[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outdated or duplicative administrative requirements that may be 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that may be outdated or duplicative in nature.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

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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.

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    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