Nuclear Regulatory Commission March 1, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This policy statement presents the revised abnormal occurrence (AO) criteria the Commission uses for selecting AO's for the annual report to Congress as required by section 208 of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-438). Section 208 of the act defines an AO as an unscheduled incident or event which the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) determines to be significant from the standpoint of public health or safety. The AO criteria have been amended to ensure that the criteria are consistent with the NRC's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Year (FY) 2004-2009 and the NRC rulemaking on Title 10, part 35, of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR part 35), ``Medical Use of Byproduct Material.'' Additionally, risk-informed criteria based on the NRC Accident Sequence Precursor (ASP) Program and Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) have been added for selecting abnormal occurrences at commercial nuclear power plants for the report to Congress. The ASP program assesses the risk significance of issues and events. The ROP is a risk-informed, tiered approach to ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants. The ROP is a process for collecting information about licensee performance, assessing the safety significance of the information, taking appropriate actions, and ensuring that licensees correct deficiencies. Some sections of the AO criteria have been restructured. The restructuring accommodates the changes in the criteria and minimizes duplication. Any interested party may submit comments on the criteria for the NRC staff's consideration. The comments should include supporting information.