ML20197D830
| ML20197D830 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/08/1997 |
| From: | Dicus G NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | NRC |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9712290133 | |
| Download: ML20197D830 (2) | |
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A NUCLEAR REOULATORY COMMISSION Approved with attached edit
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s 08 DCF or THE GENERAL COUNSEL MEMORANDUM TO:
Chairman Jackson COMSECY-97-030 Commissioner Dieus s
ner c affigan POR FROM:
Karen D.~ Cyr ' dAc h, h.
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SUBJECT:
S.981, THE REGULATORY IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 1997 PURPOS_E:
' The main purpose of this memorandum and its first Attachment is to describe for the Commission the most recent legislative proposal on " regulatory reform," namely, S. 981, entitled the " Regulatory improvement Act of 1997.' The memorandum also discusses the i
impact the bill might have on the independence of the NRC and provides a draft of a letter that the Commission could send to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs to urge that the bill be modified to preserve the independence of the agency. See Attachment 2. Also attached are the full text of the bill, Senator Thompson's statement in the Senate when he introduced the bill, and testimony on the bill by Sally Katzen, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
EIACKGROUND AND
SUMMARY
Efforts in the last Congress to change the regulatory process in major ways failed in part for lack of bipartisan support of some of the more controversial features of the bills that proponents of reform introduced, such as cost-benefit decision criteria that would in effect have supplanted existing statutory health, safety, and environmental standards. Despite the lack of support for major reform, Congress did enact the more modest Congressional Review Act (CRA), which was a portion of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA). Under the CRA, every " rule" (where " rule" is defined broadly enough to include policy statements and guidance documents) must be sent to Congress before the rule can become effective, and Congress can use expedited procedures to enact legislation that would modify or repeal" major" rules.
In the current session, however, there is in the Senate a renewed effon, now bipartisan, to address long standing and widely-shared concerns that the regulatory process is too costly; that it overlooks less costly alternatives; that it lacks sufficiently scientific underpinnings; that it does not take risk into account sufficiently; that it lacks centralizec oversight of risk considerations; that it too often ignores social values, distributional effects, and equitable P M"/kI
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concerns; and that it does not provide the public with enough information.
CONTACT.
Steve Crockett OGC
,]i (301) 415 1620 Y--
i 0k k s 9712290133 97120
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"DR CONMS NRCC COPMESPONDENCE '8DR
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projects aimed at increasing the consideration of risk in the agency's decision making. For example, the agency is engaged in research on probabilistic risk assessment and has worked with several utilities to develop methods of ranking risks. Had the agency been subject to centrahzed review of every proposed regulation, final regulation, guidance document, and policy statement the agency wanted to issue during that decade, it is doubtful that the agency could have accomplished so much.
1 Adding to the agency's rule making the length and cost of OMB reviews of every proposed and final rule is unlikely to increase the scientific content or the effectiveness of NRC regulation, and it will certainly reduce its timeliness, As part of its reinventing govemment effort, the NRC is striving to reduce the time it takes to complete rule makings. Moreover, rules needed to promote nuclear safety might also be delayed or modified for unrelated to safety. This legislation would instead prolong an already lengthy process. There are surely other ways to achieve the aims of better and more consistent use of cost benefit analysis and risk p
assessment in regulatory analysis performed by the independent regulatory agencies. An J
staffed and directed by the necessary expertise, as the NRC is, can independent regulatory,bes more quickly than a regulator subject to continuous central adopt sound new practi oversight. The RlA see ns to have recognized this pnnciple in excluding from its reach several categories of rules issu by some of the independent regulatory agencies that regulate economic matters.
Nh#d3 For these reasons, the Commission 14stsima would urge that independent regulatory agencies with public health and safety responsibilities be explicitly excluded from the reach of the RIA's subchapter on executive oversight.
Sincerely,
/
Shirley Ann Jacl son cc: The Honorable John Glenn l
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