ML19256A161

Discusses Fees for Extensions of Preliminary Design Approvals.Nrc Has Not Assessed Either Application or Approval Fees Prior to 780323,effective Date of 10CFR170

ML19256A161
Person / Time
Issue date:	10/25/1978
From:	Harold Denton Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
To:	Ahearne J NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
References
NUDOCS 7811030183
Download: ML19256A161 (8)

Text

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UNITED STATES y's NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D. C. 20555

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OCT 2 51978 Memorandum for:

Commissioner Ahearne From:

Harold R. Denton, Director, Office of Nuclear Reac' r Regulation mwn wun. ;,

f xecutive Director for Operations i

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) FEES FOR EXTENSIONS OF PRELIMINARY DES

Subject:

The purgse of this memorandum is to respond to your request regarding SECY-78-490 contained in the memorandum from S. Chilk to the ED0 dated October 2, 1978.

In that memorandum, NRR was requested to provide its revised estimate of the costs associated with conducting the PDA extension reviews.

The staff's recomendations regarding fees for PDA extension reviews and rationale therefor are discussed in my memorandum to the Commissioners dated September 6, 1978. The staff recomended that fees not be charged for the PDA extension reviews.

To date there have been twelve PDA's issued to vendors and architect-engineers.

NRC has not assessed either application or approval fees for any of the twelve PDA's since the 10 CFR Part 170 (revised fee schedule) is applicable only to those PDA's amended after the effective date of the rule (March 23, 1978) or, new PDA applications filed after that date.

The revised fee schedule, as applied to preliminary designs for reference systems, requires that the applicant pay a $50,000 application fee for any new application filed on or after March 23, 1978. Each such application will be subject to an approval fee of $412,100, once a PDA is issued.

However,

Contact:

C. J. Heltemes, Jr., DPM 49-27745 781 wa olB

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the collection of that approval fee is deferred until that approved, reference system design is referenced in a tendered utility application. At that time, the holder of the PDA for the reference system design would pay a fee in the amount of one-fifth of the $412,100 approval fee for each unit. This would continue for each subsequent utility application until such time as the total approval fee of $412,100 is paid. However, should the PDA expire prior to any utility making reference to it, no additional fees beyond the initial payment of $50,000 would be required.

In summary, the costs recovered by the staff for the review of any preliminary design approval application would range from a minimum of $50,000 to a maximum of $462,100.

A similar process would be followed for final design approval applications, except that the fees are changed slightly. There are no prescribed charges under tFe revised fee schedule for the review of amendments to applications for approved reference system designs. The reviews of such amendments are treated as special projects under the revised fee schedule.

After an amendment to a design approval is issued, the applicant must pay a fee based on the effort expended by the staff in conducting the review.

There is no ceiling specified in the revised fee schedule regarding fees for special projects. The PDA extension reviews would be treated as special projects under the revised fee schedule, if fees were to be assessed for these reviews.

The staff evaluated each of the twelve applications for which PDA's had already been issued to determine the number of manhours that would be involved in performing the review of vendor and architect-engineer responses to PDA extension matters. As discussed in the September 6, 1978 memorandum, this would result in about fifteen man-years of staff effort which translates to a cost of about one million dollars.

The estimates for the individual PDA extension reviews, as well as the overall cost for the reviews as shown in the attached table, remain unchanged. What has changed is the timing for the conduct of the staff reviews.

In the briefing of the Commissioners on September 5,1978, I described an alternate plan for conducting the PDA extension reviews. This alternate plan was developed to take into consideration three factors. First, the time interval between the approval of the policy statement on August 22, 1978 and the expiration of the first group of PDA's was insufficient to permit the exten-sion reviews to be completed prior to expiration of these PDA's. Secondly, the staff's severe manpower problems would be exacerbated by conducting these twelve additional reviews.

Finally, the staff believes that in light of current utility ordering trends and changes in vendor marketing patterns, there is a low probability that certain PDA's will be referenced, even if they are extended two additional years. The alternate plan would have the staff conduct PDA extension reviews of only those approved reference system designs that are referenced by utility-applicants. The plan would involve

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- having each holder of a PDA docket its assessment of each applicable PDA extension review matter. This material would be reviewed by the staff for completeness'but not for adequacy. The staff would then conditionally extend to five years each of the PDA's for which an acceptably complete assessment had been provided. The extension would be conditional in the sense that staff design approvals would be subject t satisfactory resolu-o tion of the various issues to be addressed in the later safety review.

Upon formal notification by a utility-applicant that it intended 'to reference one of the twelve app; ved reference system designs, the staff would then initiate its review of the assessment package. Such a review should be completed prior to the tendering of the utility application.

