Status of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation's Implementation of Electronic Operating Reactor Correspondence, 19605 [E9-9768]

Agencies

• NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 81 (Wednesday, April 29, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Page 19605]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-9768]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2008-0070]


Status of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation's 
Implementation of Electronic Operating Reactor Correspondence

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing this 
Federal Register Notice to inform the public that publicly available 
correspondence originating from the Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation, Division of Operating Reactor Licensing (DORL) will be 
transmitted to addressees and subscribers by a computer-based e-mail 
distribution system. This change does not affect the availability of 
official agency records in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS), which may be accessed through NRC's Web page 
https://www.nrc.gov.
    In order to evaluate the feasibility of electronic distribution, 
the DORL staff engaged in a pilot program with Exelon Generation 
Company, LLC (West). The pilot program began July 1, 2007, and ended 
September 30, 2007. A Federal Register Notice announcing the pilot 
program was issued on June 28, 2007, (72 FR 35520) and another Federal 
Register Notice was issued on February 7, 2008, (73 FR 7328) describing 
the results of the pilot program.
    During the pilot program, the method used for distribution was e-
mail. The e-mail contained an electronic link to ADAMS providing direct 
access to the correspondence. In addition, addressees received an Adobe 
Acrobat TM portable document format (PDF) version of the 
correspondence. One issue identified during the pilot program involved 
the use of e-mails with a direct link into ADAMS. This approach has 
inherent limitations. It may take up to 5 business days for a document 
to become publicly available in ADAMS. Unless action is taken to make 
the document publicly available sooner or action taken to delay sending 
the e-mail until the document becomes publicly available, the direct 
link resulted in the document not being available when the e-mail was 
received.
    Additional steps were taken to obtain stakeholder feedback. In the 
initial Federal Register Notice (72 FR 35520) announcing the pilot 
program and in a letter dated October 11, 2007, (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML072820307) the NRC staff requested comments on this initiative. The 
NRC staff also sent an e-mail on October 24, 2007, (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML080160089) to those who participated in the pilot program to get 
their feedback. Comments received (ADAMS Accession No. ML080170254) 
were overwhelmingly supportive of electronic distribution, generally 
because of the reduced need for copies and reduced handling costs. A 
few respondents were concerned with e-mail box overloads and internet 
service provider file size limits. These concerns have been addressed 
through the use of administrative controls to control the size of 
distributed files.
    The DORL staff incorporated this feedback in developing the 
Operating Reactor Correspondence Administration program implementing 
distribution of DORL generated correspondence through a computer-based 
e-mail distribution system. The DORL staff now provides the addressee 
and subscribers with an Adobe Acrobat TM PDF file of the 
correspondence. The addressee and subscribers lists receive distributed 
correspondence documents at the same time. Distribution of 
correspondence containing safeguards, proprietary or security-related 
information, or other information that is withheld from public 
disclosure will not be affected by this initiative.
    This initiative was implemented on September 30, 2008. Individuals 
may subscribe to receive DORL-generated operating reactor 
correspondence by entering the following URL into their Web browser 
address bar:
    https://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver/plants-by-region.html.
    Or through NRC's Web site, https://www.nrc.gov as described below:
    1. Go to the NRC's public Web site (https://www.nrc.gov).
    2. Click on the ``Public Meetings & Involvement'' tab.
    3. On this page, under the heading ``Information and Meeting 
Schedules to Help You Participate,'' click on ``Subscribe to E-mail 
Notices.''
    4. On this page, click on the phrase, ``Operating Reactor 
Correspondence,'' which will take you to the subscription page.
    The Operating Reactor Correspondence page also provides the option 
to subscribe to Federal Register Notices for the operating reactors.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of April 2009.

    For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cameron Goodwin,
Plant Licensing Branch 3-2, Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, 
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. E9-9768 Filed 4-28-09; 8:45 am]
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