ML23159A116

PR-050 - 63FR52201 - Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants

ML23159A116
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Issue date:	09/30/1998
From:	Hoyle J NRC/SECY
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PR-050, 63FR52201
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ADAMS Template: SECY-067 DOCUMENT DATE: 09/30/1998 TITLE: PR-050 - 63FR52201 - MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS CASE

REFERENCE:

PR-050 63FR52201 KEYWORD: RULEMAKING COMMENTS Document Sensitivity: Non-sensitive - SUNSI Review Complete

STATUS OF RULEMAKING PROPOSED RULE: PR - 050 OPEN ITEM (Y/ N) Y RULE NAME: MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS PROPOSED RULE FED REG CITE: 63FR52201 PROPOSED RULE PUBLICATION DATE: 09 / 30 / 98 NUMBER OF COMMENTS: 34 ORIGINAL DATE FOR COMMENTS: 12 / 14 / 98 EXTENSION DATE: I I FINAL RULE FED. REG. CITE: 64FR38551 FINAL RULE PUBLICATION DATE : 07 / 19 /9 9 NOTES ON: REVISING REGS TO REQUIRE THAT LICENSEES ASSESS THE IMPACT ON SAFET STATUS Y BEFORE THEY TAKE EQUIPMENT OUT OF SERVICE FOR MAINTENANCE . FILE OF RULE: IN 16G4.

HISTORY OF THE RULE PART AFFECTED: PR-050 RULE TITLE: MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS PROPOSED RULE PROPOSED RULE DATE PROPOSED RULE SECY PAPER: 98 - 165 SRM DATE: 09 / 03 / 98 SIGNED BY SECRETARY: 09 / 24 / 98 FINAL RULE FINAL RULE DATE FINAL RULE SECY PAPER: 99 - 133 SRM DATE : 06 / 22 / 99 SIGNED BY SECRETARY: 07/13/99 STAFF CONTACTS ON THE RULE CONTACTl: RICHARD P. CORREIA MAIL STOP : O-9Al PHONE : 41 5- 100 9 CONTACT2: MAIL STOP : PHONE :

DOCKET NO. PR-O5O (63FR522O1)

In the Matter of MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS DATE DATE OF TITLE OR DOCKETED DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION OF DOCUMENT

09/25/98 09/24/98 FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICE - PROPOSED RULE 12/08/98 12/06/98 COMMENT OF BARRY QUIGLEY ( 1) 12/14/98 12/09/98 COMMENT OF FLORIDA POWER CORPORATION (SHERRYL. BERNHOFT) ( 2) 12/14/98 12/09/98 COMMENT OF OMAHA PUBLIC POWER DISTRICT (S. K. GAMBHIR) ( 3) 12/14/98 12/10/98 COMMENT OF MAINE YANKEE (GEORGE ZINKE, DIRECTOR) ( 4) 12/14/98 12/10/98 COMMENT OF TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (MARK J. BURZYNSKI) ( 5) 12/14/98 12/11/98 COMMENT OF PECO ENERGY COMPANY (GARRETT D. EDWARDS) ( 6) 12/14/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF SOUTHERN NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY, INC.

(H. L. SUMNER) ( 7)

.12/14/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF THE MAINTENANCE RULE INSPECTION CLEARINGHOUSE (DANIEL F. STENGER, ESQ., ET AL.) ( 8) 12/15/98 12/10/98 COMMENT OF NY STATE ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (HEIDI VOELK) ( 9) 12/15/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON COMPANY (A. EDWARD SCHERER) ( 10) 12/15/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE (ANTHONY R. PIETRANGELO) ( 11) 12/15/98 12/11/98 COMMENT OF GPU NUCLEAR, INC. (JOHN C. FORNICOLA) ( 12)

.12/16/98 12/10/98 COMMENT OF DUKE ENERGY CORPORATION (M. S. TUCKMAN, EXEC. VICE PRES.) ( 13) 12/16/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF LICENSING SUPPORT SERVICES (ROGER W. HUSTON) ( 14)

DOCKET NO. PR-050 (63FR52201)

DATE DATE OF TITLE OR DOCKETED DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION OF DOCUMENT 12/17 /98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY (R. M. KRICH, VICE PRESIDENT) ( 15) 12/17 /98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF DETROIT EDISON (NORMAN K. PETERSON, DIRECTOR) ( 16) 12/17 /98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRIC AND GAS COMPANY (GARY J. TAYLOR, VICE PRESIDENT) ( 17) 12/17 /98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE ELECTRIC AND GAS COMPANY (HARRY KEISER) ( 18)

.12/17/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF JOSEPH A. GONYEAU ( 19) 12/18/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF NORTHERN STATES POWER COMPANY (MICHAEL D. WADLEY, PRES., NUC. GEN.) ( 20) 12/18/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF ENTERGY OPERATIONS, INC.

(MICHAEL R. KANSLER, VICE PRESIDENT) ( 21) 12/21/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF NEW YORK POWER AUTHORITY (J. KNUBEL, SR. VP &CNO) ( 22) 12/21/98 12/15/98 COMMENT OF WASHINGTON PUBLIC POWER SUPPLY SYSTEM (G. 0. SMITH, VP, GEN.) ( 23) 12/22/98 12/10/98 COMMENT OF FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY (RAJIV S. KUNDALKAR, VICE PRESIDENT) ( 24)

• 12/22/98 12/11/98 COMMENT OF APS (JAMES M. LEVINE, SR. VICE PRESIDENT) ( 25) 12/22/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF CAROLINA POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY (DONNA B. ALEXANDER) ( 26) 12/22/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF CONSUMERS ENERGY (NATHAN L. HASKELL, DIRECTOR, LIC.) ( 27) 12/22/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF THE DUANE ARNOLD ENERGY CENTER (DAEC, ALLIANT EGY)

(KEN PEVELER) ( 28) 12/22/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF TU ELECTRIC (C. L. TERRY, SR. VP, ET AL.) ( 29) 12/22/98 12/15/98 COMMENT OF NORTH ATLANTIC ENERGY SERVICE CORPORATION (TED C. FEIGENBAUM, EXEC. VP & CNO) ( 30) 12/22/98 12/16/98 COMMENT OF WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC COMPANY (H. A. SEPP) ( 31) 12/23/98 12/14/98 COMMENT OF ROCHESTER GAS AND ELECTRIC CORPORATION (ROBERT C. MECREDY) ( 32)

DOCKET NO. PR-050 (63FR52201)

DATE DATE OF TITLE OR DOCKETED DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION OF DOCUMENT 12/28/98 12/17 /98 COMMENT OF PERRY NUCLEAR POWER PLANT (LEW W. MYERS, VICE PRESIDENT) ( 33) 12/29/98 12/15/98 COMMENT OF TOLEDO EDISON (ROBERT E. DONNELLON, DIRECTOR) ( 34) 07 /16/99 07/13/99 FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICE - FINAL RULE

DOCKET NUMBER Dff PROPOSED RULE r, 5 o DOCKETE D

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[7590-01-P]

• 99 JUL 16 P1 :27 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 0 ,-

10 CFR Part 50 FL~

ADJ/JD F RIN 3150-AF95 Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission .

• ACTION: Final rule.

SUMMARY

The Nuclear Regulatory Commissinn (NRC) is amending its power reactor safety regulations to require that licensees assess the effect of equipment maintenance on the plant's capability to perform safety functions before beginning maintenance activities on structures, systems, and components (SSCs) within the scope of the maintenance rule. The amendments clarify that these requirements apply under all conditions of operation, including shutdown, and

• that the assessments are to be used so that the increase in risk that may result frpm the maintenance activity will be managed to ensure that the plant is not inadvertently placed in a condition of significant risk or a condition that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level. These -i.mendments permit licensees to limit the scope of the assessments to SSCs that a risk-informed evaluation process has shown to be significant to public health and safety.

EFFECTIVE DATE: The final rule becomes effective 120 days after issuance of Revision 3 to Regulatory Guide 1.160, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Nuclear Power Plants." The NRC will

2 publish a document in the Federal Register that announces the issuance of the revised guidance and that specifies the effective date.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Richard P. Correia, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 301-415-1009, e-mail rpc@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background The NRC's maintenance team inspections of all nuclear power plant licensees in the late 1980s found the lack of consideration of plant risk in prioritizing, planning, and scheduling maintenance activities to be a common weakness. To address that weakness, paragraph (a)(3) of 10 CFR 50.65, the maintenance rule, currently includes the provision that "(l)n performing monitoring and preventive maintenance activities, an assessment of the total plant equipment that is out of service should be taken into account to determine the overall effect on performance of safety functions." The maintenance rule was issued on July 10, 1991 (56 FR

• 31306).

During plant visits in mid-1994, several NRC senior managers expressed concerns that licensees were increasing both the amount and frequency of maintenance performed during power operation without adequately evaluating safety when planning and scheduling these maintenance activities. The NRC Executive Director for Operations (EDO) addressed these concerns regarding the safety implications of performing maintenance while at power to the President of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) in a letter dated October 6, 1994.

In this letter, the EDO noted that it appeared that some licensees were either not following

3 INPO guidelines for the conduct of maintenance and management of outages or had adopted only portions of the guidance. The EDO also recommended that INPO support the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and appropriate utility managers during meetings with NRC senior managers to discuss the concerns they raised during the site visits.

The growing amount of on-line maintenance (i.e., maintenance during power operations) being performed by licensees and the quality of pre-maintenance assessments have merited the Commission's concern. To address this concern, to clarify the plant operating conditions under which the maintenance rule is applicable, and to make the requirements fully enforceable, the Commission published proposed revisions to 10 CFR 50.65 in the Federal Register on September 30, 1998 {63 FR 52201-52206). The 75-day comment period closed December 14, 1998.

II. Comments on the Proposed Rule Twenty-nine comments were submitted during the comment period, and five were submitted after the comment period closed. Copies of the letters are available for public inspection and copying for a fee at the Commission's Public Document Room, located at 2120 L Street, NW (Lower Level), Washington, D.C. The last public comment was received on December 29, 1998. All comments were considered in formulating the final rule. The 34 comments were submitted by 26 utilities with operating power reactors, one utility with a decommissioning status facility, three nuclear industry service companies or consultants, one individual, one State agency, NEI, and one law firm representing several utilities. Twenty~nine commentors endorsed the NEI comments. NEI stated in its comment letter that the industry generally supports the Commission's intent in the proposed rule but has a number of significant concerns that should be addressed before rulemaking proceeds. Of the commentors who did not endorse the NEI comments, one (combined State agencies) supported the concept of the proposed rule and provided comments to enhance it, and two others (an individual and a utility)

4 provided recommendations in specific areas to enhance the proposed rule. Two of the commentors (a consultant and a consulting firm) stated that the rule was unnecessary and presented supporting reasons.

The comments have been grouped under the following general topics:

1. Rule issuance

2. New, vague, ambiguous, undefined terminology in the proposed rule

3. Scope issues

4. Suggestions for wording modifications

5. Regulatory controls overlapping technical specifications

6. Performing assessments

7. Assessing and managing risk

8. Emergent maintenance requirements

9. Documentation of the assessment

10. Definition of availability

11. Backfit and regulatory analyses

12. Regulatory analysis cost estimates

13. Application to decommissioning plants.

Summaries of the grouped comments and discussions of the NRC responses follow.

1. Rule issuance.

Comment. One commentor, a utility, stated that they consider the proposed rule unnecessary, and NEI and other utilities stated that the proposed rule, as written, should be withdrawn. However, they also stated that if the rule is approved, Regulatory Guide 1.160 should be revised and issued before finalizing the changes to the rule.

5 Response. The NRG has determined that the rule is necessary and believes that the performance of this type of assessment is prudent because of changes in industry maintenance practices and findings during NRG inspections of maintenance rule programs. When the maintenance rule was first promulgated in 1991, the NRG had not foreseen the significant changes licensees would be making in maintenance practices. To enhance operational efficiency, made increasingly necessary by the rate deregulation of the electric utility industry, licensees are shortening their refueling outages by performing more maintenance while the plant is at power. At-power maintenance practices have evolved to the point that not only are major systems, subsystems, and components taken off line, but also multiple systems, subsystems, and components are taken off line simultaneously. Taking systems and components off line for maintenance could result in an increase in risk because of the reduced capability to mitigate the consequences of an accident or a transient, compared to risk that occurs from expected random equipment failures. In addition, although the maintenance rule baseline inspections of all operating nuclear power plant sites found that all licensees have implemented programs to perform the assessments, about half of the sites had programs with

• discernable weaknesses in this area, including instances in which, in accordance _with the licensees' own programs, assessments should have been made but were not.

The NRG agrees that it is appropriate to revise Regulatory Guide 1.160 to incorporate clarifying guidance before the final rule's effective date. Accordingly, Revision 3 to Regulatory Guide 1.160 will be prepared for public comment and will be published in final form 120 days before the effective date of the rule.

2. New, vague, ambiguous, undefin*ed terminology in the proposed rule.

Comment. Most commentors identified concerns related to the proposed rule's introduction of new, vague, ambiguous, or undefined terminology and recommended that the rule be withdrawn and reissued for public comment after substantial modification. NEI and

6 utilities indicated that terms such as "risk-significant condition" and "unacceptable level" should be explicitly defined.

Response. Paragraph (a)(4) has been reworded. Guidance for the revised terminology appears below in Item 4 of Section 111, The Final Rule."

3. Scope issues.

Comment. Many commentors stated that assessments required by the proposed rule should apply only to high safety-significance SSCs. NEI and utilities expressed concerns that the scope of SSCs subject to assessments was impractical. Such broad scope would dilute attention from high safety-significance SSCs by requiring too many detailed assessments.

Response. Paragraph 50.65(b) defines the scope of SSCs that are covered by the rule (with the exception of SSCs for decommissioning plants). Chapter 11.0 of NUMARC 93-01, "Industry Guidelines for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants,"

Revision 2, dated April 1996 (which has been endorsed by Regulatory Guide 1.160,

• Revision 2, dated March 1997), is entitled "Evaluation of Systems to be Removed from Service." Chapter 11.0 guidance makes the evaluation, or assessment, a three-step process: (1) Identify key plant safety functions to be maintained, (2) identify SSCs that support key plant safety functions, and *

(3) consider the overall effect of removing SSCs from service on key plant safety functions.

Requiring, instead of recommending, those assessments does not change the expectation that the assessments need only involve SSCs associated with initiating and mitigating impacts on key plant safety functions. To codify this expectation, paragraph (a)(4) of the final rule contains a second sentence as follows: The scope of the assessment may be limited to structures, systems, and components that a risk-informed evaluation process has shown to be significant to public health and safety."

4. Suggestions for wording modifications.

7 Comment. Five commentors provided suggestions clarifying regulatory text. Two of these commentors stated that the plant configuration should be defined as "SSCs within the scope of the rule," and three commentors suggested limiting the scope of maintenance activities to those that result in removing equipment from service.

Response. The NRC disagrees with these suggested language changes. The rule currently applies only to SSCs within the scope of the rule. A revision to specify that fact is not needed, although this rule is being revised to permit licensees to limit the scope of their assessments to SSCs that a risk-informed evaluation process has shown to be significant to public health and safety. Additionally, certain maintenance activities are performed that do not remove equipment from service but have the potential for challenging safety systems. One example is valve testing on certain balance-of-plant systems during which open valves are cycled shut and reopened. If such a valve were to inadvertently stick shut, a transient could ensue. Those scenarios must be assessed and managed to ensure that the risks associated with these activities are properly identified and controlled.

5. Regulatory controls overlapping technical specifications .

• Comment. Several commentors stated that there is a need to reconcile the overlapping regulatory regimes of the maintenance rule, technical specifications (TS), and the configuration risk management program (CAMP) (described in Regulatory Guide 1.177, "An Approach for Plant-Specific, Risk-Informed Decisionmaking: Technical Specifications"). NEI and the utilities were mainly concerned with the overlap of regulatory controls in the revised rule and TS.

Response. The NRC agrees that some overlap exists among these regulatory controls.

Under certain conditions, a plant's TS may allow an SSC to be out of service, while a pre-maintenance assessment proposing the removal of that same SSC from service may indicate a need to take other actions to preclude that configuration. It is possible that allowed outage times of TS may not be in complete agreement with reasonable out-of-service times resulting

8 from the required assessments. However, TS limiting conditions for operation were, in part, developed to address random single failures of plant SSCs; they were not intended to be used by licensees as rationale for removing multiple SSCs from service to perform on-line maintenance. In general, TS may serve as a pre-analyzed assessment, when used with sound judgement, when a licensee proposes to remove a single SSC from service for maintenance.

Paragraph (a)(4) is intended to cause the licensee to determine its options and follow a prudent course of action. Nevertheless, while performing on-line or shutdown maintenance, the licensee will remain in conformance with its TS.

In NRC staff requirements memorandum dated June 29, 1998, for SECY-98-067, the Commission directed the NRC staff to take actions to ensure that CAMP regulatory guidance conforms to the provisions of the final maintenance rule. After revisioJJs to the maintenance rule are completed, the NRC will expeditiously support licensee requests to remove the CAMP requirements from plant TS.

6. Performing assessments.

Comment. NEI and the uWities expressed the need for clarification of when an assessment would be required, the level of complexity necessary in the assessment, and the criteria to be used to evaluate the adequacy of the assessment process.

Response. Please refer to the discussion in Item 4 of Section Ill, "The Final Rule,"

below.

7. Assessing and managing risk.

Comment. Three commentors expressed similar views related to high-risk activities.

One noted that, under suitable controls, a shorter time in a more risk-significant configuration may be safer than a longer time in a less risk-significant configuration. Another noted that high risk-significant activities should be recognized and avoided, where practical, and limited in duration when they are necessary. The third noted that the proposed rule does not address

9 situations in which failure to perform a maintenance activity may have a greater impact on risk than performing the high safety-significant activity.

Response. The NRG agrees that the proposed rule precluded entering risk-significant configurations, no matter the duration, when, in fact, situations may exist that would yield a net safety benefit by performing maintenance in a risk-significant configuration for a short time.

The rule has been revised to require licensees to understand their options with respect to risk and to manage their maintenance activities according to their best judgment, considering insights from operating experience and deterministic and probabilistic analyses .

8. Emergent maintenance requirements.

Comment. Two commentors stated that the proposed rule does not address expectations for revising assessments upon the discovery of a previously unknown condition requiring maintenance (emergent maintenance). They also expressed concerns that if certain emergent maintenance activities are not completed immediately, the plant could be at greater risk.

Response. Under the revised rule, an assessment is required to be initiated following the discovery of emergent failures or changes in plant conditions to determine the safety impact of the failure or the change in plant conditions. For additional information on this subject, please see the discussion in Item 4 of Section 111, "The Final Rule," below.

9. Documentation of the assessment.

Comment. Three utility commentors stated that the proposed rule is not expli~it enough regarding assessment documentation expectations.

Response. The rule has no explicit documentation requirements. Instead, the rule emphasizes performance. A licensee's assessment process is expected to identify the impact on safety that is caused by the performance of maintenance. Licensees should use documentation to the extent necess~ry to assure themselves that the requirement for an

10 assessment has been acknowledged and performed adequately. NRC expectations are that a licensee will have a requirement for the assessments and an explanation of the process to be followed in its maintenance rule program, along with a description of assessment tool(s) to be used and their limitations, implementing procedures, and explicit direction covering instances when the plant configuration is or is proposed to be outside the span of the assessment tool.

Further, the assessment process is expected to be incorporated into the maintenance planning and scheduling process and into work package requirements. Moreover, control room operators, who are expected to understand, use, and know the limitations of the assessment tools, generally use and maintain a variety of documents, such as logs and checklists, that contain information relating to out-of-service SSCs.

10. Definition of availability.

Comment. Three commentors stated that the definition of availability will be key to this rulemaking. They also stated that the availability definition should take into account the time required to restore the functionality of an SSC and should also be risk informed.

Response. A definition of availability for licensee maintenance rule programs is set forth in NU MARC 93-01, Revision 2, which was endorsed by the NRC in Regulatory G~ide 1.160, Revision 2, of March 1997. According to that document, availability is "(t)he time that a(n) SSC is capable of performing its intended function (expressed) as a fraction (usually as percent) of the total time that the function may be demanded." Also according to that document, under the definition of "unavailability," is the following statement: "An SSC that is required to be available for automatic operation must be available and respond without human action." Additionally, in the instance where an SSC is taken *out of service for testing but could be manually activated, the NRC has accepted that, as long as the dedicated operator's written procedure specifies a single action that would permit an automatic initiation of the out-of-service SSC in the event of an accident or transient during the test, the SSC could be considered available. (Meeting

11.

Summary-- November 19, 1991, NRC/NUMARC Public Meeting on the Development of Guidance Documents for the Implementation of the Maintenance Rule (10 CFR 50.65), R.P.

Correia, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, memorandum to E.W. Brach, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, dated November 23, 1991.) The NRC's expectation is that, by procedure, the dedicated operator is stationed at the equipment and is ready and qualified to perform that single action in a moment. An acceptable single action could be the rapid repositioning of a switch or a lever; an unacceptable action would be racking in a breaker or, in some instances, opening a manual gate valve .

With respect to risk-informing the maintenance rule definition of availability, the reliance of initial availability performance measures on probabilistic risk assessment (PAA) data provided such a basis. However, in quality maintenance programs, availability is monitored to identify and trend the performance of equipment, thereby permitting certain conclusions to be drawn about the effectiveness of the equipment's maintenance program. Paragraph (a)(3) of the rule requires that the prevention of SSC failures (reliability) through maintenance is appropriately balanced against the objective of minimizing unavailability. Omitting unavailability time from the maintenance effectiveness determination analysis is flawed logic. Omitting unavailability time because, in an accident scenario, the equipment may not be needed for the time it may take to restore its safety function recognizes the role of the equipment but masks the actual requirement for maintenance. The maintenance rule requires licensees to monitor the effectiveness of their maintenance programs. Omitting significant details, such as how much maintenance time an SSC requires in order to attain the objective of preventing failures, is contrary to the purpose of the rule.

Note also that maintenance rule "availability is not technical specification "operability."

• 11. Backfit and regulatory analyses.

12 Comment. One commenter stated that the regulatory analysis does not justify the expansion of the maintenance rule to "normal shutdown operations" and that a revision of the analysis to better consider such expansion would show through backfit considerations that the expansion is not justified. Another com mentor also presented a concern that the overall implications of the rule were not supported by the backfit analysis.

Response. The new preamble to the rule is an introductory sentence clarifying that the rule applies under all operating conditions, including normal shutdown. The Commission intended the rule to apply to all operating conditions, and it has been implemented by the NRC staff consistent with such an interpretation. Moreover, Section 11.2.3 of NUMARC 93-01 specifically states that "assessment applies during all modes of plant operation." The overall implications of the rule were assessed in the backfit analysis for the original maintenance rule, which was issued July 10, 1991.

12. Regulatory analysis cost estimates.

Comment. One commenter raised the concern that if facilities are required to develop numerical models for every combination of low safety-significance SSCs, the cost of implementing the program would be significantly higher than estimated in the regulatory analysis.

Response. The NRC does not expect licensees to develop numerical models for assessing all possible combinations of low risk-significant SSCs. The regulatory analysis states that the complexity of assessments to be performed can vary, depending upon the configuration of SSCs to be maintained on line or out of service. It was presumed that assessments involving SSCs having little bearing on safety could be performed in an uncomplicated, deterministic manner and that the cost of the overall program would be dominated by the need for assessment of combinations of SSCs, which, when taken out of service simultaneously, could have an adverse effect on the safe operation of the facility.

13 Additionally, the licensee controls the degree of complexity of the proposed configuration and thereby controls the level of sophistication required for the assessment. Consequently, the licensee should not propose to enter a plant configuration the complexity of which exceeds the licensee's ability to assess.

13. Application to decommissioning plants.

Comment. One commentor presented concerns regarding the application of the rule to plants in a decommissioning status. The commentor requested that, as part of this rulemaking, the NRG remove the applicability of the rule to decommissioning status plants following some modest level of fission product decay.

Response. This rulemaking is focused on requiring pre-maintenance assessments of plant risk. However, the NRG is considering the is~ue in a separate rulemaking activity.

111. The Final Rule The final rule amends 10 CFR 50.65 as follows:

1. An introductory paragraph has been added to 10 CFR 50.65 clarifying that the rule

• applies under all conditions of operation, including shutdown. This introductory language reads as follows: "The requirements of this section are applicable during all conditions of plant operation, including normal shutdown operations." The intent of this paragraph is to ensure that assessments are performed before maintenance activities when the plants are shut down as well as when the plants are at power. (Note that the word "section," as used_in this rulemaking, means all of §50.65.)

2. The second sentence in paragraph (a)(3) has been revised as follows: The evaluations shall take into account, where practical, industry-wide operating experience." The change was made only to simplify the language and is purely editorial.

14

3. The last sentence of paragraph (a)(3), containing the current, non-mandatory provision for performing safety assessments, is deleted. The revised paragraph (a)(3) now contains only the requirement for periodic, programmatic, long-term review.

4. A new paragraph, (a)(4), has been added requiring the performance of assessments.

The first sentence of the new (a)(4) paragraph states: "Before performing maintenance activities (including but not limited to surveillance, post-maintenance testing, and corrective and preventive maintenance), the licensee shall assess and manage the increase in risk that may result from the proposed maintenance activities." Separating the assessment requirement from the long-term review requirement in paragraph (a)(3) will more clearly distinguish between the two types of activity.

The intent of this requirement is to have licensees appropriately assess the risks related to proposed maintenance activities that will directly, or may inadvertently, result in equipment being taken out of service and then, using insights from the assessment, suitably minimize the time needed for the proposed maintenance activities while also controlling the configuration of the total plant to maintain and support the key plant safety functions.

Risk is the result of the likelihood of an event with due consideration of the consequences of that same event. The term "risk" is used to address what can go wrong, its likelihood, and its consequences. The risk perspective can be assessed deterministically or probabilistically.

In general, a risk assessment is necessary before all planned maintenance a9tivities.

Assessments should also be performed when an unexpected SSC failure initiates required maintenance activities or when changes to plant conditions affect a previously performed assessment. However, the reevaluation of a previous assessment should not interfere with, or delay, the plant staff's taking timely actions to restore the appropriate SSC to service or taking

15 compensatory actions necessary to ensure that plant safety is maintained. If the SSC is restored to service before performing the assessment, the assessment need not be conducted.

Assessments may vary from simple and straightforward to highly complex. However, the degree of sophistication required for the assessment notwithstanding, the NRC intends that the assessment process will examine the plant condition existing before the commencement of the maintenance activity, examine the changes expected by the proposed maintenance activity, and identify the increase in risk that may result from the maintenance activity. The assessments are expected to provide insights for identifying and limiting risk-significant maintenance activities and their durations.

The level of complexity necessary in the assessment would be expected to differ from configuration to configuration. When a licensee proposes to perform maintenance on a single SSC while no other SSC is out of service, a simple deterministic assessment may suffice. If the SSC is covered by TS, a qualitativ~ assessment based on TS allowed outage time pertinent to the SSC and the informed judgement of a trained, licensed operator is sufficient. When one SSC is out of service and the licensee proposes to remove a second SSC from service for maintenance, the assessment could be simplified through the use of a table of results for pre-analyzed combinations, typically high safety-significance SSCs paired against each other.

However, more detailed assessments are required if a licensee proposes to remove multiple SSCs from service during power operations or to remove from service systems necessary to maintain safe shutdown during shutdown or startup operations. These more detailed assessments are expected to involve probabilistic analyses where possible, and to also include considerations of key plant safety functions to be maintained and defense in depth.

