ML25084A212
| ML25084A212 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/10/2025 |
| From: | James Downs NRC/NMSS/DFM/FFLB |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML25084A212 (38) | |
Text
Materials Licensing Efficiencies and Processes (M-LEAP) - updated March 31, 2025 Public Meeting on Fuel Facilities April 10, 2025 James Downs Senior Project Manager Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Email: james.downs@nrc.gov Phone: 301-415-7744
2 Meeting category and public participation This is an Information Meeting with Question and Answer Sessions. The purpose of this meeting is for the NRC staff to meet directly with individuals to discuss regulatory and technical issues. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions of the NRC staff or make comments about the issues discussed throughout the meeting; however, the NRC is not actively soliciting comments towards regulatory decisions at this meeting.
3 Meeting agenda
- What is M-LEAP?
- How to evaluate the return on investment (ROI) for potential improvements?
- Potential improvements for licensing fuel facilities
- Pre-application activities
- Licensing action reviews
- Communication and guidance
- Internal NRC processes
- How can you submit your ideas?
- Next steps
4 What is M-LEAP?
The NRCs Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS) established the M-LEAP team to review existing licensing process, past lessons learned, and licensing decisions to identify if further enhancement is needed to streamline licensing reviews and to enable efficient, timely, and predictable regulatory decisions while continuing to meet the safety and security principles of our mission Aligns with NRCs efforts on Section 505, "Nuclear Licensing Efficiency," of the ADVANCE Act of 2024
5 What is M-LEAP? (continued)
QUESTIONS ON M-LEAP?
6 How to evaluate the ROI for potential improvements?
- The M-LEAP team is considering three (3) prioritization factors, each with contributing subfactors, that produce a relative ROI score to compare and prioritize potential improvements
- 1. Objectives of Section 505 ADVANCE Act -
efficient, timely, and predictable [BENEFIT]
- 2. Other impacts on licensing - reduces staff hours or contract dollars; reduces schedule; promotes knowledge management; supports reliability, consistency, clarity, or transparency of licensing; or supports stakeholder confidence [BENEFIT]
7 How to evaluate the ROI for potential improvements? (continued)
- 3. Implementation impacts - staff hours or contract dollars; time to implement; workload impact to implement; potential reputational risk [COST]
Prioritization factor #1 is also a screening tool, an improvement probably wont get implemented unless it aligns with the objectives of the ADVANCE Act Conceptually, the relative ROI score = (Benefit of Factor #1 + Benefit of Factor #2) / (Cost of Factor #3)
8 How to evaluate the ROI for potential improvements? (continued)
QUESTIONS ON ROI?
9 Potential improvements for licensing fuel facilities
- Where did these potential improvements come from?
- The Nuclear Energy Institute provided a letter dated 10/2/2024 (ML24302A311)
- Other stakeholders provided letters and emails
- NRC staff conducted an internal survey of people involved with licensing fuel facilities, which included project managers, technical staff, supervisors, and legal staff
- M-LEAP team is sharing ideas across business lines within the NRC
10 Potential improvements for licensing fuel facilities (continued)
- Organized potential improvements into four (4) categories:
- Pre-application activities
- Licensing action reviews
- Communication and guidance
- Internal NRC processes
- NRC staff is open to your suggestions if other categories would better organize the potential improvements
11 Potential improvements:
Pre-application activities Actions recently implemented (near-term)
Encourage the applicant/licensee to identify (months before submitting) potential licensing issues, the form/contents of the application, and the desired/needed schedule - allows the NRC Project Manager (PM) to better: identify review areas; engage appropriate NRC staff; reach internal alignment of NRC staff on key issues; and provide early feedback to applicant.
Prior to submittal, the applicant/licensee and NRC staff should determine whether the action will be complex or routine and the schedule/resources can be planned accordingly.
Prior to receiving the application, the NRC PM should identify all review areas and set up a review team, which allows the acceptance review to start when application is docketed.
Encourage licensees to provide redline/strikeout markups for license amendment requests (LARs).
