[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 78 (Friday, April 23, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20025-20026]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-10191]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION


Regulatory Oversight Process Pilot Workshop

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of meeting.

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SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will hold a public 
workshop to provide information to the NRC, industry, and public 
representatives of the participating pilot sites with the new PI 
reporting, inspection, assessment, and enforcement processes. This 
meeting is open to the public.

DATES: The workshop will be held May 17 through May 20, 1999. 
Registration will be held on May 17, 1999 from 10 a.m to noon. The 
hours of the workshop will be from 12 to 5 p.m. on May 17, 8 a.m. to 5 
p.m. on May 18 and May 19, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on May 20.

ADDRESSES: The workshop will be held at the Philadelphia Airport Ramada 
Inn, 76 Industrial Highway (Rt. 291), Essington, PA 19029. The hotel 
phone number is (610) 521-9600 or (800) 277-3900.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: August Spector at 301-415-2140 or Lee 
Miller at 301-415-1361, Mail Stop: O-5H4, Inspection Program Branch, 
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    On March 22, 1999, the staff issued SECY-99-007a Recommendations 
for Reactor Oversight Process Improvements (Follow-Up to SECY-99-007), 
forwarding the staff's recommendations for a new reactor oversight 
process. This paper forwarded additional information and noteworthy 
changes to the staff recommendations for improving the regulatory 
oversight process initially provided by SECY-99-007 Recommendations for 
Reactor Oversight Improvements. This paper also responds to the 
Commission's comments from the January 20, 1999, briefing on SECY-99-
007 and provides the staff's responses to public comments.
    The following issues represent a brief summary of the concepts 
presented in SECY-99-007A.
    Over the last 10 years, commercial nuclear power plants have been 
operated safely and overall plant performance has improved. This 
improvement in plant performance can be attributed, in part, to 
successful regulatory oversight. Despite this success, the agency has 
noted that the current reactor oversight process (1) is at times not 
clearly focused on the most safety important issues, (2) consists of 
redundant actions and outputs, and (3) is frequently subjective, with 
NRC action taken in a manner that is at times neither scrutable nor 
predictable.
    In the new regulatory oversight process:
     There will be a risk-informed baseline inspection program 
that establishes the minimum regulatory interaction for all licensees.
     Thresholds will be established for licensee safety 
performance, below which increased NRC interaction would be warranted.
     Adequate assurance of licensee performance will require 
assessment of both performance indicators (PIs) and inspection 
findings.
     Inspection findings will be evaluated for significance and 
integrated with PIs in timely manner to support overall assessment of 
licensee performance.
     Both PIs and inspection findings will be evaluated against 
risk-informed thresholds, where feasible.
     Crossing a PI threshold and an inspection threshold will 
have the same meaning with respect to safety significance and required 
NRC interaction.
     The baseline inspection program will cover those risk-
significant attributes of licensee performance not adequately covered 
by PIs.
     The baseline inspection program will also verify the 
accuracy of PI data collection and analysis and provide for event 
response, as appropriate.
     Enforcement actions will be focused on issues that are 
risk significant.
     Guidelines will be established for identifying and 
responding to unacceptable licensee performance.
    Additionally, the staff will pilot the new reactor oversight 
process during a 6-month period beginning in June, 1999. The purpose of 
the pilot program is to exercise the new processes (PI reporting, 
inspection, assessment, and enforcement), to identify process and 
procedure problems and make appropriate changes and, to the maximum 
extent possible, evaluate the effectiveness of the new process. Full 
implementation of the new oversight process will commence pending 
successful completion of the pilot program, as measured against pre-
established success criteria. A notable feature of the pilot program is 
the use of the Pilot Program Evaluation Panel, consisting of NRC, NEI, 
industry, public, and State representatives, to aid in evaluating the 
effectiveness of the pilot program.

Scope of the Public Workshop

    The NRC will hold a four day workshop from May 17-20, 1999, to 
review and familiarize NRC, industry, and public representatives of the 
participating pilot sites with the new PI reporting, inspection, 
assessment, and enforcement processes. However, representatives from 
all plants are welcome to attend the workshop. The pilot plants are: 
Hope Creek, Salem Units 1 and 2, FitzPatrick, Prairie Island Units 1 
and 2, Quad Cities Units 1 and 2, Shearon Harris, Sequoyah Units 1 and 
2, Ft. Calhoun, and Cooper.
    Attendees should be familiar with the key attributes of the new 
oversight processes and their associated program documents and 
understand the key differences between the new processes and the 
existing oversight processes. Copies of SECY-00-007 and SECY-99-007a 
are available on the internet at http:/www.nrc.gov/NRC/COMMISSION/
SECYS/index.html#1999.
    The agenda for the workshop will consist of the following:
     Day 1: registration and check-in, background and concept 
review, review of performance indicators (PIs), thresholds, and PI 
manual.
     Day 2: practical examples of PI data reporting, and 
inspection procedure review and documentation.

[[Page 20026]]

     Day 3: significance determination process (including 
practical examples), and new enforcement policy.
     Day 4: assessment process review (including practical 
examples).

Workshop Pre-Registration

    Workshop attendees are requested to pre-register with the NRC 
approximately two weeks before the workshop. Attendees may pre-register 
in either of the following ways:
    1. Fax to Sun Hoon Kim at (301) 415-5106.
    2. Mail to: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Attn: Sun Hoon Kim, 
Office of Human Resources, Mailstop T3D45, Washington, DC 20555-0001.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 19th day of April 1999.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cornelius F. Holden,
Acting Chief, Inspection Program Branch, Division of Inspection Program 
Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

Regulatory Oversight Process Pilot Workshop Registration, Philadelphia 
Airport Ramada Inn, Essington, PA, May 17-20, 1999

(Please Print)

Name:------------------------------------------------------------------
            (Last)              (First)

Title:-----------------------------------------------------------------

Address:---------------------------------------------------------------
      (department, division or unit)

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(organization/facility)

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(street or P.O. box)

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(city)      (state)      (zip code)

Pilot Plant (Yes/No)---------------------------------------------------

Telephone (business): __________ (ext)____

E-mail:----------------------------------------------------------------

Name (for name badge):-------------------------------------------------

    Mail your registration form to: Sun Hoon Kim, Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Office of Human Resources, Mail Stop T3D45, Washington, 
DC 20555.
    Fax your registration form to: 301-415-5106, Attention: Sun Hoon 
Kim.

THIS REGISTRATION FORM IS FOR THE WORKSHOP ONLY.
PLEASE MAKE HOTEL RESERVATIONS SEPARATELY.

[FR Doc. 99-10191 Filed 4-22-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P