The NRG believes that an appropriate assessment and management process should include the following considerations:

16

a. The likelihood that the maintenance activity will increase the frequency of an initiating event;

b. The probability that the activity will affect the ability to mitigate the initiating event;

c. The probability that the activity will affect the ability to maintain containment integrity;

d. Whether multiple trains are affected;

e. How probabilistic insights are used; f.

g.

h.

How non-probabilistic insights are used; Component and system dependencies; Measures to prevent concurrent unavailabilities of equipment necessary for accident mitigation;

i. Methods to determine the duration of the activity and a~count for the projected duration;

j. The analytical basis for allowed configurations (quantitative or qualitative k.

consideration);

Provisions for accommodating configurations not encompassed by preanalyzed, acceptable configurations; and I. Scope and quality of analysis for quantified assessments.

In general, it is the NRC's expectation that the processes for managing the risk are scrutable and control the risk increase of the proposed maintenance activities. This process should include an understanding of the nature (i.e., affecting the core damage, or large early release frequency) and significance of the risk implications of a maintenance configuration on the overall plant baseline risk level. For example, risk-significant plant configurations should generally be avoided, as should conditions where a key plant safety function would be

17 significantly degraded while conducting maintenance activities. The effective control of potentially significant risk increase due to an unexpected failure of another risk-important SSC can be reasonably assured by planning for contingencies, or coordinating, scheduling, monitoring, and modifying the duration of planned maintenance activities.

5. The second sentence in the new (a)(4) paragraph states: The scope of the assessments may be limited to structures, systems, and components that a risk-informed evaluation process has shown to be significant to public health and safety." In response to public comments on the proposed rule, this second sentence has been added so that licensees may reduce the scope of SSCs subject to the pre-maintenance assessment to those SSCs which, singularly or in combination, can be shown to have a significant effect on the performance of key plant safety functions. ThP focus of the assessments should be on the SSCs modeled in the licensee's PRA, in addition to all SSCs evaluated as risk significant (high safety-significance) by the licensee's maintenance rule expert panel. Typically, these SSCs have been analyzed as causing potential initiating events, if failed, and as accident mitigators, or as high safety-significance SSCs with their support systems. Such SSCs may be identified by operating experience or by deterministic or probabilistic analyses.

18 Finding of No Significant Environmental Impact: Environmental Assessment The Commission has determined under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, and the Commission's regulations in Subpart A of 10 CFR Part 51 that this final rule is not a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment and, therefore, an environmental impact statement is not required. The environmental assessment that forms the basis for this determination reads as follows:

Identification of the Proposed Action The Commission is amending its regulations to require commercial nuclear power plant licensees to perform assessments of changes to the plant's status that would result from maintenance activities before performing the maintenance activities on structures, systems, and components (SSCs) within the scope of 10 CFR 50.65, the maintenance rule. Thus, .the maintenance rule has been modified by adding an introductory sentence to clarify that the rule applies under all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown; by making editorial revision to the second sentence of paragraph (a)(3); by deleting the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3); and by creating a new paragraph, (a)(4), that requires licensees to assess and manage the risk that may result from proposed maintenance activities and gives licensees an option to limit the scope of SSCs subject to the assessments.

The Need for the Proposed Action Formerly, paragraph (a)(3) of the maintenance rule was in the form of a recommendation because it read as follows: "(l)n performing monitoring and preventive maintenance activities, an assessment of the total plant equipment that is out of service should be taken into account to determine the overall effect on performance of safety

19 functions." The Commission believes that the performance of this type of assessment is prudent. The maintenance rule baseline inspections, performed at each operating nuclear power plant site, found that all licensees have implemented programs to perform the assessments. However, about half of the sites had programs with discernable weaknesses in this area, including instances in which, in accordance with the licensee's own programs, assessments should have been made but were not. Because of the hortatory nature of the assessment provision in §50.65(a)(3), the Commission cannot ensure that licensees perform the assessments. Moreover, license.es are free to remove the performance of the assessments from their programs as they so desire.

This final rule permits the Commission to ensure that licensees perform the assessments, as appropriate.

Removing the provision regarding safety assessments from paragraph (a)(3) and creating for it a new, separate paragraph, (a)(4), disassociates the new requirement from the more time-dependent requirement for evaluating the program and the program's effectiveness at maintaining an appropriate balance between reliability ar:id availability for each SSC. In the new paragraph, the requirement for assessment performance is stipulated to ensure that licensees will perform those assessments.

There were questions regarding when the assessments are to be performed, which plant conditions are to be evaluated, how the assessments are to be used, and which SSCs are subject to the assessments. The new paragraph (a)(4) was revise(;i to describe that the assessments are to be performed before proposed maintenance activities and are to examine pre-maintenance plant conditions and expected changes as a result of the proposed maintenance activities. The assessments may be limited to SSCs that a risk-informed evaluation process has shown to be significant to public

20 health and safety. The assessments are to be used to manage the increase in risk that may result from the maintenance activity.

Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action This final rule requires that commercial nuclear power plant licensees perform certain assessments of the status of plant equipment before performing proposed maintenance activities. The purpose of this change is to increase the effectiveness of the maintenance rule by requiring licensees to --

(1) Perform an assessment of the plant conditions before the proposed maintenance and the changes expected to result from the proposed maintenance activity; (2) Ensure that the assessments are performed when the plant is shut down as well as at power; and (3) Manage the increase in risk that may result from the proposed maintenance activity.

The Commission believes that proper implementation of the rule will reduce the likelihood and consequences of an accidental release of radioactive material caused by imprudently prioritized, planned, or scheduled maintenance.

The determination of this environmental assessment is that there will be no significant offsite impact to the public from this action. The NRC has also committed to complying with Executive Order (EO) 12898, "Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations," dated February 11, 1994, in all its actions. The NRC has determined that there are no disproportionate, high, or adverse impacts on minority or low-income populations. In the letter and spirit of EO 12898, the NRC requested public comment on any environmental justice considerations or questions that the public think~ may

21 be related to this rule but somehow were not addressed. No public comments on this issue were received.

States Consulted and Sources Used The NRG sent a copy of the proposed rule to every State Liaison Officer and requested his or her comments on the environmental assessment. No comments were received on this issue .

• Paperwork Reduction Act Statement This final rule does not contain a new or an amended information collection requirement subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.).

Existing requirements were approved by the Office of Management and Budget (0MB),

approval number 3150-0011.

• Public Protection Notification

• If a means used to impose an information collection does not display a currently valid 0MB control number, the NRG may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, the information collection.

Regulatory Analysis The Commission has prepared a final regulatory analysis for this rule. The analysis examined the costs and benefits of the alternatives considered by the Commission for revising 10 CFR 50.65, the maintenance rule. Those alternatives were to (1) make no change to the rule, (2) require the safety assessments currently recommended in paragraph (a)(3) of the rule, and (3) make comprehensive revisions to paragraph (a)(3) of the rule. The analysis supported

22 the selection of Alternative 2 as the preferred course of action. Details of the alternative selection are contained in the regulatory analysis, which is available for inspection in the NRG Public Document Room, 2120 L Street NW (Lower Level), Washington, D.C. Single copies of the analysis may be obtained from Richard P. Correia, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 301-415-1009, e-mail rpc@nrc.gov.

Regulatory Flexibility Certification In accordance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (5 U.S.C. 605(b)), the Commission certifies thaf this final rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. This rule affects only the operation of nuclear power plants. The companies that own these plants do not fall within the scope of the definition of small entities set forth in the Regulatory Flexibility Act or the size standards adopted by the NRG (10 CFR 2.810).

Backfit Analysis As required by 10 CFR 50.109, the Commission has completed a backfit analysis for this final rule. The Commission has determined, on the basis of this analysis, that backfitting to comply with the requirements of this rule provides a substantial increase in protection to the public health and safety or the common defense and security at a cost that is justified by the increased protection.

When the maintenance rule was issued, the NRG had not foreseen the rate deregulation of the electric utility industry and the changes to maintenance practices that licensees would make to enhance operational efficiency. Specifically of concern is the significant increase in maintenance while the plant is at power, permitting shortened refueling

23 outages. At-power maintenance practices have evolved to the point that multiple systems, trains, and components are simultaneously out of service. Compared to the risk that occurs from expected random equipment failures, the risk of an accident or transient caused by taking systems, trains, and components off line for maintenance or from performing maintenance on systems, trains, or components while they remain on line could be increased .

. The objective of this rule is to require that --

(1) Licensees assess the impact of equipment maintenance on the capability of the plant to perform key plant safety functions; and (2) Licensees use the results of the assessment pefore undertaking maintenance activities at operating nuclear power plants to manage the increase in risk caused by those activities.

Thus, the rule adds a new paragraph, (a)(4), that requires the performance of assessments, specifies that the scope of the requirement for performing those assessments covers proposed maintenance activities, specifies that the scope of SSCs to be assessed may be limited to those that a risk-informed evaluation process has shown to be significant to public health and safety, and specifies that the increase in risk that may occur from the maintenance activity must be managed.

This final rule also adds an introductory sentence to 10 CFR 50.65 clarifying that the rule applies under all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown; revises the second sentence of paragraph (a)(3) to simplify the language; and deletes the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) of the rule.

The details of this backfit analysis have been incorporated in the regulatory analysis.

For the reasons elaborated in the regulatory analysis, which also contains cost information, the Commission concludes that this modification to the maintenance rule will result in a substantial

24 increase in the overall protection to the public health and safety, and that the net costs of the rule are justified in view of this increased level of safety.

Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act In accordance with the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, the NRC has determined that this action is not a major rule and has verified this determination with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of 0MB.

National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995, Pub. L. 104-113; requires that Federal agencies use technical standards developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies unless the use of such a standard is inconsistent with applicable law or is otherwise impractical. There are no industry consensus standards that apply to the area of maintenance. Thus, the provisions of the Act do not apply to this rulemaking .

List of Subjects in 10 CFR Part 50 Antitrust, Classified information, Criminal penalties, Fire protection, Intergovernmental relations, Nuclear power plants and reactors, Radiation protection, Reactor siting criteria, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

For the reasons set out in the preamble and under the authority of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended; and 5 U.S.C.

552 and 553, the NRC is adopting the following amendments to 10 CFR Part 50.

25 PART 50 - DOMESTIC LICENSING OF PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION FACILITIES

1. The authority citation for Part 50 continues to read as follows:

AUTHORITY: Secs. 102, 103,104,105,161, 182, 183, 186, 189, 68 Stat. 936,937, 938, 948, 953, 954, 955, 956, as amended, sec. 234, 83 Stat. 444, as amended (42 U.S.C.

2132,2133,2134,2135,2201,2232,2233,2236,2239,2282);secs.201,asamended,202, 206, 88 Stat. 1242, as amended, 1244, 1246 (42 U.S.C. 5841, 5842, 5846).

Section 50.7 also issued under Pub. L.95-601, sec. 10, 92 Stat. 2951 (42 U.S.C. 5851).

Section 50.1 O also issued under secs. 101, 185, 68 Stat. 955, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2131, 2235), sec. 102, Pub. L.91-190, 83 Stat. 853 (42 U.S.C. 4332). Sections 50.13, 50.54(dd), and 50.103 also issued under sec. 108, 68 Stat. 939, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2138). Sections 50.23, 50.35, 50.55, and 50.56 also issued unrfor sec. 185, 68 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C. 2235).

Sections 50.33a, 50.55a and Appendix Q also issued under sec. 102, Pub. L.91-190, 83 Stat.

853 (42 U.S.C. 4332). Sections 50.34 and 50.54 also issued under sec. 204, 88 Stat. 1245 (42 U.S.C. 5844). Sections 50.58, 50.91, and 50.92 also issued under Pub. L.97-415, 96 Stat.

2073 (42 U.S.C. 2239). Section 50.78 also issued under sec. 122, 68 Stat. 939 (42 U.S.C.

2152). Sections 50.80-50.81 also issued under sec. 184, 68 Stat. 954, as amended (42 U.S.C.

2234). Appendix Falso issued under sec. 187, 68 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C. 2237).

2. In §50.65, an introductory paragraph is added, paragraph (a)(3) is revised, and a new paragraph (a)(4) is added to read as follows:

§50.65 Requirements for monitoring the effectiveness of maintenance at nuclear power plants.

The requirements of this section are applicable during all conditions of plant operation, including normal shutdown operations.

(a) * *

• 26 (3) Performance and condition monitoring activities and associated goals and preventive maintenance activities shall be evaluated at least every refueling cycle provided the interval between evaluations does not exceed 24 months. The evaluations shall take into account, where practical, industry-wide operating experience. Adjustments shall be made where necessary to ensure that the objective of preventing failures of structures, systems, and components through maintenance is appropriately balanced against the objective of minimizing unavailability of structures, systems, and components due to monitoring or preventive maintenance.

(4) Before performing maintenance activities (including but not limited to surveillance, post-maintenance testing, and corrective and preventive maintenance), the licensee shall assess and manage the increase in *risk that may result .from the proposed maintenance activities. The scope of the assessment may be limited to structures, systems, and components that a risk-informed evaluation process has shown to be significant to public health and safety.

• Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this~ day of July, 1999.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. *

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Annette Vietti-Cook, 1

Secretary of the Commission.

• .. '1 FirstEnergy DOCKETfD US C Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station 5501 North State Route 2 Oak Harbor, Ohio 43449-9760 "98 DEC 29 All :10 Serial Number 2578 OFH:.,

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December 15, 1998 ADJUD ,I Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudication Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555-001

Subject:

Comment on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance At Nuclear Power Plants (63 FR52201 dated September 30, 1998)

Ladies and Gentlemen; The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is soliciting public comments to the proposed rulemaking to 10CFR50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63FR52201 dated September 30, 1998). The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has provided final industry comments on the proposed rulemaking by letter dated December 14, 1998. The NEI letter requests that the proposed rule be withdrawn and re-noticed to reflect additional changes necessary to make the scope of the maintenance rule risk-informed, and to clarify issues with respect to the proposed terminology in the rule. Toledo Edison endorses the final industry comments submitted by NEI.

At the request of NEI to support the industry request regarding reduction in the overall scope of the rule, the following Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station specific information is provided:

184 Systems are within the scope of the current rule of 299 systems total' '** ...

83 Systems of the 184 are safety related.  ;~*

15 Systems of the 184 are risk significant, as determined by the expert pa~e(

72 Systems of the 83 safety related systems are risk significant. ' ,.

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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION RULEMAKINGS &AOJlDCATIONS STAFF OFFICE OFlffE SECRETARY Of TIE 00MMISSION OoallatW.

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. . ' Serial Number 2578 Page 2 Should you have any questions regarding this matter please contact Mr. James L. Freels, Manager - Regulatory Affairs at (419)321-8466.

Very truly yours Robert E. Donnellon Director, Engineering & Services cc: J. L. Caldwell, (Acting) Regional Administrator, NRC Region III A. G. Hansen, DB-1 NRC/NRR Project Manager, A. R. Pietrangelo, Nuclear Energy Institute K. S. Zellers, DB-1 (Acting) NRC Senior Resident Inspector Utility Radiological Safety Board,

-eED1SoN EDISON PLAZA 300 MADISON AVENUE TOLEDO . OHIO 43652 -0001

Perry Nuclear Power Plant FlrstEne~ DOCK[TED

!JS' 1kC 10 Center Road Perry, Ohio 44081 LewW. Myers 440-280-5915 Vice President

'98 DEC 28 P1 :37 Fax: 440-280-8029 December 17, 1998 PY-CEI/NRR-2351 L Secretary of the Commission DOCKET United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff PROPOSED fU.E II 5 o Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 ("3FR 5":l~~,)

Comments on Proposed Rule, 10 CFR 50.65, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants" Ladies and Gentlemen:

On September 30, 1998, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a proposed rule for public comment on 10CFR50.65, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants" (Federal Register Notice, Volume 63, Number 189). The Perry Nuclear Power Plant (PNPP) staff has reviewed the proposed rule, and based upon this review endorses the final Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) positions with respect to subjective and undefined terminology, elimination of duplicative regulatory controls, the broad scope of the proposed rule, the backfit determination, and the definition of "availability." Therefore, the PNPP staff requests the proposed rule be withdrawn and renoticed to reflect changes necessary to clarify or resolve the aforementioned issues, and make the scope of the rule risk-informed in light of the current reform initiatives underway within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

To support the NEI position regarding a reduction in the overall scope of the rule, the following PNPP-specific information is provided.

833 Total functions that are within the scope of the current rule.

598 Functions that are safety related.

136 Functions that are risk significant, as determined by the expert panel.

79 Functions that are both safety related and risk significant.

If you have questions or require additional information, please contact Mr. Henry L. Hegrat, Manager - Regulatory Affairs, at (440) 280-5606.

Very truly yours, cc: Nuclear Energy Institute lll ~4 1199

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. ._ *' C ROCHESTER GAS AND ELECTRIC CORPORATION

• 89 EAST AVENUE, ROCHESTER, N. Y. 14649-0001 AREA CODE 716 546-2700 ROBERT C. MECREDY December 14, 1998 '98 0EC 23 P2 :09 Vice President Nuclear Operations Or r1l J Mr. John C. Hoyle NJ I Secretary of the Commission U.S . Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C . 20555-0001 Attn: Rulemaking and Adjudication Staff

Subject:

Comments on Proposed Amendment to the Maintenance Rule, 63 Fed. Reg. 52201 (9/30/98)

Dear Mr. Hoyle:

Rochester Gas & Electric wishes to provide comments on the proposed amendments to 10CFR50.65, issued by the NRC on September 30, 1998 for public comment. In addition to our own comments, we wish to support the comments made by NEI, noting in particular that the Maintenance Rule, as envisioned and as could be developed, provides an excellent opportunity to implement risk-informed performance based regulation.

RG&E agrees with the basic principle espoused by the proposed Rule changes - that good safety assessments are to be performed when elective surveillance and maintenance activities are to be performed . To enhance our capability to perform these functions, a risk monitor has been installed at Ginna Station, which has been operational since February 1998. This risk monitor is used in conjunction with our Improved Technical Specifications to provide insights to maintain positive risk

• and safety control of plant configurations during maintenance evolutions .

Our concern with the proposed Rulemaking lies principally in the use of undefined terms in the Rule such as it stating that safety assessments 11 **

• shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in a risk-significant configuration or configurations that would degrade the performance or safety functions to an unacceptable level 11

• Since Ginna Station was licensed to deterministic safety criteria, and has used PSA only to provide insights to make risk-informed decisions, we have not defined from a regulatory perspective, quantitative values which would result in the plant being a "risk-significant configuration II or result in safety functions being at "an unacceptable level ". We believe we have the expertise to recognize such configurations , using our own expert judgement, but do not wish to have to argue such judgements in a Rule-compliance forum. Furthermore, we are coneerned that the term "safety assessment" could imply a definitive quantitative documented assessment of every plant configuration change associated with a maintenance activity . Although we currently assess such planned configuration changes, the level of documentation is based on the perceived significance of the change, and minor changes can be qualitatively screened out with no documentation other than engineering judgement. The wording of the proposed Rule, taken to an extreme could preclude sucli judgement.

• OEC 3 1

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Page 2 December 14, 1998 Thus, although RG&E endorses the concept envisioned by the Maintenance Rule (performance-based, not prescriptive compliance-based regulation), we cannot endorse the proposed changes to the Maintenance Rule due to the use of undefined terms which could cause future Regulatory compliance confusion, and also due to the fact that the proposed change is attempting to solve a "problem" by Regulation that a vast majority of licensees have already effectively implemented (only a small percentage of NRC inspection issues were associated with improper safety assessments).

~ours, RobertC M!/!17

Westinghouse Electric Company, a division of CBS Corporation OOCKE ED USNRC

.98 OEC 22 Al 1 :05 Box 355 Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 15230-0355 NSD-NRC-98-5817 OFF Rul :

ADJLJj,._ ,.~ l\,F December 16, 1998 DOCKET Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555-0001

SUBJECT:

Westinghouse Electric Company Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 -

September 30, 1998)

Westinghouse Electric Company offers the following comments relative to the Federal Register notice which solicited public comments on a proposed revision to the Maintenance Rule.

Westinghouse Electric Company participated in NEl's Regulatory Process Working Group, Maintenance Rule Revision Task Force, and supports NEl's efforts to simplify and focus the scope and implementation of the Maintenance Rule. Westinghouse Electric Company also encourages the NRC to use the changes in 10 CFR 50.65 as a starting point for utilization of risk informed strategies throughout 10 CFR 50.

We look forward to further dialogue with the NRC on this important matter.

Sincerely,

&.16Jde, Regulatory & Licensing Engineering cc: Mr. Sam Collins, NRC/NRR Mr. Ashok C, Thadani, NRC/RES Mr. Stewart L. Magruder, Jr., NRC/NRR Mr. Anthony R. Pietrangelo, NEI Mr. Biff Bradley, NEI Mr. Steve Fowler, WELCO

• f *.* , l Mr. Jack Bastin, WELCO 0118S OEC 3 1 1998

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DO CKE 1 - North Atlantif Ener!!:y Service Corporation North us.me P.O. Box 300 Seahrook, NU 03874 Atlantic (60:3) 474-9521

'98 DEC 22 Al 1 :05 The Northeast Utilities System December 15, 1998 NYN-98141 AR#98017986 Mr. John C. Hoyle DOCKEfNlMBER Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff PfUQE)fU.Ell 5o U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1.hF~5~.JoJ)

Washington, D. C. 20555-0001 Northeast Nuclear Energy Company & North Atlantic Energy Service Corporation Seabrook and Millstone Nuclear Power Stations Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to l O CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 - September 30, 1998)

The purpose of this letter is to provide the NRC with the Northeast Nuclear Energy Company (NNECO) and North Atlantic Energy Service Corporation (North Atlantic) responses to the request for public comments on proposed rulemaking to l O CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 -

September 30, 1998).

NNECO and North Atlantic endorse the comments being provided by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) on behalf of the nuclear industry. We are particularly concerned with the introduction of significant new and undefined terminology (i.e."ensure the plant is not placed in a risk significant configuration or configurations that would degrade performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level") directly into the rule language. The rulemaking should not proceed until the industry and NRC reach an understanding of these terms, and make appropriate revisions to the rule language to codify this understanding, or develop an alternative approach that accomplishes the same objective.

Specifically, we believe it is extremely important that the rule provide clear definition of terms.

This is essential to ensure that both the NRC and the licensee are evaluating maintenance activities from the same perspective. The lack of clear definition may result in the inefficient use of NRC and licensee resources and may not contribute to the protection of the health and safety of the public 0EC31~

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FtUll so Secretary of the Commission WiPR5Q:loi ) Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

Subject:

Consumers Energy Company Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 FR 52201)

Consumers Energy is pleased to offer the following comments regarding the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, published on September 30, 1998, to solicit comments on proposed changes to 10 CFR 50.65.

Consumers Energy Company endorses those comments filed on behalf of the nuclear industry by the Nuclear Energy Institute. We concur with NEI that the rulemaking as

• currently proposed should be withdrawn and revised to make them more risk informed and less burdensome. The following additional comments are provided in support of this position.

It is not appropriate to introduce subjective terms such as "risk significant configuration" into a rule without also adding clear definitions in the rule itself. A guidance document such as a Regulatory Guide should not be relied upon to provide those definitions.

Such an approach would effectively elevate the guidance document to the status of regulation, and would open the door to significant future changes in the scope of the regulation without the use of the rulemaking process.

As noted in the NEI comment letter, the current scope of the Maintenance Rule is significantly broader than those structures, systems, and components (SSCs) that would be considered risk significant. NEI points out that over three quarters of the systems in a plant are typically within the scope of the rule, and only approximately one third of those systems would be classified as risk significant. At Palisades, for example, 80 of 99 systems have been determined within the scope of the rule, but only

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36 of those 80 systems are classified as risk significant (term used is "High Risk Significant"). NEI is quite correct in stating that creation of a formal assessment requirement that applies to the entire set of SSCs within the Maintenance Rule's scope would be unwarranted and a significant additional burden. Flexibility must be retained to adjust the assessment rigor for each SSC to a level commensurate with its safety significance.

In summary, the proposed changes would actually move 10 CFR 50.65 in the direction of becoming more prescriptive. This approach appears to be in direct conflict with the objectives of the Commission to make regulations more risk informed and performance based. We urge the staff to withdraw the changes to the rule as currently proposed, and to work with the nuclear industry to develop rule language that better meets Commission objectives without undue additional burden.

- ii~

N~than L. Haskell Director, Licensing I

DOCKETED 11s qc CP&L

• 9s OEC 22 P2 :OO Carolina Power & Light Company PO Box 1551 411 Fayetteville Street Mall Raleigh NC 27 602 OF-,

RU,* '\_ 1..erial: PE&RAS-98-111 ADJL December 14, 1998 Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission Attn: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

Subject:

Comments on Proposed Rulemaking Amending 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 FR 52201)

Carolina Power and Light Company (CP&L) offers the following comments regarding the subject proposed rulemaking:

• CP&L concurs with comments submitted by the Nuclear Energy Institute on this proposed rulemaking. CP&L agrees that the rulemaking should be reconsidered as part of the Commission's recent activities to transition to a more risk-informed regulatory approach.

• CP&L supports the NRC's goal of ensuring that licensees adequately evaluate the risks associated with on-line maintenance. The Maintenance Rule has and should continue to address the effects of plant maintenance in a risk-informed, performance-based manner.

However, CP&L is concerned that the current implementation and enforcement practice for this rule has expanded considerably be;rond ;isl<-significan! SSCs.

• CP&L is concerned with the lack of specificity regarding the rigor or complexity of the required safety assessments proposed in paragraphs (a)(3) and (a)(4). The industry and NRC experienced considerable misunderstandings during implementation of the initial Maintenance Rule due to ambiguity. CP&L urges that these lessons be carefully considered before implementing changes.

• CP&L is concerned with the financial aspects of the regulatory analysis for the proposed rulemaking. The cost estimates ($320,000 initial cost per facility, and $75,000 annual use and maintenance cost per facility) are reasonable if the scope of the required assessments is limited to risk significant SSCs. However, if facilities are required to develop numerical models for every combination of non-risk significant SSCs removed from service or an acceptable deterministic evaluation for these combinations, the cost will be significantly greater than estimated.

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION RUt.EMAKINGS&ADJlDCATIONS STAFF OFRCEOFMSEDElMY OFTHECOA1ISSION DocllllatSlallalca Poslmark Date Copies Received I

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Mr. John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 2 of2

• CP&L is concerned about an apparent trend of the NRC placing increasing significance on the specific Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) numbers. During the Individual Plant Examination (IPE) development process, the NRC and the industry agreed that the PRA insights were meaningful. Recently, the NRC has suggested establishing limits on absolute core damage frequency and sliding-scale delta core damage frequency. CP&L believes a site-to-site comparison of core damage frequencies is less meaningful due to differences in PRA modeling assumptions, data gathering techniques, human reliability analysis methods, level of detail, and uncertainty. This focus on the absolute PRA values rather than on relative risk contributors and insights is inappropriate for the current PRA technology.

CP&L appreciates the opportunity to provide input on this important issue and looks forward to working with the NRC toward a mutually beneficial, risk-informed and performance-based rule.

If you have any further questions regarding these comments, please contact me at (919) 546-6901.