12 Potential improvements:
Pre-application activities (continued)
Actions that are underway (mid-term)
Readiness assessment Encourage potential applicants for new facilities to perform a pre-submittal readiness review ~6 months before submittal (see Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations LIC-116).
Pre-application readiness assessment audits would provide insights into design uncertainties and potential schedule impacts of issues needing resolution.
Pre-application engagements should engender robust conversation to better: give the applicant/licensee a better understanding of the NRC staff's initial position on key issues; identify topics that the applicant/licensee may need to revise to ensure acceptance and a timely review; and recognize opportunities for further guidance/engagement.
During preapplication engagements, NRC staff should identify key areas of review and identify pathways forward - before the formal submittal.
Detailed pre-application readiness assessment audit (e.g., tiger team) could dictate expedited review timeline - however, would be available upon request (i.e., not mandatory and additional upfront cost) and usefulness relies on applicant/licensee being receptive to NRC staff feedback.
More formally document topics raised by NRC staff during pre-application engagements -
clarifies expectations of submittal and acceptance review.
13 Potential improvements:
Pre-application activities (continued)
Actions for consideration (long-term)
Encourage the submittal of applicant/licensee-specific topical reports to achieve alignment on methodologies well before submitting an application (see NRR guidance used for advanced reactor applications).
Clarify level of detail/design information needed for fuel facility licensing - intro to NUREG-1520 and 2006 memo (ML062160073) to NRC staff does not clarify the threshold for acceptance of an application and puts significant burden on the operational readiness review.
14 Potential improvements:
Pre-application activities (continued)
QUESTIONS ON POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO PRE-APPLICATION ACTVITIES?
15 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews Actions recently implemented (near-term)
Use licensing audits and clarification calls as tools to better facilitate more effective staff reviews of complex issues and ensure appropriate information is docketed in a timely manner.
Increase the use of including observations in acceptance letter to reduce the number of RAIs and promote earlier resolution of issues.
The applicant should have contact with an NRC management champion to address issues, preferably one with involvement with the core team, who is overseeing the review to assure that it is progressing effectively and efficiently.
The NRC staff should provide regular updates to applicants on both major and minor challenges or questions as they emerge.
Further encourage NRC technical reviewers to draft their input to the safety evaluation report (SER) as they conducted their reviews and draft any RAI inputs (i.e., holes in SER).
Enhance the RAI and audit processes by increasing the use of audits and considering why a question needs to be asked - consider risk significance, focus on commitments that can demonstrate compliance, and avoid topics that will be looked at during the construction inspection or operational readiness review.
16 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews (continued)
Actions recently implemented (near-term) - continued Use requests for confirmation of information (RCIs), which are presented in a format that lends itself to yes or no responses - the applicant can respond to an RCI more quickly than to a RAI and RCIs can empower the NRC staff to use their engineering and regulatory expertise.
17 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews (continued)
Actions that are underway (mid-term)
Scope of review NRC management must hold NRC staff accountable for the technical review including the depth, breadth, & scope of the review and the regulatory basis of safety findings.
NRC should be disciplined in how it conducts its reviews to ensure they are timely/efficient and the duration of the review should correlate to the associated risks of the technology.
NRC staff should minimize resources expenditure, focus on the most risk significant areas, and not perform extraneous reviews.
Consider using approaches derived from NUREG-1556, "Consolidated Guidance for Materials Licensees," for reviews of lower risk amendments and applications.
Develop something like NRR's risk-informed process for evaluation (RIPE) for fuel facility reviews - although currently based on PRA, NRR is developing a process to use more qualitative factors.
Focus the NRC review team on the amended portions of the application and not on the portions of the application that have been previously reviewed/approved.
Better define the scope of review for license renewals and streamline the process.
18 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews (continued)
Actions that are underway (mid-term) - continued Use Categorical Exclusions from 10 CFR 51.22 more frequently and consistently, instead of a simple Environmental Assessment (EA).
Re-evaluate the timeframe for acceptance reviews - 45 days is often not sufficient for applicants to respond to a request for supplemental information.
