[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 96 (Wednesday, May 20, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Page 23749]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-11704]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2008-0154]


Criteria for Identifying Materials Licensees for the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission's Agency Action Review Meeting

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is announcing the 
completion and availability of the new criteria for identifying nuclear 
materials licensees for discussion at the Agency Action Review Meeting 
(AARM). The new criteria may be found in SECY-08-0135 in the Agencywide 
Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession Number: 
(ML082480564) or in the supplementary information below.

ADDRESSES: A copy of SECY-08-0135 is available for inspection and/or 
copying for a fee in the NRC Public Document Room (PDR), 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available documents 
related to this notice are available electronically through the NRC's 
Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/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 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: Duane White, Division of Materials 
Safety and State Agreements, Office of Federal and State Materials and 
Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 415-6272, e-mail: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    In 2002, NRC developed a process for providing information on 
significant nuclear materials issues and adverse licensee performance. 
This process was provided in SECY-02-0216, ``Proposed Process for 
Providing Information on Significant Nuclear Materials Issues and 
Adverse Licensee Performance,'' dated December 11, 2002 (ADAMS 
Accession Number: ML022410435). As part of this process, criteria were 
developed to identify nuclear material licensees with significant 
performance problems that will be discussed at the AARM. These criteria 
may be found in Table 1 of SECY-02-0216.
    The AARM is an agency meeting that allows senior NRC managers (1) 
to review agency actions resulting from the performance of nuclear 
reactor licensees for those nuclear power plants with significant 
performance problems as determined by the reactor oversight process 
(ROP) action matrix, (2) to review results of the staff's assessment of 
ROP effectiveness, (3) to review industry performance trends, and (4) 
to review agency actions concerning fuel cycle facilities and other 
nuclear materials licensees (including Agreement State licensees) with 
significant performance problems.
    In 2008, the NRC staff developed new criteria to be used in 
identifying nuclear material licensees with significant performance 
problems that will be discussed at the AARM. The agency will continue 
to identify nuclear material licensees with significant performance 
problems based on operating performance, inspection results, and 
judgment of the severity of the safety performance problems. However, 
the new criteria provide additional clarity and incorporate NRC's 
current policy and procedures. The criteria were submitted to the 
Commission for information in SECY-08-0135.

Discussion

New Criteria for Identifying Nuclear Materials Licensees for the AARM

    The new criteria for identifying nuclear materials licensees for 
discussion at the AARM are as follows:
    (1) Strategic Plan--Licensee has an event that results in the 
failure to meet a strategic outcome for safety and security in the NRC 
strategic plan (NUREG-1614); or
    (2) Significant Issue or Event--Licensee has an issue or event that 
results in: (a) An Abnormal Occurrence Report to Congress (per NRC 
Management Directive 8.1), or (b) a severity level I or II violation, 
as described in the NRC Enforcement Policy (including equivalent 
violations dispositioned by Alternative Dispute Resolution), or (c) a 
level III or higher International Nuclear Event Scale Report to the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (per NRC Management Directive 5.12), 
and there are unique or unusual aspects of the licensee's performance 
that warrant additional NRC oversight (e.g., a significant event, which 
requires an incident investigation team (IIT) or augmented inspection 
team (AIT)); or
    (3) Performance Trend--Licensee has multiple and/or repetitive 
significant program issues identified over more than one inspection or 
inspection period, and the issues resulted in a severity level I, II, 
or III violation, as described in the NRC Enforcement Policy (including 
equivalent violations dispositioned by Alternative Dispute Resolutions 
(ADR)), and there are unique or unusual aspects of the licensee's 
performance that warrant additional NRC oversight (e.g., oversight 
panel formed for order implementation).
    You can find NRC's strategic plan (NUREG-1614) and the referenced 
management directives and enforcement policy on NRC's public document 
collections Web page at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/.

Public Comments on the Proposed Criteria

    The proposed criteria for identifying nuclear materials licensees 
with significant performance issues were published on March 17, 2008 
(73 FR 14278). The comment period ended on May 1, 2008. The NRC 
received one public comment on the proposed criteria. This commenter 
indicated that it supported the proposed criteria and requested 
clarification or modification as to why category 3 ``Performance 
Trend'' of the criteria explicitly references NRC's ADR as an element 
of the enforcement process but, category 2 ``Significant Issues'' does 
not reference ADR. Also, the commenter indicated, for clarity, that the 
title of criterion 2 should be changed to ``Significant Issue or 
Event'' to reflect NRC's intent to include both issues and events. In 
response to these comments, the proposed criteria were revised by 
changing the title for category 2 to ``Significant Issue or Event'' and 
adding a reference to ADR in category 2 of the criteria.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of May 2009.
James G. Luehman,
Deputy Director, Division of Materials Safety and State Agreements.
[FR Doc. E9-11704 Filed 5-19-09; 8:45 am]
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