ML20183A205

Arkansas' Comments on Interim SA Procedure SA-201

ML20183A205
Person / Time
Issue date:	02/28/2020
From:	Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
To:
Beardsley M
Shared Package
ML20183A152	List: ML20183A205 ML20184A178 ML20184A179 ML20184A180 ML20189A007 ML20191A059 ML20204A816 ML20224A143 ML20258A063 ML20274A160
References
STC-19-078
Download: ML20183A205 (2)

Text

COMMENTS ON INTERIM PROCEDURES RELATED TO THE IMPEP -

SA-107, SA-200, AND SA-201 (STC-19-078)

These comments are all in reference to the SA-201 draft.

Paragraph III.B. - page 5 of the pdf Since it is likely not appropriate for all Agreement States to submit proposed amendments to the NRC at the same time these amendments are presented for public comment, that particular sentence could be caveated with depending on the administrative rulemaking requirements and timeline the Agreement State or State seeking an Agreement must follow. It might be more time efficient (important when a State is trying to meet an adoption date) to determine, prior to beginning the rulemaking process, items that would require substantive changes due to NRCs review versus determining this during the public comment period. Discovering substantive issues at this point in the timeline puts a stop to the rulemaking process, and the State must begin the rulemaking process againor otherwise proceed with adopting the proposed rules as final, including those in need of substantive changes. This sort of adoption is usually not desirable. We rarely receive substantive comments from the public during our 30-day public comment period.

Besides time efficiency, senior ADH management usually wishes to review proposed rules already vetted by the NRC prior to being presented to the public.

Instead of, or in addition to, adding the qualifier, another option would be to say, Such requests are often submitted at the same time they are published for public comment.

Paragraph V.A.3. - page 9 of the pdf If 15% of the proposed rule reviews may take longer than 60 days, then I suggest recommending to the States that submittal should occur 120 days prior to the date that comments are needed. We have found that it is best to consider the greatest number of days that a particular step in the lengthy rulemaking process could take when determining how soon to begin drafting new rule language in order to meet the adoption deadline. If the State were to only consider 60 days, they may come up short concerning their rulemaking timeline.

Paragraph A.4. - page 11 of the pdf I am a little confused as to the statement that says Agreement States should only submit LBRs for review that are intended to substitute for NRC rules. I am remembering some license conditions (an example of an LBR) that became license conditions because they are not included in NRC regulations (i.e., leak test requirements). I see the last sentence that says, An Agreement State should not add/implement any license conditions that have not been reviewed by the NRC. This seems to contradict the initial statement that NRC would only review LBRs that are intended to substitute for NRC rules.

February 28, 2020

2 Paragraph B.1. - page 11 of the pdf If using Microsoft Word Track Changes in a rule draft is optional, there should be no issue. Senior ADH management asks our programs to not use this sort of change tracking due to problems experienced. Developing two totally separate drafts would be very labor intensive and therefore impossible. ADH prefers the line-in/line-out format as previously used.

Paragraph C. - page 12 of the pdf If a proposed rule review is allowed up to 120 days to be performed, I recommend not using sixty-day review period. Perhaps sixty-day could just be removed from the sentence.

Paragraph D. - page 13 of the pdf Reviews being assigned within two business days of receipt of a complete State package seems to contradict page 3 of the pdf (paragraph II.D.2.) that says packages that have been determined to be complete should be assigned to the reviewer within three days of the acceptance review.

Paragraph G.2. - page 16 of the pdf Conducting reviews for technical completeness of incoming State transmittals within three calendar days of the receipt of a review request seems to contradict page 3 of the pdf (paragraph II.D.1.) that says the acceptance review of incoming packages should be completed within three days of receipt.

Appendix A,Section I It may be clearer to say in the last sentence of the first paragraph that These differences do not need to be identified as significant or commented on. I am assuming the reviewer would mark the Difference column as Yes since we have titled the section Differences That are Not Significant and mark the Significant column as No. In other words, the sentences saying do not need to be identified does not mean to mark No in the Difference column.

Appendix A,Section I and II.A.

Paragraph II.A. discusses Compatibility Category A and B regulations and what State/NRC differences would be considered significant/incompatible. There are instances with Compatibility Category B regulations where the language adopted by the State is not exact because the requirement necessitated substituting Agreement State for Commission or adding U.S. NRC to or equivalent regulations of the U.S. NRC or an Agreement State. Examples include 10 CFR 71.17(b) and 10 CFR 32.51(a). The discussion in II.A. in comparison to these examples would seem to indicate that these differences were significant. Perhaps II.A. could be clarified.

In Section I, it may be helpful to discuss the difference having to do with my above comment that would not be considered significant.

Question 15 of the Frequently Asked Questions In some instances, Agreement States should not use the SSRs for changes to NRC regulations that occurred before the SSR approval date either. For example, SSR Part T.

February 28, 2020