Sincerely,

\,., " i; A(w,,.-L '-

Donna B. Alexander Manager, Performance Evaluation and Regulatory Affairs

I James M. Levine TEL (602)393-5300 Mail Station 7602 Palo Verde Nuclear Senior Vice President FAX (60~rt3 ~pj7 PO B 52034 Generating Station Nuclear *9s OEC. 22  ;. .. ox AZ 85072-2034 Phoenix, 102-04221-JMUSAB/MLG o.: * ;- December 11 , 1998

....., :1 l \,....d Secretary of the Commission AD~\,

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudication's Staff OOCKEfNIJ&HPI PROPOSED Rlli So

Dear Sirs:

(8 ~ S;?~ol)

Subject:

Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station (PVNGS)

Units 1, 2 and 3 Docket Nos. STN 50-528/529/530 Comments on NRC Proposed Changes to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements For Monitoring The Effectiveness Of Maintenance At Nuclear Power Plants.

In the September 30, 1998 Federal Register (63 FR 52201-52206), the NRG solicited comments on the proposed changes to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for monitoring the effectiveness of maintenance at nuclear power plants. APS has reviewed the proposed changes to 10 CFR 50.65 and is providing the attached comments for consideration.

APS also endorses the NEI comments on this subject. Specifically, APS supports the position that the rulemaking should be withdrawn and renoticed with a corresponding change to risk-inform the scope of the maintenance rule as described in 10 CFR 50.65(b). APS is also in agreement with the NEI position that the rulemaking should not proceed until the industry and the NRG reach an understanding of the undefined, subjective terminology used in the proposed rule, and make appropriate revisions to the rule language to codify this understanding.

APS would also recommend that Regulatory Guide 1.160 Revision 3 be issued prior to the completion of rulemaking. The regulatory guide is referenced in the proposed rule but is not available for review.

Additional comments are provided in the enclosure to this letter.

No commitments are being made to the NRG by this letter.

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Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Comments on NRG Proposed Changes to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements For Monitoring The Effectiveness Of Maintenance At Nuclear Power Plants.

Page 2 Please contact Mr. Scott Bauer at (602) 393-5978 if you have any questions or would like additional information regarding this matter.

Sincerely, 1 1/)

~ JU\~

I JMUSAB/MLG/rlh Attachment cc: E. W. Merschoff M. B. Fields J. H. Moorman

ENCLOSURE Comments on the Proposed Rulemaking 10 CFR 50.65

Comments on the Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 CHANGE 1.

Add an introductory paragraph to 10 CFR 50.65 clarifying that the proposed rule applies under all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown.

Prior to paragraph (a)(1 ), add the following wording: "The requirements of this section are applicable during all conditions of plant operation, including normal shutdown operations." The intent of this paragraph is to ensure that safety assessments are performed before maintenance activities when the plants are shut down as well as when the plants are at power. The shutdown condition may be defined in a plant's technical specifications, but the intent of this paragraph is that shutdown is generally considered as a time when all control rods are inserted and the average reactor coolant temperature is below 200 deg. F.

APS COMMENT

1. Although this does not conflict significantly with Palo Verde's definition of "Cold Shutdown," it adds a potential regulatory expectation that will be left open to interpretation. The proposed wording applies to Mode 5 (Cold Shutdown), as well as Mode 6 (Refueling). The "general" statement made in the SECY 98-165 letter is not consistent with the real scope of concern. The proposed change should better define what "normal shutdown operations" includes. There may be significant potential for finding utilities in violation of 10 CFR 50.65 while remaining in full compliance with Technical Specifications if this language is adopted in 10 CFR 50.65, NU MARC 93-01 or Regulatory Guide 1.160 .

Comments on the Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 CHANGE 2.

Delete the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) and create a new paragraph, (a)(4), that requires the performance of safety assessments.

The proposed rule would remove the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) and would add a new paragraph, (a)(4), as follows in its entirety: "Before performing maintenance activities on structures, systems, or components within the scope of this section (including, but not limited to, surveillance testing, post-maintenance testing, corrective maintenance, performance/condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance), an assessment of the current plant configuration as well as expected changes to plant configuration that will result from the proposed maintenance activities shall be conducted to determine the overall effect on performance of safety functions. The results of this assessment shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." Deleting the current last sentence in paragraph (a)(3) will remove the recommendation for performing safety assessments from the paragraph that contains the periodic, programmatic, long-term review considerations of the rule.

Creating a new paragraph, (a)(4), specifically for the safety assessment requirements would cause the assessment concept to stand as a separate entity within the maintenance rule.

APS COMMENTS

1. The proposed change addresses the concern that facilities were only looking at monitoring and preventive maintenance activities within the scope of 10 CFR 50.65 as being subject to the safety assessments. The term "maintenance activities" differs among utilities. APS currently refers to maintenance activities as work orders and specific maintenance jobs. In this case, the scope of the NRC use of maintenance activities correlates more closely to what Palo Verde would describe as work types (Corrective Work Orders, Surveillance Test Work Orders, Preventive Maintenance Work Orders, Deficiency Work Orders, etc.).

APS reviews all maintenance activities (i.e., work types) on System, Structures, and Components (SSCs) scoped within 10 CFR 50.65 for effects on plant operations. This is an important concept to understand if we are to consistently and correctly understand and interpret the scope of the proposed changes.

2

Comments on the Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65

2. SECY 98-165 makes the following Statements:

A. The Commission believes it is necessary to explicitly require licensees to perform safety assessments prior to removing equipment from service for maintenance during all conditions of plant operations including normal shutdown.

APS Comment:

The reference to removing equipment from service is very general in nature and deviates from the normal language found in 10 CFR 50.65.

Replacing the term "equipment" with "SSCs within the scope of the rule" in this phrase would change the complexion of the entire statement and more clearly states the NRC's intent.

B. The Commission desires to clarify that the rule does apply during shutdown conditions. Regarding which activities would be preceded by a safety assessment, the Commission has recognized that, although definitions regarding maintenance activities are fairly consistent from organization to organization, there is some variation in the definition of corrective maintenance.

APS Comment:

The Palo Verde definition of activities differs significantly from the NRC's as noted in comment #1 above.

3. The proposed change does not address situations where failure to perform maintenance would have a greater impact on risk or safety functions than performing the risk significant maintenance activities.

3

Comments on the Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 CHANGE 3.

Define in paragraph (a)(4) the scope of the requirement for performing those assessments to be all conditions of operation including normal shutdown. The proposed rule would add the following in paragraph (a)(4) to define the scope of pre-maintenance safety assessments: "Before performing maintenance activities on structures, systems, or components within the scope of this section (including, but not limited to, surveillance testing, post-maintenance testing, corrective maintenance, performance/condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance),

an assessment * *

• shall be conducted * * * ." The NRC's intent is that licensees perform safety assessments before all planned maintenance activities that require removing from service equipment that is within the scope of the maintenance rule, as defined in 10 CFR 50.65(b) and (a)(1). The safety assessments required in this paragraph need not be sophisticated probabilistic risk assessment analyses in all cases. Licensees would have the flexibility to use probabilistic and/or deterministic methods, as appropriate, when performing the safety assessments required by paragraph (a)(4).

APS COMMENTS

1. The 10 CFR 50.65 proposed change does not address the quality of safety assessment tools required for the two types of safety assessments (i.e., at-power and shutdown conditions). The quality and sophistication of the safety assessment tools are important to assure appropriate analyses of plant configurations for risk management purposes.

2. The proposed change should consider providing guidance on documenting the limitations of assessment tools, and when operator judgment can be relied upon for safety assessment.

3. The proposed change does not specify if documentation of the assessment is required. If specific documentation is required to be maintained it should be discussed in the rule.

4. The proposed change does not define what constitutes an acceptable assessment.

4

Comments on the Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 CHANGE 4.

Specify in paragraph (a)(4) that the safety assessments are to examine the extant plant condition and the condition expected during the planned maintenance activity. The proposed rule would include the following wording in paragraph (a)(4): " ... an assessment of the current plant configuration as well as expected changes to the plant configuration that will result from the proposed maintenance activities ...". The NRC's intent is that a reasonable safety assessment be performed. The assessment may range from simple and straightforward to complex. However, notwithstanding the degree of sophistication required for the assessment, the NRC intends that the assessment will examine the plant condition existing prior to the commencement of the maintenance activity and examine the changes expected by the proposed maintenance activity.

APS COMMENTS

1. The proposed rule does not provide for emergent work that, if not completed immediately, would place the plant at greater risk.

2. An assessment of the plant configuration may need to be updated in the event emergent work results in a configuration different from the one assessed. In such cases, the revision to the assessment must be weighted against the urgency of the emergent work. The proposed rule does not address expectations for revising the assessment. Such expectations would most appropriately belong in Regulatory Guide 1.160 or NUMARC 93-01.

3. The plant configuration should be defined as Maintenance Rule SSCs in the scope of 10 CFR 50.65.

5

Comments on the Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 CHANGE 5.

Specify in paragraph (a)(4) that the objective of performing the safety assessments is to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level. The proposed rule would add in paragraph (a)(4) the wording to specify the NRC's expectations regarding the use of each safety assessment, as follows: "The results of this assessment shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." The NRC's intent is to require that each licensee perform a safety assessment before undertaking each planned maintenance activity and be aware of the risk issues associated with that maintenance activity. The guidance to be developed for licensees and promulgated in Regulatory Guide 1.160, Revision 3 (proposed), is expected to assist the industry in implementing this provision of the proposed rule, providing guidance regarding risk-significant configurations and unacceptable levels of safety function degradation.

APS COMMENTS

1. The 10 CFR 50.65 revIsIon has undefined terms, such as "risk-significant configurations" and "unacceptable level" of degradation. The rulemaking should not proceed until industry and the NRC reach an understanding of these terms.

2. The proposed Regulatory Guide 1.160 Revision 3 has not been issued for comments. It needs to be available for comments in parallel with the proposed rule change. The Regulatory Guide should endorse NUMARC 93-01.

3. "Performance of safety functions" needs to be defined. The degradation of performance should be evaluated by its impact on Core Damage Frequency and Large Early Release Frequency.

6

P.O. Box 14000, Juno Beach, FL 33408-0420 DEC 1 0 1998 John C. Hoyle "98 DEC 22 P2 :qg98 _306 Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

)

Washington, DC 20555 i\fF Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Re: Florida Power & Light Company Comments Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants DOCKET PRCflOSEDIU.E NIIIIERPI So (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 (Sept. 30, 1998)) ( IP3FR5R:Jol)

Dear Mr. Hoyle:

Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the licensed operator of the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, and the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant, Units 3 and 4, hereby submits the following comments on the above-referenced notice of proposed rulemaking. FPL also endorses the comments of the Nuclear Energy Institute on the proposed rulemaking.

While FPL supports the concept of the proposed rulemaking, which attempts to address the importance of plant configuration control during power operations and during normal shutdown operations, FPL has significant concerns with the rule as proposed. In short, FPL is concerned that the rule would add terminology in the maintenance rule that is subjective, leading to significant difficulties in implementation. Further, FPL does not agree that the rule should apply the requirement to assess out of service equipment to all structures, systems, and components covered by the maintenance rule, including those of no or low risk significance.

In this regard, FPL endorses NEI' s recommendation that NRC withdraw and renotice the proposed rule with changes to risk-inform the scope of the maintenance rule.

Should NRC decline to withdraw and renotice the proposed rule, FPL recommends that NRC incorporate in a final rule the changes and clarifications suggested in the NEI comments on the proposed rulemaking. Most importantly, the terminology used in the rule should be carefully defined to promote clarity in implementation.

We appreciate the opportunity to comment on this important issue.

. t.

Sincerely yours,

[) J - ~ \ v S - ~

Raji:~. Kundalkar Vice President ..

Nuclear Engineering cc: Anthony Pietrangelo, Nuclear Energy Institute an FPL Group compar.y

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION RUtEMAKINGS &ADJUDICATIONS SfAFF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSION OocllnentStatiellcs Pos1mark Date I ":J- /; G / CJ 8

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WASHINGTON PU BLI C POWER SUPPLY SYSTEM P.O. Box 968

• Richland, Washington 99352-0968 "98 DEC 21 P2 :55 December 15, 1998 GO2-98-212 The Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 50 Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Washington, DC 20555-0001 Gentlemen:

Subject:

COMMENTS ON PROPOSED RULEMAKING TO 10 CFR 50.65, REQUIREMENTS FOR MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS (63 FED. REG. 52201, SEPTEMBER 30, 1998)

In a Federal Register Notice of September 30, 1998, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) solicited comments on proposed amendments to its regulations that would impose additional requirements on licensees to assess the cumulative effect of out-of-service equipment on the plant's capability to perform safety functions before beginning any maintenance activity on structures, systems, or components within the scope of the maintenance rule (10 CFR 50.65). The proposed amendment would also clarify that the proposed rule applies under all conditions of operation including normal shutdown, that the safety assessments include both the plant conditions before and those expected during planned maintenance activities, and that the safety assessments are to be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in a condition of significant risk or a condition that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

The Supply System fully endorses the comments provided by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) for the proposed rule and believes that the proposed rulemaking should be withdrawn in its present form. As noted in the NEI comments, the proposed rule uses subjective terms that must be more clearly defined and understood; unacceptably applies the assessment requirement to the entire scope of maintenance rule structures, systems and components (SSCs); and establishes redundant requirements for SSCs currently subject to Technical Specification allowed outage times. In addition to the NEI comments, we offer the following comments:

• Item 3 of the five proposed changes - The proposed rule should explicitly state the NRC intent "that licensees perform safety assessments before all planned maintenance activities that require removing from service equipment that is within the scope of the maintenance rule ... "

Without this explicit statement in the rule itself, it could be interpreted that all maintenance, including diagnostics such as vibration readings, would require an assessment.

lJ ,uvLt:AA REGULATORY COMMl88K)N f1LJLEMAKINGS &ADJtJOICATKNIGIF OFFICE OF THE SECREmR'f OF THE COMMIS8DI Documn St l1Bia Postmark Date ~ft'°/ q8 Copies Received Add'I Copie6 ~

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COMMENTS ON PROPOSED RULEMAKING TO 10 CFR 50.65, REQUIREMENTS FOR MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS (63 FED. REG. 52201, SEPTEMBER 30, 1998)

Page 2

• Further clarification for item 3 should be provided regarding the safety assesment. The rule is too vague and subjective, resulting in a range of interpretations, implementation inconsistencies, and subjective enforcement reviews.

We appreciate this opportunity to comment on the proposed rule. Should you have questions or require further information please contact me or RR McQuoid at (509) 377-4262.

Respectfully, y-"".:j t~ .t, Q)~

GO Smith Vice President, Generation Mail Drop 927M cc: AR Pietrangelo

123 Main Street White Plains, New York 10601 914 681.6950 914 287.3309 (Fax)

DOCK ET ED U. Nt.C

, . NewYorkPower '98 DEC 21 A9 :27 James Knubel Senior Vice President and

. , Authori1y Chief Nuclear Officer OF. :r RL' ADJ!_

December 14, 1998 JPN-98-050 IPN-98-138 The Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission DOCKETIIIIEA Washington, DC 20555-0001 PRCR)SB)IU.E 50

~3FR5"~~,

SUBJECT:

Indian Point 3 Nuclear Power Plant Docket No. 50-286 James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant Docket No. 50-333 Comments on Proposed Rule Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants

REFERENCES:

1. Federal Register, September 30, 1998, Volume 63, Number 189, pages 52201-52206.

2. NEI letter, A. R. Pietrangelo to John C. Hoyle, USNRC, "Industry Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.56, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 -

September 30, 1998)".

Dear Sir:

The Authority has reviewed the notice soliciting comments on the subject proposed rule change (Reference 1 ). The Authority has also reviewed the comments being submitted on behalf of the nuclear power industry by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) (Reference 2).

The Authority endorses and supports the position presented in NEl's letter.

• The NEI letter documents several concerns with the proposed change, including :. .

• the introduction of subjective new terminology into the regulations (e.g., "risk significant configuration" and "degrade performance ... to an unacceptable level"), .. ,r **

. ,. \ ' ** . "

• the establishment of duplicative regulatory controls for plant structures, system s or- .**f * .,.

components (SSCs) that already have configuration and operability requirements t,Ee22-- .

Ad<nowtedgedby eald .................. ,. '

S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ULEMAKINGS &ADJlJ)ICA110NS STAFF OFFICE OF'llfE SECRETARY OF THE C0MMtSm0N DoclllSP't . . . .

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delineated in the plant Technical Specifications,

• the impractical scope of SSCs that would be subject to the proposed assessment requirement.

Details of each of the above concerns are provided in Reference 2.

While the Authority generally supports the transition to a more risk-informed regulatory approach, the above concerns must be addressed to ensure that the maintenance rule can properly serve as a model of risk-informed and performance-based regulation. The Authority encourages the NRC staff to withdraw the proposed change and to work with the nuclear power industry and other stakeholders to accomplish this goal.

This letter does not contain any new commitments. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact the Director - Nuclear Licensing, Ms. C. D. Faison.

Very tr: l7 rs, .

• fJJ--y

. Knubel Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer cc: Regional Administrator U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 1 9406 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Attn: Document Control Desk Mail Stop P1-137 Washington, DC 20555 Office of the Resident Inspector U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission P.O. Box 136 Lycoming, NY 13093 Office of the Resident Inspector U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Indian Point 3 P. 0. Box 337 Buchanan, NY 10511 2

Mr. George F. Wunder, Project Manager Project Directorate 1-1 Division of Reactor Projects 1/11 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mail Stop 14B2 Washington, DC 20555 Mr. J. Williams, Project Manager Project Directorate 1-1 Division of Reactor Projects 1/11 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mail Stop 14B2 Washington, DC 20555 3

-=-Entergy DOC1c-KiR:*,

U ._ J ETED

,V Entergy Operations, Inc.

PO . Box 3 1995 Jackson . MS 39286-1995 Tel 60 1 368 5760 Michael R. Kansler Vice P1eside11t "98 DEC 18 AlO :40 Ope rat ions Sup port December 14, 1998 Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission DOCKET U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission PRCR>SEDfU.E 0 Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 r,3 F~6~:;oi)

Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff

SUBJECT:

Comments on Proposed R.ulemaking to ~ 0 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (Federal Register/ Vol. 63, No.189 / Wednesday, September 30, 1998 / Proposed Rules / pp. 52201 -52006)

CNRO-98/00026 Ladies and Gentlemen:

Entergy Operations, Inc. offers the following comments on the proposed changes to 10 CFR 50.65. These comments are being submitted in response to the Federal Register notice (referenced above), which solicited comments on the subject proposed changes.

Entergy recognizes the importance of plant configuration control during both power operations and normal shutdown conditions and supports the concept of this proposed rulemaking. Further, we understand the NRC's intention to effect rulemaking that would codify the effective Maintenance Rule practices that have been identified through the inspection process. This notwithstanding, however, we are concerned that the language in the proposed changes will result in more substantial impacts on existing practices than intended and quite possibly not achieve the desired results.

As part of our evaluation, our site staffs have reviewed and discus~!:' th : ~u.c lear Energy lnstitute's (N EI) recommendations on the proposed rule chang ,;. "' I i/

• . ys. .rongly endorse the NEl's recommendation that the proposed rulemaking be WJ . dJaV'{ri.in order to promulgate a more risk-informed approach to maintenance ru le implementation and regulation.  ;,v-,: ~- , , ,

OE.C 2 2J_991 AclcnowtedgedbyCffd_ _ _~

LI.S. NUCLEAR REGUlAltlWC01ffll$Cfil RULEMAKINGS&ADIUMIDll'I IIF OFFICE OF'INE- IU1(

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Mr. John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 CNRO-98/00026 Page 2 of 2 We respectfully request your careful consideration of the attached comments and the NEl's recommendations. We also welcome further dialog in this regard.

Sincerely, MRK/CCW/baa attachment cc: Mr. C. M. Dugger (W-3)

Mr. R. K. Edington (RBS)

Mr. W. A. Eaton (GGNS)

Mr. C. R. Hutchinson (ANO)

Mr. J. R. McGaha (ECH)

Mr. George F. Dick, NRC Project Manager (Entergy)

Mr. Jack N. Donohew, NRC Project Manager (GGNS)

Mr. Robert J. Fretz, NRC Project Manager (RBS)

Mr. Nicolas D. Hilton, NRC Project Manager (ANO)

Mr. Mark C. Nolan, NRC Project Manager (ANO)

Mr. Chandu P. Patel, NRC Project Manager (W-3)

Attachment to CNRO-98/00026 Comments on Proposed Rule Change to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants

1. The proposed change introduces subjective terminology ("ensure that the plant is not placed in risk significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level") directly into the rule language. This subjective terminology in conjunction with the absence of a draft regulatory guide to accompany the proposed rule change will promote regulatory inconsistency, unnecessary inspection and enforcement issues, and the informal establishment of regulatory expectations through the inspection process. We believe it is of paramount importance that the rule language be explicit if a consistently acceptable level of implementation is to be achieved. We further believe the rulemaking should not proceed until a clear understanding of the terms between the industry and the NRG is reached and revisions to the rule language are made to codify this understanding.

2. The proposed change could be interpreted to apply the assessment requirement to the entire scope of maintenance rule structures, systems, and components, including those of low or no risk significance. This approach is contrary to the spirit of risk-informed regulation, and does not reflect current programs that have made substantial investments in risk management techniques, models, and tools to support the assessment.

3. The proposed paragraph (a)(4) states that an assessment shall be performed "Before performing maintenance activities ... " on any SSC. This would imply that if a safety related component failed, assessments would have to be performed prior to commencing corrective maintenance. Since a limiting condition of operation with a pre-established allowed outage time for that component would exist, delaying corrective maintenance on a safety related component would be unnecessary and a reduction in overall plant safety. We believe that the essential intent of this change refers more specifically to elective and planned maintenance. Although we believe the intent of the changes is to "perform safety assessments before all planned maintenance activities that require removing from service ... "the rule language is not so explicit.

4. The proposed paragraph (a)(4) includes a phrase" .. an assessment of the current plant configuration as well as expected changes to plant configuration that will result from the proposed maintenance activities .. " The intent, we believe, is to assess the plant condition planned and expected during the planned maintenance activity, however, different interpretations might well arise from this phrase. Plants undergo hundreds of maintenance activities at the subcomponent level, and at some point, engineering judgement is required to relate the subcomponent maintenance activity to the availability of the component. Describing in a uniform and regulated manner, how these individual and aggregated activities affect component availability, or how they affect the overall safety function performance, could be viewed as necessary to meet the proposed regulation. The shear number of combinations to be assessed 1

Attachment to CNRO-98/00026 would suggest this to be a considerable effort, even if the assessment were constrained to the "high safety significant SSCs". To require this level of assessment, is in our view counterproductive to safety in that it would distract resources and attention from more important activities.

5. The proposed regulation would establish a duplicative regulatory regime for SSCs currently subject to Technical Specifications allowed outage time requirements. In this regard, the NRC should consider conforming changes in the format and nature of Technical Specifications to reflect the establishment of this configuration assessment requirement in the regulations. Without such integration, the duplicative regimes will have a measurable economic impact on plant activities with no resulting benefit.

6. The proposed change states that "an assessment ... shall be conducted." With the change from "should" to "shall", the subject of proving that the assessment was actually performed will likely arise. The rule is unclear as to whether it is an expectation that the process of performing these assessments be documented or an expectation that the results be documented. We believe that the rule must be very clear on this matter.

2

MP DOCKETE D Northern States Power Company 414 Nicollet Mall Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401-1993 l lSNRG Telephone (612) 330-5500 "98 DEC 18 AlO:39 December 14, 1998 Of* I ,i.... c I f r h: ;'_r.:\ I Comments on Proposed AOJl l[J!( I ' F Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 The Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Attention: Rulemak:ings and Adjudications Staff

Reference:

Federal Register, September 30, 1998, Volume 63, Number 189, Page 52,201, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants."

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the proposed rulemak:ing to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (the Maintenance Rule).

Northern States Power Company (NSP) has reviewed the proposed rulemak:ing. The purpose of this rulemak:ing is cle.trly to ensure acceptable plant configuration control during both power operations and normal shutdown operations. NSP is fully committed to this concept and has always treated the existing Rule language on configuration control as a requirement rather than just a recommendation. Both NSP's Monticello and Prairie Island plants have programs in place to assess plant configuration during all modes of operation to ensure that risk is minimized.

However, NSP is concerned that the proposed rulemaking language would create significant impacts on existing practices. These issues need to be addressed before proceeding.

The proposed wording for paragraph (a)(4) specifically states that an conducted before performing maintenance activities on structures, systems, within the scope of the Rule. However, if the maintenance activity does not r*&fl1*1Uiwti!i~int~~

removed from service, an assessment should not be necessary. The wording should s state that the SSC must be removed from service before an assessment is requir .

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission December 14, 1998 Page Two In addition, the proposed regulation could be viewed as requiring an assessment to be performed for every SSC within the Rule that is removed from service regardless of whether the SSC is of little or no risk significance or whether a system function is affected. To require assessments to be performed at this level would be burdensome, would provide little additional insight with respect to plant risk, and may even be counterproductive to plant safety since plant resources and attention may be distracted from more important activities.

At the Monticello plant, 81 of the plant's 94 systems are within the scope of the Rule. Of these 81 systems, only 33 are classified as risk significant for the Rule. Approximately 60 percent of the in-scope systems at Monticello are not risk significant. At the Prairie Island plant, 129 of the plant's 154 systems are within the scope of the Rule. Of these 129 systems, only 54 systems are classified as risk significant. More than half of the in-scope systems at Prairie Island are not risk significant. Any component removed from service in one of these non-risk significant systems would require an assessment to be performed. This would be a large task with very little, if any, additional insights gained.

The proposed paragraph (a)(4) introduces phrases such as "risk-significant configurations" and "configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level."

These phrases need to be explicitly defined to avoid unnecessary inspection and enforcement actions in the future.

By separate letter, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has provided industry comments on the proposed rulemaking. NSP endorses these comments especially the recommendation to revise and renotice the proposed rulemaking in an effort to make the Rule a model for truly risk-informed, performance-based regulation.

We respectively request that our comments be considered in future Commission action on this matter.