In my o,iefing of the Commissioners on September 5,1978, I provided a slide that estimated the savings in staff resources that might accrue as a result of implementing the alternate plan. A copy of that slide is attached. Three cases are presented on the slide. Case 1 assumes that the provisions of the policy statement are implemented innediately and that extension reviews are conducted for all twalve PDA's. For Case 1, we estimate that fifteen man-years of staff effort are required, which translates to a total cost of about one million dollars. This is consistent with the estimates provided in the memoranda to the Commission dated f!ay 31, 1978 and September 6, 1978 on this subject. Cases 2 and 3 are staff estinates based on the alternate plan described above. Cases 2 and 3 provide estimates of the upper and lower limits on staff manpower required to conduct extension reviews of those twelve PDA's, assuming the alternate plan is implemented.

These curves are based on the same individual PDA extension review estimates given in the attached table. The differences in manpower estimates among Cases 1, 2 and 3 result solely f rom the reduction in the number of PDA's that might have to be reviewed.

If any additional information or clarification is desired I or a member of my staff will be pleased to meet with you to discuss this matter further.

Harold R. Denton, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

Enclosures:

1.

Table - Summary of Costs for Extending PDA's 2.

Staff Review Effort - PDA Extension ".eviews cc w/ enclosures:

Chairman Hendrie Comnissioner Gilinsky Comnissioner Kennedy Commissioner Bradford Samuel J. Chilk Acting General Counsel Director, Policy Evaluation

TABLE

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SUMMARY

OF COSTS FOR EXTENDING PDA'S 1.

GESSAR-238 NI

$180,000 2.

CESSAR 180,000 3.

RESAR-41 180,000 4.

SWESSAR/RESAR-41 150,000 5.

BRAUNSAR 40,000 6.

SWESSAR/CESSAR 40,000 7.

RESAR-35 90,000 8.

SWESSAR/RESAR-3S 20,000 9.

GESSAR-251 40,000

10. GESSAR-238 NSSS 50,000

11. BOPSSAR 70,000 12..

BSAR-205 20,000

$1,060,000 Notes: (1) Based on $70,000 per Man-Year (2) Individual costs are based on the age and scope of the PDA's

STAFF REVIEWEFFORT~

PDA EXTENSION REVIEWS r

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CASE 1, immediate implementation-7 e 15 of Policy Statement m

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C S5 3, Delerred PDd' Extension-5 Reviews (Lo.wer Limit)

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steneTAny MEMORANDUM FOR:

Leo V.

Gossick, Executivo Director for Operations

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PROMr Samuel J.

Chilk, Secruta i

SDBJECT:

~ PRELIMINARY DESIGN APPRO SECY-78-490 - C ES FOR E SION OF (COMMISSIONER ACTION ITEM)

Cc=missioner Ahearne's. comments and the referenced OPE memorandum are attached for your information and reply.

Commissioner Dradford has also expressed an interest in socing the staff's response befcire commenting on the SECY paper.

to all Commissioners.

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'Please provide your reply (SECY Suspense r 10/10/78)

Attachments:

As stated

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Chairman Hendrie

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ccmmissioner Gilinsky Commissioner Kennedy Commissioner Bradford Commissioner Ahearne Acting General Counsel

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Director, Policy Evaluation Director, Nuclear Reactor

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J-Regulation CONTACT:

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September 27, 1978

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Ahearne Comments re SEcY-78-490

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The arguments in the package lead to charging, pa.rticularly

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• in light of the following:

1.

The relative costs apparently refer to PDA-extension cc::: pared with PDA downesyment_ - the PDA cost itself would be about $450K, and therefore >PDA-ext.

2.

The reason the " applications" before March 23 met the existing requirements.apparently is that there were no, requirements - therefore no information ves sufficient.

3.

NRR's review (according to OPE 9/11 memo) iiadicates the charges would be less than previously estimated.

Therefore, - it appears to me the NRC is on much sounder grounds to charge for the PDA-ext., but I would like NRR

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to provide their revised estimate ofl.-charges.

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Chairman Hendrie

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Comissioner Gilinsky Commissioner Kennedy

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Cormiissioner traford

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SUBJECT:

FEES FOR EXTENSIONS OF PRELIMINARY DESIGN A

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Given the transient nature of this problem, the staff's proposal seems

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is small compared to that for the originil review.The incremental cost' of p m,.,..

briefing to you on September 5, the new director of NRR is acting toAs indicat and the incremental cost seems likely to be less than w

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