[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 14 (Friday, January 23, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4260-4263]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-1376]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2009-0013]
Safety Culture Policy Statement Development: Public Meeting and
Request for Public Comments
AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
ACTION: Notice of Public Meeting and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The NRC is developing an update to its policy statement on
safety culture to include the unique aspects of security and to ensure
that the policy applies to all licensees and certificate holders. The
NRC is conducting a public meeting to solicit public input on topics
relating to the development of the policy statement. In addition to
announcing the public meeting, the NRC is using this notice to request
comments on the topics discussed in this notice. These topics can be
found in section D (Topics for Discussion) of the SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION.
DATES:
Public Meeting Dates: The NRC will take public comments at the
public meeting on January 28, 2009.
Comment Dates: Comments are requested by February 11, 2009.
Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical
to do so, but the NRC is able to assure consideration only for comments
received on or before this date. The NRC will also take public comments
on the questions raised in this notice at a public meeting on January
28, 2009. Please refer to the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for
additional information, including the topics and associated questions
to which NRC is requesting input.
ADDRESSES: The public meeting will be held on January 28, 2009, in the
auditorium of the NRC Headquarters building at 11545 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, MD 20852, which is across the street from the White Flint
Metro stop. The most convenient transportation to the meeting venue is
via Metro since there is extremely limited on-street parking. Please
take Metro to the White Flint Metro stop on the Red Line. Please allow
time to register with building security and to check with the entry
guard station for signs for the Safety Culture Policy Statement Public
Meeting room as you enter the building. Users unable to travel to the
NRC Headquarters may participate by Webinar or teleconference. Please
see the meeting notice, which is posted on the NRC public meeting
schedule Web site: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm?fuseaction=Search.Detail&MC=20080837&NS=0&CFID=264654&CFTOKEN=94010205, for instructions on how to register for the workshop.
After the conduct of the public meeting, members of the public are
invited and encouraged to submit comments by February 11, 2009, by mail
to June Cai, Concerns Resolution Branch, Office of Enforcement, Mail
Stop O-4 A15A, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001, or by e-mail to [email protected].
To ensure efficient consideration of your comments, please identify
the related topic and specific question numbers with your comments when
applicable. When commenting, please exercise caution with regard to
site-specific security-related information. Comments will be made
available to the public in their entirety. Personal information, such
as your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, etc., will not
be removed from your submission.
You can access publicly available documents related to this notice
using the following methods:
NRC's Public Document Room (PDR): The public may examine and have
copied for a fee, publicly available documents at the NRC's PDR, Public
File Area O-1F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS):
Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC after
November 1, 1999, are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic
Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this
site, the public can gain entry into ADAMS, which provides text and
image files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to
ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in
ADAMS, contact the PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, (301) 415-
4737 or by e-mail to [email protected].
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: June Cai, (301) 415-5192,
[email protected] or Pete Hernandez, (301) 415-8319,
[email protected] of the Office of
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Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-
0001. Public meeting attendees are requested to register with one of
the meeting contacts by January 26, 2009. Please let the meeting
contacts know if special services, such as for the hearing impaired,
are necessary.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Purpose of the Public Meeting: The purpose of this meeting is to
solicit the views of interested stakeholders on topics related to
safety culture that were provided in the Commission's Staff
Requirements Memoranda (SRM)-COMGBJ-08-0001 (ML080560476), ``A
Commission Policy Statement on Safety Culture,'' dated February 25,
2008, which are presented in Section D, below. The NRC will consider
the input received during the meeting in the development of the draft
policy statement(s) addressing safety culture and security culture.
B. Public Meeting Agenda: A meeting notice and detailed agenda are
available on the NRC public meeting schedule Web site: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm?fuseaction=Search.Detail&MC=20080837&NS=0&CFID=264654&CFTOKEN=94010205. The meeting notice has information on how to participate via
Webinar or teleconference. Concurrent with the meeting, there will be
an open house poster session held in the Auditorium atrium throughout
the day to provide additional opportunities for attendees to provide
input. The information presented at the open house will also be made
available at the Web site listed above, to allow those unable to attend
the meeting or attending through the Webinar or teleconference to view
the information and have an opportunity to provide their input on the
topics addressed at the open house.
C. Background: The NRC recognizes the importance of licensees to
establish and maintain a strong safety culture--a work environment
where management and employees are dedicated to putting safety first.
The Commission previously addressed this topic on January 24, 1989 (54
FR 3424) in ``Policy Statement on the Conduct of Nuclear Power Plant
Operations'' (http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/enforcement/54fr3424.pdf)--the Commission's policy statement on safety culture--
where it described expectations for such a safety culture and how it
supports the agency's mission to protect public health and safety.