Yours very truly,

~~~&)~

President, NSP Nuclear Generation c: Roger 0. Anderson (NSP)

DOCKETED US IR J "98 DH' 17 All :35 OF*,::1, ,

Joseph A. GoJ:1ye~u. P.E.

P.O. Box eM) ~.f: t Cannon Falls, MN 55009 507 -263-0853 December 14, 1998 Mr. John C. Hoyle, Secretary Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Comments on Proposed Rule Change 10 CFR Part 50.65 I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the rule change, entitled " Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," proposed in the Federal Register on September 30, 1998.

I can understand why the Commission is concerned that maintenance be conducted taking risk impact into account. In contrast to the commission's apprehension about licensee performance in this area, I would expect that most plants do conduct the assessment required by the proposed section (a)(4) although the assessment may not always be well articulated or documented. My reasoning is explained below.

In summary, the rule change, as proposed, should not be implemented for two (2) main reasons:

1. The proposed wording of section (a)(4) is not explicit enough to provide adequate guidance regarding documentation expectations of the NRC For systems and components included in such risk assessment tools as SAIC's EOOS, the assessment is usually conducted as part of the assessment of future weeks' work. This assessment may be documented.

For structures, systems, and components (SSCs) not included in the IPE and risk assessment tool. such assessment is often done on an intuitive basis by the engineer, scheduler, operator, or supervisor before the work is done.

Documentation may take the form of precautions, special considerations, or Adfflc,w1edged1'yeanf-1'EC;.;.;..-2_2_1_99l__

. procedural steps or notes. However, many times such assessment is not documented.

I am concerned that the rule is silent regarding whether documentation should exist and leaves the door open for future disagreements between licensee staff and NRC enforcement personnel. If NRC believes the adage "if it (the assessment) is not on paper, it does not exist" applies in this case, then the regulation should address the issue.

If the Commission does believe that more extensive documentation should exist for such assessments, then an unnecessary burden is being placed on most licensees.

Some examples where such an unnecessary burden would occur include:

1. Surveillance tests where equipment is not taken out of service or involves non-risk significant equipment,

2. Maintenance of any form conducted on SSCs that do not take equipment out of service,

3. Maintenance conducted that has no impact on plant operation, e.g. coating outside structures.

2. The proposed wording of section (a)(4) is too broad in scope In fact, risk-significant SSCs are very limited (likely less than 500 components) compared to the breadth of SSCs (likely more than 10,000 per unit) required to be in scope to the Maintenance Rule.

I suggest that this rule, if implemented, should be limited to those functions and flow paths truly considered to be risk significant. Below are listed likely candidates for consideration under the rule and exceptions based on their low or no contribution to risk.

Examples of risk significant functions and scope for many nuclear plants are:

Auxiliary/ Emergency Feedwater

• Provides water from the Condensate Storage Tank(s) and Cooling Water sources for secondary heat removal during accident conditions.

• Includes the suction of Turbine-driven and Motor-driven Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps to the steam generators and cross-connect line between Motor-driven Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps Boric Acid Storage Tank Level transmitters

• Provide signals to establish Safety Injection pump suction from the Refueling Water Storage Tank when low level occurs in the Boric Acid Storage Tank.

• Includes the level transmitters and related circuits.

Component Cooling

• Provide cooling for Residual Heat Removal heat exchangers, Reactor Coolant Pump thermal barrier, and related safeguards components during shutdown and accident conditions.

• Includes piping, valves, components from Component Cooling surge tank to Component Cooling pump suctions to Residual Heat Removal Heat Exchangers Emergency Service/ Cooling Water

• Provide heat removal for Diesel-driven Emergency Service/Cooling Water Pumps, diesel generators, and Component Cooling heat exchangers during accident conditions.

• Provide pressure boundary so that screenhouse or Auxiliary Feedwater Pump-Air Compressor room does not flood .

• Provide backup suction supply for Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps should Condensate Storage Tank be unavailable.

• Includes piping and components from vertical Motor-driven and Diesel-driven Cooling Water Pumps to air compressors, diesel generators, Component Cooling heat exchangers, Auxiliary Feedwater Pump suction .

Containment Spray

• Provide flow to reduce containment pressure

• Includes Containment Spray piping and components between Refueling Water Storage Tank and Containment Safety Related Emergency Diesel Generators

• Provide electrical power during emergency conditions coincident with loss of offsite power; provide diesel generator related sub-system cooling.

• Includes diesel generators and sub-systems required for the diesel generator to function.

DC System

• Provide DC control power for safeguards components listed.

• Includes Batteries to DC panels supplying DC through fuses to control power for Diesel-driven Cooling Water Pumps, Reactor Trip/Protection, Safety Injection Aux Relays, Pressurizer Power Operated Relief Valves, Reactor Building

Instrument Air Isolation Valves, Turbine-driven Auxiliary Feedwater Pump steam supply valve, Load sequencers 4160 VAC

• Provides power for operation of safeguards 4160 VAC fed Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps, Component Cooling pumps, Containment Spray pumps, Safety Injection pumps, Residual Heat Removal pumps, 121 Cooling Water Pump during accident conditions;

• Provides sequenced load restoration to prevent overloading diesel generators.

• Circuits related to load-reject and restoration, SBO room cooling fan; Circuits supplying power to Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps, Component Cooling Pumps, Containment Spray Pumps, Residual Heat Removal pumps, 121 Cooling Water pump; Circuits supplying power from offsite and diesel generators 480VAC

• Provides power for operation of safeguards 480 VAC fed MOVs, air compressors, etc. during accident conditions.

• Includes circuits supplying power from 4160 VAC buses to the safeguards 480 VAC buses and for safeguards 480 VAC buses to loads.

120/240 VAC

• Provide power for fuel oil transfer pumps; temperature control of 4160 VAC bus rooms (this is likely to be a plant-specific issue).

• Includes electrical circuits which provide power to the fuel oil transfer pumps and the 4160 VAC bus rooms.

Fuel assemblies Provide fission product boundary Fuel Oil Provides fuel oil for diesel generator and diesel driven cooling water pump operation during accident conditions.

• Flow paths from Fuel Oil Storage Tanks to the Diesel driven Cooling Water Pumps and to the Diesel Generators. (Also includes the circuitry involved with refilling the day tank for the Diesel-driven Cooling Water Pumps and the Diesel Generators).

Main Steam

• Provides secondary heat removal during transient and accident conditions.

• Provides motive power (steam) for secondary heat removal during accident conditions using Turbine-driven Auxiliary Feedwater Pump.

• Includes flow paths from the steam generators to the power operated relief valves and safeties, condenser steam dump, and the steam supply to the Turbine-driven Auxiliary Feedwater Pump.

Nuclear Instrumentation

• Provides reactor shutdown when required.

• Includes Source, Intermediate, Power Ranges which provide inputs for automatic shutdown, but not Gammametrics, since it does not.

Reactor Coolant Provides pressure boundary.

Provides overpressure protection.

Provides feed and bleed capability.

• Provides depressurization capability during steam generator tube rupture.

• Spray valves are risk significant for the fail to close mode only.

• Includes flow paths for Pressurizer PORVs , Safety, and Spray valves; Reactor Coolant System pressure boundary Residual Heat Removal

• Provides emergency makeup during injection and recirculation phases .

Provides Reactor Coolant System cooling during shutdown and accident conditions.

Includes flow paths for suction from the Refueling Water Storage Tank, Containment Sump, and Reactor Coolant System Loops to the Residual Heat Removal pumps to cooling in the Residual Heat Removal heat exchangers then discharging to the Reactor Coolant System Loops and Reactor Vessel Reactor Protection System

• Provides reactor shutdown when required.

Reactor Vessel (including internals)

• Provides pressure boundary.

• Support fuel and provide coolable geometry.

Station/ Instrument Air

• Provides air to pressurizer PORVs for feed and bleed operations during accident conditions.

• Includes flow paths from the air compressors supplying air to the containment and subsequently to the pressurizer PORVs and SG PORVs.

Spent Fuel Cooling

• Provide storage and cooling of spent fuel.

• Includes piping, pumps, and heat exchangers.

Steam generator tubes

• Provide pressure boundary.

Safety Injection

• Provide emergency makeup during injection and recirculation phases.

• Provide capability to reduce boric acid precipitation.

• Includes flow paths providing suction from the Boric Acid Storage Tank, Refueling Water Storage Tank, and Residual Heat Removal heat exchangers to the Safety Injection pumps with discharge to the Reactor Coolant System cold legs and reactor vessel

• Includes Recirc line to the Refueling Water Storage Tank (closure);

Substation (selected sections)

• Provide power to safeguards buses.

• Includes only those sections which could result in reactor trip or loss of power to safeguards buses.

Chemical & Volume Control System

• Provide signals for emergency makeup from Refueling Water Storage Tank to charging flow path.

• Provide auxiliary spray, charging, seal injection functions.

• Includes Volume Control Tank level transmitters and circuit related to emergency (2%) makeup; supply paths from Refueling Water Storage Tank and reactor makeup to aux spray, charging to loop, and seal injection, including the seal injection filters.

Containment Fan Coil Units

• Containment Fan Coil Units provide a containment boundary.

Ventilation for selected 4160 VAC bus rooms

• Provide ambient temperature control in U1 4160 VAC bus rooms so that electrical equipment can function as designed.

Emergency Diesel Generator Ventilation and Selected Unit Coolers

• Provide heat removal and temperature control so diesel generators and Unit 2 4160 VAC and 480 VAC bus room equipment will function as designed during accident conditions.

• Includes flow paths providing safeguards cooling of diesel generators, 480 VAC bus rooms, and 4160 VAC bus rooms.

SSCs recommended for exemption from (a)(4) requirements Selected SSCs, while important to plant operation, often have little bearing on risk significance. SSCs for consideration to exempt fall primarily into the groups:

1. Non-safety related SSCs which are used in EOPs

2. SSCs which may have caused a reactor trip once, but unlikely in future

3. SSCs considered to have only long term effects Examples of such SSCs include:

• Annunciators

• Chemical Feed System

• Chlorine or Hypobromous Systems

• Communications

• Computer

• Condensate Polishing

• Cranes

• Gas systems (Non safety-related SSCs)

• Grounding and Cathodic Protection

• Heat Tracing

• Regulatory Guide 1.97 Instrumentation (Non-safety related)

• Snubbers and supports

• Waste Liquid

• Waste Gas

• Ventilation systems which are in scope because of a very limited function Comments regarding the Nuclear Energy Institute Industry Response, Anthony R. Petrangelo to Mr. John C. Hoyle, dated December 14, 1998.

I concur that revision of the maintenance rule to be a model for risk-informed, performance-based regulation should be pursued as an industry priority.

I concur with the points cited, specifically:

• Introduction of subjective, undefined terminology

• Reconciliation with existing, duplicative regulatory controls

• Broad scope imposes undue burden on monitoring and assessment

• Definition of "availability"

• Regulatory analysis and backfit determination

• NRC's Part 50 Regulatory Reform Efforts Should you have any questions regarding my comments, please contact me at 507-263-0853, or e-mail (gonyeau@cannon.net).

Thank you again for this opportunity to respond.

Sincerely, Joseph Gonyeau, P.E.

Senior Nuclear Consultant

December 15, 1998 NOTE TO : Emile Julian Chief, Docketing and Services Branch FROM: Carol Gallagher /I A /J A~ I) tJ ~/JJ.. ~

ADM,DAS uu+t-, ~ - / ~ , . - *

SUBJECT:

DOCKETING OF COMMENT ON PROPOSED RULE, "MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS" Attached for docketing is a comment letter related to the subject proposed rule. This

• comment was received via the rulemaking forum website on December 14, 1998. The submitter's name is Joseph Gonyeau, P.E., P.O . Box 66, Cannon Falls, MN 55009. Please send a copy of the docketed comment to Richard Correia (mail stop O9-A-l) for his records.

Attachment:

As stated cc w/o attachment:

R. Correia

OOC I

£TEO l ('

Public Service Electric and Gas

~ ,1* All:3'1 Company "98 OE '1( ~:,en Harold W. Keiser Public Service Electric and Gas Company PO. Box 236. Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 609-339-1100 Chief Nuclear Officer & President Nuclear Business Unit DEC 14 19980 ,

LR-N980588 AD, Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 50 Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudication Staff Comments on Proposed Amendment to the Maintenance Rule 63 Fed. Reg. 52201 (September 30, 1998)

SALEM AND HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATIONS DOCKET NOS. 50-272, 50-311 AND 50-354

Dear Mr. Hoyle:

On September 30, 1998, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a proposed amendment to the Maintenance Rule, 10CFRS0.65, for public comment. This letter submits PSE&G's comments regarding the proposed amendment. In addition to these specific comments, PSE&G supports the comments submitted by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and the Maintenance Rule Implementation Clearinghouse (MRIC).

PSE&G agrees that adequate safety assessments should continue to be performed prior to removing equipment from service for maintenance. While we agree with the general principle behind this proposed rulemaking we are concerned that the proposed rule contains certain language that is open to interpretation. If broadly construed, the proposed rule could present a significant implementation burden without a commensurate increase in safety.

PSE&G's specific comments are as follows:

1. The proposed revision represents an expansion in scope of the risk assessment requirements. Fully integrating all Technical Specification surveillance tests into the formal risk assessment process requires a significant level of effort without a commensurate increase in safety. This proposal may be viewed as resulting in a requirement to conduct continuous risk assessments.

U.S. NUCLl:AN rtt:GULATORYCOMM&SSION RUlEMAKlNGS & ADJUDICATIONS IWF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMlsmoN

Mr. John C. Hoyle 2 LR-N980588

2. The proposed paragraph (a)(4) could be interpreted to require detailed risk assessments prior to any maintenance on all Maintenance Rule systems, structures, and components (SSCs). This would create a substantial additional burden, which rather than adding the benefit of increased safety, may actually serve to remove the focus from the risk significant equipment. A more appropriate approach may be to limit the requirement to perform risk assessments prior to maintenance to the high risk significant SSCs.

3. The proposed wording of the revision would require that a safety assessment "shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level". This wording appears vague and open to interpretation. Our concern is that this increases the likelihood of inconsistent applications and regulation via the inspection process.

• Risk significant configuration - This terminology is not defined in the actual rule language, nor is there a common understanding of this language between the industry and NRC. This term appears to increase the focus on the PSA such that an over reliance on the PSA is encouraged. PSA should be a tool to complement the Technical Specifications and address the limitations of the Technical Specifications for dealing with conditions where multiple equipment is out of service.

• Degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level

- "Unacceptable level" is open to interpretation.

• In addition, the definition of maintenance activities is open-ended and subject to varying interpretations.

In conclusion, we support the NRC in the endeavor to ensure that adequate safety assessments are conducted prior to removing equipment from service for maintenance. However, we are of the opinion that the proposed rule, as written, would not achieve the anticipated goals. We suggest that the proposed rule be withdrawn. We also suggest that the NRC continue to work with NEI to adopt a risk-informed Maintenance Rule, which includes wording that is clearly defined and mutually understood. The required detail and rigor of the safety assessments within a risk-informed Maintenance Rule should be proportional to the risk-significance of the SSC. These requirements should also be clearly defined and mutually understood prior to implementation of the rule.

Mr. John C. Hoyle 3 LR-N980588 We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the proposed revision and request your careful consideration of the issues.

Sincerely, GJ{/~

C U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Document Control Desk Washington, DC 20555 Mr. H. J. Miller, Administrator - Region I U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 4 7 5 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406 Mr. P. Milano, Licensing Project Manager - Salem U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission One White Flint North Mail Stop 14E21 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD 20852

• Mr. R. Ennis, Licensing Project Manager - Hope Creek U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission One White Flint North Mail Stop 14E21 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD 20852 Mr. S. Morris (X24)

USN RC Senior Resident Inspector - Salem Mr. S. Pindale (X24)

USNRC Senior Resident Inspector- Hope Creek Mr. K. Tosch, Manager IV, Bureau of Nuclear Engineering PO Box415 Trenton, NJ 08625

DOCKETED US F ,

December 14, 1998 "98 DEC 17 P3 :38 RC-98-0224 A SCANA COMPANY Mr. John C. Hoyle PRO Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff G. ylor V1 ent Nuclear Operations

Subject:

VIRGIL C. SUMMER NUCLEAR STATION DOCKET NO. 50/395 OPERATING LICENSE NO. NPF-12 Request for Public Comment on the Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants 63 Federal Register 52201, dated September 30, 1998 South Carolina Electric & Gas Co Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station South Carolina Electric and Gas (SCE&G) has reviewed the Federal Register P. 0. Box 88 Notice of September 30, 1998 that provides details of the NRC proposed

. South Carolina rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants. SCE&G has also reviewed the 803.34 5. 4344 comments submitted to you by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) dated 803.34 5.5209 www.scono.com December 14, 1998.

SCE&G fully endorses the comments submitted by NEI.

Additionally, SCE&G would like to note the following plant specific information, in support of reducing the overall scope of the rule:

1. The total number of systems or functions that are within the scope of the current rule.

Of the 99 plant systems which have permanent plant equipment, 69 of these are scoped in our Maintenance Rule Program as well as one pseudo system (containment isolation components) for a total of 70 scoped systems.

NUCLEAR EXCELLENCE - A SUMMER TRADITION!

LI UCLEAR REGULATORY CO MISSIO

' RULEMAKINGS ADJUDICATIONS STAFF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE CO ISSIO

USNRC, Secretary of the Commission PR 980006 RC-98-0224 Page 2 of 2

2. The number of systems or functions that are safety related.

Of the 70 scoped systems, 46 are safety related.

3. The number of systems or functions that are risk-significant, as determined by the VCSNS expert panel.

Of the 70 scoped systems, 26 are risk significant.

4. The number of the safety related systems or functions that are risk significant.

Of the 46 safety related scoped systems, 25 are risk significant.

SCE&G also wishes to encourage the NRC to continue the cooperative effort with NEI and the Nuclear Power Industry to focus on risk significant issues.

Should you have any questions, please contact Mr. Michael J. Zaccone at (803) 345-4328.

Very truly yours, MJZ/GJT/dr c: J. L. Skolds W. F. Conway R.R. Mahan R. J. White L. M. Padovan NSRC RTS (PR 980006)

File (811.02, 50.060)

OMS (RC-98-0224)

' I,.

DOC t<E TED IJS 1P (

1 Detroit Edison ' ' **'

°98 DEC 17 p J :S 1 or; Ill..

A ~l'l DOCKET NU BEA December 14, 1998 PROPOSED AU 50 NRC-98.::0184 Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudication Staff Washington DC 20555-0001

References:

1) Fermi 2 NRC Docket No. 50-341 NRC License No. NPF-43

2) Federal Register, Volume 63, Number 189, "Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants,"

dated September 30, 1998

Subject:

Detroit Edison Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to IO CFR 50.65 Detroit Edison offers the following comments relative to Reference 2, which solicits public comments on proposed rulemaking to the Maintenance Rule (IO CFR 50.65). It is understood this proposed rulemaking seeks to:

1. Explicitly denote applicability of the rule to normal shutdown operations,

2. Change the current section (a)(3) recommendation for an assessment of equipment out of service to a regulatory requirement for an assessment of plant configuration prior to any maintenance activity, and

3. Require consideration of the above assessment result to ensure the plant is not placed in a risk-significant condition, or in configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

Detroit Edison recognizes the importance of plant configuration control during normal power and shutdown operations. In fact, equipment out-of-service assessments are currently being performed at Fermi 2 consistent with the industry's treatment of the existing rule language as a requirement. It should be noted that the NRC has inspected Detroit Edison's processes in this area and concluded they were "good." Further, as noted in Reference 2, NRC inspections determined that many A DTE Energy Company

AH REGULATORY COM ISSI J v1AKINGS &ADJUDICATIONS STAFF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSIO

USNRC NRC-98-0184 Page 2 plants current configuration assessment programs met regulatory expectations in this regard.

Detroit Edison is concerned that the proposed rule, as drafted, will impose a significant regulatory burden on plants which already have developed adequate programs for assessing risk associated with online maintenance. Furthermore, contrary to the conclusions of the Regulatory Analysis performed in support of the proposed rule change, Detroit Edison does not believe the NRC has shown that the proposed changes would produce a substantial increase in the overall protection of public health and safety as required by 10 CFR 50.109. The Regulatory Analysis indicates that all inspected plants had implemented programs to perform the assessments. While the Regulatory Analysis claimed that the baseline inspections identified discernible weaknesses at many sites, no evaluation was provided identifying any level of safety significance due to these weaknesses: either individually or collectively; and no discussion was provided regarding the results of follow-up inspections relative to these weaknesses. In addition, the recently issued NUREG/CR-4674, "Precursors to Potential Core Damage Accidents: 1997 A Status Report," stated that commercial nuclear plants had the lowest number of severe accident precursors since 1970, indicating that safety performance, including maintenance, is improving. Therefore, Detroit Edison believes that the proposed rulemaking is not justified or necessary in the draft form.

With regard to the current rule, Detroit Edison also believes that the requirements the NRC has imposed on activities with low safety and risk significance have resulted in excessive regulatory (and financial) burden on the operation and maintenance of nuclear power plants. Therefore, Detroit Edison offers the following additional comments regarding the proposed rule change in context with existing requirements of 10 CFR 50.65. It is our hope that a risk informed view will be used to develop rule changes which can decrease undue burden associated with 10 CFR 50.65, minimize impact of rule changes on existing safety assessment processes, and allow resources to be appropriately focused on risk/safety significant structures, systems, and components Structures, Systems and Components (SSCs). In this regard, Detroit Edison endorses comments made by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) on this proposed rulemaking.

Our understanding was that the NRC' s intent was to effect rulemaking that would codify current industry practices that were found to be effective in the Maintenance Rule inspections. However, the proposed rule language would appear to involve more substantial impacts to existing practices. Three major issues must be addressed prior to finalizing this rulemaking:

1. The proposed regulation would introduce subjective terminology (e.g., "ensure the plant is not placed in a risk significant configuration or configurations that would degrade performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level") directly into the rule language. The rulemaking should not proceed until industry and NRC reach a common understanding of these terms, and make appropriate revisions to the rule language to codify this understanding. Regardless of what implementation guidance is developed, the language of the rule itself must be absolutely clear in this regard. Otherwise, the rulemaking could lead to regulatory instability, unnecessary inspection and enforcement issues, or to informal establishment of regulatory expectations through the inspection process.

USNRC NRC-98-0184 Page 3

2. The proposed regulation would establish a burdensome and potentially counterproductive requirement by applying the assessment requirement to the entire scope of Maintenance Rule SSCs, including those oflow or no risk significance. This approach is contrary to the spirit of risk-informed regulation, and does not reflect the current programs of many plants that have made substantial investments in risk management techniques, models, and tools to support the assessment.

3. The proposed regulation would establish a duplicative regulatory regime for SSCs currently subject to Technical Specification allowed outage time requirements. In conjunction with this rule making, NRC should undertake conforming changes in the format and nature of Technical Specifications to reflect the establishment of this configuration assessment requirement in the regulations. A number of licensees have established a "Configuration Risk Management Program" (CRMP) description in Technical Specifications as a condition of risk-informed improvements. The need for this program would be obviated by the proposed rule; it should be deleted from the Technical Specifications for affected plants.

With regard to the first item, the recent implementation history of the Maintenance Rule makes clear that explicit understanding of the actual rule language is of paramount importance in achieving stable and predictable implementation. Common understandings of terms reached at the outset of implementation by the NRC and the industry were eroded through the inspection process, as indicated by the substantial number of low safety significant violations, resulting in costly and unstable implementation. A properly constructed rule should be implemented one time in a clear manner, enabling consistent understanding over time.

With regard to the second item, plants routinely undergo hundreds of maintenance activities per week at the subcomponent level and, at some point, judgment is required to relate the subcomponent maintenance activity to the "availability" of the component.

These activities are typically controlled through the work control process for maintenance activities on the component, train, system, or safety function. Describing, in a uniform and regulated manner, how these individual and aggregated activities affect the component availability, or how they affect the overall safety function performance, could be viewed as necessary to meet the proposed regulation. However, the number of combinations would suggest this to be a very large effort, even if the assessment were constrained to the "high safety significant SSCs" of the current Maintenance Rule. At Fermi 2, almost one third of SSCs in the scope of the rule are considered risk significant and, therefore, meet the "high safety significant" determination. To require the above level of assessment for the entire scope of the rule would be burdensome, have little safety benefit, and could be viewed as counterproductive to safety in that it would divert resources and attention from more important activities.

With regard to the third item, we are concerned that establishment of the assessment requirement will effect duplicative regulation of equipment-out-of-service times currently contained in Technical Specifications. We recognize the configuration assessment requirement will represent a more technically accurate method of establishing out-of-service times than the current Technical Specifications; however, the existing requirements will remain. The NRC should address the regulatory overlap considerations prior to promulgating the final rule.

Further, we would note that NRC has imposed CRMP requirements on a number of licensees as a condition of risk-informed extensions to Technical Specification allowed outage time requirements. The intent of the CRMP is identical to that of the proposed Maintenance Rule revision, and the CRMP' s continuation should not be necessary

USNRC NRC-98-0184 Page4 following promulgation of the final rule. NRC and industry efforts to establish the CRMP have elucidated a number of points that are germane to the proposed Maintenance Rule revision, and we would note the following:

1. The scope of the CRMP assessment is properly limited to the Maintenance Rule high safety significant components or the scope of components modeled in the Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA).

2. The Technical Specification imposing the CRMP avoids the use of subjective terminology by imposing the following requirements for content and use of the CRMP:

a) Provisions for performing an assessment prior to entering the LCO Action Statement or Condition for preplanning activities.

b) Provisions for performing an assessment after entering the LCO Action Statement or Condition for unplanned entry into the LCO Action Statement or Condition.

c) Provisions for assessing the need for additional actions after the discovery of additional equipment out of service conditions while in the LCO Action Statement or Condition.

Given the similar intent of the proposed rule changes, we would suggest consideration of similar wording in addressing use of the result of the 10 CFR 50.65(a)(4) configuration assessment.

In light of the Commission's recent directive to transition to a more risk-informed regulatory approach, and given the implementation and inspection history of the Maintenance Rule, we believe the rulemaking should be withdrawn and renoticed with a corresponding change to risk-inform the scope of the Maintenance Rule as described in 10 CFR 50.65(b). Reconsideration of this rulemaking to address Maintenance Rule scope provides an outstanding opportunity to initiate NRC's effort to apply risk insights to 10 CFR Part 50 regulations. This effort is supported by the Commission, and the NRC staff has been charged to develop rulemaking plans. The industry presented the concept of using the Maintenance Rule to pilot the 10 CFR Part 50 effort at an NRC stakeholder meeting held on October 27 and 28, 1998, and NRC has expressed general agreement with the industry approach. The basic elements of the proposed approach to apply risk insights to Part 50 are as follows:

1. Undertake a phased rulemaking approach building on sequential steps, with the Maintenance Rule as the pilot rulemaking.

2. Concentrate first on scope of SSCs subject to regulation by defining a category of "important to safety" using a combination of risk insights, operating experience, and engineering judgment (to address deterministic aspects, safety margins, defense in depth, and incompleteness of quantitative models). Use the Maintenance Rule revision to establish this definition, and apply this definition to establish the revised scope of the Maintenance Rule.

3. Follow with rulemaking to apply the new definition to other regulations.

The Maintenance Rule provides an appropriate first application for the risk-informed 10 CPR Part 50 effort for a number of reasons:

USNRC NRC-98-0184 Page 5

1. The rule is a backfitted monitoring rule; revisions which make it less prescriptive and more risk informed would not conflict with remaining Part 50 requirements which were more deterministically derived.

2. The Maintenance Rule has been portrayed as a "risk informed performance based rule;" however, baseline inspections have been programmatic and prescriptive.

Inspection issues relative to scoping have nearly always involved components of little or no risk significance. With the proposed revision in scope, and the expected evolution to a performance based inspection approach, the rule could live up to its promise.

3. The proposed codification of the configuration assessment requirement would be more clearly, consistently, and correctly implementable under a risk-informed scope .

• 4. The rule already contains provisions for establishing a scope of equipment that covers design basis events, mitigation, initiating events, emergency operating procedures, and expert panel considerations. The implementation guidance further provides methods to characterize SSCs on the basis of risk insights. With some adjustments, this process could provide the foundation to achieve the scope of SSCs that would meet the "important to safety" approach as outlined above.

With the above proposed approach to address scope, and appropriate dialogue leading to a clear definition of significant new terminology, this rulemaking could serve as a benchmark in establishing a model for risk-informed regulation. Finalizing the rulemaking as currently proposed would result in a rule that is not sufficiently risk-informed, unnecessarily burdensome, and subject to instability in implementation.

Either of these outcomes would significantly affect the course of transition to risk-informed regulation. We therefore request your careful consideration of these comments, and welcome further dialogue in this regard with the NRC staff or

• Commission.

Should you have any questions or require additional information, please contact me at (734) 586-4258.

Sincerely, 4#--

Norman K. Peterson Director - Nuclear Licensing cc: A. J. Kugler A. Vegel NRC Resident Office Regional Administrator, Region III Supervisor, Electric Operators, Michigan Public Service Commission Nuclear Energy Institute

DOC KETED us~mc "98 DEC 17 P3 :36 ComEd December 14, 1998 The Secretary of the Commission U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission JOGKEf BER Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff PROPOSED A

Subject:

Comments on Proposed Rulemaking, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants"

Reference:

(1) Volume 63, Federal Register, Page 52201 (63FR52201 }, dated September 30, 1998.

(2) Letter from A. Pietrangelo (NEI) to U. S. NRC, "Industry Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," dated December 14, 1998 This letter provides Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) Company comments on the subject Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proposed rulemaking published in Federal Register Notice 63FR52201.

In Reference 2, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) transmitted the industry's comments.

