Criteria for Nominating Materials Licensees for the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Agency Action Review Meeting, 14278-14279 [E8-5258]
Download as PDF
<![CDATA[
14278
Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 52 / Monday, March 17, 2008 / Notices
pwalker on PROD1PC71 with NOTICES
recordkeeping burden associated with
this collection. The NRC estimates there
will be 3,482 report submissions
amounting to 25,462 burden hours
annually. The annual recordkeeping
burden is estimated to be 633 hours for
65 respondents. This amounts to an
overall annual burden of 26,095 hours.
7. Abstract: The mandatory
requirements of the NRCAR implement
and supplement the government-wide
Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR),
and ensure that the regulations
governing the procurement of goods and
services within the NRC satisfy the
particular needs of the agency. Because
of differing statutory authorities among
Federal agencies, the FAR authorizes
agencies to issue regulations to
implement FAR policies and procedures
internally and to include additional
policies and procedures, solicitation
provisions or contract clauses to satisfy
the specific need of the agency.
Submit, by May 16, 2008, comments
that address the following questions:
1. Is the proposed collection of
information necessary for the NRC to
properly perform its functions? Does the
information have practical utility?
2. Is the burden estimate accurate?
3. Is there a way to enhance the
quality, utility, and clarity of the
information to be collected?
4. How can the burden of the
information collection be minimized,
including the use of automated
collection techniques or other forms of
information technology?
A copy of the draft supporting
statement may be viewed free of charge
at the NRC Public Document Room, One
White Flint North, 11555 Rockville
Pike, Room O–1 F21, Rockville, MD
20852. OMB clearance requests are
available at the NRC worldwide Web
site: https://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/
doc-comment/omb/. The
document will be available on the NRC
home page site for 60 days after the
signature date of this notice.
Comments and questions about the
information collection requirements
may be directed to the NRC Clearance
Officer, Margaret A. Janney (T–5 F52),
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555–0001, by
telephone at 301–415–7245, or by email
to INFOCOLLECTS@NRC.GOV.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 11th day
of March, 2008.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
Gregory Trussell,
Acting NRC Clearance Officer, Office of
Information Services.
[FR Doc. E8–5264 Filed 3–14–08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590–01–P
VerDate Aug<31>2005
16:19 Mar 14, 2008
Jkt 214001
NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
Criteria for Nominating Materials
Licensees for the U. S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission’s Agency
Action Review Meeting
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Request for comment.
AGENCY:
SUMMARY: It is the policy of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
to have its senior managers conduct an
annual Agency Action Review Meeting
(AARM). The AARM is an integral part
of the evaluative process used by the
agency to ensure the operational safety
performance of nuclear licensees. As a
part of the AARM process, the NRC
reviews the actions concerning fuel
cycle facilities and other materials
licensees (including Agreement State
licensees) with significant performance
problems. In 2002, the NRC developed
criteria for determining materials
licensees that will be discussed at the
AARM. These criteria may be found in
Table 1 of SECY–02–0216 (ADAMS
Accession Number: ML022410435).
The NRC is preparing to revise the
criteria in Table 1 of SECY–02–0216.
The revised criteria (which can be found
in ADAMS at Accession Number:
ML080600165 or in the supplementary
information below) provides additional
definition of the criteria requirements to
incorporate NRC’s current policies and
procedures. This notice provides the
revised criteria for public comment.
DATES: Please submit comments
regarding the proposed criteria, by May
1, 2008. Comments received after this
date will be considered if practical to do
so, but the NRC staff is able to ensure
consideration only for those comments
received on or before this date.
ADDRESSES: Members of the public are
invited and encouraged to submit
written comments to Michael Lesar,
Chief, Rulemaking, Directives, and
Editing Branch, Office of
Administration, Mail Stop T6-D59, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555–0001. You may
hand-deliver comments attention to
Michael Lesar, 11545 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, MD between 7:30 a.m. and
4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
Comments may also be sent
electronically to NRCREP@nrc.gov.