Direct the NRC staff (e.g., NUREG-1520) to review precedents/methodologies applied to existing fuel cycle facility licensees and similar technical submissions. Potential benefits include better: avoiding unnecessary duplication of review effort by NRC staff; allowing consideration of prior conclusions from previous application reviews; and narrowing the focus of the review activity to what is different and unique in the new application.
To facilitate review of precedent, establish a document catalog with links to ADAMS. NRC PMs should populate the catalog with documents relevant to each licensee, use key words for specific precedent setting topics, and add future references for new technical issues.
Regulatory decisions with regulatory finality should not be reevaluated unless "significant new information that substantially affects the earlier determination or other good cause.
Execute NRCs differing professional opinion and non-concurrence processes related to licensing actions effectively, efficiently, and in a timely manner.
19 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews (continued)
Actions that are underway (mid-term) - continued Ensure uniform understanding and expectations on the role of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) for fuel facility reviews - unless the application has some unique safety significant feature that is unlike an existing licensee, review of the application by ACRS would not be a risk informed use of resources.
20 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews (continued)
Actions for consideration (long-term)
Rapidly disposition issues of low safety significance - use processes like Very Low Safety Significance Issue Resolution (VLISSR) and develop a practical training program to level up the understanding, acceptance, and use of risk-informed approaches across the agency.
Develop an expedited review process for applicants to obtain consistent regulatory interpretations. This should also include an assessment and implementation of an official escalation or appeal process for technical or policy decisions.
A tiger team, made up of the core team and other appropriate members, could review the application materials and recommend acceptance of the application to NRC management or could efficiently identify items that still need to be resolved prior to acceptance.
Utilize core teams (i.e., pool of reviewers led by a subject matter expert, a representative branch chief, and Senior Executive Service champion) to facilitate more efficient reviews and incorporate lessons learned from one review to the next.
21 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews (continued)
Actions for consideration (long-term) - continued Streamline or eliminate safety evaluation reports - use templates, checklists, timelines, bullets, embedded links, or graphics.
Evaluate whether SERs are needed for critical mass (GTCM) licensees.
Issue "term-free" licenses, which would eliminate the need for the review of license renewals.
Consider 20-year licenses for GTCM licensees or modify the scope of review for renewal of the current 10-year licenses.
22 Potential improvements:
Licensing action reviews (continued)
QUESTIONS ON POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO LICENSE ACTION REVIEWS?
23 Potential improvements:
Communication and guidance Actions recently implemented (near-term)
Publicly discuss previous lessons learned reports and the best ways to address them to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of license review.
Make sure information is on the public website and consider a public meeting towards the beginning of the review to explain to interested members of the public what is being proposed and their opportunities to participate in the process (e.g., hearing rights, comment on Environmental Assessments or Impact Statements).
Reexamine the available tools for the NRC staff to communicate with a licensee/applicant and remove any unnecessary administrative or procedural barriers that prolong the review process.
24 Potential improvements:
Communication and guidance (continued)
Actions that are underway (mid-term)
Update Cost Projections for Inspections and Licensing Actions on NRCs public website (https://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac.html).
Set more ambitious targets for reviews - most LARs (180 days) and all LARs (365 days).
Implement standards to routinely and consistently report and discuss the status of reviews (e.g., schedule, budgeted and actual hours) of license applications and license amendments.
Standardize public-facing dashboards - provide sufficient information to determine the status/progress of the review and accurately convey the actual time taken for milestones.
Have routine leadership discussions that follow a standardized agenda about the review project status, metrics, and data behind the dashboards (e.g., how many RAIs/RCIs have been issued, how many are closed, and how many are open).
NRC should improve communication to ensure alignment, clarity, and predictability on technical and policy positions: within a specific license review; across different license reviews; and within historical fuel cycle facility reviews.
25 Potential improvements:
Communication and guidance (continued)
Actions that are underway (mid-term) - continued Provide guidance to clarify the methods (Federal Register Notice and/or NRC website) for informing the public of the opportunity for hearing for licensing actions and when each method is appropriate.
