NRC Enforcement Policy Revision, 60485-60487 [2010-24561]

Agencies

• NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 189 (Thursday, September 30, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60485-60487]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-24561]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2008-0497]


NRC Enforcement Policy Revision

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Policy statement.

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SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is 
publishing a major revision to its Enforcement Policy (Enforcement 
Policy or Policy) to clarify the use of terms and update the Policy, 
removing outdated information and adding information addressing 
enforcement issues in areas that are not currently directly addressed 
in the Policy.

DATES: This revision is effective on September 30, 2010. The NRC 
intends to solicit comments on this revised Policy approximately 18 
months after the effective date.

ADDRESSES: NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System 
(ADAMS): Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC 
are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at 
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this page, the public 
can gain entry into ADAMS, which provides text and image files of NRC's 
public documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's 
PDR reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to 
pdr.resource@nrc.gov.
    The NRC maintains the Enforcement Policy on its Web site at https://www.nrc.gov; select Public Meetings and Involvement, then Enforcement, 
and then Enforcement Policy. The Enforcement Policy is also accessible 
via ADAMS accession number ML093480037.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Doug Starkey, Office of Enforcement, 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555; 
Doug.Starkey@nrc.gov, 301-415-3456.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    On January 25, 2007 (72 FR 3429), the NRC published a notice 
announcing that the NRC was undertaking a major revision of its 
Enforcement Policy. On September 15, 2008 (73 FR 53286), the NRC 
published a notice of availability of draft and request for comments on 
its proposed revised Policy. A corrected proposed revised Policy was 
published (73 FR 61442) on October 16, 2008. The public comment period 
for the revised Policy ended on November 14, 2008. On June 8, 2009 (74 
FR 27191), the NRC published a notice of availability and request for 
comments on additional proposed revisions to Section 6.0, Supplements--
Violation Examples, of the proposed revised Policy. The June 8, 2009, 
Notice of Availability and request for comments applied only to 
additional proposed revisions to Section 6.0 of the proposed revised 
Policy. The public comment period for the proposed revised Supplements 
ended on July 8, 2009.
    As discussed in the Supplementary Information of the September 15, 
2008 (73 FR 53286) document, the NRC, in developing the revised Policy, 
in many instances proposed to reword, delete, or move (i.e., move to 
the NRC Enforcement Manual, an NRC staff guidance document) some of the 
information in the current Policy. In addition, the NRC had also 
planned to add detailed violation examples to the Enforcement Manual to 
serve as further guidance to NRC inspectors. However, based on public 
comments received in response to the September and October 2008 
publications of the proposed revised Enforcement Policy, the NRC 
reconsidered its original plan to have abbreviated violation examples 
in the revised Policy and detailed violation examples in the 
Enforcement Manual. The NRC will continue its past practice of 
providing violation examples in the Enforcement Policy. These revised 
violation examples cover a broad range of circumstances in each of the 
four severity levels in each of 14 activity areas. Also, much of the 
material that the NRC had originally planned to remove from the revised 
Policy was subsequently retained based in part on comments received 
during the 2008 and 2009 public comment periods.
    A summary of the comments and the NRC's responses associated with 
the 2008 and 2009 Notices are available at the NRC's Electronic Reading 
Room at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html (ADAMS Accession 
Numbers ML091830260 and ML092650309, respectively).

