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IN RESPONSE, PLEASE
REFER TO: M020501

June 28, 2002

The Commission was briefed by the NRC staff and representatives of the Nuclear Energy Institute, Exelon, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) and the results of the Agency Action Review Meeting.

In SECY-02-0062, "Calendar Year 2001 Reactor Oversight Process Self Assessment," the staff indicated their intent to change the authorization level for deviations to the action matrix from the Executive Director for Operations (EDO) to the Regional Administrator and Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Director (except for plants in the multiple/repetitive degraded cornerstone column of the action matrix). The Commission disapproves this change; the EDO should remain the approval authority for action matrix deviations.

In SECY-02-0062 the staff indicated that annual updates to the Commission on resident inspector demographic data would be discontinued. The Commission disapproves this change; the staff should continue to provide annual updates as part of the annual ROP self-assessment results.

The staff should propose a process for providing the Commission with annual updates on significant nuclear materials issues (such as overexposures, medical misadministrations, and lost or stolen sources) and on adverse licensee performance. This information could be provided in conjunction with the Agency Action Review Meeting results and Commission meeting or through another appropriate mechanism. The staff should inform the Commission of the final criteria that it will use to determine those material licensees that will be discussed at the Agency Action Review Meeting.

The staff should re-examine the treatment within the Reactor Oversight Program of findings that the staff currently characterizes as "old design issues." The staff should reconsider the criteria for determining when a design issue should be treated outside the action matrix framework. The staff should also develop decision-making criteria for situations where a supplemental inspection need not be performed.

In SECY-02-0062, the staff stated (page 10) that "SDP evaluations are often more driven by underlying assumptions than the risk tools themselves." The staff should inform the Commission of the steps it is taking to improve the scrutability of SDP input assumptions, including the increased use of realistic best estimates.

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