Although the policy statement was issued to make clear the Commission's
expectation of utility management and licensed operators with respect
to the conduct of nuclear power plant operations, the Commission
intended for the policy statement to help foster the development and
maintenance of a safety culture at every facility licensed by the NRC.
In the Policy Statement, safety culture is described as ``the necessary
full attention to safety matters,'' and the ``personal dedication and
accountability of all individuals engaged in any activity which has a
bearing on the safety of nuclear power plants. A strong safety culture
is one that has a strong safety-first focus.''
The Commission has referenced the International Nuclear Safety
Advisory Group's (INSAG) definition of safety culture as follows:
``Safety Culture is that assembly of characteristics and attitudes in
organizations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding
priority, nuclear safety issues receive the attention warranted by
their significance.''
On May 14, 1996, the Commission published its policy, ``Freedom of
Employees in the Nuclear Industry to Raise Safety Concerns without Fear
of Retaliation'' (61 FR 24336) (http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/allegations/scwe-frn-5-14-96.pdf), which expressed the
Commission's expectation that licensees and other employers subject to
NRC authority will establish and maintain a safety conscious
environment in which employees feel free to raise safety concerns, both
to their management and to the NRC, without fear of retaliation. A
safety conscious work environment is one facet of a strong safety
culture. On August 25, 2005, the NRC issued Regulatory Issue Summary
2005-018 (ML052220239), ``Guidance for Establishing and Maintaining a
Safety Conscious Work Environment,'' to provide guidance on maintaining
a safety conscious work environment.
In SRM-COMGBJ-08-0001 (ML080560476), ``A Commission Policy
Statement on Safety Culture,'' dated February 25, 2008, the Commission
directed staff to ``expand the Commission's policy of safety culture to
address the unique aspects of security and to ensure the resulting
policy is applicable to all licensees and certificate holders,'' and to
conduct a ``broad review of issues related to safety culture as part of
the effort for developing the oversight process and for revising or
developing additional Commission Policy Statement(s).''
The Commission directed the staff to complete its evaluation,
provide a recommendation to the Commission on how best to update the
Commission policy, and provide draft policy statement(s) on safety
culture to the Commission for its consideration. In its review, the
staff should, at a minimum, evaluate the following key areas:
(1) Whether safety culture as applied to reactors needs to be
strengthened.
(2) How to increase attention to safety culture in the materials
area.
(3) How stakeholder involvement can most effectively be used to
address safety culture for all NRC and Agreement State licensees and
certificate holders, including any unique aspects of security. The
staff should, as part of its public stakeholder outreach, reach out to
all types of licensees and certificate holders, including power
reactors (including new reactors), research and test reactors, fuel
facilities, spent fuel shipping and storage cask vendors, and the
materials community, including industrial, academic, and medical users.
The assessment should also involve outreach activities to Members of
Congress, the Agreement States, and other stakeholders.
(4) Whether publishing NRC's expectations for safety culture and
for security culture is best accomplished in one safety/security
culture statement or in two separate statements, one each for safety
and security, while still considering the safety and security
interfaces.
A Safety Culture Policy Statement Task Group and Steering Committee
have been established to address this direction. The Task Group has
been conducting review and analysis of various information and data
sources in order to inform and provide the basis for the draft policy
statement(s) and recommendations development. Examples of these sources
are information from existing agency activities in the safety culture
and security culture area and information and insights from relevant
industry activities, international activities and organizations, and
the organizational research literature.
The Task Group has also been conducting outreach activities with
stakeholders to raise awareness of safety culture and to provide
information about this activity. The Task Group is holding the public
meeting on January 28, 2009, to provide opportunity for stakeholders to
offer input on the draft policy statement(s) development and on key
topics related to the Commission direction.
D. Topics for Discussion
The NRC is seeking input on key topics related to the direction
from the Commission on the Safety Culture
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Policy Statement development. Specifically, the NRC is seeking input on
the following topics:
1. Should NRC combine its expectations in the policy statement for
safety culture and security culture or should NRC keep its expectations
separate?
2. How should NRC increase attention by NRC, licensees, and
certificate holders to safety culture in the materials area?
3. Does safety culture as applied to reactors need to be
strengthened?
Obtaining public input on these topics will be the focus of the
January 28, 2009, public meeting. The NRC has developed a series of
questions relating to each of these topics to foster discussion and to
solicit specific information relating to the Commission direction. Some
of the questions use terminology such as ``your organization,'' but
input from individual stakeholders who may not be part of a specific
organization in the topic area are requested as well.
