NRC ISSUES THE U.S. NATIONAL REPORT FOR CONVENTION ON NUCLEAR SAFETY
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued the "United States of America National Report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety." This report describes the U.S. Government's fulfillment of its obligations under the Convention, and demonstrates how the U.S. achieves a high level of safety for its nuclear power plants.

Two key regulatory initiatives highlighted in the report are NRC's improvement of its reactor oversight process and focusing the attention of the nuclear industry on programs and activities most important to safety. The report will be peer reviewed by parties to the Convention at the Second Review Meeting taking place in April in Vienna.

The Convention, to which the Senate gave consent to ratification in 1999, emphasizes that nuclear safety is a sovereign responsibility. Countries are obligated to report on how nuclear power safety is achieved. Every three years the 53 participating countries must submit reports on their programs for peer review as an incentive to achieve the highest possible levels of safety.

"The NRC uses a number of national programs and processes to ensure that plant safety is maintained and to meet the obligations of the Convention on Nuclear Safety," the report states. "These are a well-established licensing process; the newly revised process for reactor oversight; the Accident Sequence Precursor program; the Program for Resolving Generic Safety Issues; programs for rulemaking; for decommissioning; for regulatory research; for public participation; and for handling petitions; allegations, and differing professional views and opinions."

The report discusses the national nuclear regulatory programs that meet the obligations of the Convention, primary current nuclear safety initiatives, and significant regulatory accomplishments since the first peer review meeting in 1998. In addition, the report highlights the NRC's major objectives – to maintain plant safety; to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and realism of NRC activities and decisions; to increase public confidence; and to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden – and describes the activities that the NRC has initiated to meet those objectives.

Copies of the "United States of America National Report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety" (NUREG-1650) will be available at the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room link at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1650/ and at the NRC Public Document Room in Rockville, Maryland.

NRC news releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site.

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Monday, December 08, 2008