Summary of Major Revisions to the Enforcement Policy

1. Revisions to Table of Base Civil Penalties

    Regulatory requirements have varying degrees of safety, security, 
or environmental significance. For that reason, the NRC imposes various 
base civil penalties depending on the specific circumstances. Section 
8.0, Tables A and B, of the revised Enforcement Policy set forth the 
base civil penalties for various reactor, fuel cycle, material, and 
vendor programs. The NRC uses a graded approach in assessing civil 
penalties based on the severity level of the violation and on the class 
of licensee, vendor, or other person. Base civil penalties generally 
take into account the significance of a violation as the primary 
consideration, whereas the licensee's ability to pay is a secondary 
consideration. The NRC reviews each proposed civil penalty on its own 
merits and, after considering all relevant circumstances, may adjust 
the base civil penalties in Table A for Severity Level I, II, and III 
violations as reflected in Table B of the Enforcement Policy (i.e., 100 
percent for Severity Level I violations, 80 percent for Severity Level 
II violations, and 50 percent for Severity Level III violations). 
However, in no instance would a civil penalty for any one violation 
exceed the current statutory limit, which is presently capped at 
$140,000 per day per violation. In consideration of the above, the 
following revisions have been made to the Table of Base Civil 
Penalties:
a. Geologic Repository for Spent Fuel and/or High-Level Waste 
Repository
    The Table of Base Civil Penalties in the current Enforcement Policy 
has no provisions that address a geologic repository. Therefore, the 
NRC is revising the civil penalty table in the revised Policy to 
include geologic repositories to ensure that, if the need arises, the 
NRC has the appropriate tools to take enforcement actions.
    Based on the potential nuclear material inventory involved at a 
geologic repository and the corresponding safety consequences that 
could arise at the site (specifically to employees), the NRC determined 
that the statutorily allowed maximum base civil penalty for a Severity 
Level I violation is appropriate. In determining the base civil penalty 
that should be

[[Page 60486]]

applied to a geologic repository, the NRC also considered that the 
licensing criteria used in developing 10 CFR Part 60, ``Disposal of 
High-Level Radioactive Wastes in Geologic Repositories,'' and 10 CFR 
Part 63, ``Disposal of High-Level Radioactive Wastes in a Geologic 
Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,'' were comparable to the criteria 
applied to reactors and spent fuel facilities. The NRC has included 
this information in Table A of the revised Policy under the generic 
heading ``High-Level Waste Repository'' to address the possibility of 
any future engineered underground disposal facilities used for the 
storage of HLW.
b. Uranium Enrichment Facilities
    The current Enforcement Policy only provides a base civil penalty 
for gaseous diffusion plants (GDPs) and does not address other 
enrichment facilities such as gas centrifuge or laser enrichment 
facilities. The NRC has issued licenses for two gas centrifuge uranium 
enrichment facilities with enrichment levels of up to 5 weight percent 
uranium-235 (U-235) and 10 weight percent U-235 and licensed a pilot 
laser enrichment facility. Currently, NRC is performing the licensing 
review for a third uranium enrichment facility with an enrichment level 
of 5 weight percent uranium-235. Therefore, the NRC believes that it is 
appropriate to provide a base civil penalty for these types of 
facilities at this time.
    In developing a base civil penalty for uranium enrichment 
facilities, the staff compared the radiological, chemical hazards of 
licensed materials, criticality and security hazards of these 
facilities with both gaseous diffusion plants (GDPs) and Category III 
fuel fabricators and, through an overall comparison, provided an 
appropriate base civil penalty. Both enrichment facilities and Category 
III fuel fabricators have Category III special nuclear material (i.e., 
these facilities are limited to enrichments of less than 20 percent of 
U-235 (special nuclear material of low strategic significance)). In 
addition, the radiological and chemical risks of gas centrifuge uranium 
enrichment facilities are considered very similar to Category III fuel 
fabricators. Therefore, the necessary physical protection and material 
control and accounting requirement (based on the category of facility) 
for uranium enrichment facilities are similar to those required for 
Category III fuel fabricators. For these reasons, the staff believes 
that the base civil penalty for Severity Level I violations at uranium 
enrichment facilities in Table A should be established at $35,000, the 
same as the amount already established for Category III fuel 
fabricators. For these reasons, the staff believes that the base civil 
penalty for Severity Level I violations at uranium enrichment 
facilities in Table A should be established at $35,000, the same as the 
amount already established for Category III fuel fabricators.
c. Uranium Conversion Facilities
    The staff proposes to increase the base civil penalty for 
enforcement activities associated with uranium conversion facilities to 
$70,000 from the current amount of $14,000. Presently, the only 
operating uranium conversion plant in the United States is the 
Honeywell facility located in Metropolis, IL.
    Currently, uranium conversion facilities are in the same base civil 
penalty category as test reactors and industrial radiographers with a 
base civil penalty amount of $14,000. The staff compared the 
radiological, chemical hazards of licensed materials, criticality 
hazards of a conversion facility to similar hazards at GDPs and 
Category III fuel fabricators and concluded that the radiological and 
chemical hazards at uranium conversion facilities are similar in 
comparison to those of GDPs. However, the criticality risk present at a 
GDP and Category III fuel fabricators is not a major risk factor at a 
uranium conversion facility.
    The staff also considered the security implications associated with 
the operation of uranium conversion facilities as compared to the 
operation of GDPs and to Category III fuel fabricators. That comparison 
indicates that the security and safeguards measures necessary at a 
uranium conversion facility are similar to or less than those of 
Category III fuel fabricators and GDPs. However, because of the large 
number of potential chemical hazards associated with licensed materials 
and certain radiological hazards, protection against potential criminal 
activities is required to protect worker and public health and safety.
    In comparison, the overall radiological hazards and chemical 
hazards associated with licensed materials for uranium conversion 
facilities are much more significant than those of test reactors and 
industrial radiographers and Category III fuel fabricators but less 
than those of GDPs. For these reasons, the staff believes that the base 
civil penalty for violations at uranium conversion facilities in Table 
A should be established at $70,000, which is the same amount 
established for fuel fabricators authorized to possess Category I or II 
quantities of special nuclear material.

