The Department of Energy should retool its proposed changes to the federal regulation governing nuclear safety management, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said Friday.
This is the third recommendation from the independent federal nuclear health and safety watchdog to the Donald Trump administration and addresses a slate of changes DOE proposed to the prescriptions found in Title 10, Part 830 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
“The Board agrees with DOE that 10 CFR 830 requires an update, but believes that the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would actually erode the regulatory framework,” the DNFSB stated in a Feb. 21 letter to Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette.
The board posted the letter online after it made its official recommendation in the Federal Register on Friday. The letter was in response to comments Brouillette made on a draft of the updated regulation, which do not have to be published.
The Energy Department proposed changing the regulation in 2018. The agency said it wants to streamline the regulation to “reflect the experience gained” from managing the nuclear weapons complex over the last two decades.
Among other things, the proposed change would remove hazard categorization from federal regulations. The agency would still categorize facilities based on the potential for an accident or incident there to harm workers or the general public, but the categorization would no longer be required by this particular rule.
The DNFSB said such a change “could enable contractors to increase the radiological hazards present in an aging facility without an adequate understanding of the ability of the facility’s safety structures, systems, and components to control the higher level of risk.”
Currently, the most hazardous facilities are designated as Hazard Category 1, followed in descending order by Hazard Category 2, Hazard Category 3, and then radiological facilities. The most hazardous facilities could, in an extreme event, contaminate the public, where as incident at a radiological facility would probably not harm anyone outside a site.
The proposed regulatory change would also change DOE’s annual oversight of a site’s documented safety analysis, which describes possible hazards at nuclear facilities. Contractors would still be required to present the analysis annually for review, but the Energy Department would no longer be required to approve the document immediately afterward.
DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton voted against the latest recommendation, while members Joyce Connery — Hamilton’s predecessor as chair in the Obama administration — and Jessie Hill Roberson voted in favor.
That is the usual pattern at the board these days, where Hamilton, the board’s sole Republican, has taken a more hands-off approach than his colleagues, who are Democrats.
The Energy Department now has 45 days to accept or reject the recommendation, or ask for 45 more days to consider it further.