The industry comments request that the rulemaking be withdrawn and renoticed to reflect additional changes necessary to make the scope of the maintenance rule risk-informed, and to clarify issues with respect to proposed terminology of the rule.

ComEd endorses the NEI comments.

Specific Com Ed comments on the five changes to 10 CFR 50.65 proposed by the NRC are as follows.

Change 1: "Add an introductory paragraph to 10 CFR 50.65 clarifying that the proposed rule applies under all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown."

ComEd has no comments. The NRC has essentially been including all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown conditions, in the Maintenance Rule baseline inspections that have been performed at the ComEd sites.

Change 2: "Delete the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) and create a new paragraph, (a)(4), that requires the performance of safety assessments."

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December 14, 1998 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Page 2 Safety assessments for equipment out of service, normal operation, and shutdown conditions are currently being performed at the ComEd sites. The NRC has reviewed the safety assessment program at each ComEd site and found them acceptable.

This change appears unnecessary since ComEd is already treating the existing rule language as a requirement. Additionally, the proposed rule implies a much broader scope that would impose an undue burden on monitoring and assessment. The scope of the rule should be well defined and specific, so that NRC inspection and enforcement of the rule is consistent.

Change 3: "Define in paragraph (a)(4) the scope of the requirements for performing those assessments to be all conditions of operation including normal shutdown."

The definition of maintenance activities includes "performance/condition monitoring".

Some condition monitoring activities do not impact the functions of systems; therefore, this wording should be removed. Otherwise, significant resources would be spent reviewing activities that clearly do not impact risk. An example of condition monitoring activities that do not impact the functions of systems would be Operator rounds. These rounds have no impact on plant equipment, and are conducted each shift. There is no value added to perform a safety assessment of these types of activities. An alternative would be to clarify that the assessment applies to condition monitoring activities that cause equipment to be unavailable.

Regulatory Guide 1.160, " Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," includes the definition of maintenance activities in paragraph 1.2. This does not need to be re-defined in 10 CFR 50.65.

Change 4: "Specify in paragraph (a)(4) that the safety assessments are to examine the extant plant condition and the condition expected during the planned maintenance activity."

The existing rule, 10 CFR 50.65, includes " ... an assessment of the total plant equipment that is out of service ... " The proposed change does not include this clarification of scope. The supplementary information provided indicates the intent is that the safety assessment is to apply to equipment out-of-service, but this language has been eliminated from the rule change.

The current wording, " ... an assessment of the total plant equipment that is out of service ... ," should be incorporated into the revision to assure clarity of scope.

December 14, 1998 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Page 3 Change 5: "Specify in paragraph (a)(4) that the objective of performing the safety assessments is to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level."

The discussion, in the supplementary information that accompanies this rule making, suggests that "risk significant" will be defined in Revision 3 to Regulatory Guide 1.160, to be issued in the future. Because the term "risk significant" is undefined, the requirement would force a calculation to be performed to determine the risk significance.

ComEd suggests the sentence read, "The assessment shall be used to provide reasonable assurance that safety functions are maintained."

Respectfully,

~r Vice President - Regulatory Services

DOCKE; ')c TED U--* . r Lic¢nsin~ Suppottt S¢ttuic¢s

• 9a OEC 16 P4 :15 Roger W. Huston Roger@licensin~pport.net Of I, December 14, 1998 RUI t:- \,

ADJG;;,-

The Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Washington, DC 20555-0001

Subject:

Public Comment on Proposed Rulemaking Re: Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63FR52201)

• Licensing Support Services (LSS) is pleased to provide comments in response to the subject Federal Register notice. LSS is a consulting firm providing services to the nuclear utility industry.

The proposed rule would require an assessment of the cumulative effect of out-of-service equipment before any maintenance activity on structures, systems, or components within the scope of the maintenance rule. As described further below, LSS considers that the proposal has not been fully developed and is neither necessary nor appropriate at this time.

Conceptually, the need to consider the effect of removing equipment from service on plant safety is unassailable. Such consideration is routine within the industry. The subject notice reports that "instances were found" at 5 of 50 sites in which an assessment of all plant equipment out of service was not performed before entering maintenance operations, and that "weaknesses" were noted at 19 sites "among which were ... safety assessment tools that did not include all high-safety-significant SSCs". Implicitly, the notice reports that no problems of this type were found at more than half the sites inspected. None of the sites where "instances" or "weaknesses" were identified were reported to have widespread programmatic failings in considering overall plant safety when entering maintenance activities.

This magnitude of identified problem is inadequate justification for a broad rulemaking, particularly where burdensome requirements are imposed. In this instance, it is likely that excessive burden would result. How much burden is unclear, because the details of what kind of assessment will be found acceptable are left to guidance which is yet to be developed. Numerous statements are made in the subject notice, however, about the nature of the assessments. These include:

"These assessments do not necessarily require that a quantitative assessment of probabilistic risk be performed" DEC 2 1 1998

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The Secretary of the Commission December 14, 1998 Page 2 "The assessments may range from deterministic judgments to the use of an on-line, living probabilistic risk assessment (PRA)

"The safety assessments required ... need not be sophisticated probabilistic risk assessment analyses in all cases" "The assessment may range from simple and straightforward to complex" While these statements all seem intended to assure that many assessments can be non-quantitative, they clearly imply that some unknown percentage of the assessments will be expected to include detailed quantitative risk analyses. This is simply unnecessary.

The concern here is to avoid placing a plant in a "risk-significant configuration" (a term the definition of which is also left to future guidance). It is not obvious that quantification of that risk is necessary, in any instance other than extremely unusual configurations, to accomplish that goal. What is required is a knowledge of the importance and interrelationship of plant systems, which may be informed by the results of risk analyses performed for this or other purpose, that guides professional judgment about the acceptability of entering maintenance activities. Requiring quantitative assessment for any but the extremely rare case is overkill.

The proposed rule is not necessary to foster the necessary judgmental evaluations. The last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) of the existing rule - which this proposal would delete -

already requires "an assessment of the total plant equipment that is out of service should be taken into account". This provision should provide sufficient ability for the Commission "to take timely enforcement action" which the subject notice indicates was one of the principal needs addressed through promulgation of the maintenance rule.

A generic communication describing the deficiencies found in this area in the maintenance rule baseline inspections and describing expected actions in response to this existing requirement should be all that is necessary. In the event NRC disagrees with this judgment and concludes that rulemaking is needed, it should not proceed until the related guidance has been fully developed and the ultimate burden of the proposed rule can be meaningfully estimated. As noted above, LSS concludes that such guidance should call for quantitative assessment of the risk of plant maintenance configurations only in extremely rare circumstances.

LSS appreciates the opportunity to comment on this proposal. If there are any questions regarding our comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Respectfully,

~ w_

ger W. Huston

Duke Energy Corporation

~ Duke

,_ Energy.. DOCKETED 526 South Church Street PO. Box 1006 (EC0?H)

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~* Charlotte, NC 28201-1006 (704) 382-2200 OFFICE M. S. Tuckman (704) 382-4360 FAX Executive Vice President Nuclear Generation '98 DEC 16 A10 :49 December 10, 1998 Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555-0001

SUBJECT:

Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants 63 Federal Register 52201 - September 30, 1998)

Duke Energy Corporation offers the following comments on the proposed rule change to 10 CFR 50.65, the Maintenance Rule.

We have reviewed and support the comments submitted by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). The proposed rule, as written will substantially impact existing practices and be very burdensome to implement. Therefore, we feel these comments should be considered prior to implementing this rule change. The three major issues are:

1. Section (a) (4) of the proposed rule includes the phrase, "ensure the plant is not placed in a risk significant configuration or configurations that would degrade performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." Depending on how you define "unacceptable level," this could be problematic with respect to currently accepted practices. The objective should be to recognize and avoid higher risk significant activities to the extent practical and to limit the duration of these activities when they are necessary. This is the rationale for risk-informed maintenance and Technical Specification allowed outage times. For example, Technical Specifications typically allow a diesel generator to be out of service for 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />. It is acknowledged that plant short-term risk is increased during the time the equipment is out of service but that the long-term reliability is enhanced by performing on OEC ' 7 1998

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line maintenance and surveillance activities. Literal compliance with Technical Specifications could conflict with literal compliance of the proposed (a) (4), depending on how "unacceptable level" is defined.

2. The proposed regulation establishes a burdensome and potentially counterproductive requirement by applying the assessment requirement to the entire scope of maintenance rule systems, structures and components (SSCs), including those SSCs of low or no risk significance. We acknowledge that low and non-risk significant SSCs when taken out of service may have a cumulative risk increase on the plant overall. However, we feel the overall risk will be adequately managed if the scope of this requirement is limited to "key safety functions."

• 3. The proposed rule states "an assessment should be performed of current plant configurations as well as expected changes to plant configurations that will result from the proposed maintenance activities". It is not clear why the assessment has to be performed for the current plant configuration, since this configuration was already evaluated. It seems to add unnecessary burden to the plant operating staff. The focus of this assessment should be the adequacy of plant safety in the modified configuration with contemplated equipment out of service.

This sentence also requires that an assessment be performed on proposed maintenance activities. Does the term maintenance activity mean the same equipment removed from service, as currently stated in (a) (3)? Some maintenance is conducted without taking equipment out of service. While conducting maintenance without removing equipment from service, may place the plant at a slightly higher risk through potential personnel errors, it is common practice that is adequately managed through other programs and processes. This sentence should be modified or reworded to delete these requirements.

Sincerely,

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M. S. Tuckman

cc: Anthony R. Pietrangelo, NEI bee: P. S. Kowalewski ELL

DO CKETED USHhC.

GPU Nuclear, Inc.

• 95 OEC 15 P3 :16 December 11, 1998 Route 441 South Post Office Box 480 NUCLEAR Middletown, PA 17057-0480 l 950-98-20696 O h*1 I Tel 717-944-7621 n I' nlt AO,t_;,

Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudication Staff United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

Subject:

Comments on Amendments to Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants, 63 Fed. Reg. 52201 (1998) (to be codified at 10 CFR § 50.65) (proposed September 30, 1998)

Dear Secretary Hoyle:

The purpose of this letter is twofold. First, it provides GPU Nuclear's comments on the "Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants"(63 Fed. Reg. 52201, September 30, 1998). Second, it identifies GPU Nuclear's endorsement of comments, regarding the subject proposed rulemaking, provided on behalf of the nuclear industry by the Nuclear Energy Institute.

GPU Nuclear's comments on the proposed rulemaking:

1. The NRC and the industry (through the representation of the Nuclear Energy Institute or NEI) have been working to codify mutually agreeable rule language and implementation guidance that will be effective in meeting the requirements of 10 CFR 50.65. The proposed rulemaking derails the collaborative efforts in that it interjects change which conflicts with that effort prior to its completion.

Failing to incorporate mutually agreed upon language and guidance in the proposed rulemaking results in further ambiguity through the introduction of terms such as those found in paragraph (a)(4):

significant", "risk-significant configurations" and" degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level" . The terms are ambiguous because they are neither defined nor are references for their definitions identified. Attempts to clarify their meaning through the use of supplemental information in the Federal Register are circular: risk-significant configurations add significant contributions to risk.

An unequivocal, unambiguous definition of terms is necessary if the rulemaking is to be effective for two reasons. First, ambiguity makes it impossible for licensees to determine in advance of inspection and possible enforcement action, what action is necessary to ensure compliance with NRC regulations.

Second, ambiguity creates the risk that current, official NRC expectations will not be achieved because additional, unofficial expectations may be created through inspection and enforcement activities.

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CLEAR REGULATORY COM SSION KINGS &ADJUD CATIONS STAFF FACE OF THE SECRETAR FTHE COMMISSIO

1950-98-20696 Page 2 of 3 GPU Nuclear has expended considerable resources to identify risk-significant SSCs under the current Maintenance Rule and to institute a documented program of risk evaluations associated with maintenance on risk-significant SSCs. This investment and plant focus on risk should not be diffused by changes tolerating ambiguity in the Maintenance Rule. Further, existing regulatory requirements already provide the NRC with adequate oversight and enforcement authority to prevent licensees from allowing maintenance to "degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level" .

2. The act of performing safety assessments for" all planned maintenance activities" as described in the proposed rulemaking is burdensome and ineffective, no matter the perceived flexibility in the level of sophistication with which the assessments might be performed. The burden develops from the need to perform assessments which correspond with each of the multitude of maintenance actions associated with the operation of a nuclear generating station. To be of any benefit, the assessments must be performed prior to the start of any maintenance activity on any SSC within the rule' s scope. In addition, each assessment must include a review of both the current and expected plant configurations regardless of the particular SSC' s contribution to safety or the increased risk associated with the maintenance action.

The implementation of the assessment requirement as proposed will be ineffective in achieving the larger goal to "ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of the safety functions to an unacceptable level" . This is because the proposed required action does not account for effective work process controls and engineering judgement to address the impact of maintenance activities already in place. Instead, it requires an all inclusive assessment program which diffuses the focus from high-safety significant SSCs to include additional SSCs having little or no safety significance. The Maintenance Rule scope, defined in section (b) [10 CFR 50.65(b)] is not limited to those SSCs necessary to prevent nuclear fuel damage or fission product release. In fact, experience during Maintenance Rule baseline inspections has shown that the scope is even broader than the initial industry interpretation of the existing language. Consequently, assessments would be required for a large number of maintenance activities regardless of the particular SSC's contribution to safety. The potential exists that applying resources to SSCs that are not Risk Significant will reduce the resources available for the Risk-Significant SSCs resulting in an adverse impact on the public health and safety. As a minimum, the end result is greater effort expended by the licensees on activities without commensurate benefit to the public health and safety.

GPU Nuclear is presently implementing the resource intensive Oram-Sentinel risk assessment and configuration management method for maintenance risk assessments. Based on the reading of the proposed rulemaking, it is uncertain whether this methodology will satisfy the proposed assessment requirement if applied to "all planned maintenance activities".

The proposed assessment requirement should be limited to those SSCs that make significant contributions to safety. Moreover, the proposed Maintenance Rule should expressly authorize qualitative assessments and blanket disposition of SSCs with low safety significance. Those narrow circumstances in which quantitative assessments are necessary should be clearly defined and prescribed. This will ensure that personnel remain focused on SSCs that significantly contribute to overall plant safety. Moreover, the assessments will be taken seriously because they involve significant maintenance activities.

1950-98-20696 Page 3 of3

3. GPU Nuclear disagrees with the conclusion of the backfit analysis that the proposed rulemaking will "provide substantial increase in protection to the public health and safety ... at a cost that is justified by the increased protection" . The Federal Register background discussion noted the cumulative results of the first 50 baseline inspections found 10% of the plants had not assessed the impact on safety of the total plant equipment out of service. This failure characterized those plants as being at greater risk than realized. It was also identified that the safety assessment tools of 38% of the inspected plants did not include all high-safety-significant SSCs. These deficiencies were characterized as individual weaknesses. The sum of both of these items was reported as having caused" concern" among the NRC senior managers and the Commission.

GPU Nuclear believes that both types of deficiencies are the result of inadequate language and guidance. Adequate language and guidance would have reduced the number of initial findings. Both the inspected and to-be-inspected licensees worked to incorporate revised concepts and actions into their Maintenance Rule Programs as the inspections proceeded and information was made available.

These actions minimized the total number of identified deficiencies. The continued lack of language and guidance, the increased administrative burden of the safety assessments for all maintenance activities, reduced concentration on more safety significant SSCs and the attendant commitment of resources associated with this proposed rulemaking will have a detrimental effect on current and future rule compliance efforts.

In summary, the proposed rulemaking is unlikely to achieve the NRC' s expectations for three reasons.

First, the proposed rulemaking makes licensee compliance difficult and leaves room for interpretations beyond the NRC' s current expectations due to the lack of acknowledged or defined terms and adequate guidance. Second, it creates an onerous administrative burden rather than focusing attention on risk-significant SSCs and maintenance activities. Third, the proposed rulemaking fails to correct weaknesses in the current rule. As a member ofNEI, GPU Nuclear has reviewed and endorses their comments submitted with regard to the disposition of this proposed rulemaking.

Sn~

Jobp C. Fornicola Di;ctor, Nuclear Safety Assessment WGH cc: File 98205

DO ChETEO us:1Rc NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE

• 98 OEC 15 A11 :56 Anthony R. Pietrangelo DIRECTOR, LICENSING NUCLEAR GENERATION Qf-f Al~

ADJUC  :+

December 14, 1998 5t>

Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555-0001

SUBJECT:

Industry Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 - September 30, 1998)

The Nuclear Energy Institutel offers the following comments relative to the Federal Register notice which solicited public comments on a proposed revision to the Maintenance Rule. The proposed rulemaking seeks to:

1. Explicitly denote applicability of the rule to normal shutdown operations;

2. Change the current section (a)(3) recommendation for an assessment of equipment out of service to a regulatory requirement for an assessment of plant configuration prior to any maintenance activity; and

3. Require consideration of the above assessment result to ensure the plant is not placed in a risk-significant condition, or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

NEI is the organization responsible for establishing unified nuclear industry policy on matters affecting the nuclear energy industry, including regulatory aspects of generic operational and technical issues, NEI members include all utilities licensed to operate commercial nuclear power plants in the United States, nuclear plant designers, major architect/engineering firms, fuel fabrication facilities, materials licensees, and other organizations and individuals involved in the nuclear energy industry, OEC 1 7 1998

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Mr. John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 2 The industry comments on the proposed revision were developed with extensive input from NEI's Regulatory Process Working Group, Maintenance Rule Revision Task Force, and personnel charged with maintenance rule implementation at our member companies. We are sufficiently concerned about the potential impact of these proposed revisions that we believe the proposed rule should be withdrawn and renoticed following substantial additional discussion and modification. While the industry generally supports the Commission's intent in promulgating a revision to the rule, this rulemaking represents a significant new requirement that raises a number of concerns that should be addressed before proceeding. These concerns include the following:

• 1. How the rule would be implemented in light of the introduction of subjective new terminology into the body of regulations (e.g., "risk significant configuration" and "degrade performance ... to an unacceptable level). Either a mutual understanding of these terms must be achieved, or an alternative that accomplishes the same objective must be developed;

2. The establishment of duplicative regulatory controls for plant structures, systems or components (SSCs) that already have configuration and operability requirements through Technical Specifications and how this duplication should be reconciled; and

• 3. The impractical scope of SSCs that would be subject to the proposed assessment requirement, and how the burden of the overall scope of SSCs in the maintenance rule could be reduced to achieve a risk-informed scope that would properly focus licensee and regulatory attention and resources.

The enclosure provides additional details on the concerns noted above.

Further, we believe that proceeding with this rule, absent a mutual understanding of its impact and implementation, will lead to programmatic inspection and enforcement issues. We note that NUREG-1622, NRC Enforcement Policy Review, recommended that the staff should develop draft guidance at the proposed rule stage so that the Commission can be satisfied that the staffs inspection and enforcement guidance is consistent with the Commission's intentions. In this case, the staff did not provide regulatory guidance on the new provisions in the proposed rule.

Mr. John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 3 While we have significant issues with the proposed rule, we have nevertheless identified revision of the maintenance rule as an industry priority in coordination with NRC's efforts to risk-inform the Part 50 regulations. The subject rulemaking, if properly revised and renoticed, could serve as a catalyst that generates widespread industry interest and participation. In this regard, this is a unique opportunity to fulfill the original promise of the maintenance rule as a model for risk-informed, performance-based regulation. The industry stands ready to work with the NRC and other stakeholders to accomplish this goal without unduly delaying the rulemaking. We have formed a new industry executive group to oversee development of Part 50 regulatory reform, and to ensure the additional proposed improvements to the maintenance rule and implementation guidance can be effected in a rapid manner .

• We look forward to further dialogue with the NRC on this important matter.

~rp~

Anthony R. Pietrangelo Enclosure REB/

c: Mr. Sam Collins, NRC/NRR Mr. Ashok C, Thadani, NRC/RES Mr. Stewart L. Magruder, Jr., NRC/NRR

Enclosure Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 Industry recognizes the importance of plant configuration control during power operations and normal shutdown operations, and generally supports the intent of this rulemaking. In fact, equipment out-of-service assessments are currently performed at all plants in view of the industry's treatment of the existing rule language as a requirement. As part of the basis for the rulemaking, the proposed rule points to prior NRC concerns with on-line maintenance and suggests that competitive pressures in a deregulated market could encourage additional on-line maintenance in order to shorten outage times. To present a more balanced picture, it would be appropriate to note that licensees currently take significant measures to control performance of on-line maintenance, and that many maintenance activities are more safely performed during power operation as opposed to outage conditions when redundant systems and other safety systems may be out-of-service. These positive factors should be discussed in the Statement of Considerations in order to present a balanced picture of how licensees responsibly control necessary maintenance activities. Work control processes generally include reviews by experienced engineering and operations personnel to assess the impact of taking equipment out of service for maintenance and to avoid unsafe plant configurations.

Better quantitative tools have been developed and utilized by licensees to control risk during maintenance activities. Tools currently in use include on-line risk monitors and risk matrices. It has also been recognized that licensees have substantially enhanced their configuration management controls.

Our understanding was that NRC's intent was to effect rulemaking that would codify the current industry practices that were found to be effective in the Maintenance Rule baseline inspections. However, we believe the proposed rule represents a substantial new requirement that lacks a mutually acceptable understanding, duplicates existing regulatory controls, and fails to address both the safety implications (in terms of diverting attention) and practicality that the current broad scope of the rule entails. In short, we believe the proposed rule should be revised and renoticed to address these concerns.

The following is a more detailed discussion of our primary concerns with the rule as well as additional comments on the rulemaking package and its importance to further regulatory improvement efforts.

1

Introduction of Subjective, Undefined Terminology The proposed regulation would introduce significant new and undefined terminology ("ensure the plant is not placed in a risk significant configuration or configurations that would degrade performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level") directly into the rule language. The rulemaking cannot proceed until industry and NRC reach an understanding of these terms, and make appropriate revisions to the rule language to codify this understanding, or develop an alternative approach that accomplishes the same objective. (One possible alternative approach would be to use the wording developed by NRC for the "configuration risk management program" requirement, as discussed later in this letter.) Regardless of what implementation guidance is developed, the language of the rule itself must be clear in this regard. Otherwise, the rulemaking could lead to regulatory instability, unnecessary inspection and enforcement issues, or to informal establishment of regulatory expectations through the inspection process.

The recent implementation history of a number of important operational regulations, including the change process (10 CFR 50.59) and the maintenance rule (10 CFR 50.65) makes clear that explicit understanding of the actual rule language is of paramount importance in achieving stable and predictable implementation. Understandings of terms reached at the outset of implementation tend to evolve through the inspection process, resulting in costly and unstable implementation. An example is the evolution of maintenance rule scoping requirements through the inspection process, based on rule language referencing SSCs that "could cause a scram" or are referenced in emergency operating procedures. Many plants have scoped 10,000 to 15,000 SSCs into the rule. A properly constructed rule should be implemented one time in a clear manner, enabling consistent understanding over time.

We have worked with the NRC staff to develop revisions to the implementing guidance for the maintenance rule, NUMARC 93-01, that would address the subject rulemaking, and this important effort should be continued. However, the rule language itself must correspond to the final agreed-on form of the guidance. Further, the proposed implementation guidance should be made available for review concurrent with the rule comments period, to allow commenters to have a clear understanding of the intent and effect of the proposed rule.

2

Reconciliation with Existing, Duplicative Regulatory Controls The proposed regulation would establish a duplicative regulatory regime for SSCs currently subject to Technical Specifications allowed outage time requirements. The establishment of dual regulatory controls has not been reconciled. In conjunction with this rulemaking, NRC should undertake conforming changes in the format and nature of Technical Specifications to reflect the establishment of this configuration assessment requirement in the regulations.

We note that NRC has imposed "configuration risk management program" (CRMP) requirements on a number of licensees as a condition of risk-informed improvements to Technical Specifications allowed outage time requirements.

The intent of the CRMP is identical to that of the proposed maintenance rule

• revision, and the CRMP's continuation should not be necessary following promulgation of the final rule. NRC and industry efforts to establish the CRMP have elucidated a number of points that are germane to the proposed maintenance rule revision, including the following:

1. The scope of the CRMP assessment is properly limited to the maintenance rule high safety significant components or the scope of components modeled in the PRA.

2. The Technical Specification imposing the CRMP avoids the use of subjective terminology by imposing the following requirements for content and use of the CRMP:

• Provisions for performing an assessment prior to entering the LCO

[Action Statement] [Condition] for preplanned activities Provisions for performing an assessment after entering the LCO [Action Statement] [Condition] for unplanned entry into the LCO [Action Statement] [Condition]

Provisions for assessing the need for additional actions after the discovery of additional equipment out of service conditions while in the LCO [Action Statement] [Condition]

The CRMP wording places more emphasis on actions versus judgments. Given the identical intent, we would suggest consideration of similar wording in addressing use of the result of the (a)(4) configuration assessment.

3

Broad Scope Imposes Undue Burden on Monitoring and Assessment The current scope of the maintenance rule is very broad and encompasses a large majority of the total SSCs in the plant. Many plants have over 10,000 SSCs within the scope of their maintenance rule programs (in some cases, over 75 percent of all SSCs within the plant have been determined to meet the scoping requirements.) Typical for most plants, only one-third of the total is identified as risk-significant, while the remainder is oflow or no risk significance. Monitoring requirements are still imposed on the remaining SSCs.

The proposed rule would add to this burden by establishing a potentially counterproductive requirement in applying the assessment to the entire scope of maintenance rule structures, systems, or components, including those of low or no risk significance. Applying the assessment requirement to this scope is

• contrary to the spirit of risk-informed regulation, and does not reflect the current programs of many plants that have made substantial investments in risk management techniques, models, and tools to support the assessment.

The draft implementation guidance developed by industry recognizes the ability to perform the configuration assessment in a quantitative, qualitative, or blended manner, and that the degree of rigor and sophistication of the assessment should be a function of the safety significance of the proposed maintenance activity as it relates to the overall plant configuration.

Therefore, the question of "risk significance" or "significant degradation" would need to be capable of being addressed in either a quantitative, qualitative, or blended manner. This is an area where further dialogue is needed to attain mutually acceptable guidance .

Definition of "Availability" While not addressed directly in the rule language, the definition of "availability" in the implementation guidance will be key to this rulemaking.

This definition provides the foundation for the determination of an SSC's role in defining the plant configuration, and, thus, its risk significance. A risk-informed definition of unavailability should consider the ability of the SSC to perform its intended safety function within the needed time frame. NRC's currently accepted definition of "availability" for the purposes of the maintenance rule is overly restrictive, and does not comport with the definition used to develop PRA models that typically support the assessment tools. A more realistic definition should be developed that considers the time to restore functionality with respect to the component's mission in risk-significant scenarios.

4

Regulatory Analysis and Backfit Determination By separate letter, Maintenance Rule Inspection Clearinghouse (MRIC), an industry group formed by the legal firm of Winston and Strawn, provided detailed comments on the backfitting implications of the proposed rule and the draft regulatory analysis. We endorse their comments, which are summarized as follows:

