[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 4, 2020)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 6103-6106]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-02025]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
10 CFR Chapter I
[NRC-2017-0214]
Retrospective Review of Administrative Requirements
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Request for comment.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is conducting a
retrospective review of administrative requirements to identify
outdated or duplicative administrative requirements that may be
eliminated without an adverse effect on public health or safety, common
defense and security, protection of the environment, or regulatory
efficiency and effectiveness. The NRC is requesting input from its
licensees and members of the public on any administrative requirements
that may be outdated or duplicative in nature. The NRC will use five
criteria to evaluate any public input under this retrospective review
of administrative requirements initiative for possible revision or
elimination to reduce burden on regulated entities and the NRC.
DATES: Submit comments by April 6, 2020. Comments received after this
date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is
able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before
this date. The NRC will not prepare written responses to each
individual comment but will consider the comments in completing the
retrospective review.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and search
[[Page 6104]]
for Docket ID NRC-2017-0214. Address questions about NRC dockets to
Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-415-3463; email:
[email protected]. For technical questions contact the
individuals listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of
this document.
Email comments to: [email protected]. If you do
not receive an automatic email reply confirming receipt, then contact
us at 301-415-1677.
Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission at 301-415-1101.
Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and
Adjudications Staff.
Hand deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (Eastern Time) Federal
workdays; telephone: 301-415-1677.
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: Andrew Carrera, telephone: 301-415-
1078; email: [email protected] or Pamela Noto, telephone: 301-415-
6795; email: [email protected]. Both are staff of the Office of
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments
A. Obtaining Information
Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2017-0214 when contacting the NRC
about the availability of information for this action. You may obtain
publicly available information related to this action by any of the
following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2017-0214.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly available documents online in the
ADAMS Public Documents collection at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the search, select ``Begin Web-based ADAMS
Search.'' For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's Public
Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or
by email to [email protected]. For the convenience of the reader,
instructions about obtaining materials referenced in this document are
provided in the ``Availability of Documents'' section.
NRC's PDR: 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-2017-0214 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
https://www.regulations.gov and will 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.
II. Background
On August 11, 2017, the NRC issued a press release, ``NRC To Review
Its Administrative Regulations,'' to announce that in the fall of 2017,
the agency would be initiating a retrospective review of its
administrative regulations to identify those rules that are outdated or
duplicative. The goal of the review is to optimize the management and
administration of regulatory activities and to ensure that the agency's
regulations remain current and effective. The review is intended to
identify regulatory changes that are administrative in nature that will
make information submission, recordkeeping, and reporting processes
more efficient for the NRC, applicants, and regulated entities. The
strategy takes into consideration the agency's overall statutory
responsibilities, including mandates to issue new regulations, the
number of regulations in chapter I of title 10 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR), and available resources. Once identified, the
regulations will be evaluated to determine whether they may be revised
or eliminated without impacting the agency's mission.
On May 3, 2018 (83 FR 19464), the NRC published a Federal Register
notice (FRN) seeking public comment on draft criteria the NRC would use
to evaluate potential changes to regulations under the retrospective
review. The FRN also discussed the process the NRC would use to conduct
the review of administrative requirements. On May 31, 2018, during the
public comment period for the draft criteria, the NRC conducted a
public meeting to discuss the effort and the draft criteria.
Participants included industry representatives, members of the public,
and NRC staff. Additional information on this meeting can be found in
the meeting summary listed in the Availability of Documents section of
this document.
The NRC received six public comments and considered them in the
final evaluation criteria provided to the Commission for review and
approval in COMSECY-18-0027, ``Evaluation Criteria for Retrospective
Review of Administrative Regulations,'' dated November 16, 2018.
Enclosure 1 of COMSECY-18-0027 described changes to the evaluation
criteria that resulted from the public comments. In the October 8,
2019, staff requirements memorandum to COMSECY-18-0027, the Commission
approved the staff's recommended criteria, which are provided in the
Discussion section of this document.
III. Discussion
This document requests input from the public on administrative
regulations that the NRC should consider revising or eliminating and
announces the final evaluation criteria that the NRC will use as a
guideline to evaluate potential changes.
Potential Changes to Administrative Requirements
The NRC is reviewing existing administrative regulations to
identify those requirements that may be obsolete or unnecessarily
burdensome. In the context of this initiative, the term ``burden''
refers to labor or monetary costs that regulated entities, the NRC, or
both, incur to implement NRC regulations. To guide the scope of this
review, the NRC will use the evaluation criteria outlined in the
section ``Finalized Criteria for Evaluating Potential Changes to
Administrative Regulations'' in this document. The NRC is requesting
public input to identify potential changes to administrative
requirements that would be consistent with the evaluation criteria.
[[Page 6105]]
To help facilitate a thorough and informed consideration of input,
commenters are encouraged to identify the specific requirement that
should be considered for revision or elimination, the associated
rationale, and an estimate of the burden that would be eliminated or
reduced. The NRC is particularly interested in identifying changes to
administrative regulations that could have a broad impact and
potentially significant reduction in burden. For example, a change to
an administrative requirement that impacts multiple regulated entities
over a long timeframe will generally be more likely to achieve a
significant reduction in burden compared to an administrative
requirement that affects a single regulated entity one time.
