[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 246 (Thursday, December 23, 2010)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 80730-80731]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-32242]
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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. 246 / Thursday, December 23, 2010 /
Proposed Rules
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
10 CFR Part 70
[Docket No. PRM-70-9; NRC-2010-0372]
Francis Slakey on Behalf of the American Physical Society;
Receipt of Petition for Rulemaking
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Petition for rulemaking; notice of receipt.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is
publishing for public comment a notice of receipt of a petition for
rulemaking, dated November 10, 2010, which was filed with the NRC by
Francis Slakey on behalf of the American Physical Society (APS). The
petition was docketed by the NRC on November 18, 2010, and has been
assigned Docket No. PRM-70-9. The petitioner requests that the NRC
amend its regulations regarding the domestic licensing of special
nuclear material to include proliferation assessments as part of the
licensing process.
DATES: Submit comments by March 8, 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-2010-0372 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-2010-0372. 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.
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, including the petition for rulemaking, 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-
1F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland
20852.
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, contact the NRC's PDR
reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to
[email protected].
Federal rulemaking Web site: Public comments and supporting
materials related to this action can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on Docket ID NRC-2010-0372.
Background
Francis Slakey, on behalf of APS (petitioner), submitted a petition
for rulemaking dated November 10, 2010. The APS is an organization of
research physicists with members in academia, national laboratories,
and industry. The petitioner requests that the NRC revise its
regulations regarding the domestic licensing of special nuclear
material to include proliferation assessments as part of the licensing
process. The NRC has determined that the petition meets the threshold
sufficiency requirements for a petition for rulemaking under title 10
of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), section 2.802, and the
petition has been docketed as PRM-70-9. The NRC is requesting public
comment on the petition for rulemaking.
Discussion of the Petition
The petitioner stated that on February 18, 2010, the APS Panel on
Public Affairs (POPA) released a report entitled ``Technical Steps to
Support Nuclear Arsenal Downsizing.'' In the report, APS/POPA noted
that over the next few years, the NRC would be reviewing license
applications for new technologies, and that these new technologies
could pose proliferation risks. Specifically, the report concluded that
some of the enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies could pose
unique proliferation risks, and that these risks can best be addressed
by including a Nuclear Proliferation Assessment (NPA) in the ENR
licensing process. The petitioner believes that the current licensing
process may be insufficient to cover all of the issues that would arise
in an NPA for two reasons:
[[Page 80731]]
(1) By having an NPA emerge as a ``net effect'' of the current
licensing process rather than as an explicit request, non-proliferation
is not given an adequate level of attention. The petitioner states
that, under the current process, proliferation issues are spread across
the entire license application process. As a result, the current
process may overlook some properties of the new technology which may
merit attention in a proliferation context.
(2) Key questions that indicate the degree of proliferation risk of
an ENR technology may not be addressed under the NRC's ``net effect''
approach. The petitioner believes that a proliferation assessment would
be incomplete without a consideration of these key questions,
including, but not limited to:
Could the design of the technology be altered easily to
allow for diversion of nuclear material?
Could the facility be constructed and operated in a manner
that is undetectable?
Are there unique components of the technology whose
acquisition would indicate the construction of such a facility and
could be easily tracked?
The petitioner proposes that the NRC amend its regulations at
subpart D of 10 CFR part 70, ``Domestic Licensing of Special Nuclear
Material,'' to include a requirement for an NPA as follows:
Sec. 70.22 Contents of applications.
(o) Nuclear Proliferation Assessment. Each applicant for the
license of an enrichment or reprocessing facility shall include an
assessment of the proliferation risks that construction and
operation of the proposed facility might pose.
The petitioner believes that including a specific requirement for
an NPA in the NRC regulations is consistent with the NRC requirement to
evaluate whether the issuance of a license ``would be inimical to the
common defense and security or to the health and safety of the
public.''
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 16th day of December, 2010.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Annette Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. 2010-32242 Filed 12-22-10; 8:45 am]
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