Publicly available documents related
to this notice, including public
comments received, are available
electronically through the NRC’s
Electronic Reading Room at https://
www.nrc.gov/NRC/reading-rm/
adams.html. From this site, the public
PO 00000
Frm 00078
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
can gain entry into the NRC’s
Agencywide Documents Access and
Management System (ADAMS), which
provides text and image files of NRC’s
public documents. If there are problems
in accessing the documents located in
ADAMS, contact the (PDR) Reference
staff at 1–800–397–4209, 301–415–4737
or be e-mail to PDR@nrc.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Duane White by telephone at 301–415–
6272, e-mail: dew2@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
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 (1) to
review agency actions resulting from the
performance of nuclear reactor licensees
for those nuclear power plants with
significant performance problems as
determined by the reactor oversight
process (ROP) action matrix, (2) to
review results of the staff’s assessment
of ROP effectiveness, (3) to review
industry performance trends, and (4) to
review agency actions concerning fuel
cycle facilities and other materials
licensees (including Agreement State
licensees) with significant performance
problems.
Discussion
NRC is preparing to revise the current
criteria used to determine nuclear
material licensees that will be discussed
at the AARM. The agency currently
identifies nuclear material licensees for
AARM discussion based on operating
performance, inspection results, and
judgment of the severity of problems of
safety performance. The proposed
changes to the criteria will continue to
be based on the same principles of the
existing criteria. However, the new
criteria provide additional definition of
the criteria requirements and
incorporate NRC’s current policy and
procedures.
Current Criteria for Determining
Materials Licensees for the AARM
The current criteria for determining
materials licensees for the AARM, as
described in Table 1 of SECY–02–0216,
is as follows: (1) Licensee has an event
E:\FR\FM\17MRN1.SGM
17MRN1
Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 52 / Monday, March 17, 2008 / Notices
that results in the failure to meet a
safety measure (e.g., a death, release
with significant impact on the
environment, etc.); (2) licensee has an
event that results in an abnormal
occurrence, or an event that qualifies for
a severity level I or II violation, or
multiple events that meet the agency
strategic plan performance measure
(e.g., reportable loss of material,
breakdown of physical protection, etc.),
and technical staff believes that there
are unique or unusual aspects of the
cases that are not adequately or
appropriately handled within the
normal inspection and enforcement
process; or (3) licensee has significant
breakdowns in its licensed program,
where the breakdowns involve more
than one compliance item (e.g., a dose
monitoring breakdown and a
widespread failure to implement and
maintain required procedures), and
technical staff believe that there are
unique or unusual aspects of the cases
that are not adequately or appropriately
handled within the normal inspection
and enforcement processes.
pwalker on PROD1PC71 with NOTICES
Proposed Criteria for Determining
Materials Licensees for the AARM
The NRC is proposing the following
revision to the existing criteria for
determining materials licensees with
significant performance issues: (1)
Strategic Plan—Licensee has an event
that results in the failure to meet a
strategic outcome for safety and security
in the NRC strategic plan, which may be
found in NUREG–1614; (2) Significant
Issue—Licensee has an issue or event
that results in an abnormal occurrence
report to Congress, as described in NRC
Management Directive 8.1, or a severity
level I or II violation, as described in the
NRC Enforcement Policy, or a level 3 or
higher International Nuclear Scale
Report to the International Atomic
Energy Agency, as described in NRC
Management Directive 5.12, and there
are unique or unusual aspects of the
licensee’s performance that warrant
additional NRC oversight (e.g., a
significant event, which requires an
incident investigation team (IIT) or
augmented inspection team (AIT)); or
(3) Performance Trend—Licensee has
multiple and/or repetitive significant
program issues identified over more
than one inspection, or inspection
period, and the issues are supported by
escalated enforcement, which includes
the Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR)
process, and there are unique or
unusual aspects of the licensee’s
performance that warrant additional
NRC oversight (e.g., oversight panel
formed for order implementation).
VerDate Aug<31>2005
16:19 Mar 14, 2008
Jkt 214001
You can find NRC’s strategic plan
(NUREG–1614) and the referenced
management directives and enforcement
policy on NRC’s public document
collections Web page at https://
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 11th day
of March 2008.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
George Pangburn,
Deputy Director, Office of Federal and State
Materials,and Environmental Management
Programs.
[FR Doc. E8–5258 Filed 3–14–08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590–01–P
NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
[Docket No. 040–08502]
Notice of License Amendment Request
To Revert to Operating Status From
Restoration and Decommissioning
Status, COGEMA Mining, Inc.,
Christensen and Irigaray Ranch
Facilities, Johnson and Campbell
Counties, WY, and Opportunity To
Request a Hearing
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Notice of license amendment
request and opportunity to request a
hearing.
