ML23054A318
| ML23054A318 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/17/2023 |
| From: | Robert Lewis, John Monninger NRC/RGN-IV/DORS/EB1 |
| To: | |
| Lewis R | |
| References | |
| PG 1006-4 | |
| Download: ML23054A318 (4) | |
Text
March 17, 2023 PG 1006.4- RELEASE OF INFORMATION ABOUT PLANT OUTAGE SCHEDULES EFFECTIVE: Upon issuance CONTACT: Chief, EB1 SUPERSEDES: PG 1006.3 DISTRIBUTION: Standard Signed by Monninger, John APPROVAL: on 03/17/23 John D. Monninger, Deputy Regional Administrator Revision: This policy guide has been updated to reflect the regional re-organization effective February 27, 2022.
A. Purpose/Discussion The December 20, 1999, memorandum from the Executive Director for Operations (Accession Number ML993500306) defines the NRCs policy for the release of information about plant outage schedules. As a general matter, regional staff will implement the policy by referring inquiries to the Division of Operating Reactor Safety (DORS) projects branch assigned to the subject facility. Staff should keep in mind that the goal of this process is to appropriately balance our desire to be responsive to public inquiries with our responsibility to ensure that we do not improperly disclose proprietary information. As mentioned in the memorandum, we should also use this guidance when we are preparing documents that will be released to the public. More specifically, the staff should avoid placing outage schedule information into documents that will be released to the public.
Additionally, the staff should not release outage schedule information provided verbally by licensees (and not otherwise known to be in the public domain) without following the applicable processes described in our management directives for the release of information to the public (e.g., MD 3.1 Freedom of Information Act and MD 3.4 Release of Information to the Public). This guidance does not change our general policy of being as responsive as possible to those requesting information and does not imply that someone requesting information on plant outage schedules should be directed to submit a written request in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
PG 1006.4 2 The potential sensitivity of the information about plant outage schedules does, however, warrant that the staff exercise some caution before releasing the information to the public, since some licensees may consider information about plant outage schedules to be confidential business or propriety information.
The following discusses the handling of specific circumstances for requests received by staff for information about plant outage schedules (usually associated with expected plant restart dates).
B. Responsibilities
- 1. DORS Projects Branch Chief - Acts as point of contact for requests for plant outage schedules and responsible for handling requests referred to the Region.
- 2. All personnel - Responsible for processing all verbal requests for outage schedule information in accordance with this policy guide and referring them to the cognizant DORS projects branch chief.
C. Action
- 1. If you do not know about the subject outage schedule, simply inform the requestor that you do not know and recommend that they call the licensee for the information.
In general, the staff should limit requests made to licensees to the information needed to perform our regulatory functions.
- 2. If you have information about the subject plant outage schedule and you know that the information is in the public domain (e.g., docketed correspondence or public announcements by the licensee) or that the licensee has stated that they will not request the information be withheld from public disclosure (e.g., the licensee stated that the information was not proprietary in response to questions about a previous public inquiry about the same outage), you may share the information with the person requesting the outage schedule information. The staff should also provide appropriate disclaimers regarding the accuracy of the information (e.g., information is subject to change, information may not reflect recent plant activities, information is not from an official licensee source, etc.).
- 3. If you have some outage schedule information, but do not know whether the information is in the public domain or whether we have asked the licensee if the information is proprietary, you should state that, in accordance with NRC procedures, we may not disclose the information without first giving the licensee an opportunity to request that the information be withheld from public disclosure.
Before you start an investigation about whether we can disclose the information, you should try to refer the requestor to the licensee, thereby removing the NRC from a position as intermediary. The referral is justified because disclosure of the information may be inappropriate (e.g., confidential business or proprietary information) and the information available to much of the NRC staff may be outdated or speculative.
ML23054A318 SUNSI Review By: VGG ADAMS: Yes Non-Publicly Available Non-Sensitive Keyword: MD 3.4 B.1 OFFICE C:EB1 NTEU C:IPAT D:DORS D:DRSS NAME VGaddy RAzua AAgrawal RLantz MMuessle SIGNATURE /RA/ /RA/ /RA/ /RA/ GMiller for DATE 02/24/23 02/23/23 02/27/23 02/23/23 02/26/23 NAME VDricks DCylkowski JMonninger SIGNATURE /RA/ /RA/ /RA/
DATE 03/01/23 03/07/23 03/17/23