The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is evaluating potential updates to its process for revising federal rules on licensed nuclear operations, including tightening the timeline to publish the documents that serve as the basis for a rulemaking.
“We are taking a hard look at why we do our activities the way we’ve been doing them,” according to John Lubinski, director of the agency’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS). “We are assessing the risk or consequences to NRC changing, then considering whether we could accept that risk or put in place controls to manage or mitigate those risks. While we are continuing our assessment we are already implementing process changes.”
Lubinski provided the update during an Oct. 29 meeting of the four NRC commissioners and senior staff on transforming the agency into a “modern, risk-informed regulator.”
Enhancing rulemaking is part of that effort, Lubinski said. He said staff to date has done benchmarking of four other federal agencies and conducted interviews with 15 internal stakeholders.
“This effort was initiated mid-2019 by the agency’s Rulemaking Center of Expertise,” an agency spokesman said by email Thursday. “NRC staff reached out to other regulatory agencies to learn how rulemaking is conducted at their agency. Topics discussed included roles and responsibilities, the decision-making processes, alignment/concurrence practices, project timelines, and general best practices. For assessments of this type, NRC does not identify the participating agencies.”
Recommendations are expected to be submitted to the commission next year.
The NRC’s regulations set legal requirements on employment of nuclear materials for licensing or certification of nuclear power plants, research reactors, fuel facilities, waste disposal sites, and other operations. The congressionally confirmed commissioners and the NRC’s top executive can initiate a revision to existing nuclear regulations, as can Congress or the president. Independent parties can also submit petitions a requesting a rulemaking.
The multi-step proceeding can stretch for years, encompassing a trigger for the rulemaking, commission approval of the plan for the regulatory update, development of a regulatory basis for the rule and then a draft rule, several rounds of public input, and finally commission approval and publication of the final regulation.
Within that, staff prepare a draft and then a final regulatory basis that lays out the case for a potential rulemaking. But that is changing, Lubinski said: Staff now aims to bypass the draft version, solely preparing a final regulatory basis that would be made available for public input ahead of the regulatory revision.
“This change is expected to save at least three months of overall rulemaking schedule, and the staff will continue to benefit from the comments it receives on the reg basis which will be considered in the proposed rule,” Lubinski told the commissioners.
Later, in conversation with Commissioner Jeff Baran, Lubinski said that approach would be considered “on a case-by-case basis.”
Staff is also recommending the commission allow for complete elimination of the regulatory basis in certain “straightforward rulemakings,” including direct final rules, the NMSS chief said. The federal regulator defines a direct final rule as a noncontroversial update to a regulation.
The NRC website currently lists 48 funded rulemakings, along with a handful that are due to be completed in this fiscal year or possibly terminated.
Among the ongoing rulemakings: an update to regulations for nuclear power plants transitioning from operations to decommissioning; revising licensing requirements for disposal of low-level radioactive waste; and amending the current directive for disposal of Greater Than Class C waste.
The agency, though, has recently canceled several rulemakings, with more to come, Lubinski indicated.
“For example, the staff recently submitted two papers to the commission recommending discontinuation of the independent spent fuel storage installation security requirements, and enhanced security of special materials rulemakings,” he noted.
A regulatory basis is being developed or planned in 17 rulemakings, the spokesman said.
