[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 225 (Tuesday, November 23, 2010)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 71368-71369]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-29480]


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 Proposed Rules
                                                 Federal Register
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 This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains notices to the public of 
 the proposed issuance of rules and regulations. The purpose of these 
 notices is to give interested persons an opportunity to participate in 
 the rule making prior to the adoption of the final rules.
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  Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 225 / Tuesday, November 23, 2010 / 
Proposed Rules  

[[Page 71368]]



NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

10 CFR Part 26

[Docket No. PRM-26-6; NRC-2010-0310]


Erik Erb; Notice of Receipt of Petition for Rulemaking

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Petition for rulemaking; Notice of receipt.

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SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received a 
petition for rulemaking (PRM) dated August 17, 2010, submitted by Erik 
Erb (the Petitioner) and 91 co-signers. The petition was docketed by 
the NRC on September 17, 2010, and has been assigned PRM-26-6. The 
petitioner requests that the NRC amend its regulations to decrease the 
minimum days off (MDO) requirement for security officers working 12-
hour shifts from an average of 3 days per week to 2.5 or 2 days per 
week. The NRC is also requesting public comments on the PRM.

DATES: Submit comments by February 7, 2011. 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.

ADDRESSES: Please include Docket ID NRC-2010-0310 in the subject line 
of your comments. For instructions on submitting comments and accessing 
documents related to this action, see ``Submitting Comments and 
Accessing Information'' in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of 
this document. You may submit comments by any one of the following 
methods.
    Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and 
search for documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2010-0310. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher, telephone: 301-492-
3668; e-mail: [email protected].
    Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.
    E-mail comments to: [email protected]. If you do not 
receive a reply e-mail confirming that we have received your comments, 
contact us directly at 301-415-1966.
    Hand deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 
20852 between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. during Federal workdays 
(telephone: 301-415-1966).
    Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at 
301-415-1101.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cindy Bladey, Chief, Rules, 
Announcements, and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative 
Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone: 301-492-3667, toll free: 800-368-
5642, e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Submitting Comments and Accessing Information

    Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be posted 
on the NRC Web site and on the Federal Rulemaking Web site, http://www.regulations.gov. Because your comments will not be edited to remove 
any identifying or contact information, the NRC cautions you against 
including any information in your submission that you do not want to be 
publicly disclosed. The NRC requests that any party soliciting or 
aggregating comments received from other persons for submission to the 
NRC inform those persons that the NRC will not edit their comments to 
remove any identifying or contact information, and therefore, they 
should not include any information in their comments that they do not 
want publicly disclosed.
    You can access publicly available documents related to this 
document 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, Room O-
1 F21, 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 are 
available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this page, 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, then contact the NRC's PDR 
reference staff at 800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to 
[email protected]. The ADAMS accession number for the petition is 
ML102630127.
    Federal Rulemaking Web site: Public comments and supporting 
materials related to this action, including the petition for 
rulemaking, can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on 
Docket ID NRC-2010-0310.

Petitioner

    The petitioner is Erik Erb, a nuclear security officer at 
Constellation's Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in Oswego, New York. 
Mr. Erb has held this position since April 2004. The petition has 91 
co-signers; most co-signers have identified their position as nuclear 
security officer or guard.

Background

Grounds for Action Requested

    The Petitioner proposes that the NRC amend its regulations in Title 
10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) part 26, subpart I, to 
decrease the MDO requirement for security officers working 12-hour 
shifts from an average of 3 days per week to 2.5 or 2 days per week. 
Specifically, the Petitioner claims that the MDO requirement of 3 days 
per week has led to unintended detrimental consequences at the Nine 
Mile Point facility.
    The Petitioner states that the MDO requirement has reduced the 
amount of overtime available to security officers at Nine Mile Point. 
The Petitioner states that this may provide the impetus for security 
officers to seek additional part-time employment. The Petitioner claims 
that hours worked at another place of employment would most likely be 
unrecorded, unmonitored, and unreported to the licensee. The Petitioner 
states that security officers working additional part-time hours to 
supplement lost income would ``seem to be counterproductive to the aim 
of the MDO requirement.''

[[Page 71369]]

    The Petitioner states that officers who previously did not work 
much overtime must now ``pick up the slack,'' sometimes to the point of 
being forced to work overtime. The Petitioner also states that training 
sometimes has to be rescheduled or canceled, because the officers 
facilitating the training have reached their MDO mandate.
    The Petitioner states that non-management/non-supervisor security 
chiefs have been impacted by the use of the fatigue software, 
EmpCenter, at the Nine Mile Point facility. The Petitioner claims that 
when an employee is asked to work overtime, the chiefs must use the 
software to determine whether that employee will exceed the MDO 
requirement. The petitioner describes this extra step as a burden on 
the chiefs. According to the petition, the attention/focus of the 
chiefs is diverted by the need to coordinate with their supervisors in 
order to ensure compliance with the MDO requirement.
    The Petitioner also claims that licensees have had to increase 
their staffing across affected departments, in part due to the MDO 
requirement, thus increasing their costs. The Petitioner claims that 
licensees may be required to pass these extra costs onto the rate 
payer. Alternatively, the Petitioner claims that licensees may explore 
the option of contract security as a cost-saving measure.

The Petition

    The Petitioner requests that the NRC amend its regulations in 10 
CFR part 26, Subpart I, to decrease the MDO requirement for security 
officers working 12-hour shifts from an average of 3 days per week to 
2.5 or 2 days per week. The Petitioner claims that such a decrease in 
MDO would (1) bring the requirement in line with MDO requirements for 
Operations, Maintenance, and other personnel subject to the MDO 
requirements; and (2) have a sizeable impact on alleviating some of the 
issues the MDO requirements have caused or may cause in the future.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 17th day of November 2010.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Annette L. Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. 2010-29480 Filed 11-22-10; 8:45 am]
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