RIS 2004-14, Focusing Resources in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation As a Result of Review of Security Plan Changes
| ML042020241 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/20/2004 |
| Revision: | 0 |
| From: | Costello F M NRC/NRR/DIPM/IROB |
| To: | |
| Tindell B W, NRR/DLPM/LPDI-2, 415-1377 | |
| References | |
| RIS-04-014 | |
| Download: ML042020241 (5) | |
September 20, 2004
NRC REGULATORY ISSUE SUMMARY 2004-14FOCUSING RESOURCES IN THE OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTORREGULATION AS A RESULT OF REVIEW OF SECURITY PLANCHANGES
ADDRESSEES
All holders of operating licenses for nuclear power reactors, except those who havepermanently ceased operations and have certified that fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel.
INTENT
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing this regulatory issue summary (RIS)to inform addressees that the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) is focusing resources on work that is most important to the mission of the NRC and is using some of its resources to process security plan change This RIS requires no action or written response on the part of an addresse
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On April 29, 2003, the NRC issued an order to all power reactor licensees requiring changes totheir physical security plans, safeguards contingency plans, and security personnel training and qualification plan The order required licensees to submit the revised plans by April 29, 2004, and to fully implement them by October 29, 2004.The NRC staff established a Security Plan Review Team (SPRT) to facilitate the review andapproval of the plan change The Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response is leading this effort; however, NRR has also committed significant resources to the SPR The resource demands for the SPRT come at a time of significant workload, including ongoing extensive and complex licensing reviews across the industry, increased external stakeholder involvement in agency activities, oversight of plant issues, and additional unbudgeted work.
SUMMARY OF ISSUE
The NRC created the SPRT to provide focus on the agency performance goal of enhancingsecurity at nuclear power plant Due to the resource expenditure for this effort, NRR has created a process that directs its remaining resources to priority activities that support the performance goals of ensuring safety and security; promoting openness; making NRC decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic; and enhancing management effectivenes The process identifies tasks that best accomplish these performance goals and focusesresources on them.NRR suspended several noncritical internal functions including postponing updates to officeinstructions, ceasing licensing workshops and Licensing Action Task Force meetings, canceling noncritical internal meetings, and suspending some internal administrative processe These suspensions and cancellations have minimal impact on licensee However, suspending internal functions alone has not regained the full amount of resources that were dedicated to the SPR Additionally, NRR has deferred some licensing action The affected licensing actions will bedeferred until resources can be recovered from the SPRT after October 29, 200 In deciding which licensing actions to defer, NRR considered the following criteria in descending order of significance:*The completion of the action will not exceed the 2-year age goal.
The action was of low safety significance.
The action was of low priority for the licensee.
The action was not related to an outage.
The action was primarily based on reducing operational costs.
The technical issues for the action required an extensive response from the licenseeand were expected to result in long delays in processing the action.The project manager was the only technical reviewer for the action requested.
NRR implemented the license deferral process using the following steps: (1) the NRR staffproposed actions for deferral based on the above criteri (2) The proposed licensing actions were discussed with NRR technical and project management staff to ensure that all aspects of the deferral were understoo (3) The proposed licensing actions were discussed with the affected licensee If the licensing action had a clear safety impact or if the deferral was prevented the restart of a plant from an outage, then the licensing action was not be deferre (4) The licensee received formal written notification of the deferral.Finally, NRR's performance plan measures were changed to show that licensing actions werenot going to be as timely in the remainder of Fiscal Year 2004 and possibly beyon NRR's licensing action timeliness goal of 96% completed within 1 year was reduced to 90% for Fiscal Year 200 The 2-year licensing action timeliness goal remained at 100%. NRR will evaluate the cascading impact for subsequent fiscal year performance goals following completion of the SPRT activities.NRR may refocus resources in the future by using a similar deferral proces The staff willcommunicate with licensees about resource adjustments if the licensees are affecte
BACKFIT DISCUSSION
This RIS requests no action or written response and is, therefore, not a backfit under 10 CFR 50.10 Consequently, the staff did not perform a backfit analysis.
