ML21235A471
| ML21235A471 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/25/2022 |
| From: | John Tappert NRC/NMSS/DREFS |
| To: | |
| Bladey, Cindy 301-415-3280 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML21235A416 | List: |
| References | |
| 87 FR 25157, NRC-2017-0031, PRM-30-66, RIN 3150-AK52 | |
| Download: ML21235A471 (9) | |
Text
[7590-01-P]
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
10 CFR Parts 30 and 70
[Docket No. NRC-2017-0031]
RIN 3150-AK52
Decommissioning Financial Assurance for Sealed and Unsealed Rad ioactive
Materials
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Regulatory basis; request for comment.
SUMMARY
- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is requesting comm ent
on a regulatory basis to support a rulemaking that would amend its regulations for
decommissioning financial assurance for sealed and unsealed rad ioactive materials.
The rulemaking would revise NRCs decommissioning funding requi rements for
radioactive material based on the relative risk to public healt h and safety from different
radioisotopes, including naturally occurring and accelerator-pr oduced radioactive
material. The potentially affected licensees are those authori zed to possess byproduct
DATES: Submit comments by June 27, 2022. Comments received after th is date will
be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is able to ensure consideration only
for comments received before this date.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods; howe ver,
the NRC encourages electronic comment submission through the Federal rulemaking
website:
- Federal rulemaking website: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and search
for Docket ID NRC-2017-0031. Address questions about NRC Docke t IDs to Dawn
Forder; telephone: 301-415-3407; email: Dawn.Forder@nrc.gov. For technical
questions, contact the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER INF ORMATION
CONTACT section of this document.
- Email comments to: Rulemaking.Comments@nrc.gov. If you do not
receive an automatic email reply confirming receipt, then conta ct us at 301-415-1677.
- Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.
For additional direction on obtaining information and submittin g comments, see
Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments in the SUPPLEME NTARY
INFORMATION section of this document.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cardelia Maupin, telephone: 301-415-
4127, email: Cardelia.Maupin@nrc.gov, or Gregory Trussell, telephone: 301-415-6244,
email: Gregory.Trussell@nrc.gov. Both are staff of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety
and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments
A. Obtaining Information
Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2017-0031 when contacting the NRC about the
availability of information for this action. You may obtain pu blicly available information
2 related to this action by any of the following methods:
- Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and
search for Docket ID NRC-2017-0031.
- NRCs Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly available documents online in the ADA MS Public
Documents collection at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the
search, select Begin Web-based ADAMS Search. For problems wi th ADAMS, please
contact the NRCs Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, at
301-415-4737, or by email to PDR.Resource@nrc.gov. For the convenience of the
reader, instructions about obtaining materials referenced in th is document are provided
in the Availability of Documents section.
- NRCs PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public documents,
by appointment, at the NRCs PDR, Room P1 B35, One White Flint North,
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852. To make an ap pointment to visit the
PDR, please send an email to PDR.Resource@nrc.gov or call 1-800-397-4209 or
301-415-4737, between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. (EST), Monday thr ough Friday, except
Federal holidays.
B. Submitting Comments
The NRC encourages electronic comment submission through the Federal
rulemaking website (https://www.regulations.gov). Please include Docket ID
NRC-2017-0031 in your comment submission.
NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact informat ion that you do not
want to be publicly disclosed in your comment submission. The NRC will post all
comment submissions at https://www.regulations.gov as well as enter the comment
submissions into ADAMS. The NRC does not routinely edit commen t submissions to
remove identifying or contact information.
3 If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other person s for
submission to the NRC, then you should inform those persons not to include identifying
or contact information that they do not want to be publicly dis closed in their comment
submission. Your request should state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment
submissions to remove such information before making the commen t submissions
available to the public or entering the comment into ADAMS.
II. Discussion
The NRC is requesting comments on a regulatory basis to support a proposed
rule that would amend appendix B, Quantities of licensed mater ial requiring labeling, to
part 30 of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Rules of General
Applicability to Domestic Licensing of Byproduct Material, and 10 CFR 70.25, Financial
assurance and recordkeeping for decommissioning. The regulato ry basis document is
developed as a precursor to a proposed rule and describes the N RCs recommendation
and considerations in amending 10 CFR parts 30 and 70. Appendi x B to 10 CFR part 30
is used to determine decommissioning funding requirements for r adioactive material
licensed under 10 CFR parts 30 and 70.