Clarify the role of the NRC's Office of General Counsel (OGC) in licensing reviews so that applicants and staff understand the roles, responsibilities, timelines, and scope.
26 Potential improvements:
Communication and guidance (continued)
Actions for consideration (long-term)
Ensure internal agency alignment on key technical and policy issues - NUREG-1520 uses terminology like "provide sufficient detail" which is subject to interpretation and does not clearly define expectations. Current NRC positions on technical issues related to facilities should closely align with previous historical reviews of similar types of facilities as much as practicable.
Enhance the definitions for qualitative likelihood categories in NUREG-1520.
Develop guidance endorsing commercial building codes for fuel facilities - including the conditions under which the code can be used.
Hold workshops on NRC expectations for the content of license applications for new fuel cycle facilities - can explain why an acceptable approach for a facility that pre-dated Subpart H to 10 CFR Part 70 may not be acceptable for a new applicant.
Develop an index of NRC management letters that addressed various issues that came up during previous licensing reviews (e.g., level of detail, design features, etc.).
Create a public website landing page for new applicants (similar to NRRs -
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/new-app.html).
27 Potential improvements:
Communication and guidance (continued)
QUESTIONS ON POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO COMMUNICATION AND GUIDANCE?
28 Potential improvements:
Internal NRC processes Actions recently implemented (near-term)
Increase engagement from backup NRC PM on major licensing actions.
Establish an aggressive (front-heavy) review schedule for the RAIs and SER input. This allows ample time for SER reviews (legal & concurrence).
Provide example/sample/template SERs and RAIs to NRC technical reviewers immediately upon completion of the acceptance review.
29 Potential improvements:
Internal NRC processes (continued)
Actions that are underway (mid-term)
Reduce efforts on non-licensing work and prioritize licensing.
Prioritize the training and organizational management of NRC fuel cycle PMs.
Consider cross training NRC staff to provide surge capacity for fuel facility reviews.
Enhance training of technical reviewers on the review process - include video tutorials.
Implement improvements from NRC's agencywide efforts - project planning, scheduling, execution and closeout, strategic workload planning, and project management.
Update Web Based Licensing (WBL) to include fields needed for dashboards for more efficient tracking and reporting.
Streamline NRC PM status reports to management.
Streamline briefing materials.
30 Potential improvements:
Internal NRC processes (continued)
Actions for consideration (long-term)
Create a new team focused on new facility reviews.
Proceduralize the review of topical reports and white papers for fuel facilities.
Update internal guidance (e.g., how to update websites, update WBL, terminate a facility clearance, consider construction at risk, organize stakeholder meeting, provide Congressional reports).
Create internal guidance on when/how to perform interagency reviews for certain actions.
Reassess the signature authority for different licensing products (e.g., acceptance review, RAIs).
Utilize commercial off-the-shelf or custom resource management/scheduling software to allow for efficient scheduling of staff - lack of uniformity across the NRC creates challenges to tracking project status, workforce planning and resource budgeting.
Identify areas of regulatory improvement that would be appropriate for Congress to provide specific funds to reduce impacts on the fee-base (e.g., revising regulations and guidance).
31 Potential improvements:
Internal NRC processes (continued)
QUESTIONS ON POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO INTERNAL NRC PROCESSES?
32 How can you submit your ideas?
- Use the ADVANCE Act website - Contact us https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/governing-laws/advance-act/contactus.html
33 Next steps By April 15, 2025, the M-LEAP team will identify potential improvements with favorable ROI scores and expected implementation time (e.g., near-, mid-, and long-term)
On May 14, 2025, the NRC staff will host the Fuel Facility Licensing Best Practices Summit, which will provide an opportunity to discuss: (1) the prioritization of potential improvements, (2) applying best practices, and (3) improvements that have been taken, are underway, or are under future consideration In July 2025, the M-LEAP team will provide summary of results into a report (coordinated with NRCs team for Section 505 of the ADVANCE Act) for the NRCs EDO
34 Conclusion ANY FINAL QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?