1. The Regulatory Analysis does not fairly weigh the alternatives in that the disadvantages of the "no change" alternative are not realistically portrayed, including the premise that licensees might terminate their existing programs absent rulemaking.

2. The analysis of the safety benefit from the proposed rule is purely qualitative. The Regulatory Analysis does not attempt to provide any

• quantitative assessment of the expected safety benefit, but rather appears to conclude that it is infeasible to do so in view of the variability of risk assessment practices. In light of the potential significance of this rulemaking, a quantitative analysis should be performed. The backfitting rule, in 10 C.F.R. § 50.109(a)(3), requires a finding that a proposed backfit will produce a "substantial increase" in the overall protection of public health and safety.

3. The regulatory analysis is predicated on the rulemaking essentially codifying existing licensee programs. As previously noted, the rule would appear to establish significant new requirements that are not addressed in current licensee programs. Thus, we believe the regulatory analysis has substantially underestimated implementation costs. As acknowledged in the Regulatory Analysis

§ 4.0, the "NRC's Regulatory Analysis Guidelines direct the NRC Staff to not consider the cost of voluntary licensee actions as the cost basis for decisions concerning contemplated regulatory actions."

NRC's Part 50 Regulatory Reform Efforts In light of the Commission's recent directive to transition to a more risk-informed regulatory approach, and given the implementation and inspection history of the maintenance rule, we believe the rulemaking should become the pilot rulemaking for the Part 50 reform effort. The rule should be renoticed with a corresponding change to risk-inform the scope of the maintenance rule as described in 10 CFR 50.65(b). Reconsideration of this rulemaking to address maintenance rule scope provides an outstanding opportunity to initiate NRC's effort to apply risk insights to the Part 50 regulations. This effort is supported by the Commission and the NRC staff has been charged to develop rulemaking plans. Industry presented the concept of using the 5

maintenance rule to pilot the Part 50 effort at an NRC stakeholder meeting held on October 27 and 28, 1998, and NRC has expressed general agreement with the industry approach (ACRS PRA subcommittee meeting of October 29, 1998, and full committee meeting of December 3, 1998). The basic elements of the proposed approach to apply risk insights to Part 50 are as follows:

• Undertake a phased rulemaking approach building on sequential steps, with the Maintenance Rule as the pilot rulemaking.

• Concentrate first on scope of structures, systems, and components (SSCs) subject to regulation by defining a category of "important to safety" using a combination of risk insights, operating experience, and engineering judgment (to address deterministic aspects, safety margins, defense in depth, and incompleteness of quantitative models). Use the maintenance rule revision to establish this definition, and apply this definition to establish the revised scope of the maintenance rule.

Follow with rulemakings to apply the new definition to other regulations.

The maintenance rule provides an appropriate first application for the risk-informed Part 50 effort for a number of reasons:

• The rule is a backfitted monitoring rule, and transitioning to a risk-informed scope will not involve implicit effect on design basis issues, conformance with general design criteria, etc.

• The maintenance rule has been touted as a "risk informed performance based rule," however, baseline inspections have been programmatic and prescriptive. Inspection issues relative to scoping have nearly always involved components of little or no risk significance. With the proposed revision in scope, and the expected evolution to a performance based inspection approach, the rule could live up to its promise.

• The proposed codification of the configuration assessment requirement would be more clearly, consistently, and correctly implementable under a risk-informed scope.

• The rule already contains provisions for establishing a scope of equipment that covers design basis events, mitigation, initiating events, emergency operating procedures, and expert panel considerations. The implementation guidance further provides methods to characterize SSCs on the basis of risk insights. With some adjustments, this process could provide the foundation to achieve the scope of SSCs that would meet the "important to safety" approach as outlined above.

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A. Edward Scherer

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Southern California Edison Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, "Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants" (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 -

September 30, 1998)

This letter provides the Southern California Edison Company (SCE) comments on the proposed subject rulemaking. SCE has participated in, and supports, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) comments on these proposed revisions to the Maintenance Rule.

SCE understands that the proposed rulemaking seeks to:

1. Explicitly denote applicability of the rule to normal shutdown operations;

2. Change the current section (a)(3) recommendation for an assessment of equipment out of service to a regulatory requirement for an assessment of plant configuration prior to any maintenance activity; and

3. Require consideration of the above assessment result to ensure the plant is not placed in a "risk-significant configurations", or configurations that would "degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level".

SCE shares the NEI concerns about the potential significant adverse impact of these proposed revisions, and concurs with NEI that the proposed rule should be withdrawn and re-noticed following additional discussion and modification.

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Mr. John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 This rulemaking represents requirements that raise a number of concerns that should be addressed before proceeding. SCE is concerned with:

A. The impractical scope of SSCs that would be subject to the proposed assessment requirement, and how the burden of the overall scope of SSCs in the maintenance rule could be reduced to achieve a risk-informed scope that would properly focus licensee and regulatory attention and resources on safety significant issues; and B. How the rule would be implemented in light of subjective new terminology into the body of regulations (e.g., "risk-significant configuration" and "degrade performance ... to an unacceptable level"). Either a mutual understanding of these terms must be achieved, or an alternative that accomplishes the same objective must be developed.

While SCE supports the comments made by the NEI, we also wish to emphasize the following:

(a) SCE is concerned that the proposed rule's literal requirement (item 3 above)

... to ensure the plant is not placed in "risk-significant" configurations or configurations that would "degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level. .. " is unachievable from a practical standpoint.

• Pertaining to the proposed 10CFR50.65(a)(4), inclusion of low safety significant SSCs in configuration risk management programs creates a developmental and implementation burden that would dilute our risk-informed Configuration Risk Management Program.

• It is possible that occasionally it is safer for plants to enter a more risk-significant configuration for a shorter period of time, with suitable controls, than to remain in a less risk-significant configuration for a longer period of time.

• SCE supports the recommendation that the proposed (a)(4) requirement to assess configuration risk utilize the already defined, and understood, Configuration Risk Management Program.

(b) SCE shares the NEI concern that terminology such as "risk-significant configuration" and "degrade performance ... to an unacceptable level" has not been clearly defined. Without clear definition, the industry has no means to assess the potential impact on current or proposed plant operations.

Mr. John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 (c) SCE supports the NEI recommendation that the scope of the Maintenance Rule [1 0CFR50.65(a)(1) - (a)(4)] be revised to exclude low safety significant SSC functions (i.e., limit the scope of the Rule to only high safety significant SSC functions). At San Onofre the number of low safety significant functions covered by the Maintenance Rule are approximately double the number of high safety significant functions. Thus, the level of effort at San Onofre to monitor and evaluate low safety significant functions far exceeds that expended for high safety significant functions. This results in diversion of limited plant resources from areas of greater safety benefit.

(d) SCE notes that NUREG-1622, "NRG Enforcement Policy Review,"

recommended that the staff should develop draft guidance at the proposed rule stage so that the Commission can be satisfied that the staff's inspection and enforcement guidance is consistent with the Commission's intentions.

In this case, the staff did not provide regulatory guidance on the new provisions in the proposed rule. Industry experience with the initial implementation of the Maintenance Rule, causes SCE concern that proceeding with this rule, absent a mutual understanding of its impact and implementation under the Enforcement Policy, will lead to adverse programmatic inspection and enforcement issues.

In summary, SCE is sufficiently concerned with the proposed rule that it recommends the proposed rule be withdrawn and re-noticed following additional discussion and modification. While we have significant concerns with this proposed rule, we nevertheless believe that revision of the maintenance rule should be an industry priority in coordination with NRC's current efforts to risk-inform the Part 50 regulations.

If you have additional questions regarding our comments, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely, cc: Mr. S. Collins. NRC/NRR Mr. A. Thadani, NRC/RES Mr. S. Magruder, Jr., NRC/NRR NRC Document Control Desk

(f) l\lew York !itate Energy Research and Development ~~"-Q WIiiiam R. Ho~W, ChaCi:an F. William Valentino, President Corporate Plaza West, 286 Washington Avenue Extension, Albany, NY 12203-6399 (518) 862-1090

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Dear Secretary Hoyle:

This letter is submitted in response to the September 30, 1998 Federal Register announcement of the proposed amendments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission' s power reactor safety regulations in 10 CFR 50.65. The proposed amendments would require power reactor licensees to assess the effect of out-of-service equipment on the plant's ability to perform safety functions prior to beginning any maintenance activity on structures, systems, or components that are within the scope of the maintenance rule.

This announcement has been reviewed by the New York State Public Service Commission, the New York State Department of Health, and NYSERDA.

These agencies support the concept of requiring power reactor licensees to assess the effects of out-of-service equipment on the plant's ability to perform safety functions. A concept similar to this is being used by at least one of the nuclear power plants in the State. Continuous risk assessments should be made as plant conditions change, as a matter of good plant management.

The proposed change to Section (a)(4) states that the assessment results "shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." The lack of specificity as to what constitutes an "unacceptable level" could make implementation and enforcement of this provision difficult. NRC has stated their intent to develop _a revised Regulatory Guide 1.160, which will provide licensees with guidance regarding risk-significant configurations and unacceptable levels of safety function degradation, at some future date. However, the State believes that these Regulatory Guide 1.160 revisions should be addressed before finalizing the proposed changes to 10 CFR 50.65. This would assist licensees in their implementation of this provision and NRC in their enforcement efforts.

Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments on this rulemaking action.

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Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudication Staff Re: Comments on Proposed Amendment to the Maintenance Rule, 63 Fed. Rei:. 52201 (September 30, 1998)

Dear Mr. Hoyle:

On September 30, 1998, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a proposed amendment to the Maintenance Rule, 10 C.F.R. § 50.65, for public comment.li Set forth below are the comments of the Maintenance Rule Inspection Clearinghouse (MRIC).Y In addition to our comments, the MRIC also supports the comments on the proposed rule submitted by the Nuclear Energy Institute ("NEI"). In particular, we believe that adopting a risk-informed approach to Maintenance Rule scope identification, as proposed by NEI, holds great promise for reducing regulatory burden and re-focusing critical resources on the SSCs of primary importance.

We agree with the general principle behind this rulemaking -- namely, to provide that adequate safety assessments continue to be performed prior to removing equipment from service for maintenance -- and reaiize that the Staff's primary intent was to codify practices currently employed by many licensees. However, the proposed rule, as published, contains certain language which we fear could be open to interpretational disputes in the future. If broadly construed, the proposed rule Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants, 63 Fed. Reg. 52201 (September 30, 1998).

2 The Maintenance Rule Inspection Clearinghouse is a consortium of utilities formed to follow implementation of the NRC's Maintenance Rule and to prepare for the associated inspections. MRIC members own or operate 31 of the nation's power reactors. The members of the MRIC are American Electric Power, Commonwealth Edison Company, Entergy Operations, Public Service Electric & Gas, Rochester Gas & Electric, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, and Southern Nuclear Operating Company.

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WINSTON & STRAWN John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 2 could present a significant implementation burden for licensees without a commensurate increase in safety.

We would like to commend the Staff for its efforts to solicit and consider stakeholder input on the implementation of the current Maintenance Rule and this important rulemaking. We urge the NRC to continue the practice of working with the industry, through NEI, to forge appropriate rule language and implementing guidance prior to issuance of a final rule.

Comments A. Existing Practices As part of the basis for the rulemaking, the proposed rule points to prior NRC concerns with on-line maintenance and suggests that competitive pressures in a deregulated market could encourage additional on-line maintenance in order to shorten outage times. To present a more balanced picture, it would be appropriate to note that licensees, through their work control processes, often have detailed procedures and take significant measures to control performance of on-line maintenance. Work control processes generally include reviews by experienced engineering and operations personnel to assess the impact of taking equipment out of service for maintenance and to avoid unsafe plant configurations.

Better quantitative tools have been developed and utilized by licensees to control risk during maintenance activities. Tools currently in use include on-line risk monitors and risk matrices.

It has also been recognized that licensees have substantially enhanced their configuration management controls. Furthermore, performing certain maintenance activities while operating is more conservative than performing that same maintenance during an outage when redundant systems and other safety systems may be out-of-service. These positive factors should be discussed in the rule in order to present a balanced picture of how licensees responsibly control necessary maintenance activities.

Implementation of the current Maintenance Rule has also led to improvements in this area. Licensees have generally treated the current safety assessment provision of paragraph (a)(3) of the rule as a requirement and have improved their ability to control the performance of maintenance activities. The NRC' s baseline inspections revealed that all licensees had developed programs to implement the safety assessment provision of paragraph (a)(3). At only five out of 50 plants did the NRC find instances where the licensee failed to perform a necessary assessment of the safety impact of total equipment out of service. See 63 Fed. Reg. at 52202.

WINSTON & STRAWN John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 3 B. The Proposed Rule Introduces Terms That Could Establish Subjective Acceptance Standards The proposed rule would provide that prior to the conduct of maintenance activities, a safety assessment be performed that "shall be used to enure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." 63 Fed. Reg. at 52203. We are concerned that these standards could be open to interpretation and thereby introduce considerable uncertainty for licensees.

(1) Risk-significant configurations

• "Risk-significant configuration" is not defined in the actual rule language and, when used with the term "ensure," seems to become an acceptance standard. While licensees currently employ risk insights in many applications, such as in scoping and the establishment of performance criteria under the Maintenance Rule, the term "risk-significant configuration" is a new concept which warrants precise definition and the development of detailed implementing guidance to avoid differing or overly conservative interpretations. More unique language and a full definition of the term should be provided in the rule to guard against inconsistent application.

Furthermore, the guidance should be developed in parallel so that the NRC and licensees do not have differing expectations with regard to the definition and application of the term .

• Specifically, since "risk-significant configurations" must be avoided according to the language of the proposed rule and NUMARC 93-01 currently defines "risk-significant SSCs" as any SSC that significantly contributes to risk as determined by the PRNIPE or other methods, the proposed rulemaking language could conceivabiy be interpreted as requiring licensees to avoid any configuration where even one SSC that significantly contributes to risk is removed from service. If interpreted this way, the proposed rule could severely curtail maintenance that is currently considered acceptable because no maintenance that removes a risk-significant SSC from service could be conducted in any operational mode. Although we understand that this is not the NRC's intent, the language of the proposed rule could be subject to such misinterpretation in the future.

• Methods blending both quantitative and qualitative measures, including engineering/operations judgment, to assess the safety impact of maintenance must be available to licensees. The use of a blended approach is consistent with current practices and is the appropriate approach for many structures,

WINSTON & STRAWN John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 4 systems and components such as those not modeled in the plant's probabilistic risk assessment ("PRA"). We believe that the acceptability of blended methods should be clearly addressed in the rule, as well as in guidance that is prepared in parallel with the final rule.

(2) Degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level

• The terminology "unacceptable level" could be susceptible to varying interpretations. The Staff should work with the industry through NEI to develop the appropriate standard for incorporation in the final rule .

• Similarly, another area where the proposed rule would introduce potentially subjective criteria is in its reference to a noninclusive list of maintenance activities . The proposed rule defines the scope of maintenance activities in an open-ended manner by indicating that the activities "includ[ e ], but are not limited to, surveillance testing, post-maintenance testing, corrective maintenance, performance/condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance .... " 63 Fed. Reg.

at 52203. In order to remove any doubt as to what actions are subject to the regulation, we would recommend that the language be revised to make the rule all-inclusive by deleting the words "including, but not limited to, ... "

C. The Proposed Rule Could Dilute Attention from Risk-significant Plant Equipment by Requiring Detailed Safety Assessments for All SSCs Within the Scope of the Maintenance Rule As proposed, the rule could be interpreted to require that detailed safety assessments be conducted prior to performing maintenance on any SSCs within the scope of the Maintenance Rule. Such an approach could be counterproductive. If the scope of the Maintenance Rule remains as now defined and there is no ability io grade the depth of the evaiuation prepared, the burden of preparing and documenting safety assessments for all SSCs within the scope could be significant.

Moreover, for many SSCs, conducting detailed safety assessments would provide little or no value since approximately two-thirds of SSCs within the scope of the Rule do not significantly contribute to risk.

On a practical level, almost no work could be undertaken without "real-time" preparation of a safety assessment since the actual plant configuration is constantly changing. There could be little, if any, pre-evaluation if the licensee had to ensure that the plant would not be placed in a risk-significant configuration. In our view, the rule should clearly establish the following:

1. The (a)(4) safety assessments need not be individually prepared for every SSC or function. The current broad scope of the Maintenance Rule includes SSCs of little

WINSTON & STRAWN John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 5 or no risk-significance. Many of these SSCs are included because of the scoping criteria which requires emergency operating procedure (EOP) equipment and SSCs that "could cause" a trip to be included in the scope. We believe that only risk-significant SSCs should be subject to individual "real-time" safety assessments under (a)( 4) . Standard safety assessments for certain classes of components should be allowed in order to reduce the burden of"real-time" assessments.

2. The detail and rigor of the safety assessments under (a)(4) should be proportional to the risk-significance of the SSCs being considered. In its original recommendation to revise 10 C.F.R. § 50.65 (a)(3), SECY-97-173, Potential Revision to JO C.F.R. 50.65(a)(3) of the Maintenance Rule to Require Licensees to Perform Safety Assessments, the Staff stated:

The staff's expectation for the (a)(3) safety assessments is that the level of assessment be based on the safety significance of the equipment involved. Structures, systems, and components (SSCs) of high safety significance would involve more quantitative approaches, while SSCs of low safety significance (especially those not modeled in the PRA) could be assessed more qualitatively.

The staff continues to agree that the sophistication of the safety assessments should vary. For some SSCs of low safety significance, a qualitative assessment based on licensee knowledge may be sufficient to justify removing those SSCs from service. Additionally, other strategies may not need a specific safety assessment as described in paragraph (a)(3), for example, when a licensee only removes a single SSC from service at a time. This is because short term unavailability of many risk significant SSCs has already been determined to be acceptable as part of the licensing basis.

SECY-97-173 at pages 2-3.

We agree with the Staff that this is the correct approach to the scope and rigor of the (a)(3) safety assessment. This concept should be incorporated into the Statement of Considerations for the rule and included in guidance prepared by the Staff in coordination with the industry during the rulemaking process.

WINSTON & STRAWN John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 6 D. The Proposed Rule, as Drafted, Is Not Adequately Supported by the Current Backfitting Analysis As part of the process for selecting the appropriate regulatory alternative for this rulemaking, the Staff prepared a Regulatory Analysis that identified alternatives to the proposed rule (including no change to paragraph (a)(3)) and weighed the purported advantages and disadvantages of each alternative. The Staff determined that the proposed rule presented a backfit and thus prepared a backfitting analysis (incorporated into the Regulatory Analysis) as required by 10 C.F.R.

§ 50.109(c) using the guidelines of NUREG/BR-0058, "Regulatory Analysis Guidelines of the U.S .

Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

As noted above, the MRIC agrees with the concept behind the present rulemaking and would have no quarrel with a proposed rule that codified existing practices. However, in our view, the backfitting analysis would not be sufficient to justify imposition of a broad new requirement and standards governing the performance of safety assessments, which we believe would be the impact of the rule as proposed. We have recommended in these comments that the NRC work with the industry to develop appropriate rule language and contemporaneous guidance, which would minimize the impact of the new rule on existing programs and thereby resolve any concerns with the backfitting implications of the rulemaking.

For completeness, we summarize below the main weaknesses in the backfitting analysis if it were to be relied upon to justify a rule that would significantly broaden the scope of existing programs .

• I. The Regulatory Analysis does not fairly weigh the alternatives in that the disadvantages of Alternative 1 -- "Make No Change to Paragraph (a)(3)" -- are not realistically portrayed. The Regulatory Analysis includes the following "disadvantages" for Alternative 1:

(1) licensees could remove the paragraph (a)(3) safety assessment provision in their maintenance rule implementation programs at their own discretion; and (2) since the performance of a safety assessment is discretionary and not mandatory, licensees cannot take credit for their safety assessment programs under other risk-informed initiatives (unless they make the safety assessments a requirement through the other initiative).

As to the first disadvantage of the "no change" alternative, the baseline inspections revealed that all licensees have some type of a safety assessment process built into

WINSTON & STRAWN John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 7 their maintenance rule program. 63 Fed. Reg. at 52202 . As a practical matter, it is unlikely that licensees which have developed safety assessment processes will remove them from their maintenance rule programs. As to the second disadvantage, we are aware of no prohibition on licensees using safety assessments in support of risk-informed initiatives, such as proposed changes to allowed outage times under plant Technical Specifications.

2. The analysis of the safety benefit from the proposed rule is purely qualitative. The Regulatory Analysis (section 3.2.2) does not attempt to provide any quantitative assessment of the expected safety benefit, but rather appears to conclude that it is infeasible to do so in view of the variability of risk assessment practices. The backfitting rule, in 10 C.F.R. § 50 .109(a)(3), requires a finding that a proposed backfit will produce a "substantial increase" in the overall protection of public health and safety. The backfitting rule is flexible enough to permit reliance on qualitative factors in making this finding, and a qualitative evaluation could be sufficient to justify a simple rule change that codifies existing practices. However, if the proposed rule were to broaden the level of safety assessments significantly, a more rigorous evaluation to quantify the safety benefit would be required. See Manual Chapter 0514, "NRC Program for Management of Plant-Specific Backfitting of Nuclear Power Plants," dated August 26, 1988, at page 8.

3. The Regulatory Analysis understates the implementation costs for licensees by failing to recognize the potential impact on existing programs. The analysis states:

There would be little or no burden on most licensees because licensees already have voluntary programs in place in accordance with NUMARC 93-01, "Industry Guideline for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," which the NRC endorsed by Regulatory Guide 1.160, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," and the weaknesses in those programs that led to the failures to perform safety assessments found during baseline inspections could be corrected relatively easily.

All licensees have some form of pre-maintenance safety assessment program as recommended in 10 C.F.R. 50.65(a)(3) and as provided in Regulatory Guide 1.160 and NUMARC 93-01 . . . . the methodologies for performing the assessments are in place in most facilities; however, the weaknesses in some programs would have to

WINSTON & STRAWN John C. Hoyle December 14, 1998 Page 8 be corrected, and the compliance with 10 C.F.R. 50.65(a)(3) would have to be assured. Thus, the one-time $320,000 cost per facility for methodology development and the annual $75,000 per facility for use and maintenance would seem to overstate the actual increase in cost as a result of this rulemaking.

Thus the NRC' s estimate of licensee implementation costs is based on the assumption that the proposed rule would reflect existing practices. For the reasons described above, the rule, as currently proposed, could actually necessitate significant revisions of licensee programs, with more extensive retraining than the Regulatory Analysis estimates. Moreover, given the difficulty of implementing some of the proposed rule language, additional plant downtime could be expected to result because licensees would be limited in their ability to perform on-line maintenance. Additional outage time must be considered in the backfitting analysis (see 10 C.F.R. § 50.109(c)). Lastly, we would be concerned if the NRC's cost analysis were performed in such a way that the existence of voluntary licensee programs was used as the basis, or springboard, to justify new broader regulatory requirements and standards for the safety assessments. As acknowledged in the Regulatory Analysis § 4.0, the "NRC' s Regulatory Analysis Guidelines direct the NRC Staff to not consider the cost of voluntary licensee actions as the cost basis for decisions concerning contemplated regulatory actions ."

We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the proposed rule and encourage the NRC to meet with the industry through NEI to develop appropriate rule language, with development of implementing guidance at the same time that the rulemaking is developed.

Respectfully submitted,

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Daniel F. Stenger Deborah K. Staudinger 0

Robert K. Temple Counsel to the Maintenance Rule Inspection Clearinghouse

. Lewis Sumner Vice President Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc.

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Hatch Project Support 40 Inverness Parkway Post Office Box 1295 DOCKETED Birmingham, Alabama 35201 u~ -m Tel 205.992.7279 Fax 205.992.0341 AB ,4 I :-11

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Docket Nos. 50-348 50-321 50-424 HL-5715 50-364 50-366 50-425 LCV-1287 Mr. John C. Hoyle, Secretary U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ATIN: Rulemakings and Adjudication's Staff Washington, D. C. 20555-0001 Comments on the Proposed Rule, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants" (63 Federal Register 52201 dated September 30, 1998)

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:

Southern Nuclear Operating Company (Southern Nuclear) has reviewed the proposed rule, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," published in the Federal Register on September 30, 1998. In accordance with request for comments, Southern Nuclear is in total agreement with the NEI comments which are to be provided to theNRC.

Respectfully submitted, H. L. Sumner HLS/JDB i,

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY~

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U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Page Two cc: Southern Nuclear Operating Company Mr. M. L. Stinson, General Manager - Plant Farley Mr. P.H. Wells, General Manager- Plant Hatch Mr. J. T. Gasser, General Manager - Vogtle Electric Generating Plant Mr. D. N. Morey, Vice President - Plant Farley Mr. J.B. Beasley, Vice President - Plant Vogtle U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC Mr. J. I. Zimmerman, Licensing Project Manager - Farley Mr. L. N. Olshan, Project Manager- Hatch Mr. D. H. Jaffe, Senior Project Manager - Vogtle U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region II Mr. L.A. Reyes, Regional Administrator Mr. T. P. Johnson, Senior Resident Inspector - Farley Mr. J. T. Munday, Senior Resident Inspector- Hatch Mr. J. Zeiler, Senior Resident Inspector - Vogtle HL-5715 LCV-1287

Station Support Department @

DOCKETED PECO NUCLEAR US ~it.? C PECO Encr,Jy Company 965 Chesterbrook Boulevard A Unit of PECO Energy W:Jyne, PA 19087-5691

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,f-f-Mr. John C. Hoyle DOCKET NUMBER p 5,. .

Secretary of the Commission PROPOSED RULE o U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

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Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Washington, DC 20555-0001

Subject:

Comments Concerning Proposed Rule 10CFR50, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants" (63FR52201, dated September 30, 1998)

Dear Mr. Hoyle:

This letter is being submitted in response to the NRC's request for comments concerning Proposed Rule 10CFR65, "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants," which was published in the Federal Register (i.e., 63FR52201, dated September 30, 1998). The NRC is proposing to amend its regulations to require that licensees assess the cumulative effect of out-of-service equipment on a plant's capability to perform safety functions before beginning any maintenance activities on structures, systems, or components within the scope of the Maintenance Rule.

PECO Energy appreciates the opportunity to comment on this proposed rule. We recommend that the proposed rule be withd rawn and renoticed to reflect additional changes suggested by the industry in order to make the scope of the Maintenance Rule risk-informed, and to clarify issues with respect to proposed terminology of the rule. We fully support the Nuclear Energy lnstitute's (NEl's) position and comments regarding this proposed rule. In addition, PECO Energy offers the following comments for consideration by the NRC.

Comments The terminology used in the proposed rule with regard to the definition of "risk significant" appears subjective. PECO Energy believes that the definition of "risk significant" should be agreed upon by the NRC and the industry before promulgating any rulemaking.

We believe that performing risk assessments for all equipment in the present scope of the Maintenance Rule will result in a burdensome quantity of assessments because of the volume of assessments that would be generated due to low or non-risk significant equipment.

oe:c , 7 i998 Acknnwledoed by card ........................."".,...

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION RULEMAKINGS & ADJUDICATIONS STAFF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSIO Postmar Date Copies Received Add'I Copies Reproduced _ _ _ __

Special Distribution, _ _ _ _ _ __

December 11, 1998 Page2 We are concerned that the proposed rule expands the scope of the existing Maintenance Rule requirements. Specifically, the current rule requires performance of an assessment prior to performing monitoring or preventive maintenance activities. The proposed rule requires an assessment regardless of the reason, i.e., the proposed rule states in part:

• ... prior to performing maintenance activities on SSCs within the scope of this section, (including, but limited to, surveillance testing, post maintenance testing, corrective maintenance, performance/condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance), .... "

Defining the term *nsk significant" and only requiring risk assessments prior to removal of risk significant equipment from service will appropriately focus resources and attention on safety.