The proposed rule would address the petition for rulemaking (PR M)-30-66,
Request of the Organization of Agreement States for the NRC to Amend Appendix B,
Quantities of Licensed Material Requiring Labeling, submitte d by the Organization of
Agreement States (OAS) on April 14, 2017. In its petition, OAS requested that the NRC
conduct a rulemaking to update appendix B to 10 CFR part 30 to include naturally
occurring and accelerator-produced radioactive material radionu clides and their specific
possession values. The OAS indicated that the failure to inclu de these radionuclides in
appendix B to 10 CFR part 30 has placed undue hardships on regu lators and licensees
4 with little or no radiation safety benefit, discouraged the dev elopment of new beneficial
products, and negatively impacted patient care.
The specific objectives of this rulemaking effort are to (1) im prove the regulatory
framework for naturally occurring and accelerator-produced radi oactive material by
amending appendix B to 10 CFR part 30 to better align with NRC s regulatory authority
over this material under the Energy Policy Act of 2005; (2) ris k-inform NRCs
decommissioning funding requirements by aligning the possession values in appendix B
with NRCs radiation protection regulations in 10 CFR part 20, Standards for Protection
Against Radiation; (3) clarify that only radioactive materials with half-lives greater than
120 days are subject to decommissioning financial assurance; an d (4) clarify the
purpose of appendix B by changing its title. To address item 3, the NRC is proposing to
update appendix B using the list of radionuclides and possessio n values in appendix C
to 10 CFR part 20, Quantities of licensed material requiring l abeling.
The NRC held a public meeting on January 7, 2021, to discuss di fferent
approaches for updating appendix B to 10 CFR part 30. Members of the public
supported updating appendix B to 10 CFR part 30, noting that a faster update to the
appendix would be more beneficial than developing a new decommi ssioning financial
assurance methodology. Information about the public meeting is available in the
Availability of Documents section of this document.
The NRC will consider any comments received on the regulatory basis in the
development of the proposed rule and will provide responses to comments in the
proposed rule.
III. Specific Requests for Comments
The NRC is seeking advice and recommendations from the public o n the
regulatory basis. We are particularly interested in comments a nd supporting rationale
5 from the public on the NRCs initial assumptions regarding the qualitative and
quantitative costs and benefits of the rulemaking, as well as o n alternatives to the
current recommended approach.
Assumptions Used for Cost/Benefit Estimates
- The NRC is seeking comments on t he assumptions used in develop ing the
cost-benefit estimates. The NRC is interested in receiving information on the number of
licensees affected by the rulemaking. The NRC is also interest ed in the effort needed to
make any changes to current decommissioning funding plans or de commissioning
financial assurance funding amounts, especially if an increase in decommissioning
funding would be required.
- The NRC is seeking comments on possible impacts to small entit ies.
Section 2.810, NRC size standards, provides specific size sta ndards to determine
whether a licensee qualifies as a small entity in its regulator y programs. The NRC is
interested in the number of small entities that would be impact ed by these changes, as
well as the types of impacts the changes being proposed by this rulemaking would have
on them.
- The NRC also is seeking comments on other benefits of the rulemaking, such
as supporting advancements in science and technology, enabling uses of radioisotopes
that would reduce effective doses to patients or overall costs to patients, and reducing
costs to licensees who currently must develop decommissioning f unding plans. Please
provide quantitative information on costs and benefits, if avai lable.
Alternatives to Recommended Approach
The regulatory basis recommends a rulemaking approach using in formation that
already exists in regulations rather than creating a new method ology for determining the
amount of decommissioning financial assurance. The NRC is seek ing comments on any
benefits to any alternative approach that might not have been c onsidered in the NRCs
6 assessment, as well as any suggested means to implement this ap proach, particularly
on the categorization and funding amounts that would be appropr iate.
