[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 27 (Thursday, February 9, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6795-6796]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E6-1775]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION


Regulatory Guide: Issuance, Availability

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a new guide 
in the agency's Regulatory Guide Series. This series has been developed 
to describe and make available to the public such information as 
methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific 
parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques that the staff uses in 
evaluating specific problems or postulated accidents, and data that the 
staff needs in its review of applications for permits and licenses.
    Regulatory Guide 1.201, ``Guidelines for Categorizing Structures, 
Systems, and Components in Nuclear Power Plants According to Their 
Safety Significance,'' which is being issued for trial use, provides 
guidance for use in developing and assessing evaluation models for 
accident and transient analyses. An additional benefit is that 
evaluation models that are developed using these guidelines will 
provide a more reliable framework for risk-informed regulation and a 
basis for estimating the uncertainty in understanding transient and 
accident behavior.
    The NRC has promulgated regulations to permit power reactor 
licensees and license applicants to implement an alternative regulatory 
framework with respect to ``special treatment,'' where special 
treatment refers to those requirements that provide increased assurance 
beyond normal industrial practices that structures, systems, and 
components (SSCs) perform their design-basis functions. Under this 
framework, licensees using a risk-informed process for categorizing 
SSCs according to their safety significance can remove SSCs of low 
safety significance from the scope of certain identified special 
treatment requirements.
    The genesis of this framework stems from Option 2 of SECY-98-300, 
``Options for Risk-Informed Revisions to 10 CFR part 50, `Domestic 
Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities','' dated December 
23, 1998.\1\ In that Commission paper, the NRC staff recommended 
developing risk-informed approaches to the application of special 
treatment requirements to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden related 
to SSCs of low safety significance by removing such SSCs from the scope 
of special treatment requirements. The Commission subsequently approved 
the NRC staff's rulemaking plan and issuance of an Advanced Notice of 
Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) as outlined in SECY-99-256, ``Rulemaking 
Plan for Risk-Informing Special Treatment Requirements,'' dated October 
29, 1999.
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    \1\ Commission papers cited in this notice are available through 
the NRC's public Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/secys/ collections/commission/secys/, and the related Federal Register 
notices are available through the Federal Register Web site 
sponsored by the Government Printing Office (GPO) at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html.
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    The Commission published the ANPR in the Federal Register (65 FR 
11488) on March 3, 2000, and subsequently published a proposed rule for 
public comment (68 FR 26511) on May 16, 2003. Then, on November 22, 
2004, the Commission adopted a new section, referred to as Sec.  50.69, 
within Title 10, part 50, of the Code of Federal Regulations, on risk-
informed categorization and treatment of SSCs for nuclear power plants 
(69 FR 68008).
    This trial regulatory guide describes a method that the NRC staff 
considers acceptable for use in complying with the Commission's 
requirements in Sec.  50.69 with respect to the

[[Page 6796]]

categorization of SSCs that are considered in risk-informing special 
treatment requirements. This categorization method uses the process 
that the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) described in Revision 0 of its 
guidance document NEI 00-04, ``10 CFR 50.69 SSC Categorization 
Guideline,'' dated July 2005.\2\ Specifically, this process determines 
the safety significance of SSCs and categorizes them into one of four 
risk-informed safety class (RISC) categories.
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    \2\ NEI 00-04, ``10 CFR 50.69 SSC Categorization Guideline,'' is 
available through the NRC's public Web site at http://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/idmws/doccontent.dll?ID=052910091:&LogonId=2b2cbc48fd7897510347535dd7c30495 2b2cbc48fd7897510347535dd7c30495, and through the NRC's Agencywide 
Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html, under Accession 
ML052910035.
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    The NRC issued a draft of this guide, Draft Regulatory Guide DG-
1121, as part of the Sec.  50.69 rulemaking package in May 2003, and 
solicited public comments specifically concerning the draft guide by 
publishing related Federal Register notices (68 FR 34012 and 68 FR 
41408) on June 6 and July 11, 2003. Following the closure of the public 
comment period on August 1, 2003, the staff considered all stakeholder 
comments in the course of preparing the new Regulatory Guide 1.201. 
However, a few issues of technical interpretation and implementation 
still remain, with respect to specific aspects of the guidance. Because 
the staff believes these issues will be best resolved by testing the 
guide against actual applications, the NRC decided to issue this guide 
for trial use. This trial regulatory guide does not establish any final 
staff positions, and may be revised in response to experience with its 
use. As such, this trial guide does not establish a staff position for 
purposes of the Backfit Rule, 10 CFR 50.109, and any changes to this 
trial guide prior to staff adoption in final form will not be 
considered to be backfits as defined in 10 CFR 50.109(a)(1). This will 
ensure that the lessons learned from regulatory review of pilot and 
follow-on applications are adequately addressed in the final regulatory 
guide, and that the guidance is sufficient to enhance regulatory 
stability in the review, approval, and implementation of probabilistic 
risk assessments (PRAs) and their results in the risk-informed 
categorization process required by Sec.  50.69.
    The NRC staff encourages and welcomes comments and suggestions in 
connection with improvements to published regulatory guides, as well as 
items for inclusion in regulatory guides that are currently being 
developed. You may submit comments by any of the following methods.
    Mail comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001.
    Hand-deliver comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11555 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on 
Federal workdays.
    Fax comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at (301) 415-5144.
    Requests for technical information about Regulatory Guide 1.201 may 
be directed to Donald G. Harrison at (301) 415-3587 or via e-mail to 
[email protected].
    Regulatory guides are available for inspection or downloading 
through the NRC's public Web site in the Regulatory Guides document 
collection of the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections. Electronic copies of Regulatory Guide 1.201 
are also available in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS) at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, 
under Accession No. ML060260164.
    In addition, regulatory guides are available for inspection at the 
NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), which is located at 11555 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland; the PDR's mailing address is USNRC PDR, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001. The PDR can also be reached by telephone at 
(301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4205, by fax at (301) 415-3548, and by e-
mail to [email protected]. Requests for single copies of draft or final 
guides (which may be reproduced) or for placement on an automatic 
distribution list for single copies of future draft guides in specific 
divisions should be made in writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Reproduction and 
Distribution Services Section; by e-mail to [email protected]; or by 
fax to (301) 415-2289. Telephone requests cannot be accommodated.
    Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is 
not required to reproduce them.

    (5 U.S.C. 552(a))

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of January, 2006.

    For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Carl J. Paperiello,
Director, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. E6-1775 Filed 2-8-06; 8:45 am]
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