[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 240 (Tuesday, December 15, 2015)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 78108-78110]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-30676]



[[Page 78107]]

Vol. 80

Tuesday,

No. 240

December 15, 2015

Part XXVI





Nuclear Regulatory Commission





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Semiannual Regulatory Agenda

  Federal Register / Vol. 80 , No. 240 / Tuesday, December 15, 2015 / 
Unified Agenda  

[[Page 78108]]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

10 CFR Chapter I

[NRC-2015-0222]


Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Semiannual regulatory agenda.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is publishing its 
semiannual regulatory agenda (the Agenda) in accordance with Public Law 
96-354, ``The Regulatory Flexibility Act,'' and Executive Order 12866, 
``Regulatory Planning and Review.'' The Agenda is a compilation of all 
rules on which the NRC has recently completed action or has proposed or 
is considering action. The NRC has completed 8 rulemaking activities 
since publication of its last Agenda on June 18, 2015 (80 FR 35170). 
This issuance of the NRC's Agenda contains 34 active and 23 long-term 
rulemaking activities: 3 are Economically Significant; 10 represent 
Other Significant agency priorities; 50 are Substantive, Nonsignificant 
rulemaking activities; and 2 are Administrative rulemaking activity. In 
addition, 4 rulemaking activities impact small entities. This issuance 
also contains the NRC's annual regulatory plan, which includes a 
statement of the major rules that the NRC expects to publish in the 
coming fiscal year (FY) and a description of the other significant 
regulatory priorities that the NRC expects to work on during the coming 
FY and beyond. The NRC is requesting comment on its rulemaking 
activities as identified in this Agenda.

DATES: Submit comments on rulemaking activities as identified in this 
Agenda by January 14, 2016.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments on any rulemaking activity in the Agenda by 
the date and methods specified in any Federal Register notice on the 
rulemaking activity. Comments received on rulemaking activities for 
which the comment period has closed will be considered if it is 
practical to do so, but assurance of consideration cannot be given 
except as to comments received on or before the closure dates specified 
in the Federal Register notice. You may submit comments on this Agenda 
through the Federal Rulemaking Web site by going to http://www.regulations.gov and searching for Docket ID NRC-2015-0222. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-415-
3463; email: [email protected]. For technical questions on any 
rulemaking activity listed in the Agenda, contact the individual listed 
under the heading ``Agency Contact'' for that rulemaking activity.
    For additional direction on obtaining information and submitting 
comments, see ``Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments'' in the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cindy Bladey, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, telephone: 301-415-3280; email: [email protected]. 
Persons outside the Washington, DC, metropolitan area may call, toll-
free: 1-800-368-5642. For further information on the substantive 
content of any rulemaking activity listed in the Agenda, contact the 
individual listed under the heading ``Agency Contact'' for that 
rulemaking activity.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments

A. Obtaining Information

    Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2015-0222 when contacting the NRC 
about the availability of information for this document. You may obtain 
publically-available information related to this document by any of the 
following methods:
     Reginfo.gov:
    [cir] For completed rulemaking activities go to http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaHistory?showStage=completed and select 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission from drop down menu.
    [cir] For active rulemaking activities go to http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain and select Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission from drop down menu.
    [cir] For long-term rulemaking activities go to http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaHistory?operation=OPERATION_GET_PUBLICATION&showStage=longterm&currentPubId=201410 and select Nuclear Regulatory Commission from drop 
down menu.
     Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2015-0222.
     NRC's Public Web site: Go to http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/rulemaking-ruleforum/unified-agenda.html and select 
fall 2015.
     NRC's Public Document Room: You may examine and purchase 
copies of public documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1-F21, One White 
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.

B. Submitting Comments

    Please include Docket ID NRC-2015-0222 in your comment submission.
    The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact 
information that you do not want to be publicly disclosed in your 
comment submission. The NRC will post all comment submissions at http://www.regulations.gov as well as enter the comment submissions into 
ADAMS. The NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to remove 
identifying or contact information.
    If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons 
for submission to the NRC, then you should inform those persons not to 
include identifying or contact information that they do not want to be 
publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should 
state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to 
remove such information before making the comment submissions available 
to the public or entering the comment into ADAMS.

Introduction

    The Agenda is a compilation of all rulemaking activities on which 
an agency has recently completed action or has proposed or is 
considering action. The Agenda reports rulemaking activities in three 
major categories: completed, active, and long-term. Completed 
rulemaking activities are those that were completed since publication 
of an agency's last Agenda; active rulemaking activities are those that 
an agency currently plans to have an Advance Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking, a Proposed Rule, or a Final Rule issued within the next 12 
months; and long-term rulemaking activities are rulemaking activities 
under development but for which an agency does not expect to have a 
regulatory action within the 12 months after publication of the current 
edition of the Agenda.
    A ``Regulation Identifier Number'' or RIN is given to each 
rulemaking activity that the NRC has published or plans on publishing a 
Federal Register notice and the Office of Management and Budget uses 
this number to track all relevant documents throughout the entire 
``lifecycle'' of a particular rulemaking activity. The NRC reports all 
rulemaking activities in the Agenda that have been assigned a RIN and 
meet the definition for a completed, an active, or a long-term 
rulemaking activity.
    The information contained in this Agenda is updated to reflect any 
action

