NRC PROPOSES CHANGES TO REGULATIONS ON
OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION DOSE RECORDS, TOTAL DOSE DEFINITION
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering amending several regulations dealing with radiation doses to workers at licensed facilities.

The first proposed change would relieve NRC license holders of the requirement to automatically provide annual dose reports to workers who received less than 100 millirem (mrem) of total dose or less than 100 mrem to any individual organ or tissue in the previous year. Licensees would still be required to provide dose records to those categories of workers upon request. The 100 mrem limit was selected because it is also the threshold dose for licensees to instruct workers on radiation protection.

The second proposed change would revise the definition of "total effective dose equivalent," which is meant to ensure both external and internal exposure to radiation is taken into account. The proposed change would allow licensees to improve their assessment of the risk arising from work-related radiation exposures.

The third proposed change would revise how commercial nuclear power plant licensees should label containers holding radioactive materials in posted areas. The change would allow those licensees to mark the containers according to their radiological hazard instead of giving more detailed information, as long as the containers are only handled by workers trained to minimize any radiation exposure.

The final proposed change would eliminate the requirement for licensees to try and obtain lifetime dose records for every worker who requires monitoring. Licensees are no longer required to obtain lifetime records to evaluate occupational doses in a given monitoring year. The only occasion where lifetime dose records would be required is when a licensee authorizes a "planned special exposure" for an adult worker.

Comments on the revised proposed rule will be accepted for 75 days following publication in the Federal Register. Comments may be mailed to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. Comments may also be e-mailed to rulemaking.comments@nrc.gov or online via the NRC's rulemaking Web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov.

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008