FEDERAL REGISTER NOTIFICATION
A notice of opportunity for public comment was not published in the Federal Register becausethis RIS is informational.SMALL BUSINESS REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT FAIRNESS ACT OF 1996The NRC has determined that this action is not subject to the Small Business RegulatoryEnforcement Fairness Act of 1996.
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT STATEMENT
This RIS does not contain an information collection request and, therefore, is not subject to therequirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.).
CONTACT
Please direct any questions about this matter to the technical contact listed below or to theappropriate NRR project manager./RA/Francis M. Costello, Acting Chief Reactor Operations Branch Division of Inspection Program Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Technical Contact:
John A. Nakoski, NRR301-415-1068 E-mail: jan1@nrc.gov
Attachment:
List of Recently Regulatory Issue Summaries
BACKFIT DISCUSSION
This RIS requests no action or written response and is, therefore, not a backfit under 10 CFR 50.10 Consequently, the staff did not perform a backfit analysis.
FEDERAL REGISTER NOTIFICATION
A notice of opportunity for public comment was not published in the Federal Register becausethis RIS is informational.SMALL BUSINESS REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT FAIRNESS ACT OF 1996The NRC has determined that this action is not subject to the Small Business RegulatoryEnforcement Fairness Act of 1996.
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT STATEMENT
This RIS does not contain an information collection request and, therefore, is not subject to therequirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.).
CONTACT
Please direct any questions about this matter to the technical contact listed below or to theappropriate NRR project manager./RA/Francis M. Costello, Acting Chief Reactor Operations Branch Division of Inspection Program Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Technical Contact:
John A. Nakoski, NRR301-415-1068 E-mail: jan1@nrc.gov
Attachment:
List of Recently Regulatory Issue SummariesDISTRIBUTION:ADAMSRIS FileADAMS ACCESSION NUMBER: ML042020241OFFICEPM:PDI-2Tech EditorPDI-2/SCPDII-1/SCPDII/DDD:DLPMNAMELLicataPKleeneJCliffordJNakoskiEHackettTMarshDATE09/01/200408/30/200408/03/200408/03/200408/04/200408/24/2004OFFICEPMASOCIOOEOGC (NLO)OGC-SBREFA NAMEDLMcCainBStMaryCNolanMLemoncelliTRothschildDATE09/10/200409/02/200409/08/200409/03/200409/08/2004OFFICECRGROES:IROB:DIPMNSIRIPMOES:IROB:DIPMA:C:IROB:DIPMNAMECDPetroneSMorrisACMcMurtrayFMCostelloDATE / /200409/14/2004 / /200409/16/200409/20/2004OFFICIAL RECORD COPY
______________________________________________________________________________________OL = Operating License CP = Construction PermitAttachment LIST OF RECENTLY ISSUEDNRC REGULATORY ISSUE SUMMARIES_____________________________________________________________________________________Regulatory Issue Date of Summary N Subject IssuanceIssued to_____________________________________________________________________________________2004-13Consideration of Sheltering inLicensee's Range of ProtectiveAction Recommendations08/02/2004All holders of operating licensesfor nuclear power reactors, except those who have permanently ceased operations and have certified that fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel.2004-12Clarification on Use of LaterEditions and Addenda to the ASME OM Code and Section XI07/28/2004All holders of operating licensesfor nuclear power reactors except those who have permanently ceased operations and have certified that fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel.2003-18,Supplement 1Use of Nuclear EnergyINSTITUTE (NEI) 99-01,
"Methodology for Development ofEmergency Action Levels,"Revision 4, Dated January 200307/13/2004All holders of operating licensesfor nuclear power reactors and licensees that have permanently ceased operations and have certified that fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel.2004-11Supporting Information Associatedwith Requests For Withholding Proprietary Information06/29/2004All submitters of proprietaryinformation to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.2004-10Preparation And Scheduling ofOperator Licensing Examinations06/14/2004All holders of operating licensesfor nuclear power reactors, except those who have permanently ceased operations and have certified that fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel. Note:NRC generic communications may be received in electronic format shortly after they areissued by subscribing to the NRC listserver as follows:To subscribe send an e-mail to <listproc@nrc.gov >, no subject, and the followingcommand in the message portion:subscribe gc-nrr firstname lastname