[[Page 78109]]

that has occurred on rulemaking activities since publication of the 
last NRC Agenda on June 18, 2015 (80 FR 35170). Specifically, the 
information in this Agenda has been updated through September 18, 2015.
    The date for the next scheduled action under the heading 
``Timetable'' is the date the next regulatory action for the rulemaking 
activity is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register. The date 
is considered tentative and is not binding on the Commission or its 
staff. The Agenda is intended to provide the public early notice and 
opportunity to participate in the NRC rulemaking process. However, the 
NRC may consider or act on any rulemaking activity even though it is 
not included in the Agenda.

Common Prioritization of Rulemaking

    A key part of the NRC's regulatory program is a periodic review of 
all ongoing and potential rulemaking activities. In conjunction with 
its budget, the NRC compiles a Common Prioritization of Rulemaking 
(CPR) report to develop program budget estimates and to determine the 
relative priority of NRC rulemaking activities. The CPR process 
considers four factors and assigns a score to each factor. Factor A 
includes activities that support the NRC's Strategic Plan goals of 
ensuring the safe and secure use of radioactive materials. Factor B 
includes rulemaking activities that support the NRC's Strategic Plan 
cross-cutting strategies for enhancing regulatory effectiveness and/or 
openness in the conduct of regulatory activities. Factor C is a 
governmental factor representing the relative interest of the NRC, 
Congress, or other governmental bodies in the rulemaking activity. 
Factor D is an external factor representing the relative interest to 
members of the public, non-governmental organizations, the nuclear 
industry, vendors, and suppliers in the rulemaking activity. The 
overall priority is determined by adding the factor scores together for 
each rulemaking activity. The CPR report and a detailed description of 
the CPR process are available from the NRC's Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/rulemaking-ruleforum/rule-priorities.html.
    The NRC's fall Agenda contains its annual regulatory plan, which 
includes a statement of the major rules that the NRC expects to publish 
in the coming FY and a description of the other significant regulatory 
priorities from the CPR that the NRC expects to work on during the 
coming FY and beyond. The NRC's regulatory plan was submitted to OMB in 
June 2015; updates have been reflected in the Agenda abstract for each 
rulemaking.

Section 610 Periodic Reviews Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act

    Section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) requires 
agencies to conduct a review within 10 years of promulgation of those 
regulations that have or will have a significant economic impact on a 
substantial number of small entities. The NRC undertakes these reviews 
to decide whether the rules should be unchanged, amended, or withdrawn. 
At this time, the NRC does not have any rules that have a significant 
economic impact on a substantial number of small entities; therefore, 
the NRC has not included any RFA Section 610 periodic reviews in this 
edition of the Agenda. A complete listing of NRC regulations that 
impact small entities and related Small Entity Compliance Guides will 
be available from the NRC's Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/rulemaking/flexibility-act/small-entities.html.

Public Comments Received on NRC Agendas

    The NRC has received comments from the Nuclear Energy Institute 
(NEI) regarding the level of detail provided in the abstract for each 
NRC rulemaking activity and on the process the NRC uses to prioritize 
its rulemaking activities.
    The NRC actively seeks to improve its rulemaking process and 
reporting. In recent Agendas NRC has reported additional information in 
the preamble and in the abstracts for its rules; in addition, in June 
of 2015, NRC launched a new public Web page with detail on the NRC's 
process for rulemaking prioritization: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/rulemaking-ruleforum/rule-priorities.html. NRC finds 
these actions address NEI's suggestions related to reporting on its 
rulemaking prioritization. NRC notes that it has received comments from 
NEI and other members of the public regarding the methodology staff 
uses to prioritize rulemaking activities. Each year the NRC reviews its 
methodology for prioritizing rulemaking activities to determine if 
changes are necessary; at this time the NRC does not plan to make any 
changes to its methodology. However, the agency currently is engaged in 
an enterprise-wide project to review several of its regulatory and 
internal processes, including rulemaking (see http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1515/ML15159A234.pdf).

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 18th day of September 2015.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cindy Bladey,
Chief, Rules, Announcements, and Directives Branch, Division of 
Administrative Services, Office of Administration.

