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January 27, 2000

The Commission has approved the staff's proposal to seek stakeholder input before choosing an option for implementing the allegation program under the new oversight process. The staff should report back to the Commission on the results of stakeholder feedback and recommend an approach to implementing the allegation program under the new oversight process. When the staff reports back to the Commission regarding the stakeholder feedback associated with the options presented in SECY-99-273, it should also discuss other opportunities for piloting the staff's eventual recommendation and/or other options.

In determining the viability of a risk-informed approach, the staff should consider a more robust analysis of the applicability of the SDP. The staff should consider benchmarking the proposed SDP allegation review process by applying the proposed process to a representative sample of allegations that have already been closed to determine whether the SDP initial review would have screened out allegations that, after NRC review and inspection, identified issues of safety importance.

The Commission has agreed that the NRC should not adopt changes to the allegation process which unacceptably reduce the ability to protect the identity of allegers.

The staff should also emphasize that, regardless of the option eventually implemented, this agency will remain vigilant in protecting the ability of people to raise safety issues to the NRC.

The Offices of Congressional Affairs and Public Affairs should work closely with NRR to ensure that our intentions are clear to our stakeholders. The staff should remain open-minded to other options that may be identified by these stakeholders.