All comments received that are within the scope of this review will
be considered and used, as appropriate, to inform the staff's actions
and applicable recommendations to the Commission. This review will only
consider existing NRC regulations, so the public should not use this
process to submit comments on a proposed rule or recommend new
requirements.
Finalized Criteria for Evaluating Potential Changes to Administrative
Regulations
The NRC has developed final criteria with which to evaluate
potential regulatory changes to be included in the retrospective
review. Although the criteria will serve as a useful guideline in
identifying administrative requirements that should be considered for
modification or elimination, the NRC will also consider programmatic
experience, intent of the requirement, impact to the NRC's mission, and
overall impact to resources when determining whether to pursue a change
to the regulations. The final criteria are:
1. Submittals resulting from routine and periodic recordkeeping and
reporting requirements, such as directives to submit recurring reports,
which the NRC has not consulted or referenced in programmatic
operations or policy development in the last 3 years.
2. Requirements for reports or records that contain information
reasonably accessible to the agency from alternative resources, which
as a result may be candidates for elimination.
3. Requirements for reports or records that could be modified to
result in reduced burden without impacting programmatic needs,
regulatory efficiency, or transparency, through: (a) Less frequent
reporting, (b) shortened record retention periods, (c) requiring
entities to maintain a record rather than submit a report, or (d)
implementing another mechanism that reduces burden for collecting or
retaining information.
4. Recordkeeping and reporting requirements that result in
significant burden.
5. Reports or records that contain information used by other
Federal agencies, State and local governments, or Federally recognized
Tribes will be dropped from the review provided the information
collected is necessary to support the NRC's mission or to fulfill a
binding NRC obligation.
IV. Specific Questions
The NRC is providing an opportunity for the public to submit input
to help identify administrative regulations for potential modification
or elimination that would result in potentially reducing burden on
regulated entities, the NRC, or both. The NRC is particularly
interested in gathering input on the following questions:
1. Which administrative regulations should the NRC consider
changing? Include the 10 CFR part, section, and paragraph(s).
2. How should the NRC change the regulations? Can the regulation be
made less burdensome, or should it be eliminated entirely? If possible,
provide specific language showing how the regulatory text might be
changed to reduce burden. Describe how the evaluation criteria would
apply to the proposed change(s).
3. What is the basis for the proposed change? Provide a rationale
for why the requirement might be obsolete or overly burdensome and any
relevant supporting data.
4. What burden is associated with the administrative requirements?
Provide a quantitative basis for the burden in terms of costs or labor
hours, if available.
5. How would the suggested change reduce burden? Would it result in
a one-time reduction in burden, a reduction in burden for multiple
years, or an ongoing reduction in burden? Provide supporting
justification.
V. Public Meetings
The NRC plans to hold two public meetings during this public
comment period to discuss the request for input. The NRC will publish a
notice providing the location, time, and agenda of the future public
meetings on https://www.Regulations.gov and on the NRC's public meeting
website at least 10 calendar days before each meeting. Stakeholders
should monitor the NRC's public meeting website (https://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm) for information about the
public meetings.
VI. Availability of Documents
The documents identified in the following table are available to
interested persons through one or more of the following methods, as
indicated.
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ADAMS accession
Document No./FR Citation
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Press Release No. 17-036, ``NRC to Review Its ML17243A126
Administrative Regulations,'' dated August 11, 2017.
Federal Register notice, ``Review of Administrative 83 FR 19464
Rules,'' dated May 3, 2018..........................
Meeting summary, ``Public Meeting to Discuss the ML18170A135
NRC's Retrospective Review of Administrative
Requirements,'' dated May 31, 2018..................
COMSECY-18-0027, ``Evaluation Criteria for ML18227A120
Retrospective Review of Administrative
Regulations,'' dated November 16, 2018..............
Enclosure 1 of COMSECY-18-0027, ``Changes to the ML18261A173
Evaluation Criteria for the Retrospective Review of
Administrative Regulations as a Result of Public
Comments,'' dated November 16, 2018.................
Staff Requirements Memorandum to COMSECY-18-0027, ML19281C697
``Evaluation Criteria for Retrospective Review of
Administrative Regulations,'' dated October 8, 2019.
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The NRC may post documents related to this initiative, including
public comments, on the Federal Rulemaking website at https://www.regulations.gov under Docket ID NRC-2017-0214. The Federal
Rulemaking website allows you to receive alerts when changes or
additions occur in a docket folder. To subscribe: (1) Navigate to the
docket folder (NRC-2017-0214); (2) click the ``Sign up for Email
Alerts'' link; and (3) enter your email address and select how
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frequently you would like to receive emails (daily, weekly, or
monthly).
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of January, 2020.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Margaret M. Doane,
Executive Director for Operations.
[FR Doc. 2020-02025 Filed 2-3-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P