AGENCY:
A request for a hearing must be
filed by May 16, 2008.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ron
C. Linton, Project Manager, Uranium
Recovery Licensing Branch, Division of
Waste Management and Environmental
Protection, Office of Federal and State
Materials and Environmental
Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555. Telephone: (301) 415–7777;
fax number: (301) 415–5369; e-mail:
rcl1@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
DATES:
I. Introduction
By letter dated April 3, 2007,
COGEMA Mining, Inc. (COGEMA),
submitted a Source Materials License
Amendment request to its license SUA–
1341 to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) to revert to operating
(uranium production) status from
restoration and decommissioning status
at the Christensen and Irigaray Ranch
Facilities in Johnson and Campbell
Counties, Wyoming. The change in
status request would involve restarting
uranium production operations and the
recovery of uranium by in situ leach
(ISL) extraction techniques as
PO 00000
Frm 00079
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
14279
previously licensed by the NRC. An
NRC administrative review,
documented in a letter to COGEMA
dated June 28, 2007, found the
amendment request acceptable to begin
a technical review (Adams Accession
No. ML071790033). Before approving
the license amendment, the NRC
findings required by the Atomic Energy
Act of 1954, the National Environmental
Policy Act and NRC’s regulations, will
have been made. These findings will be
documented in a Technical Evaluation
Report and a site-specific environmental
review consistent with the provisions in
10 CFR part 51.
II. Opportunity To Request a Hearing
The April 3, 2007 amendment request
pertains to COGEMA’s 10 CFR 40 source
materials license, and is COGEMA’s
proposal to restart uranium production
operations at its facilities in Johnson
and Campbell Counties, Wyoming. Any
person whose interest may be affected
by this proposal, and who desires to
participate as a party in an NRC
adjudicatory proceeding, must file a
request for a hearing. The hearing
request must include a specification of
the contentions which the person seeks
to have litigated, and must be filed in
accordance with the NRC E-Filing rule,
which the NRC promulgated in August
2007, 72 FR 49139 (August 28, 2007).
The E-Filing rule requires participants
to submit and serve documents over the
internet or in some cases to mail copies
on electronic storage media. Participants
may not submit paper copies of their
filings unless they seek a waiver in
accordance with the procedures
described below.
To comply with the procedural
requirements of E-Filing, at least five (5)
days prior to the filing deadline, the
petitioner/requester must contact the
Office of the Secretary by e-mail at
HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV, or by
calling (301) 415–1677, to request (1) a
digital ID certificate, which allows the
participant (or its counsel or
representative) to digitally sign
documents and access the E-Submittal
server for any proceeding in which it is
participating; and/or (2) creation of an
electronic docket for the proceeding
(even in instances in which the
petitioner/requestor (or its counsel or
representative) already holds an NRCissued digital ID certificate). Each
petitioner/requester will need to
download the Workplace Forms
ViewerTM to access the Electronic
Information Exchange (EIE), a
component of the E-Filing system. The
Workplace Forms ViewerTM is free and
is available at https://www.nrc.gov/sitehelp/e-submittals/install-viewer.html.
E:\FR\FM\17MRN1.SGM
17MRN1
]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 52 (Monday, March 17, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14278-14279]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-5258]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Criteria for Nominating Materials Licensees for the U. S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's Agency Action Review Meeting
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Request for comment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: It is the policy of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) to have its senior managers conduct an annual Agency Action
Review Meeting (AARM). The AARM is an integral part of the evaluative
process used by the agency to ensure the operational safety performance
of nuclear licensees. As a part of the AARM process, the NRC reviews
the actions concerning fuel cycle facilities and other materials
licensees (including Agreement State licensees) with significant
performance problems. In 2002, the NRC developed criteria for
determining materials licensees that will be discussed at the AARM.
These criteria may be found in Table 1 of SECY-02-0216 (ADAMS Accession
Number: ML022410435).
The NRC is preparing to revise the criteria in Table 1 of SECY-02-
0216. The revised criteria (which can be found in ADAMS at Accession
Number: ML080600165 or in the supplementary information below) provides
additional definition of the criteria requirements to incorporate NRC's
current policies and procedures. This notice provides the revised
criteria for public comment.