The following format is used in the presentation of the topics
below. Each topic is assigned a number and a short title, and a list of
questions for consideration then follows. Each question, or set of
questions, is also assigned a number. When providing written comments,
please list the relevant topic and question numbers when appropriate.
Topic 1: Should NRC combine its expectations in the policy statement
for safety culture and security culture or should NRC keep its
expectations separate?
Q1.1. Within organizations, one can think about safety and security
in different ways. For example, safety may take precedence over
security, security may take precedence over safety, or both may be
treated equally. Different types of licensees, certificate holders and
organizations have a variety of experiences and perspectives. How does
your organization view the relationship or hierarchy between safety and
security functions and decision making?
Q1.2. While efforts to maintain safety and security have the same
common goal of protecting public health and safety, there can be
distinct differences in the approach used to achieve that goal and that
may have competing outcomes. One example is how information is shared
to mitigate risks, where increased sharing of information may
contribute to maintaining safety, but presents increased security
risks. What are other examples where efforts to maintain safety and
security require different approaches or result in competing outcomes
that need to be addressed to achieve the desired outcome or goal?
Q1.3. When resolving differences or conflicts while seeking to
maintain safety and security--such as when managing risk, sharing
information, planning work, correcting problems, etc.--and where
changes or actions that are taken to address either a safety issue or a
security issue could have an adverse effect on the other (i.e.,
security or safety, respectively); what challenges does your
organization face?
Q1.4. What challenges or complexities arise when licensees and
certificate holders work with contractors and vendors where the
organizations either take different approaches to resolving conflicting
outcomes when they seek to maintain safety and security or the
organizations may balance the conflicting outcomes of efforts to
maintain safety and security differently?
Q1.5. What practices have been used to effectively address the
conflicts to achieve the desired outcomes or goals?
Q1.6. Given that there are several ways to think about safety
culture and security culture within organizations, the NRC wishes to
express a policy in a way that best furthers its goals of protecting
the public and environment and ensuring the secure use and management
of radioactive materials.
If the above issues are viewed in terms of safety culture and
security culture implementation, what benefits or challenges would
licensees, certificate holders, Agreement States, or others foresee
with a single policy statement? Two separate policy statements?
Q1.7. How can the NRC best express a policy that gives appropriate
weight to safety culture and security culture across the range of
licensees and certificate holders?
Q1.8. Given the diversity among the licensees and certificate
holders regulated by the NRC and the Agreement States, how should the
policy statement address any differences in emphasis on safety and
security at the different types of licensees and certificate holders?
Topic 2: How should NRC increase attention by licensees and certificate
holders to safety culture in the materials area?
Q2.1. What is the NRC doing that is working well to help materials
licensees and certificate holders to maintain their safety culture and
security culture?
Q2.2. What might the NRC do differently, or that it is not
currently doing, to increase NRC, licensee, or certificate holder
attention to safety culture at materials licensees and certificate
holders?
Q2.3. How could the NRC better interact with materials licensees
and certificate holders to help them to pay greater attention to
maintaining their safety culture and/or security culture?
Q2.4. If the NRC expresses a policy for materials licensees and
certificate holders to maintain safety culture and security culture, or
made its references to safety culture and security culture more
explicit in its interactions with these licensees and certificate
holders, how would their performance change?
Q2.5. What should the NRC consider when developing policy
statement(s) on safety culture and security culture?
Q2.5.1. What is the current level of understanding of materials
licensees and certificate holders of the NRC's expectations that they
maintain a safety culture that is cognizant of issues relating to
security? How does this level of understanding change with the type of
licensee or certificate holder?
Q2.5.2. How should the NRC consider the different activities (e.g.,
risk, type of material, quantities of materials, how the material is
used, location, etc.) conducted at materials licensees and certificate
holders when evaluating whether, or how, to express its policy?
Q2.5.3. How should NRC consider differences in the materials
licensees and certificate holders (e.g., size of workforce,
relationship to activities not regulated by the NRC, etc.) when
evaluating whether, or how, to express its policy? What differences
should the NRC consider?
Q2.5.4. What are the unique aspects of security at materials
licensees and certificate holders that the NRC should consider when
expressing its policy?
Q2.5.5. What topics should be addressed in the policy statement(s)
that would be of value to materials licensees and certificate holders?
Q2.5.6. How could the policy statement(s) effectively address
issues that involve both safety and security (at the safety/security
interface) at materials licensees and certificate holders?
Q2.5.7. How can the NRC best express a policy that gives
appropriate weight to safety culture and security culture across the
range of licensees and certificate holders?