In addition, the definition of *availability"when used to describe equipment as represented in risk assessments must consider the time to restore availability with respect to the equipment mission in risk significant scenarios and allow manual actions to restore and initiate the equipment, because Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) models typically credit realistic actions.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Very truly youi A) . ~

?JL2.£___. _o Garrett D. Edwards Director - Licensing

December 11, 1998 Page2 bee: G. R. Rainey- 63C-3 J. D. von Suskil - LGS, SMB1-1 J. Doering - PBAPS, SMB4-9 J. J. Hagan - 62C-3 M. P. Gallagher - LGS, GMLS-1 M. E. Warner- PBAPS, A4-1S G. J. Beck- 63A-3 A. J. Marie - 63A-3 J. T. Wilson - 63A-3 M. J. Taylor - PBAPS, A4-5S G. H. Stewart - LGS, SMB2-4 D. P. Helker- 62A-1 J. G. Hufnagel - 62A-1 J. L. Phillabaum - 62A-1 D. J. Foss - PBAPS, PS2-2

• Correspondence Control Desk - 61 B-3 DAC A:RISKINFORM_MAJNTRULE_PR.OOC

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[iID '98 O[C 14 P4 :13 Tennessee Valley Authority, 1101 Market Street, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37 402-2801 on ,.-.

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December 10, 1998 DOCKET 0 RO Mr. John C. Hoyle Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudication Staff Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 Gentlemen:

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC) - REQUEST FOR COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED RULEMAKING TO 10 CFR 50.65, REQUIREMENTS FOR MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS (Volume 63 Federal Register 52201)

TVA offers the following comments relative to the Federal Register notice dated September 30, 1998, that solicited public comments on the proposed rulemaking to the Maintenance Rule. The proposed rulemaking seeks to:

1. Explicitly denote applicability of the rule to normal shutdown operations,

2. Change the current section (a) (3) recommendation for an assessment of equipment out of service to a regulatory requirement for an assessment of plant configuration prior to any maintenance activity, and

3. Require consideration of the above assessment result to ensure the plant is not placed in a risk-significant condition, or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

TVA's specific comments are provided in Enclosure 1. TVA also endorses comments provided by the Nuclear Energy Institute's letter to the NRC dated December 7, 1998. These comments are restated in Enclosure 2.

OEC 1 7 1998 ArknowlPdoed by ~rd .................................. .

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. . NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM ISSIO RULEMAKINGS & ADJUDICATIONS STAFF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSION Onct 'lt s ?ti Postmark Date 1:i./J.1/ 18' __ _

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U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Page 2 December 10, 1998 TVA appreciates the opportunity to provide comments on this important subject and looks forward to working with the NRC in the future. If you have any questions, please contact Rob Brown at (423) 751-7228.

Sincerely,

• .r~ ~ ~

M ar~-o Manager Burzynski

• Nuclear Licensing Enclosures cc (Enclosures):

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ATTN: Document Control Desk Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

Enclosure 1 TVA's Specific Comments

1. TVA believes that the Maintenance Rule baseline inspections were positive. Considering that these were baseline inspections, some weaknesses were expected. In general, plants were found to be following the Maintenance Rule requirements, and the compliance issues identified were corrected relatively easily. Thus, TVA believes that the proposed rulemaking is unnecessary.

2. NEI requested that NRC review the scope of the Maintenance Rule for a scope reduction. NEI and key industry stakeholders proposed this review because a significant portion of the Maintenance Rule activities apply to systems, structures, and components (SSCs) that have low safety significance. While NRC is considering this new scope reduction, TVA believes that it is premature to issue new Maintenance Rule requirements.

3. When referring to risk assessments of maintenance activities, the proposed rule uses the term "safety assessment." This term is also widely used to describe 10 CFR 50.59 assessments.

Thus, the meaning of "safety assessment" in 10 CFR 50.65 could be confusing. Clarification is recommended.

4. The proposed rule references post-maintenance testing in a way that licensees might feel compelled to schedule all such activities separately from the corrective or preventive maintenance activities. This would be an over-reaction since many post-maintenance activities present no unusual equipment configuration changes such as leak checks at full temperature and pressure. Clarification of the scope of activities requiring post-maintenance testing is recommended.

5. Consideration should be given to the complexity of performing tasks to return SSCs to service. The definition of unavailability needs to refer to instances of SSCs being unavailable due to physical degradation and not for removal from service for testing. This applies when provisions for returning SSCs to service are planned as part of maintenance or test activities and are not limited by the number of actions and personnel involved in returning the SSCs to service, when necessary. This could be clarified in Regulatory Guide 1.160.

El-1

Enclosure 2 NEX/Xndustry Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65 Industry recognizes the importance of plant configuration control during power operations and normal shutdown operations, and generally supports the intent of this rulemaking. In fact, equipment out-of-service assessments are currently performed at all plants in view of the industry's treatment of the existing rule language as a requirement. As part of the basis for the rulemaking, the proposed rule points to prior NRC concerns with on-line maintenance and suggests that competitive pressures in a deregulated market could encourage additional on-line maintenance in order to shorten outage times. To present a more balanced picture, it would be appropriate to note that licensees currently take significant measures to control performance of on-line maintenance, and that many maintenance activities are more safely performed during power operation as opposed to outage conditions when redundant systems and other safety systems may be out-of-service. These positive factors should be discussed in the Statement of Considerations in order to present a balanced picture of how licensees responsibly control necessary maintenance activities. Work control processes generally include reviews by experienced engineering and operations personnel to assess the impact of taking equipment out of service for maintenance and to avoid unsafe plant configurations.

Better quantitative tools have been developed and utilized by licensees to control risk during maintenance activities. Tools currently in use include on-line risk monitors and risk matrices.

It has also been recognized that licensees have substantially enhanced their configuration management controls .

• Our understanding was that NRC's intent was to effect rulemaking that would codify the current industry practices that were found to be effective in the Maintenance Rule baseline inspections. However, we believe the proposed rule represents a substantial new requirement that lacks a mutually acceptable understanding, duplicates existing regulatory controls, and fails to address both the safety implications (in terms of diverting attention) and practicality that the current broad scope of the rule entails. In short, we believe the proposed rule should be revised and renoticed to address these concerns.

The following is a more detailed discussion of our primary concerns with the rule as well as additional comments on the rulemaking package and its importance to further regulatory improvement efforts.

E2-1

Introduction of Subjective, Undefined Terminology The proposed regulation would introduce significant new and undefined terminology ("ensure the plant is not placed in a risk significant configuration or configurations that would degrade performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level") directly into the rule language. The rulemaking cannot proceed until industry and NRC reach an understanding of these terms, and make appropriate revisions to the rule language to codify this understanding, or develop an alternative approach that accomplishes the same objective.

(One possible alternative approach would be to use the wording developed by NRC for the "configuration risk management program" requirement, as discussed later in this letter.) Regardless of what implementation guidance is developed, the language of the rule itself must be clear in this regard. Otherwise, the rulemaking could lead to regulatory instability, unnecessary inspection and enforcement issues, or to informal establishment of regulatory expectations through the inspection process.

The recent implementation history of a number of important operational regulations, including the change process (10 CFR 50.59) and the maintenance rule (10 CFR 50.65) makes clear that explicit understanding of the actual rule language is of paramount importance in achieving stable and predictable implementation. Understandings of terms reached at the outset of implementation tend to evolve through the inspection process, resulting in costly and unstable implementation. An example is the evolution of maintenance rule scoping requirements through the inspection process, based on rule language referencing SSCs that "could cause a scram" or are referenced in emergency operating procedures .

Many plants have scoped 10,000 to 15,000 SSCs into the rule.

A properly constructed rule should be implemented one time in a clear manner, enabling consistent understanding over time.

We have worked with the NRC staff to develop revisions to the implementing guidance for the maintenance rule, NUMARC 93-01, that would address the subject rulemaking, and this important effort should be continued. However, the rule language itself must correspond to the final agreed-on form of the guidance. Further, the proposed implementation guidance should be made available for review concurrent with the rule comments period, to allow commenters to have a clear understanding of the intent and effect of the proposed rule.

E2-2

Reconciliation with Existing, Duplicative Regulatory Controls The proposed regulation would establish a duplicative regulatory regime for SSCs currently subject to Technical Specifications allowed outage time requirements. The establishment of dual regulatory controls has not been reconciled. In conjunction with this rulemaking, NRC should undertake conforming changes in the format and nature of Technical Specifications to reflect the establishment of this configuration assessment requirement in the regulations.

We note that NRC has imposed "configuration risk management program" (CRMP) requirements on a number of licensees as a condition of risk-informed improvements to Technical Specifications allowed outage time requirements. The intent of the CRMP is identical to that of the proposed maintenance rule revision, and the CRMP's continuation should not be necessary following promulgation of the final rule. NRC and industry efforts to establish the CRMP have elucidated a number of points that are germane to the proposed maintenance rule revision, including the following:

1. The scope of the CRMP assessment is properly limited to the maintenance rule high safety significant components or the scope of components modeled in the PRA.

2. The Technical Specification imposing the CRMP avoids the use of subjective terminology by imposing the following requirements for content and use of the CRMP:

Provisions for performing an assessment prior to entering the LCO [Action Statement] [Condition] for preplanned activities Provisions for performing an assessment after entering the LCO [Action Statement] [Condition] for unplanned entry into the LCO [Action Statement] [Condition]

Provisions for assessing the need for additional actions after the discovery of additional equipment out of service conditions while in the LCO [Action Statement] [Condition]

The CRMP wording places more emphasis on actions versus judgments. Given the identical intent, we would suggest consideration of similar wording in addressing use of the result of the (a) (4) configuration assessment.

E2-3

Broad Scope Imposes Undue Burden on Monitoring and Assessment The current scope of the maintenance rule is very broad and encompasses a large majority of the total SSCs in the plant.

Many plants have over 10,000 SSCs within the scope of their maintenance rule programs (in some cases, over 75 percent of all SSCs within the plant have been determined to meet the scoping requirements.) Typical for most plants, only one-third of the total is identified as risk-significant, while the remainder is of low or no risk significance. Monitoring requirements are still imposed on the remaining SSCs.

The proposed rule would add to this burden by establishing a potentially counterproductive requirement in applying the assessment to the entire scope of maintenance rule structures, systems, or components, including those of low or no risk significance. Applying the assessment requirement to this scope is contrary to the spirit of risk-informed regulation, and does not reflect the current programs of many plants that have made substantial investments in risk management techniques, models, and tools to support the assessment.

The draft implementation guidance developed by industry recognizes the ability to perform the configuration assessment in a quantitative, qualitative, or blended manner, and that the degree of rigor and sophistication of the assessment should be a function of the safety significance of the proposed maintenance activity as it relates to the overall plant configuration. Therefore, the question of "risk significance" or "significant degradation" would need to be capable of being addressed in either a quantitative, qualitative, or blended manner. This is an area where further dialogue is needed to attain mutually acceptable guidance.

Definition of "Availability" While not addressed directly in the rule language, the definition of "availability" in the implementation guidance will be key to this rulemaking. This definition provides the foundation for the determination of an SSC's role in defining the plant configuration, and, thus, its risk significance. A risk-informed definition of unavailability should consider the ability of the SSC to perform its intended safety function within the needed time frame. NRC's currently accepted definition of "availability" for the purposes of the maintenance rule is overly restrictive, and does not comport with the definition used to develop PRA models that typically support the assessment tools. A more realistic definition should be developed that considers the time to restore functionality with respect to the component's mission in risk-significant scenarios.

E2-4

Regulatory Analysis and Backfit Determination By separate letter, Maintenance Rule Inspection Clearinghouse (MRIC), an industry group formed by the legal firm of Winston and Strawn, provided detailed comments on the backfitting implications of the proposed rule and the draft regulatory analysis. We endorse their comments, which are summarized as follows:

1. The Regulatory Analysis does not fairly weigh the alternatives in that the disadvantages of the "no change" alternative are not realistically portrayed, including the premise that licensees might terminate their existing programs absent rulemaking.

2. The analysis of the safety benefit from the proposed rule is purely qualitative. The Regulatory Analysis does not attempt to provide any quantitative assessment of the expected safety benefit, but rather appears to conclude that it is infeasible to do so in view of the variability of risk assessment practices. The backfitting rule, in 10 C.F.R. § 50.109(a) (3), requires a finding that a proposed backfit will produce a "substantial increase" in the overall protection of public health and safety.

3. The regulatory analysis is predicated on the rulemaking essentially codifying existing licensee programs. As previously noted, the rule would appear to establish significant new requirements that are not addressed in current licensee programs.

Thus, we believe the regulatory analysis has substantially underestimated implementation costs.

As acknowledged in the Regulatory Analysis§ 4.0, the "NRC's Regulatory Analysis Guidelines direct the NRC Staff to not consider the cost of voluntary licensee actions as the cost basis for decisions concerning contemplated regulatory actions."

NRC's Part 50 Regulatory Reform Efforts In light of the Commission's recent directive to transition to a more risk-informed regulatory approach, and given the implementation and inspection history of the maintenance rule, we believe the rulemaking should become the pilot rulemaking for the Part 50 reform effort. The rule should be renoticed with a corresponding change to risk-inform the scope of the maintenance rule as described in 10 CFR 50.65(b). Reconsideration of this rulemaking to address maintenance rule scope provides an outstanding opportunity to initiate NRC's effort to apply risk insights to the Part 50 regulations. This effort is supported by the Commission and the NRC staff has been charged to develop rulemaking plans.

Industry presented the concept of using the maintenance rule E2-5

to pilot the Part 50 effort at an NRC stakeholder meeting held on October 27 and 28, 1998, and NRC has expressed general agreement with the industry approach (ACRS PRA subcommittee meeting of October 29, 1998, and full committee meeting of December 3, 1998). The basic elements of the proposed approach to apply risk insights to Part 50 are as follows:

• Undertake a phased rulemaking approach building on sequential steps, with the Maintenance Rule as the pilot rulemaking.

• Concentrate first on scope of structures, systems, and components (SSCs) subject to regulation by defining a category of "important to safety" using a combination of risk insights, operating experience, and engineering judgment (to address deterministic aspects, safety margins, defense in depth, and incompleteness of quantitative models). Use the maintenance rule revision to establish this definition, and apply this definition to establish the revised scope of the maintenance rule.

• Follow with rulemakings to apply the new definition to other regulations.

The maintenance rule provides an appropriate first application for the risk-informed Part 50 effort for a number of reasons:

• The rule is a backfitted monitoring rule, and transitioning to a risk-informed scope will not involve implicit effect on design basis issues, conformance with general design criteria, etc .

• The maintenance rule has been touted as a "risk informed performance based rule," however, baseline inspections have been programmatic and prescriptive. Inspection issues relative to scoping have nearly always involved components of little or no risk significance. With the proposed revision in scope, and the expected evolution to a performance based inspection approach, the rule could live up to its promise.

• The proposed codification of the configuration assessment requirement would be more clearly, consistently, and correctly implementable under a risk-informed scope.

• The rule already contains provisions for establishing a scope of equipment that covers design basis events, mitigation, initiating events, emergency operating procedures, and expert panel considerations. The implementation guidance further provides methods to E2-6

characterize SSCs on the basis of risk insights. With some adjustments, this process could provide the foundation to achieve the scope of SSCs that would meet the "important to safety" approach as outlined above.

E2-7

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Maine Yankee DOCKETED US RC

'* p,:1:i3 P.O. BOX 408

• WISCASSET, MAINE 04578 * (207) 882-6321

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MN-98-74 GAZ-98-64 OrF RUL--

Mr. John C. Hoyle AD ILJ ,_

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Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555-0001

Subject:

Maine Yankee Comments on Proposed Rulemaking to 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 - September 30, 1998)

The purpose of this letter is (1) to provide Maine Yankee's endorsement of the comments provided by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) on the subject proposed rulemaking and (2) to register Maine Yankee's concern regarding the scope and extent of maintenance rule implementation for permanently shutdown plants who have submitted 10 CFR 50.82(a)(l) certifications.

NEI commented on how the proposed rulemaking introduces subjective, undefined terminology related to proposed requirement, 50.65(a)(4), to conduct an assessment of the current plant configuration before performing maintenance activities on "in-scope" SCC. An example of the confusion that can be created by the introduction of subjective, undefined terminology is the terminology that was introduced into the maintenance rule, 50.65(a)(l) by the Decommissioning Rule (61FR39278). This terminology was related to the scope of SCC's applicable to plants that have submitted 10 CFR 50.82(a)(l) certifications and consisted of the phrase: all SCC's "associated with the storage, control, and maintenance of spent fuel in a safe condition." There was insufficient dialogue on the meaning on the terminology, "safe condition." In particular, the dialogue should have addressed the parameters and criteria that constitute the "safe condition."

A close examination of the range of possible parameters and criteria that could constitute the "safe condition" could conclude that they should be limited to (1) dose consequep.ces, and (2) margin to criticality. Following, a modest level of fission product decay, the number of SCC's '

which could reasonably affect these parameters is minimal. In contrast to this minimal scope is the NRC Inspection Manual Procedure 62801, dated August 11, 1997. This procedure, without defining the parameters and criteria used to determine the "safe condition," states that "the maintenance rule applies to those SSC's associated with the storage, control and maintenance of spent fuel" 1 (without regard to whether the SCC's are associated with the "safe condition.") The procedure then goes on to identify SSC's within the scope of the Maintenance Rule as anything .

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U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission MN-98-74 Mr. John C. Hoyle Page Two that could be called a structure , system, or component including walls, floors, roofs, tanks, sub-systems, sub-components, parts, pumps, valves, motors, pipes, hangers, snubbers, pool liner, pool cooling systems, spent fuel racks, criticality control design features, radiation monitoring and radiological effluent instrumentation, and spent fuel lifting and handling equipment. 2 Furthermore, the Inspection Procedure identifies that SSC's associated with the maintenance of independent spent fuel storage facilities (ISFSI's) are required to be within scope, if the ISFSI is licensed pursuant to 10 CFR 72, Subpart K, (General License). 3 It appears that the assumption is made that since a Part 50 licensee holds a general Part 72 license for an ISFSI then 10 CFR 50.65 implicitly applies to the ISFSI. This assumption is not based upon any nexus to the "safe condition" or any regulatory link besides the fact that the operator still holds a Part 50 license.

This so-called "requirement" is inconsistent with the fact that if the same ISFSI was licensed under a specific Part 72 license, then the maintenance rule would not apply.

Finally, the Inspection Procedure identifies that SSC's which are credited for accident mitigation or transients are required to be within the scope of the maintenance rule. 4 This guidance is based upon 10 CFR 50.65(b)(2)(i) which requires the scope of the maintenance rule to include SSC's that are relied upon to mitigate accidents or transients. However, for permanently shutdown plants, the maintenance rule "only shall apply to the extent that the licensee shall monitor the performance or condition of all structures, systems, or components associated with the storage, control, and maintenance of spent fuel in a safe condition," (10CFR50.65(a)(l)). Not all accidents or transients affect the safe condition of spent fuel.

The preceding discussion was presented to point out the kind of confusion that can be created by the introduction of subjective, undefined terminology. Thus, we support NEI's call for increased dialogue on the new terms identified in the subject proposed rule.

We also believe that the term "safe condition" needs increased dialogue. As indicated above, the "safe condition" could be limited to a small set of parameters and criteria. The number of SCC's which could reasonably affect these parameters is minimal for a permanently shutdown plant that has completed a modest level of fission product decay. The net safety benefit associated with the administration and monitoring of the maintenance rule for these minimal number of SCC is not enough to justify its cost. This unnecessary expenditure ofresources comes at the very time when the preservation and control of decommissioning funds is of greater regulatory concern.

Maine Yankee is hereby requesting that the NRC, as part of this proposed rulemaking, remove the applicability of the maintenance rule to 50.82(a)(l) certified plants following some modest level of fission product decay.

2 NRC Inspection Manual Procedure 62801 Paragraph 03.02, page 7 3

Ibid 4

Ibid

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission MN-98-74 Mr. John C. Hoyle Page Three The Regulatory Analysis for the subject proposed rule did not adequately justify the expansion of the maintenance rule to normal shutdown operations, nor was the term "normal shutdown operations" adequately defined in the proposed rule. The Regulatory Analysis merely states that "used fuel and contaminated materials present a potential hazard." 5 Unless this potential hazard relates to the scoping criteria presented in 10CFR50.65(b) or the "safe condition" of spent fuel in 50.65(a)(l) for permanently shutdown plants, it is not relevant to the maintenance rule. We believe that the Regulatory Analysis should be re-written to better consider the expansion of the maintenance rule to normal shutdown operations and we believe that if the backlit requirements of 10CFRS0.109 are appropriately applied that this expansion will be shown to be unjustified.

We appreciate this opportunity to comment on the proposed rulemaking. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Very truly yours, George Zinke, Director Nuclear Safety and Regulatory Affairs c: Document Control Desk Mr. Hubert Miller Mr. Michael Webb Mr. Michael Masnik Regulatory Analysis: Amendments to 10CFR50.65 Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants; Section 3.2.2

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DOCKETED US RC Omaha Public PowBf District 0

ROPOSED RULE PR 50 444 South 16th Street Mall ( ~3FR5:l:Jt>IT Omaha, Nebraska 68102-2247 *9a DEC 14 P4 :Q 9 December 9, 1998 LIC-98-0168 F

The Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington D. C. 20555-0001

Reference:

Docket No. 50-285

Subject:

Comments on Proposed Rulemaking for 10 CFR 50.65, Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (63 Fed. Reg. 52201 - September 30, 1998)

The Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) offers the following comments relative to the subject proposed rulemaking. OPPD endorses the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) comments on the proposed rulemaking . The concerns raised by NEI are well founded, and OPPD supports the recommendations that the current proposed rulemaking should be withdrawn and re-noticed with a corresponding change to risk-inform the scope of the maintenance rule as described in 10 CFR 50.65(b).

OPPD also has several specific concerns. In the proposed rulemaking, the requirements for safety assessments are "applicable during all conditions of plant operations, including normal shutdown operations." Most utilities have adopted some form of quantitative probabilistic assessment process for assessing plant configuration during operating modes. However, this rulemaking could add significant regulatory burden through implementation of similar processes for shutdown conditions without the NEl-proposed transition to a more "risk-informed scope" of structures, systems, and components (SSCs) covered in the Rule.

OPPD is also concerned with the scope and the level of effort and detail required for the proposed assessments of SSCs covered in the Rule. These assessments would be required, regardless of the risk significance, for both the current plant configuration and the expected changes to plant configuration. Despite assurances that the "safety assessments required ...

need not be sophisticated probabilistic risk assessments analyses in all cases," this requirement could add significant burden to the daily routine of maintenance work activities at a nuclear power plant. The level of the assessments should be commensurate with the risk significance of the SSCs involved.

~~

S. K. Gambhir Division Manager Nuclear Operations 45 -5124 Employment with Equal Opportunity

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ULEMAKINGS &ADJUDICATIONS STAFF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSION Document Statistics Postmark Date J~/11L.. ._,__

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The Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission LIC-98-0168 TCM/tcm c: E.W. Merschoff, NRC Regional Administrator, Region IV LR. Wharton, NRC Project Manager W.C. Walker, NRC Senior Resident Inspector Document Control Desk Winston and Strawn

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Florida DOC KE f NU BER 0

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, Docket No. 50-302 Operating License No. DPR-72

.98 OEC 14 P4 :12 December 9, 1998 3F1298-06 The Secretary of the Commission Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudication Staff U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

Subject:

Comments on Proposed Rule Changes, Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants; Vol. 63, No. 189, Federal Register 52201, dated September 30, 1998

Dear Secretary:

This letter provides Florida Power Corporation's (FPC) comments on the above-referenced Proposed Rule change. FPC welcomes the NRC's initiative to enhance the Maintenance Rule.

FPC believes the two main areas being enhanced by the subject Proposed Rule change will ensure the Maintenance Rule is applied in all modes of plant operation including plant shutdown, and safety/risk assessments are performed when removing equipment from service for planned maintenance activities.

An area of concern for FPC is the absence of a definition of "risk-significant configurations" and "unacceptable level" for safety function performance degradation. Item 5 under Proposed Rule states, " ... the objective of performing safety assessments is to ensure the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." Without uniform definitions, safety assessment decisions for what is acceptable may be subject to future enforcement action due to varying opinions in these issues. Therefore, FPC recommends definitions for these issues be incorporated into Regulatory Guide 1.160, Revision 3, concurrent with the development of the Proposed Rule change. Guidance would then be available to assist with rule implementation.

FPC appreciates the opportunity to comment on this important NRC Proposed Rule. We would be happy to meet with you or your staff to discuss these comments further.

Sincerely,

~~ n hl!l-..-t-sherry L. Bernhhlt Director, Nuclear Regulatory Affairs SLB/tak OEC i 7 l998 xc: Document Control Desk Ackno edoed by card .........- ....- .....

CRYSTAL RIVER ENERGY COMPLEX: 15760 W. Power Line Street

• Crystal River, Florida 34428-6708 * (352) 795-6486 A Florida Progress Company

. . NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIO~

RULEMAKINGS &ADJUDICATI S STAFF OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSIO rt Stati .

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DOCKETED usr.iqc December 6, 1998 Barry Quigley

'98 DEC -8 Pl2 :14 3512 Lousiana Rd.

Rockford, IL 61108 Home Phone: 815-397-8227 Internet: QPIF@AOL.COM Mr. John C. Hoyle, Secretary U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

Dear Mr. Hoyle:

• The following comments are provided in response to the Federal Register Notice "Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants", dated 9/30/98.

Comment 1:

The text of the rule requires assessments for maintenance activities and places no qualifiers on the reason for the maintenance. However, the Federal Register notice discusses requiring assessments only for planned or non-emergency maintenance. The concern is that licensees may use the explanatory language in the notice as a rationale to skip the assessment for emergent work needed to keep a unit on-line or to finish an outage.

Please clarify, by discussions and examples, conditions under which a licensee could not perform an assessment that otherwise would be required by the rule.

Comment 2:

The notice discusses the need for reasonable assurance that maintenance activities will not:

(1) unacceptably degrade an SSC's function, or, (2) cause a risk significant condition.

However the actual text of the proposed rule only requires evaluations for maintenance activities that impact SSC's.

Consider a plant whose highest Core Damage Frequency is related to a Loss of Offsite Power and desires to take a swithcyard breaker out of service for maintenance. Since the switchyard falls under the scope of the rule, the breaker OOS would require an evaluation.

Under the rule as currently proposed, the assessment would be acceptable since the breaker is not assumed to function for the LOOP. However, depending on the duration of the OOS, the reliability of the switchyard could be reduced causing an increase in the probability, and therefore CDF, of the OOS.

Page 1 DEC 1 o 1998 Acknowiedoed vcar

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The rule should prescriptively require evaluations for maintenance activities that could cause a risk significant condition.

Comment 3:

Maintenance at multi-unit sites warrants additional consideration both for common system effects and the impact of transients between units.

Consider an event at Byron Station in May 1996. Unit 1 was in a refueling outage and Unit 2 was at power. The diesel driven fire pump was OOS for planned work and the non-essential service water (WS) pump powered from the operating unit (Unit 2) had been OOS for several weeks for emergent work. Unit 1 powers 2 of the 3 WS pumps, 2 of the 3 Service Air compressors and the electric fire pump. Water intrusion to the System Aux Transformer ductwork on Unit I caused a Loss of Offsite Power to Unit 1. Since the Unit 2 powered WS pump was OOS, a total loss of non-essential service water occurred for the site. Both of the Unit 1 powered SACs were lost. The Unit 2 powered SAC had electrical power but the normal cooling water supply (WS) was not available. The backup cooling supply was from fire protection but the LOOP had removed power from the electric fire pump and the diesel fire pump was OOS. Unit 2 was manually tripped due to loss of cooling water to the Condensate pumps. Recovery of the event was complicated due to the lack of Instrument Air and non-essential service water.

A discussion in the response to comments advising licensees the assessment under the rule needs to cover effects on the opposite unit and that common system effects are to be evaulated for each unit would address this comment.

Comment 4:

The rule only requires evaluations for maintenance on SSC's subject to the rule. The rule should require that the evaluation occur when the SSC becomes unavailable due to failure, not just when it is taken OOS for maintenance. This is reasonable since the response of the plant will be the same regardless of the reason the component fails to function. In other words, it doesn't matter if a pump is unavailable because it is OOS for maintenance or just broken; it still won't pump.

Consider the following example. Some Emergency Operating Procedures rely on the diesel fire pump as a backup source of Steam Generator feed during loss of secondary heat sink events. EOP usage brings the Fire Pump within the scope of the rule.

