Licensing of Dial Painting Activities by Jewelers and Watch Repairers
HPPOS-142 PDR-9111210381
Title: Licensing of Dial Painting Activities by Jewelers
and Watch Repairers
See the memorandum from T. F. Dorian to G. W. Kerr dated
October 25, 1976. It is an OELD opinion that Agreement
State licensees can manufacture exempt products but they
must possess an NRC license to distribute the exempt
products.
NRC has retained the authority under 10 CFR 150.15 (a) (6)
to license under 10 CFR 32.14 and 30.15 (a) (1) watch
repairers and jewelers who strip radium paint from dials
and hands of watches and reapply tritium paint. Subsection
274c. of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954, as amended,
provides that notwithstanding any agreement between the
Commission and any State, the Commission is authorized to
require that "the manufacturer, processor, or producer of
any equipment, device, commodity, or other product
containing source, byproduct, or special nuclear material
shall not transfer possession or control of such product
except pursuant to a license issued by the Commission."
In issuing 10 CFR Part 150, which implemented certain AEA
provisions, the Commission exercised its authority under
AEA subsection 274c. by providing in 10 CFR 150.15 (a) (6)
that persons in Agreement States are not exempt from the
Commission's licensing requirements with respect to: "The
transfer or possession or control by the manufactures,
processor, or producer of any equipment, device, commodity,
or other product containing source, byproduct, or special
nuclear material, intended for use by the general public."
With respect to the meaning of "products intended for use
by the general public," the Statement of Considerations
accompanying Part 150 read, in part, as follows: "Control
over consumer type devices, such as luminous watches, would
be retained by the Commission."
On May 16, 1969, NRC amended 150.15 (a) (6), and the
Statement of Considerations accompanying the amendment that
read, in part, as follows:
"In retaining regulatory authority over transfer of
products 'intended for use by the general public' the
Commission was seeking to maintain surveillance over the
safety of products containing radioactive materials,
without the imposition of regulatory controls, and to be
able to assess the effect of the attendant uncontrolled
addition of these radioactive materials to the environment."
"In view of the increasing difficulty in determining
whether or not such products are intended for use by the
general public, the Commission has adopted the amendment of
Part 150 set out below, which changes 150.15 (a) (6) by
deleting the phrase 'product ... intended for use by the
general public' and substituted the phrase 'product ...
whose subsequent possession, use, transfer and disposal by
all other persons are exempted for licensing and regulatory
requirements of the Commission under Parts 30 and 40 of
this chapter.'"
"Under Part 150 as amended below the transfer or possession
or control by a manufacturer, processor, or producer of any
equipment, device, commodity, or other product containing
byproduct material or source material whose subsequent
possession, use, transfer, and disposal by all other person
are exempted from Commission licensing and regulatory
requirements under Parts 30 and 40, is not subject to the
licensing and regulatory authority of an Agreement State
even though the product is manufactured, processed, or
produced pursuant to an Agreement State license. The
manufacturer of such products in an Agreement State is
subject to the Commission's regulatory authority with
respect to transfer of any product which has been so
exempted from the Commission's licensing and regulatory
requirements. The Commission has confined its regulation
of the transfer of exempt products to specifications for
the products, quality control procedure, requirements for
testing, and labeling. The authority of Agreement States
to regulate any radiation hazards that might arise during
manufacture of such products is not affected by the
amendment. Accordingly, dual regulation will continue to be
avoided."
Watch repairers and jewelers engaged either in stripping
radium paint from a watch and reapplying tritium paint or
in repair or reconditioning a watch and reapplying tritium
paint, can be called processors (see, for example, 10 CFR
32.22). This interpretation matches portions of the
Statement of Considerations of the amendment to 10 CFR
150.15 (a) (6) quoted earlier.
Regulatory references: 10 CFR 150.15
Subject codes: 3.5, 12.2, 12.9
Applicability: Byproduct Material