DATES: Please submit comments regarding the proposed criteria, by May
1, 2008. Comments received after this date will be considered if
practical to do so, but the NRC staff is able to ensure consideration
only for those comments received on or before this date.
ADDRESSES: Members of the public are invited and encouraged to submit
written comments to Michael Lesar, Chief, Rulemaking, Directives, and
Editing Branch, Office of Administration, Mail Stop T6-D59, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. You may hand-
deliver comments attention to Michael Lesar, 11545 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, MD between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
Comments may also be sent electronically to NRCREP@nrc.gov.
Publicly available documents related to this notice, including
public comments received, are available electronically through the
NRC's Electronic Reading Room at https://www.nrc.gov/NRC/reading-rm/
adams.html. From this site, the public can gain entry into the NRC's
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), which
provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. If there are
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the (PDR)
Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737 or be e-mail to
PDR@nrc.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Duane White by telephone at 301-415-
6272, e-mail: dew2@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
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 (1)
to review agency actions resulting from the performance of nuclear
reactor licensees for those nuclear power plants with significant
performance problems as determined by the reactor oversight process
(ROP) action matrix, (2) to review results of the staff's assessment of
ROP effectiveness, (3) to review industry performance trends, and (4)
to review agency actions concerning fuel cycle facilities and other
materials licensees (including Agreement State licensees) with
significant performance problems.
Discussion
NRC is preparing to revise the current criteria used to determine
nuclear material licensees that will be discussed at the AARM. The
agency currently identifies nuclear material licensees for AARM
discussion based on operating performance, inspection results, and
judgment of the severity of problems of safety performance. The
proposed changes to the criteria will continue to be based on the same
principles of the existing criteria. However, the new criteria provide
additional definition of the criteria requirements and incorporate
NRC's current policy and procedures.
Current Criteria for Determining Materials Licensees for the AARM
The current criteria for determining materials licensees for the
AARM, as described in Table 1 of SECY-02-0216, is as follows: (1)
Licensee has an event
[[Page 14279]]
that results in the failure to meet a safety measure (e.g., a death,
release with significant impact on the environment, etc.); (2) licensee
has an event that results in an abnormal occurrence, or an event that
qualifies for a severity level I or II violation, or multiple events
that meet the agency strategic plan performance measure (e.g.,
reportable loss of material, breakdown of physical protection, etc.),
and technical staff believes that there are unique or unusual aspects
of the cases that are not adequately or appropriately handled within
the normal inspection and enforcement process; or (3) licensee has
significant breakdowns in its licensed program, where the breakdowns
involve more than one compliance item (e.g., a dose monitoring
breakdown and a widespread failure to implement and maintain required
procedures), and technical staff believe that there are unique or
unusual aspects of the cases that are not adequately or appropriately
handled within the normal inspection and enforcement processes.
Proposed Criteria for Determining Materials Licensees for the AARM
The NRC is proposing the following revision to the existing
criteria for determining materials licensees with significant
performance issues: (1) Strategic Plan--Licensee has an event that
results in the failure to meet a strategic outcome for safety and
security in the NRC strategic plan, which may be found in NUREG-1614;
(2) Significant Issue--Licensee has an issue or event that results in
an abnormal occurrence report to Congress, as described in NRC
Management Directive 8.1, or a severity level I or II violation, as
described in the NRC Enforcement Policy, or a level 3 or higher
International Nuclear Scale Report to the International Atomic Energy
Agency, as described in NRC Management Directive 5.12, and there are
unique or unusual aspects of the licensee's performance that warrant
additional NRC oversight (e.g., a significant event, which requires an
incident investigation team (IIT) or augmented inspection team (AIT));
or (3) Performance Trend--Licensee has multiple and/or repetitive
significant program issues identified over more than one inspection, or
inspection period, and the issues are supported by escalated
enforcement, which includes the Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR)
process, and there are unique or unusual aspects of the licensee's
performance that warrant additional NRC oversight (e.g., oversight
panel formed for order implementation).
You can find NRC's strategic plan (NUREG-1614) and the referenced
management directives and enforcement policy on NRC's public document
collections Web page at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 11th day of March 2008.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
George Pangburn,
Deputy Director, Office of Federal and State Materials,and
Environmental Management Programs.
[FR Doc. E8-5258 Filed 3-14-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
