[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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