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. o, UNITED STATES
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l April 5, 1990 i
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MEMORANDUM FOR:
Thomas E. Murley, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation l
FROM:
William C. Parler General Counsel i
SUBJECT:
APPLICATION'OF OPERATING LICENSE STANDARDS TO APPLICANTS FOR COMBINED LICENSES i
In this memorandum, we respond to your memorandum of March 6, 1990, in which you ask for an opinion on whether Part 52, in particular sections 52.97 and 52.81, would present undue obstacles to the issuance of a combined license by requiring an applicant for a combined license to meet regulations-intended for the review of applications for operating licenses.
You note that section 52.97, for example, requires that an applicant for a combined license meet the
" applicable requirements" of 10 C.F.R. 50.47, but 50.47 requires that certain things have been done.
You say that it is "not reasonable to expect such ' final' planning to be complete at the combined license stage."
We believe that neither 52.97, nor the more general-provision in 52.81 that the " technically relevant" standards in Parts 20, 50, 51, 55, 73, and 100 be used to review l
applications for combined licenses, presents an undue l
obstacle to the issuance of a combined license.
Sections l
52.81 and 52.97 are written the way they are because a combined license is intended to resolve operating license issues to the maximum possible extent before construction begins.
Therefore, findings which Part 50 requires to be made prior to issuance of an operating license become i
findings Part 52 requires to be made prior to issuance of a j
combined license.
Thus applications for a combined license I
must contain, for example, the " technically relevant 1
information required of applicants for an operating license by 10 CFR 50.34" and " emergency plans which provide reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can and will be taken in a radiological emergency."
See 52.79(b) and (d).
Contact:
Steve Crockett x21600 94'00160114 940629 PDR CDNNS NRCC CORRESPONDENCE PDR I
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2 from the beginning of the rulemaking on combined-
- However, licenses, it was understood that not all the findings which the Commission must make before issuing an operating license can be made before issuing a combined license.
Thus Part 52 defines a " combined license" as a " combined construction Section permit and operating license with conditions..."
52.3(a) (emphases added).- To the extent that certain findings required by 50, 100, and so on, by their nature cannot be made until after construction is complete or nearly complete, those findings can be made before the l
' combined license is issued subject to the condition that l
l they be confirmed by the results of the inspections, tests, l
and analyses which Part 5;2 requires the applicant to submit, and which, after being approved by the NRC, are incorporated i
into the combined license itself. - The inspections, tests, analyses, and related acceptance _ criteria ("ITAAC") must be "necessary and sufficient" to confirm the finding.
- See, e.a., secs. 52.79 (c) and 52.99.1 Nonetheless, this Office has long maintained that the design l
certification and combined-license proceedings would benefit from any new regulations which the staff' thought it had the l
technical justification _for applying to all future designs i
l and sites, and in the statement.of considerations for Part 52, the. commission invited the staff to advise the i
Commission on whether new criteria were needed for review of f
future designs and sites.
See ida The same argument-applies to 50.47, to which, perhaps, changes could be made which would facilitate the drafting of ITAAC-or, more
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generally, the early resolution of'energency' planning issues..But these changes, or any other new regulations for future designs or sites, would-be changes to Parts 50, 100, and so on, not to Part 52, which the commission explicitly-said was not intended to set forth specific' safety-standards.
See 54 Fed. Reg. at 15375, col. 3.
However, it is doubtful-that 50.47 can be amended simply by l
adding a clause _which says something like, "In reviewing applications for combined licenses, the Commission shall determine whether the applicant has shown that the standards 1The ITAAC would be subject to litigation in the combined license proceeding, unless they were contained in a design certification referenced by the application for a combined license; but the results of the inspections, tests and analyses would be exempt from adjudication if it proves possible to draft the ITAAC so as to take advantage of the
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narrowly-construed section 554 (a) (3) of the' Administrative Procedure Act, which exempts from adjudication the results of " inspections, tests, and elections".
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l (I-3 in 50.47 will be met before operation."
This is hardly the
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early resolution of emergency planning issues that the National Governors' Association recommended and that the Commission has hoped would preclude another controversy like the ones involving Shoreham and Seabrook.
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/hd William C.
Parler General Counsel 1
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