Q2.5.8. Given the diversity among the licensees and certificate
holders regulated by the NRC and the Agreement States, how should the
policy statement address any differences in emphasis on safety and
security at the different types of licensees and certificate holders?
Q2.6. How should the NRC work with the Agreement States to
encourage
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increased attention being focused on safety culture, including the
unique aspects of security, at Agreement State licensees?
Q2.6.1. What is the level of understanding at Agreement State
licensees regarding the value in maintaining safety culture and
security culture?
Q2.6.2. What is the level of understanding of safety culture and
security culture within the Agreement States?
Q2.6.3. How do the Agreement States view the NRC's goal of
increasing the attention paid to safety culture and security culture at
materials licensees and certificate holders?
Q2.6.4 What topics do the Agreement States believe should be
addressed in the policy statement(s)?
Q2.6.5. How could the NRC help the Agreement States to increase
attention to safety culture and security culture at their licensees?
Q2.6.6. How should the NRC address safety culture and security
culture at Agreement State licensees that engage in activities within
NRC jurisdiction under reciprocity?
Q2.6.7. How might NRC use stakeholder involvement to increase the
attention that materials licensees and certificate holders give to
maintaining a safety culture, including the unique aspects of security?
Topic 3: Does safety culture as applied to reactors needs to be
strengthened?
A number of enhancements were made to the ROP in 2006 to address
safety culture (for example: Safety culture cross-cutting aspect
assignment to findings; identifying substantive cross-cutting issues;
performing an independent NRC safety culture assessment for licensees
in Column 4 of the ROP Action Matrix).
Q3.1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current approach
for evaluating licensee safety culture in the ROP?
Q3.2. How has the use of safety culture cross-cutting aspects that
are assigned to inspection findings helped to identify potential safety
culture issues? Suggest any alternative approaches that licensees could
use to identify potential safety culture issues.
Q3.3. What may be better or more effective methods or tools that
the NRC could use to help identify precursors to future plant
performance deficiencies?
Q.3.4. In the following situations the NRC may/or will request a
licensee to perform a safety culture assessment (licensee self-
assessment, independent assessment, or a third-party assessment): (a)
The same substantive cross-cutting issue had been identified in three
consecutive assessment letters (generated from assessments conducted at
6 month intervals); (b) a 95002 inspection (Inspection for One Degraded
Cornerstone or Any Three White Inputs in a Strategic Performance Area)
that confirmed the licensee had not identified a safety culture
component that either caused or significantly contributed to the risk-
significant performance issue that resulted in the supplemental
inspection; and (c) a plant enters Column 4 of the Action Matrix.
Under what other situations should the NRC consider requesting that
a licensee perform a safety culture assessment?
Another ROP enhancement was for the NRC to perform an independent
safety culture assessment for plants that enter the multiple
repetitive/degraded cornerstone column (column 4).
Q3.5. In what other circumstances might the NRC consider performing
an independent safety culture assessment?
Q3.6. What other entity, other than the NRC, could perform an
independent safety culture assessment or simply verify the results of
the licensee's assessments and corrective actions?
Q3.7. What additional safety culture related ROP changes could help
the NRC to improve the focus of NRC and licensee attention on site
safety culture issues?
The NRC has held public meetings where draft changes to several ROP
guidance documents resulting from a lessons learned evaluation of the
initial implementation period of the ROP safety culture enhancements
have been made available for public comment.
Q3.8 What areas beyond the draft changes (for example, a provision
in Inspection Procedure 95003 for the NRC to be able to conduct a
graded safety culture assessment) presented by the NRC have the
potential to further enhance how the ROP addresses safety culture?
Q3.8.1. How would these potential changes enhance or improve how
the NRC addresses safety culture through the ROP?
Q3.9. In what ways does the current process lead to consistency/
predictability of implementation by the NRC? Provide examples to
support your view.
Q3.9.1 In what ways does it lead to inconsistency or
unpredictability?
Q3.10. How effective is the ROP in addressing security culture
issues?
Q3.10.1. What ROP changes could help the NRC to improve the focus
of NRC and licensee attention on site security culture issues?
In previous public meetings, the NRC has discussed using the ROP
safety culture components and modified aspects as a tool to understand
the challenges to safety culture during new reactor construction.
Q3.11. How can challenges to safety culture in new reactor
construction be identified and addressed in regulatory oversight?
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 14th day of January, 2009.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stewart L. Magruder,
Deputy Director, Office of Enforcement.
[FR Doc. E9-1376 Filed 1-22-09; 8:45 am]
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