ML20198J747
| ML20198J747 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/05/1998 |
| From: | Shirley Ann Jackson, The Chairman NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Thompson F SENATE, GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9801140200 | |
| Download: ML20198J747 (2) | |
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January 5, 1998 CHMM4AN The Honorable Fied Tt.ompson, Chairman Committee on Govemmental Affairs United States Senate l
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
On behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), I am writing to comment on S.981, the Regulatory improvement Act of 1997 (RIA), and especially on the new subchapter,
- Executive Oversight,' which Section 3 of the RfA would add to the Administrative Procedure Act.
The RlA would aim at much that the NRC is working toward in its own regulatory process:
better cost benefit analyses and risk assessments for major rules, greater emphasis on science and scientific information, better ways to express risk findings and deal with uncertainties and non-quantifiable factors, and comparison of regulcted risks with risks routinely encountered by the public. The NRC would also welcome increased exchange among the regulatory agencies on the subjects of cost benefit analysis and risk assessment. The Commission believes that the agency could both contribute to and leam from such increased exchange.
The Commission is most concemed, however, that the RIA's subchapter on executive oversight might be read to require that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review the substance of every proposed and final rule issued by any of the independent regulatory commissions not excluded by the definition of
- rule' in the bill. At the very least, such centralized reviews would greatly lengthen the NRC's rule making process, which is already long enough.
Most importantly from our perspective, a requirement for such reviews would vieaken the long-standing, statutorily based, independence of the NRC. That independence, established at the agency's founding by section 201 of the Ensrgy Reorganization Act of 1974, has permitted the agency to develop the scientific expertise and information necessary for regulating (in an effective and timely way) the advanced and important set of technologies used in nuclear power and the other uses of r9dioactive materials.
Fw example, in Le lwI decade alone, the NRC has begun and completed rule makings on retrofitting; nuclear power plant maintenance; nuclear power plant license renewal; standardization of, and one step licensing for, new nuclear power plant designs; and decommissioning and decontamination of nuclear facilities. All of these rule makings required careful consideration of costs, benefits, and risks. During the same time, the agency has undertaken a number of 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 centrallzed review of every proposed regulation, final regulation,
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guidance document, and policy statement the agency wanted to issue during that decade, it is y
doubtful that the agency could have accomplished what it did.
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2-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 government 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 reasons 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 assessment in regulatory analysis performed by the independent regulatory agencies. An independent regulatory agency staffed and directed by the necessary expertise, as the NRC is, can adopt sound new practices more quickly than a regulator subject to continuous central oversight. The RIA seems to have recognized this principle in excluding from its reach several categories of rules issued by some of the independent regulatory agencies that regulate economic matters.
For these reasons, the Cnmmission would urge that independent regulatory agencies with public health and safet;wt gibilities be explicitly excluded from the reach of the RIA's subchapter on executiwm v4v.!
Sincerely, Shirley Ann Jackson cc: The Honorable John Glenn