2. Other Major Revisions to the Enforcement Policy

a. Interim Enforcement Policy Regarding the Use of Alternative Dispute 
Resolution
    The Interim Enforcement Policy on the Use of Alternative Dispute 
Resolution (ADR) was established to set forth an interim Policy that 
the NRC would follow while undertaking a pilot program to test the use 
of ADR. Because the ADR pilot program has been successfully completed 
and the ADR program has since been fully implemented, the staff has 
revised the Policy statement on ADR to reflect this change.
b. Violation Examples
    The violation examples have been reorganized and expanded from the 
8 activity areas contained in the current Enforcement Policy to 14 
activity areas in the revised Policy. These changes were made for 
clarification and ease of use; in other cases, the activity areas 
reflect changes made to NRC regulations. For example, the NRC rewrote 
the facility construction violation examples to include licensees under 
10 CFR Part 52, ``Licenses, Certifications, and Approvals for Nuclear 
Power Plants,'' and fuel cycle facilities. Fuel cycle and materials 
operations were reorganized into separate activity areas. New activity 
areas were added for reactor and fuel facility security, materials 
security, information security, and fitness for duty.
c. Addition of a Glossary
    A Glossary, containing many of the terms commonly used throughout 
the NRC enforcement process, has been added to the revised Policy.
d. Terminology Change
    The revised Enforcement Policy includes a change to previous Policy 
Statement terminology that was published in the Federal Register on 
December 18, 2000 (65 FR 79139). Specifically, the NRC has replaced the 
term ``sealed source or device'' with the term ``regulated material'' 
both in the body of the revised Policy, Section 2.3.4, and in the Table 
of Base Civil Penalties, Table A, category f. The term ``sealed'' was 
deleted from this section since the same enforcement approach is used 
for both sealed and unsealed sources. The term ``regulated material'' 
captures all present and future NRC regulated material.

[[Page 60487]]

Procedural Requirements

Paperwork Reduction Act

    This policy statement does not contain new or amended information 
collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 
(44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). Existing requirements were approved by the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), approval number 3150-0136.

Public Protection Notification

    The NRC may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to 
respond to, a request for information or an information collection 
requirement unless the requesting document displays a currently valid 
OMB control number.

Congressional Review Act

    In accordance with the Congressional Review Act of 1996, the NRC 
has determined that this action is not a major rule and has verified 
this determination with the Office of Information and Regulatory 
Affairs.

    Dated at Rockville, MD, this 24th day of September 2010.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Annette L. Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. 2010-24561 Filed 9-29-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P