IV. Cumulative Effects of Regulation
The cumulative effects of regulation (CER) describe challenges that licensees or other
impacted entities (such as State agency partners) may face whil e implementing new
regulatory positions, programs, and requirements (e.g., rules, generic letters, backfits,
inspections). The CER is an organizational challenge that resu lts from a licensee or
impacted entity implementing a number of complex positions, pro grams, or requirements
within a limited implementation period and with available resou rces (which may include
limited available expertise to address a specific issue). The NRC has implemented CER
enhancements to the rulemaking process to facilitate public inv olvement throughout the
rulemaking process. Therefore, the NRC is specifically request ing comment on the
cumulative effects that may result from this proposed rulemakin g. In developing
comments on the regulatory basis, consider the following questi ons:
- 1. In light of any current or projected CER challenges, what sh ould be a
reasonable effective date, compliance date, or submittal date(s ) from the time the final
rule is published to the actual implementation of any new propo sed requirements,
including changes to programs, procedures, and the facility?
- 2. If CER challenges currently exist or are expected, what shou ld be done to
address them? For example, if more time is required for implem entation of the new
requirements, what period of time is sufficient?
- 3. Do other (NRC or other agency) regulatory actions (e.g., ord ers, generic
communications, license amendment requests inspection findings of a generic nature)
influence the implementation of the potential proposed requirem ents?
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- 4. Are there unintended consequences? Does the proposed action create
conditions that would be contrary to the proposed actions purp ose and objectives? If
so, what are the consequences, and how should they be addressed ?
- 5. Please comment on the NRCs cost and benefit estimate of the potential
proposed action. This information will be used to support addi tional regulatory analysis
by the NRC.
V. Availability of Documents
The documents identified in the following table are available t o interested
persons as indicated.
DOCUMENT ADAMS ACCESSION NO./FEDERAL REGISTER CITATION PRM-30-66, Request of the Organization of ML17173A063 Agreement States for the NRC to Amend Appendix B, Quantities of Licensed Material Requiring Labeling, April 14, 2017 Federal Register Notice Publishing PRM-30-66 for 82 FR 39971 Public Comment, August 23, 2017 Federal Register Notice Extending the Public 82 FR 51363 Comment Period, November 6, 2017 Comments on PRM-30-66, Organization of ML18038A879 (package)
Agreement States SECY-19-0125, Petition for Rulemaking and ML18292A434 (package)
Rulemaking Plan on Decommissioning Financial Assurance Requirements for Sealed and Unsealed Radioactive Material (PRM-30-66; NRC-2017-0159), December 17, 2019 Staff Requirements Memorandum: SRM-SECY ML20287A248 (package) 0125, Petition for Rulemaking and Rulemaking Plan on Decommissioning Financial Assurance Requirements for Sealed and Unsealed Radioactive Material (PRM-30-66; NRC-2017-0159),
October 13, 2020 Letter to Matthew McKinley, Chair of the ML20303A141 Organization of Agreement States (the Petitioner),
November 4, 2020 Federal Register Notice Publishing the Results of 85 FR 75959 the NRC Evaluation of PRM-30-66, November 27, 2020
8 Public Meeting on Decommissioning Financial ML21026A339 (package)
Assurance Requirements for Sealed and Unsealed Radioactive Material, January 7, 2021 Regulatory Basis for Decommissioning Financial ML21235A480 Assurance Requirements for Sealed and Unsealed Radioactive Materials, April 2022
The NRC may post materials related to this document, including public
comments, on the Federal rulemaking website at https://www.regulations.gov under
Docket ID NRC-2017-0031. In addition, the Federal rulemaking w ebsite allows
members of the public to receive alerts when changes or additio ns occur in a docket
folder. To subscribe: 1) navigate to the docket folder (NRC-2 017-0031); 2) click the
Subscribe link; and 3) enter an email address and click on th e Subscribe link.
VI. Plain Writing
The Plain Writing Act of 2010 (Pub. L. 111-274) requires Federa l agencies to
write documents in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner. The NRC has written
this document to be consistent with the Plain Writing Act as we ll as the Presidential
Memorandum, Plain Language in Government Writing, published J une 10, 1998
(63 FR 31883). The NRC requests comment on this document with respect to the clarity
and effectiveness of the language used.
Dated:April25, 2022.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
/RA/
John R. Tappert, Director, Division of Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
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