[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 204 (Friday, October 21, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Page 65541]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-27338]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2009-0263]


Assuring the Availability of Funds for Decommissioning Nuclear 
Reactors

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Regulatory guide; issuance.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is 
issuing a revision to Regulatory Guide 1.159, ``Assuring the 
Availability of Funds for Decommissioning Nuclear Reactors.'' This 
guide provides guidance to applicants and licensees of nuclear power, 
research, and test reactors concerning methods acceptable to the staff 
of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for complying with 
requirements in the rules regarding the amount of funds for 
decommissioning. It also provides guidance on the content and form of 
the financial assurance mechanisms in those rule amendments.

ADDRESSES: You can access publicly available documents related to this 
regulatory guide 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, O1-F21, 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 online in the NRC Library 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 the 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]. 
The regulatory guide is available electronically under ADAMS Accession 
Number ML112160012. The regulatory analysis may be found in ADAMS under 
Accession Number ML112160013.
     Federal Rulemaking Web Site: Public comments and 
supporting materials related to this notice can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on Docket ID NRC-2009-0263.
    Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and NRC approval is not 
required to reproduce them.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Edward O'Donnell, Regulatory Guide 
Development Branch, Division of Engineering, Office of Nuclear 
Regulatory Research, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, telephone: 301-251-7655; e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Introduction

    The NRC is issuing a revision to an existing guide in the NRC's 
``Regulatory Guide'' series. This series was developed to describe and 
make available to the public information such as methods that are 
acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the 
agency'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.
    As a guidance document, this regulatory guide and its provisions 
are not designed to be restrictive or to represent binding 
requirements. The guide presents methods acceptable to the NRC staff 
for complying with the decommissioning regulations. The NRC staff 
recognizes that, in certain circumstances (e.g., to meet requirements 
established by Federal or state economic regulatory agencies or to 
comply with other applicable laws), other approaches may be necessary. 
As a point of clarification, it is the NRC's position that licensees 
who have existing license conditions relating to topics covered by the 
final rule, ``Decommissioning Trust Provisions,'' dated December 24, 
2002 (67 FR 78332), will have the option of maintaining their existing 
license conditions or submitting to the new requirements.

II. Further Information

    Revision 2 of Regulatory Guide 1.159 was issued with a temporary 
identification as Draft Regulatory Guide, DG-1229. DG-1229, was 
published in the Federal Register on June 30, 2009 (74 FR 31317) for a 
60 days public comment period. The public comment period closed on 
September 9, 2009. The Commission approved RG 1.159 subject to changes 
which are spelled out in a Staff Requirements Memorandum dated October 
25, 2010 (ML1029805650). Because of the nature of the changes, the 
draft guide was reissued for comment on January 13, 2011 (76 FR 2425). 
The NRC staff's responses to the public comments on DG-1229 are 
available under ADAMS Accession Number ML112160035.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 13th day of October, 2011.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Harriet Karagiannis,
Acting Chief, Regulatory Guide Development Branch, Division of 
Engineering, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 2011-27338 Filed 10-20-11; 8:45 am]
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