If the diesel fire pump fails and can't be repaired for quite some time (i.e., obsolence of parts), an evaluation would only be required by the rule when the pump was taken OOS for the repairs.1 Even though the licensee is taking all reasonable actions to repair the pump, an evaluation when the pump first fails would have value. For those plants where the fire pump has particular importance for CDF impact, measures could be taken such as 1

Although the long unavailability due to the failure would put the system in a(l), this only requires a plan to restore the pump and improve availability; no evaluation is required.

Page 2

providing a backup pump or even simpler measures such as rescheduling activities that have a higher likelihood of causing a loss of secondary heat sink.

Changing the rule to require evaluations when SSCs fail and aren't restored in a timely manner would be similar to the NRCs policy ofrequiring evaluations under 10CFR50.59 for long-term OOSs. The same measure of timeliness as used for 50.59 evaluations could also be used for maintenance rule evaluations.

If I have failed to provide adequate detail in my comments, I would appreciate it if you contacted me for clarification.

Respectfully, Barry Quigley Page 3

December 7, 1998 NOTE TO: Emile Julian Chief, Docketing and Services Branch FROM: Carol Gallagher ADM,DAS

SUBJECT:

DOCKETING OF COMMENT ON PROPOSED RULE, "MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MAINTENANCE AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS" Attached for docketing is a comment letter related to the subject proposed rule. This comment was received via the rulemaking forum website on December 6, 1998. The submitter's name is Barry Quigley, 3512 Louisiana Rd., Rockford, IL 61108. Please send a copy of the docketed comment to Richard Correia (mail stop O9-A-l) for his records.

Attachment:

As stated cc w/o attachment :

R. Correia

50 DOCKETED USHRC

[7590-01 -P]

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION .98 SEP 25 P4 :23 10 CFR Part 50 RIN 3150-AF95 Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission .

• ACTION: Proposed rule.

SUMMARY

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is proposing to amend its power reactor safety regulations to require that licensees assess the cumulative effect of out-of-service equipment on the plant's capability to perform safety functions before beginning any maintenance activity on structures, systems, or components within the scope of the maintenance rule. The amendments would also clarify that the proposed rule applies under all

• conditions of operation including normal shutdown, that the safety assessments include both the plant conditions before and those expected during planned maintenance activities, and that the safety assessments are to be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in a condition of significant risk or a condition that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

L { ) ~ 11--; l9C/8 DATES: Submit comments by [IAs&rt the data 75 dayii atter p* *blicatiao io the federal

.Registerj. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the Commission is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this date.

2 ADDRESSES: Mail comments to: The Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.

Deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, between 7:30 a.m.

and 4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.

You may also provide comments via the NRC's interactive rulemaking web site through the NRC home page (http://www.nrc.gov). From the NRC home page, select "Rulemaking" from the tool bar. The interactive rulemaking website may then be accessed by selecting "Rulemaking Forum." This site possesses the ability of uploading comments as files (any format) if your web browser supports that function. For information about the interactive rulemaking site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher, 301-415-5905, e-mail CAG@nrc.gov.

Certain documents related to this rulemaking, including comments received, may be examined at the NRC Public Document Room, 2120 L Street NW. (Lower Level),

Washington, DC. These same documents also may be viewed and downloaded electronically via the interactive rulemaking website established by NRC for this rulemaking.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Richard P. Correia, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, 301-415-1009, e-mail rpc@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

The NRC's Maintenance Team Inspections of all nuclear power plant licensees in the late 1980s found the lack of consideration of plant risk in prioritizing, planning, and scheduling maintenance activities to be a common weakness. To address that weakness, paragraph

3 (a)(3) of 10 CFR 50.65, the maintenance rule, currently includes the provision that "(l)n performing monitoring and preventive maintenance activities, an assessment of the total plant equipment that is out of service should be taken into account to determine the overall effect on performance of safety functions.* The maintenance rule was issued on July 10, 1991.

During plant visits in mid-1994, several NRC senior managers expressed concerns that licensees were increasing both the amount and frequency of maintenance performed during power operation without adequately evaluating safety when planning and scheduling these maintenance activities. The NRC Executive Director for Operations (EDO) addressed these concerns regarding the safety implications with performing maintenance while at power to the president of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) in a letter dated October 6, 1994.

In this letter, the EDO noted that it appeared that some licensees were either not following INPO guidelines for the conduct of maintenance and management of outages or had adopted only portions of the guidance. The EDO also recommended that INPO support NEI and appropriate utility managers during meetings with NRC senior managers to discuss the concerns they raised during the site visits.

The growing amount of on-line maintenance (i.e., maintenance performed during power operations) being performed by licensees and the inadequate pre-maintenance safety evaluations have raised the Commission's concern.

Discussion The nuclear power industry has changed since the 1991 issuance of the maintenance rule. Rate deregulation of the electric utility industry will likely cause all nuclear power plants to seek ways to operate more efficiently. One mechanism for increasing efficiency is shortening refueling and maintenance outages. Licensees have come to realize that performing more maintenance at power can lead to shorter refueling outages and the reduction or elimination of

4 mid-cycle maintenance outages.

Licensees have relied upon their individual plant technical specifications to help assure safe operation of the plant when equipment is out of service. However, the removal of multiple pieces of equipment, especially safety-related equipment, from service can undermine the fundamental premise of the technical specifications for a plant, which is to provide adequate protection against random failures.

During plant visits in mid-1994, several NRC senior managers had concerns with the fact that licensees were increasing both the amount and frequency of maintenance performed during power operations. Some licensees were limiting the planned maintenance to a single train of a system while others would allow multiple equipment in other systems within a single train to be out of service as long as it did not violate the plant's technical specifications.

However, allowable outage times specified in technical specifications are based upon a random single failure in a system and a judgement of a reasonable time to effect repairs before plant shutdown is required. Technical specifications were not intended to address allowable outage times for multiple equipment being out of service at the same time. Further, it can not be implied that it is acceptable to voluntarily remove equipment from service to perform on-line maintenance on the assumption that such actions are bounded by a worst case single failure which is a plant specific design requirement that is contained in a number of the general design criteria (GDC) in 10 CFR 50, Appendix A. The NRC senior managers also had concerns with the fact that on-shift personnel, planning and scheduling personnel, and licensee management lacked an understanding of the relative safety importance of safety systems or combinations of equipment that would have risk significance if taken out of service. It appeared that risk insights from plant specific Individual Plant Examination (IPE) results, whose purpose was to improve licensee understanding of the plant's safety and to address potential vulnerabilities,

5 were not fully utilized in the plant's operational and maintenance decision process. These concerns were addressed in a letter dated October 6, 1994, from the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to the Executive Vice-President of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The growing amount of maintenance performed during power operations and the underutilization of risk insights in plant operations and maintenance activities have raised the Commission's concern.

In determining the need for the maintenance rule a decade ago, one factor the Commission considered was its belief that there existed "a need to broaden its capability to take timely enforcement action where maintenance activities fail to provide reasonable assurance that safety-significant SSCs [structures, systems, and components] are capable of performing their intended function." Now, the Commission desires to act to help ensure that there is reasonable assurance such that maintenance activities will not place a plant in (1) a configuration that would degrade unacceptably a SSC's capability to perform its intended safety functions or (2) a risk-significant configuration, i.e., a configuration for which the incremental contribution to the annual risk associated with accidents that result in damage to the reactor

• fuel or the release of fission products to the environment is not insignificant.

The first 50 NRC maintenance rule baseline inspections (MRBls) for which inspection reports had been issued as of April 20, 1998, found that all licensees had developed programs to implement the safety assessment provision of paragraph (a)(3). However, at 5 sites, instances were found in which the licensee did not assess the impact on safety of total plant equipment out of service before it entered one or more specific plant configurations for maintenance purposes. At 19 other sites, weaknesses -- the term reserved for situations in which the overall assessment of a licensee program has found the program, or significant aspects of that program, to be particularly ineffective or for individual findings that have either

6 high safety significance or programmatic implications -- were found, among which were paragraph (a)(3) safety assessment tools that did not include all high-safety-significant SSCs.

Although the safety significance of the unassessed plant configurations at the 5 sites was not quantitatively determined during the inspection in all cases, it appears that some of the unassessed configurations had resulted in plants that were in a state of substantially greater risk than was realized by the licensees. Given the concerns raised by NRC senior managers during site visits in 1994, the increased amount of on-line maintenance, the number of missed assessments and their apparent risk significance, in addition to the weaknesses found with the paragraph (a)(3) safety assessment programs, the Commission considers this to be a safety concern. The Commission, therefore, believes it is necessary to explicitly require licensees to perform safety assessments prior to removing equipment from service for maintenance during all conditions of plant operations including normal shutdown.

With regard to the operating conditions under which the proposed rule would apply, extensive interaction among the NRC, the industry, and the public has taken place over the need for regulations governing activities during shutdown conditions (i.e., shutdown as may be defined in each plant's individual technical specifications, but generally considered as a time

• when all control rods are inserted and the average reactor coolant temperature is below 200°F).

The question of whether 10 CFR 50.65 applies during shutdown conditions became an issue.

The Commission desires to clarify that the rule does apply during shutdown conditions.

Regarding which activities would be preceded by a safety assessment, the Commission has recognized that, although definitions regarding maintenance activities are fairly consistent from organization to organization, there is some variation in the definition of corrective maintenance. For example, some definitions bring a time dependency while some others consider the urgency of the repair. To eliminate inconsistency, and to cause more prudent use

7 of the safety assessments, the Commission desires the regulation to cover all planned maintenance activities, rather than only the recommended monitoring and preventive maintenance in the current rule. Each planned non-emergency maintenance activity would now include a safety assessment prior to its being authorized to begin. In fact, many licensees have followed the guidance contained in Regulatory Guide 1.160 and NUMARC 93-01 and have already voluntarily included all planned maintenance activities in the scope of their safety assessment programs.

With regard to the safety assessments themselves, licensee implementation has been inconsistent. The Commission desires to specify that an appropriate safety assessment would include a review the current condition of the plant and the plant condition expected during the planned maintenance activity. Assessing the current plant configuration as well as expected changes to plant configuration that will result from the proposed maintenance activities, as would be called for under paragraph (a)(4) of the proposed rule, is intended to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations, i.e., a configuration for which the incremental contribution to the annual risk is not insignificant, or a configuration that would degrade safety functions to an unacceptable level. These assessments do not necessarily require that a quantitative assessment of probabilistic risk be performed. The licensee would have the flexibility to perform a probabilistic and/or deterministic assessment, as appropriate.

The level of sophistication with which such assessments are performed is expected to vary, based on the circumstances involved. It should be understood, however, that the contribution to risk of a specific plant configuration depends on both the degree of degradation of the safety functions and the duration for which the plant is in that configuration. Further, assessing the degree of safety function degradation requires that there be an understanding of the impact of removal of the equipment on the capability of the plant to prevent or mitigate accidents and

8 transients. The assessments may range from deterministic judgements to the use of an on-line, living probabilistic risk assessment (PAA).

Additional guidance will be developed and promulgated in Regulatory Guide 1.160, Revision 3 (proposed), to assist licensees in implementing this provision of the proposed rule.

The guidance will contain information regarding risk-significant configurations and unacceptable levels of safety function degradation.

Proposed Rule This proposed rule would make five changes to 10 CFR 50.65:

1. Add an introductory paragraph to 10 CFR 50.65 clarifying that the proposed rule applies under all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown.

Prior to paragraph (a)(1 ), add the following wording: The requirements of this section are applicable during all conditions of plant operation, including normal shutdown operations."

The intent of this paragraph is to ensure that safety assessments are performed before maintenance activities when the plants are shut down as well as when the plants are at power.

The shutdown condition may be defined in a plant's technical specifications, but the intent of this paragraph is that shutdown is generally considered as a time when all control rods are inserted and the average reactor coolant temperature is below 200°F.

2. Delete the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) and create a new paragraph, (a)(4),

that requires the performance of safety assessments.

The proposed rule would remove the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) and would add a new paragraph, (a)(4), as follows in its entirety: "Before performing maintenance activities on structures, systems, or components within the scope of this section (including, but not limited to, surveillance testing, post-maintenance testing, corrective maintenance,

9 performance/condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance), an assessment of the current plant configuration as well as expected changes to plant configuration that will result from the proposed maintenance activities shall be conducted to determine the overall effect on performance of safety functions. The results of this assessment shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." Deleting the current last sentence in paragraph (a)(3) will remove the recommendation for performing safety assessments from the paragraph that contains the periodic, programmatic, long-term review considerations of the rule .

Creating a new paragraph, (a)(4), specifically for the safety assessment requirements would cause the assessment concept to stand as a separate entity within the maintenance rule.

3. Define in paragraph (a)(4) the scope of the requirement for performing those assessments to be all conditions of operation including normal shutdown.

The proposed rule would add the following in paragraph (a)(4) to define the scope of pre-maintenance safety assessments: "Before performing maintenance activities on structures, systems, or components within the scope of this section (including, but not limited to, surveillance testing, post-maintenance testing, corrective maintenance, performance/condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance), an assessment ... shall be conducted ...." The NRC's intent is that licensees perform safety assessments before all planned maintenance activities that require removing from service equipment that is within the scope of the maintenance rule, as defined in 10 CFR 50.65(b) and (a)(1). The safety assessments required in this paragraph need not be sophisticated probabilistic risk assessment analyses in all cases.

Licensees would have the flexibility to use probabilistic and/or deterministic methods, as appropriate, when performing the safety assessments required by paragraph (a)(4).

4. Specify in paragraph (a)(4) that the safety assessments are to examine the

10 extant plant condition and the condition expected during the planned maintenance activity.

The proposed rule would include the following wording in paragraph (a)(4): "... an assessment of the current plant configuration as well as expected changes to the plant configuration that will result from the proposed maintenance activities ...." The NRC's intent is that a reasonable safety assessment be performed. The assessment may range from simple and straightforward to complex. However, notwithstanding the degree of sophistication required for the assessment, the NRC intends that the assessment will examine the plant condition existing prior to the commencement of the maintenance activity and examine the changes expected by the proposed maintenance activity.

5. Specify in paragraph (a)(4) that the objective of performing the safety assessments is to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

The proposed rule would add in paragraph (a)(4) the wording to specify the NRC's expectations regarding the use of each sat ety assessment, as follows: "The results of this assessment shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level." The NRC's intent is to require that each licensee perform a safety assessment before undertaking each planned maintenance activity and be aware of the risk issues associated with that maintenance activity. The guidance to be developed for licensees and promulgated in Regulatory Guide 1.160, Revision 3 (proposed), is expected to assist the industry in implementing this provision of the proposed rule, providing guidance regarding risk-significant configurations and unacceptable levels of safety function degradation.

The Commission requests public comment on these proposed rule provisions. The Commission also requests public comment on the explanatory language in item 3 pertaining to

11 licensee flexibility to use probabilistic and/or deterministic methods to perform the safety assessments. Specifically, should there be further clarification of this point in the final rule?

Finding of No Significant Environmental Impact: Environmental Assessment The Commission has determined under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, and the Commission's regulations in Subpart A of 10 CFR Part 51 that this rule, if adopted, would not be a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment and, therefore, an environmental impact statement is not required. The draft environmental assessment that forms the basis for this determination reads as follows:

Identification of the Proposed Action The Commission is proposing to amend its regulations to require commercial nuclear power plant licensees to perform assessments of the plant's status before performing maintenance activities on structures, systems, and components (SSCs) within the scope of 10 CFR 50.65, the maintenance rule. The rule would be modified by adding an introductory sentence to clarify that the proposed rule would apply under all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown; deleting the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3); and creating a new paragraph, (a)(4). The new paragraph (a)(4) would change "should" to "shall" regarding the performance of safety assessments; define the scope of the requirement for performing those assessments to include all planned maintenance activities; specify that the safety assessments are to examine the extant plant condition and the condition expected during the maintenance activity; and specify that the safety assessments are to be used to ensure that, by the conduct of maintenance, the plant is not placed in risk-significant conditions or safety system performance is not degraded to an unacceptable level.

12 The Need for the Proposed Action Paragraph (a)(3) of the maintenance rule, in part, currently recommends that,

"(l)n performing monitoring and preventive maintenance activities, an assessment of the total plant equipment that is out of service should be taken into account to determine the overall effect on performance of safety functions." The Commission believes the performance of this type of assessment is prudent. The maintenance rule baseline inspections, being performed at each commercial nuclear power plant site, have found that all inspected licensees have implemented programs to perform the assessments, but about half of the sites inspected had programs with discernable weaknesses in this area, including instances in which, in accordance with the licensee's own programs, safety assessments should have been made but were not. Because of the hortatory nature of the safety assessment provision in §50.65(a)(3), the Commission cannot ensure that licensees perform the assessments. Moreover, licensees are free to remove the performance of the assessments from their programs as they so desire.

This proposed change to the Commission's regulations will permit the Commission to ensure that licensees perform the assessments, as appropriate.

The other changes are clarifications regarding applicability of the rule. During preliminary discussions prior to potential development of a rule on shutdown plant operations, a major question arose regarding whether 10 CFR 50.65 requirements apply during the time a plant is shut down. The Commission concluded that inclusion of a statement to the affirmative would eliminate the doubt.

Removing the provision regarding safety assessments from paragraph (a)(3) and creating for it a new, separate paragraph, (a)(4), would disassociate that new requirement from the more time-dependent requirement for evaluating of the program

13 and the program's effectiveness at maintaining an appropriate balance between reliability and availability for each SSC. In the new paragraph, the requirement for safety assessment performance is stipulated to ensure licensees will perform those assessments. Because there were questions regarding when the assessments were to be performed, what plant conditions are to be evaluated and how they were to be used, the proposed new paragraph (a)(4) describes that the assessments are to be performed before all planned maintenance activities, are to examine pre-maintenance plant conditions and expected changes due to the proposed maintenance activity, and are to be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The proposed rule would require that commercial nuclear power plant licensees perform certain assessments of plant equipment status prior to performing all planned maintenance activities. The purpose of the proposed rule is to increase the

• effectiveness of the maintenance rule by requiring licensees to perform an assessment of plant conditions prior to planned maintenance and changes expected to result from the planned maintenance activity, to ensure that licensees understand the assessments are to be performed when the plant is shut down as well as at power, and to improve licensees' understanding of what conditions to assess and to what use to put the completed assessment. Accordingly, implementation of this proposed rule would not have any significant adverse impact on the quality of the human environment. The Commission believes that proper implementation of the proposed rule will reduce the likelihood of an accidental release of radioactive material caused by imprudently

14 prioritized, planned, or scheduled maintenance.

The determination of this environmental assessment is that there will be no significant offsite impact to the public from this action. The NRC has also committed to complying with Executive Order (EO) 12898, "Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations," dated February 11, 1994, in all its actions. The NRC has determined that there are no disproportionate, high, or adverse impacts on minority or low-income populations. In the letter and spirit of EO 12898, the NRC is requesting public comment on any environmental justice considerations or questions that the public thinks may be related to this proposed rule but somehow were not addressed. Comments on any aspect of the Environmental Assessment, including environmental justice, may be submitted to the NRC as indicated under the ADDRESSES heading.

States Consulted and Sources Used The NRC has sent a copy of this proposed rule to every State Liaison Officer and requested his or her comments on the Environmental Assessment.

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement This proposed rule does not contain a new or an amended information collection requirement subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C.

3501 et seq.). Existing requirements were approved by the Office of Management and Budget, approval number 3150-0011.

Public Protection Notification If an information collection requirement does not display a currently valid 0MB control

15 number, the NRC may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, the I.

information collection.

Regulatory Analysis The Commission has prepared a draft regulatory analysis on this proposed regulation.

The analysis examined the costs and benefits of the alternatives considered by the Commission for revising 10 CFR 50.65, the maintenance rule. Those alternatives were to (1) make no change to the rule, (2) require the safety assessments currently recommended in paragraph (a}(3) of the rule, and (3) make comprehensive revisions to paragraph (a)(3} of the rule. The analysis selected Alternative 2 as the preferred course of action. Details of the alternative selection are contained in the draft analysis, which is available for inspection in the NRC Public Document Room, 2120 L Street NW (Lower Level}, Washington, D.C. Single copies of the analysis may be obtained from Richard P. Correia, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, 301-415-1009, e-mail rpc@nrc.gov.

The Commission requests public comments on the draft regulatory analysis. Comments

• on the draft analysis may be submitted to the NRC as indicated under the ADDRESSES heading.

Regulatory Flexibility Certification In accordance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (5 U.S.C. 605(b)), the Commission certifies that this proposed rule will not, if adopted, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. This proposed rule affects only the operation of nuclear power plants. The companies that own these plants do not fall within the scope of the definition of small entities set forth in the Regulatory Flexibility Act or the size standards

16 adopted by the NRC (10 CFR 2.810).

Backfit Analysis As required by 10 CFR 50.109, the Commission has completed a backfit analysis for this proposed rule. The Commission has determined, on the basis of this analysis, that backfitting to comply with the requirements of this proposed rule provides a substantial increase in protection to the public health and safety or the common defense and security at a cost that is justified by the increased protection.

When the maintenance rule was first promulgated in 1991, the NRC staff did not foresee the significant changes licensees would be making in maintenance practices. To enhance operational efficiency brought about by the rate deregulation of the electric utility industry, licensees are shortening their refueling outages by performing more maintenance while the plant is at power. At-power maintenance practices have evolved to the point that not only are major systems and components taken off line, but also multiple systems and components are taken off line simultaneously. Taking systems and components off line for maintenance could result in an increased likelihood of an accident or transient, compared to risk that occurs from expected random equipment failures.

The objective of this proposed rule is to make mandatory that licensees assess the cumulative impact of out-of-service equipment on the capability of the plant to perform safety functions and that licensees consider the results of the assessment before undertaking maintenance activities at operating nuclear power plants in order to ensure that the plants are not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level. Thus, the proposed rule would state that licensees must perform safety assessments before removing SSCs from service for

17 planned maintenance.

In addition, this proposed rule would (1) add an introductory sentence to 10 CFR 50.65 clarifying that the rule applies under all conditions of operation, including normal shutdown; (2) delete the last sentence of paragraph (a)(3) of the rule and create a new paragraph, (a)(4), that requires the performance of safety assessments; (3) specify that the scope of the requirement for performing those assessments covers all planned maintenance activities; (4) specify that the safety assessments are to examine the extant plant condition and the condition expected during the maintenance activity; and (5) specify that the results of the safety assessments are to be used to help the licensee ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations or configurations that would degrade safety functions to an unacceptable level.

The pre-maintenance assessments, along with the clarifications regarding their scope and their use, which the Commission proposes to require are intended to cause licensees to manage this risk and ensure their plants are not placed in risk-significant conditions or conditions in which the performance of safety functions is not degraded to unacceptable levels.

The details of this backfit analysis have been incorpora_ted in the regulatory analysis.

For the reasons elaborated in the regulatory analysis, which also contains cost information, the Commission concludes that the proposed modification to the maintenance rule will result in a level of safety beyond that currently provided by the Commission's regulations, a substantial increase in the overall protection of public health and safety, and that the net costs of the rule are justified in view of this increased level of safety.

a 18 List of Subjects in 10 CFR Part 50 Antitrust, Classified information, Criminal penalties, Fire protection, Intergovernmental relations, Nuclear power plant and reactors, Radiation protection, Reactor siting criteria, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

For the reasons set out in the preamble and under the authority of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended; and 5 U.S.C.

553, the NRC is proposing to adopt the following amendments to 10 CFR Part 50:

PART 50-- DOMESTIC LICENSING OF PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION FACILITIES

1. The authority citation for Part 50 continues to read as follows:

AUTHORITY: Secs. 102, 103, 104, 105, 161, 182, 183, 186, 189, 68 Stat. 936, 937, 938, 948, 953, 954, 955, 956, as amended, sec. 234, 83 Stat. 444, as amended (42 U.S.C.

_2132, 2133, 2134, 2135, 2201, 2232, 2233, 2236, 2239, 2282); secs. 201, as amended, 202, 206, 88 Stat. 1242, as amended, 1244, 1246, (42 U.S.C. 5841, 5842, 5846).

Section 50.7 also issued under Pub. L.95-601, sec. 10, 92 Stat. 2951 (42 U.S.C. 5851).

Section 50.10 also issued under secs. 101, 185, 68 Stat. 936,955, as amended (42 U.S.C.

2131, 2235); sec. 102, Pub. L.91-190, 83 Stat. 853 (42 U.S.C. 4332). Sections 50.13, 50.54(dd), and 50.103 also issued under sec. 108, 68 Stat. 939, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2138).

Sections 50.23, 50.35, 50.55, and 50.56 also issued under sec. 185, 68 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C.

2235). Sections 50.33a, 50.55a, and Appendix Q also issued under sec. 102, Pub. L.91-190, 83 Stat. 853 (42 U.S.C. 4332). Sections 50.34 and 50.54 also issued under sec. 204, 88 Stat.

1245 (42 U.S.C. 5844). Sections 50.58, 50.91, and 50.92 also issued under Pub. L.97-415, 96 Stat. 2073 (42 U.S.C. 2239). Section 50.78 also issued under sec. 122, 68 Stat. 939 (42

19 U.S.C. 2152). Sections 50.80-50.81 also issued under sec. 184, 68 Stat. 954, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2234). Appendix Falso issued under sec. 187, 66 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C. 2237).

2. In §50.65, an introductory paragraph is added, paragraph (a)(3) is revised, and a new paragraph (a)(4) is added, to read as follows:

§50.65 Requirements for monitoring the effectiveness of maintenance at nuclear power plants.

The requirements of this section are applicable during all conditions of plant operation, including normal shutdown operations.

(a) * * *

(3) Performance and condition monitoring activities and associated goals and preventive maintenance activities shall be evaluated at least every refueling cycle provided the interval between evaluations does not exceed 24 months. The evaluations shall be conducted taking into account, where practical, industry-wide operating experience. Adjustments shall be made where necessary to ensure that the objective of preventing failures of structures, systems, and components through maintenance is appropriately balanced against the objective of minimizing unavailability of structures, systems, and components due to monitoring or preventive maintenance.

(4) Before performing maintenance activities on structures, systems, or components within the scope of this section (including, but not limited to, surveillance testing, post-maintenance testing, corrective maintenance, performance/condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance), an assessment of the current plant configuration as well as expected changes to plant configuration that will result from the proposed maintenance activities shall be conducted to determine the overall effect on performance of safety functions. The results of this assessment shall be used to ensure that the plant is not placed in risk-significant configurations

20 or configurations that would degrade the performance of safety functions to an unacceptable level.

ti.

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this rl, <./ _,, day of September, 1998.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Jo Se o e ommission.