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POLICY ISSUE
(Information)

SECY-08-0135

September 16, 2008

• PURPOSE
• BACKGROUND
• DISCUSSION
• COORDINATION

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this paper is to inform the Commission of the revision to the criteria that are used to identify nuclear materials licensees that warrant discussion at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Agency Action Review Meeting (AARM) and to provide the new process used to revise the criteria. This paper does not address any new commitments or resource implications.

BACKGROUND:

In 2002, NRC developed a process for providing information on significant nuclear materials issues and adverse licensee performance. This process was provided in SECY-02-0216, “Proposed Process for Providing Information on Significant Nuclear Materials Issues and Adverse Licensee Performance,” dated December 11, 2002. As part of this process, criteria were developed to determine nuclear material licensees with significant performance problems that will be discussed at the AARM. The AARM is an agency meeting that allows senior NRC managers to review:(1) agency actions resulting from the performance of nuclear reactor and nuclear material licensees with significant performance problems; (2) results of the staff’s assessment of the reactor oversight process effectiveness; and (3) industry performance trends.

In January 2008, as part of the AARM preparation process, staff determined that the AARM criteria for determining nuclear material licensees with significant performance problems should be revised to provide additional clarity and incorporate NRC’s current policies and procedures. In addition, a decision was made to develop a formal process for revising the criteria because one did not exist. As part of the process for revising the criteria, a Federal Register Notice
(FRN)was published requesting comment on the proposed revision to the criteria (73 FR 14278, March 17, 2008).

DISCUSSION:

Revisions to the AARM Criteria

Table 1 of SECY 02-0216 provides the existing criteria for identifying nuclear material licensees with significant performance issues that would warrant discussion at the AARM. The initial criteria were divided into two sections. One section described the criteria for identifying candidate licensees for AARM consideration and the other section described the criteria NRC would use in evaluating whether the candidate licensees would be forwarded for discussion at the AARM. A copy of the initial criteria is provided in Enclosure 1 of this paper.

The proposed revisions to the AARM criteria as published in the FRN did not change the main principles of the initial criteria but provided an additional level of clarity to the criteria. The proposed revision to the criteria includes the following:

• combined the two sections of the initial criteria into one and divided the criteria into three different categories (i.e., Strategic Plan, Significant Issue, and Performance Trend);
• added a criterion to include significant events that meet or exceed Level 3 of the International Nuclear Event Scale that requires reporting to the International Atomic Energy Agency (per NRC Management Directive (MD) 5.12);
• added references to NRC’s current policies and procedures such as NRC’s Strategic Plan, Abnormal Occurrence Report to Congress (per MD 8.1), and the NRC Enforcement Policy; and,
• clarified the meaning of “additional NRC oversight,” as described in the Significant Issue and Performance Trend categories, by providing examples such as “a significant event, which requires an incident investigation team (IIT) or augmented inspection team (AIT).”

One public comment was received in response to the FRN on the proposed revision to the AARM criteria. The commenter indicated that it supported the proposed criteria and requested clarification or modification as to why category 3 “Performance Trend” of the criteria explicitly references NRC’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Process (ADR) as an element of the enforcement process but category two “Significant Issues” does not reference ADR. In response to the comment, the staff revised the criteria by adding a reference to ADR in Category 2 of the criteria. The final revised criteria for identifying nuclear material licensees for discussion at the AARM may be found in Enclosure 2 .

Process for Revising the AARM Criteria

As part of the revision to the AARM criteria, NRC senior management developed a formal process that would be used to revise the criteria in the future. Although the staff does not expect frequent revisions to the AARM criteria, this process helps to ensure transparency and consistency of the process and allows an opportunity for interested stakeholders to comment on proposed revisions. An outline of the process used to revise the AARM criteria for identifying nuclear materials licensees for discussion at the AARM may be found in Enclosure 3 .

COORDINATION:

The Office of the General Counsel has reviewed this paper and has no legal objection.

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Wednesday, October 01, 2008