ML20207G688
| ML20207G688 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/24/1999 |
| From: | Mcgaffigan E NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Hoyle J NRC OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SECY) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20207G656 | List: |
| References | |
| SECY-98-300-C, NUDOCS 9906140027 | |
| Download: ML20207G688 (4) | |
Text
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NOTATION VOTE RESPONSE SHEET TO:
John C. Hoyle, Secretary FROM:
COMMISSIONER MCGAFFIGAN
SUBJECT:
SECY-98-300 - OPTIONS FOR RISK-INFORMED REVISIONS TO 10 CFR PART 50 " DOMESTIC LICENSING OF PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION FACILITIES" Approved /
Disapproved Abstain Not Participating COMMENTS:
See attached comments.
Caud%c t S!GNATURE l' '
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DATE Entered on "AS" Yes K
No PJ"esinTae*
CORRESPONDENCE PDR T10f /Voo 7-7
Commissioner McGaffigan's Comme,nts on SECY-98-300 I want to join my fellow Commissioners in commending the staff for a well-drafted set of options for pursuing risk-informed revisions to 10 CFR Part 50. This is a difficult subject on which there is no obvious path forward. Some extemal observers, the General Accounting Office among them, seem to expect that we have all the answers now as to what a risk-informed redraft of Part 50 would look
'like and that we can simply schedule the necessary changes. In my view, quite the opposite is true. Every step is likely to require real invention. A thorough examination of detailed issues that will arise in each rulemaking will be necessary.- It is too much to expect the staff and the Commission together with their stakeholders to invent on a schedule. This is especially true when the Union of Concemed Scientists (UCS) and others are raising fundamental issues about risk-informing Part 50. If the expectation is that everything will proceed on.
a schedule we can predetermine today, we are being set up for a guaranteed -
failure down the road.
A fair expectation of the staff and Commission is that we should continue as
- rapidly..as we can to fulfill the promise of the PRA Policy Statement. This paper does that. It asks the Commission to make decisions on fundamental options and policy issues. It does not guarantee success on any individual option the Commission ultimately decides to pursue. Those who would hold us to schedules for inventing new rules should consider the experience the past two
. years.in the 50.59 rulemaking, which through hard work on the NRC staff's and industry's part will come to fruition this spring. They should consider the experience _ with the long maintenance rule (a)(4) rulemaking, which I hope will come to a close this spring. Fundamenta! Me changes take time. Perhaps the e
early rulemakings under Option 2 of this paper will go smoothly and build '
momentum for the broader changes under Option 3. Perhaps, they will not. I hope our stakeholders and observers will allow for this latter possibility in formulating their success criteria for the Commission and its staff.
As to the paper itself,'l approve implementation of Option 2, which provides a phased approach to risk-informing Part 50 and involves the use of industry pilot
- studies together with exemptions as needed for the pilot efforts. This option is -
/ most consistent with stakeholder comments received thus far. The scope changes being considered for various operational and qualification requirements under this option would focus NRC's attention on systems, structures and components which operational experience, engineering judgment or risk insights from PRA indicate are important to safety. There is no undue reliance on PRAs
- alone in the Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEl's) August 1998 scope proposals.
Risk insights _are but one of three elements that will go into a risk-informed decision.as to whether a system, structure or component is important to safety.
The heart of these scope' rulemakings on Part 50 operational and qualification requirements is likely to be how to balance these three elements in making that decision. In a real sense the changes being made to the NRC's oversight
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process, with the involvement of both NEl and UCS, already are headed in the same direction as the proposed Option 2 scope rulemakings. Our inspection,.
- assessment and enforcement processes are going to be more focused on risk-
-.significant activities at the reactor sites. ' The Option 2 scope rulemakings, L starting with the maintenance rule, should prove complementary to the oversight program changes and easier to carry out than the likely even more complex rulemakings under Option 3.
I approve the study of Option 3 on as aggressive a schedule as budgets will permit. I am particularly interested in the possibility of " deleting unnecessary or ineffective regulations." My sense is that the new oversight process with its risk-
. informed, performance-based focus will result in the de facto abandonment of rules that are unnecessary or ineffective either because they are overly i
prescriptive or unrelated to risk or both. An important part of risk-informing Part 50 may lie, not in studying what should replace double guillotine breaks with simultaneous loss of off-site power as a design basis accident, but instead in simply cleaning up Part 50 based on the operational experience and risk insights that have accumulated since the prescriptive, deterministic rules were drafted.
This part of Option 3 potentially has the most synergy with the ongoing oversight process improvements and may require the least additional research.
. With regard to the ongoing maintenance rule (a)(4) rulemaking, I want to proceed to conclusion without using it as the vehicle to address the maintenance rule scope issue. I am encouraged by NEl's latest letter to the effect that they are willing to work with the staff on a two-step process, although I have not
.Lformulated a position on the specific NEl proposal. This is not the SECY paper on which to vote on specific (a)(4) language. But I am sure that, with good faith on both sides, rule language can be agreed to that is workable. A delayed implementation date may be required to allow the staff and NEl to develop necessary updates to NUMARC 93-01 and NRC Regulatory Guide 1.160. But given the staff findings on the lack of ' assessments of, and control for, risk-significant configurations at some licensee facilities while operating at full power, I do'not think we should delay this rulemaking.. On the other hand, we can simultaneously begin' preparations for the scope change rulemaking under
. Option 2 now without waiting for the (a)(4) rulemaking to conclude.
I approve voluntary implementation of risk-informed changes to Part 50. I do so recognizing that this will complicate NRC's regulatory framework. I cannot imagine' risk-informed changes to Pad 50 passing the " substantial benefit" test in the backfit rule (50.109). We should also recognize that in choosing a voluntary approach we will be successful in risk-informing Part 50 only if there is broad acceptance on a voluntary basis of rule changes (as, for instance, there was with Option B in Appendix J on containment leak testing).
3 I do not approve at this time the staff proposal not to allow selective implementation of risk-informed changes to Part 50. This issue is prematurely
. before the Commission. A future Commission will be better able to judge the issue of selective implementation after rules are drahed and rulemakings provide comment on this issue as it affects that rule. In the ongoing source term rulemaking we are dealing with this issue in exactly this way and we should
. continue to do so rule by rule.
I also agree with Commissioner Merrifield that a "no selective implementation" approach will adversely affect our ability to solicit industry pilot participants. The very nature of the pilots will be a selective implementation by exemption of a risk-informed Part 50 option. - A pilot participant should not be locked into a choice to take or leave the entire suite of risk-informed Part 50 rules (yet to be invented) having helped us develop one or more of them.
I approve the staff's recommendation that additional guidance be developed to provide clarification on staff authority for applying risk-informed processes in regulatory activities beyond risk-informed licensing actions. This clarifying 4
guidance should be submitted for Commission approval.
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