical 
issues and inherent uncertainties associated with predicting the 
performance of a geologic repository system for thousands of years.
    NRC has traditionally accepted, for review, expert judgment to 
evaluate and interpret the factual bases of license applications. 
Judgment has been used to complement and supplement other sources of 
scientific and technical information, such as data collection, 
analyses, and experimentation. In NUREG-1563, the NRC staff has 
developed specific technical positions that: (1) provide general 
guidelines on those circumstances that may warrant the use of a formal 
process for obtaining the judgments of more than one expert (i.e., 
expert elicitation); and (2) describe acceptable procedures for 
conducting expert elicitation when formally elicited judgments are used 
to support a demonstration of compliance with NRC's geologic disposal 
regulation, currently set forth in 10 CFR Part 60.
    Current NRC policy is to encourage the use of probabilistic risk 
assessment (PRA) state-of-the-art technology and methods as a 
complement to the deterministic approach in nuclear regulatory 
activities (60 FR 42622). Although routinely used in deterministic 
analyses that do not involve PRA (or performance assessments, in the 
case of waste management systems), expert judgment can, and frequently 
does, provide information essential to the conduct of probabilistic 
assessments. Consistent with the Commission's policy, the NRC staff has 
developed this BTP to identify acceptable procedures for the use and 
formal elicitation of such judgments in the area of HLW.
    Although there are several examples of the use of expert 
elicitation in a nuclear regulatory context, no formal Agency guidance 
on this subject exists. Thus, in developing this BTP, the Division of 
Waste Management staff has drawn upon the prior experience of other NRC 
program offices with the use of expert judgment and has relied on 
various Agency resource documents to help formulate its position 
statements. Consequently, the staff believes that this BTP is largely 
consistent with these other resource documents in substance.
    On February 28, 1996, the NRC published a ``Notice of 
Availability'' in the Federal Register of the draft BTP (61 FR 7568) 
and solicited public comments. As a result, about 20 twenty comments, 
questions, and recommendations were received from three parties --DOE, 
the State of Nevada, and the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review 
Board--which resulted in some changes and clarifications to the 
guidance. These changes and clarifications are documented in Appendix D 
of the NUREG. On August 22, 1996, the staff briefed the Advisory 
Committee on Nuclear Waste on the staff's final position statements. As 
a result of this briefing, further clarifications were requested and 
these clarifications are documented in Appendix F of the NUREG.
    Finally, in its comments on the draft BTP, DOE indicated that it is 
in ``substantial agreement'' with the NRC staff's technical positions 
on the formal use of expert elicitation in the HLW program. Therefore, 
the staff is inclined to believe that with publication of the BTP, 
there is a sufficient basis to recommend that NRC's 1989 Site 
Characterization Analysis Comment (SCA) 3, concerning DOE's use of 
expert judgment in the HLW program, be closed, at the staff level. 
Appendix E of the NUREG contains the staff's views with regard to a 
possible course of resolution for SCA Comment 3.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 16th day of December 1996.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
John H. Austin,
Chief, Performance Assessment and High-Level Waste Integration Branch, 
Division of Waste Management, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 
Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 96-32350 Filed 12-19-96; 8:45 am]
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