           Nuclear Regulatory Commission--Proposed Rule Stage
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                           Regulation
         Sequence No.                   Title            Identifier No.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
538..........................  Variable Annual Fee             3150-AI54
                                Structure for Small
                                Modular Power Reactors
                                [NRC-2008-0664].
539..........................  Revision of Fee                 3150-AJ66
                                Schedules: Fee
                                Recovery for FY 2016
                                [NRC-2015-0223].
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            Nuclear Regulatory Commission--Long-Term Actions
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                                                           Regulation
         Sequence No.                   Title            Identifier No.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
540..........................  Controlling the                 3150-AH18
                                Disposition of Solid
                                Materials [NRC-1999-
                                0002].
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[[Page 78110]]


            Nuclear Regulatory Commission--Completed Actions
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                                                           Regulation
         Sequence No.                   Title            Identifier No.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
541..........................  Revision of Fee                 3150-AJ44
                                Schedules: Fee
                                Recovery for FY 2015
                                [NRC-2014-0200].
------------------------------------------------------------------------


NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC)

Proposed Rule Stage

538. Variable Annual Fee Structure for Small Modular Power Reactors 
[NRC-2008-0664]

    Legal Authority: 42 U.S.C. 2201; 42 U.S.C. 5841
    Abstract: The advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) was 
published in the Federal Register on March 25, 2009 (74 FR 12735), 
seeking comments from the public on a possible variable fee structure 
for part 171 annual fees for power reactors based on licensed power 
limits. The comment period ended on June 8, 2009, and the NRC received 
16 public comments. The Commission approved the staff's recommendation 
to establish an NRC workgroup to analyze suggested methodologies for a 
variable annual fee structure for power reactors in SECY-09-0137 dated 
October 13, 2009. On February 7, 2011, the Office of the Chief 
Financial Officer (OCFO) sent a memorandum to the Commission (ADAMS 
Accession No. ML110380251) responding to SECY-09-0137. On March 27, 
2015, the OCFO sent a memorandum to the Commission requesting approval 
to proposed a variable annual fee structure for small modular reactor 
March 27, 2015, (ADAMS Accession No. ML110380251). The Commission 
approved the staff's request to publish this rule (SRM) to SECY-15-044, 
May 18, 2015, (ADAMS Accession No. ML15135A427).
    Timetable:

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               Action                    Date            FR Cite
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ANPRM...............................   03/25/09  74 FR 12735
ANPRM Comment Period End............   06/08/09  .......................
NPRM................................   11/04/15  80 FR 68268
NPRM Comment Period End.............   12/04/15  .......................
Final Rule..........................   06/00/16  .......................
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    Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Required: Yes.
    Agency Contact: Arlette P. Howard, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 
Phone: 301 415-1481, Email: [email protected].
    RIN: 3150-AI54

539.  Revision of Fee Schedules: Fee Recovery for FY 2016 [NRC-
2015-0223]

    Legal Authority: 42 U.S.C. 2201; 42 U.S.C. 5841
    Abstract: This proposed rulemaking would amend the licensing, 
inspection, and annual fees that the Commission charges its applicants 
and licensees. These amendments would implement the Omnibus Budget 
Reconciliation Act of 1990 (OBRA-90) as amended, which requires that 
the NRC recover approximately 90 percent of its budget authority in 
Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, less the amounts appropriated from the Waste 
Incidental to Reprocessing, and generic homeland security activities.
    Timetable:

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               Action                    Date            FR Cite
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NPRM................................   03/00/16  .......................
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Required: Yes.
    Agency Contact: Arlette P. Howard, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 
Phone: 301 415-1481, Email: [email protected].
    RIN: 3150-AJ66

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC)

Long-Term Actions

540. Controlling the Disposition of Solid Materials [NRC-1999-0002]

    Legal Authority: 42 U.S.C. 2201; 42 U.S.C. 5841
    Abstract: The NRC staff provided a draft proposed rule package on 
Controlling the Disposition of Solid Materials to the Commission on 
March 31, 2005, which the Commission disapproved (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML051520285). The rulemaking package included a summary of stakeholder 
comments (NUREG/CR-6682), Supplement 1 (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML003754410). The Commission's decision was based on the fact that the 
Agency is currently faced with several high priority and complex tasks, 
that the current approach to review specific cases on an individual 
basis is fully protective of public health and safety, and that the 
immediate need for this rule has changed due to the shift in timing for 
reactor decommissioning. The Commission has deferred action on this 
rulemaking.
    Timetable:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
               Action                    Date            FR Cite
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANPRM...............................           To Be Determined
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Required: Yes.
    Agency Contact: Torre Taylor, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office 
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 
Phone: 301 415-7900, Email: [email protected].
    RIN: 3150-AH18

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC)

Completed Actions

541. Revision of Fee Schedules: Fee Recovery for FY 2015 [NRC-2014-
0200]

    Legal Authority: 42 U.S.C. 2201; 42 U.S.C. 5841
    Abstract: This final rule amends the licensing, inspection, and 
annual fees that the Commission charges its applicants and licensees. 
These amendments implement the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 
1990 (OBRA-90) as amended, which requires that the NRC recover 
approximately 90 percent of its budget authority in Fiscal Year (FY) 
2015, less the amounts appropriated from the Waste Incidental to 
Reprocessing, and generic homeland security activities.
    Completed:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
               Reason                    Date            FR Cite
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Final Rule..........................   06/30/15  80 FR 37432
Final Rule Effective................   08/31/15  .......................
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Required: Yes.
    Agency Contact: Arlette P. Howard, Phone: 301 415-1481, Email: 
[email protected].
    RIN: 3150-AJ44

[FR Doc. 2015-30676 Filed 12-14-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 7590-01-P