The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has closed out a regulatory update to expand the scope of industry stakeholders who would be required to provide “complete and accurate information” in applying for a regulatory approval.
A Sept. 19 notice in the Federal Register formally terminated a petition filed in April 2013 by former NRC official James Lieberman.
“The NRC has not identified an immediate safety, environmental, or security concern, and the petitioner did not demonstrate how a lack of requirements in this area would contribute to such a concern,” according to the notice.
The commission voted 3-1 in favor of ending the rulemaking, according to vote sheets released on Oct. 2. Commissioner Jeff Baran was the lone dissenter.
“By this decision the health and safety of both the public and nuclear industry are weakened and arguably jeopardized by foregoing the opportunity to provide a regime that requires complete and accurate material information,” Lieberman told RadWaste Monitor by email.
Lieberman worked for 30 years at the Atomic Energy Commission and then the NRC before retiring in 2004 retirement, including 13 years as director of the agency’s Office of Enforcement. He then consulted on nuclear safety and regulatory issues until fully retiring in 2017.
Lieberman’s intention was to ensure that entities that do not have NRC licenses, such as vendors and other contractors, are required to meet “the same legal standards for the submittal of complete and accurate information” as any license holder or applicant in requesting a regulatory approval from the agency. That would primarily involve “topical reports” submitted to the regulator – industry documents that address a single safety-related subject that can be applied to licensing of more than one nuclear power plants.
“Unfortunately, NRC does not require topical reports submissions and other submissions for approval to be free from inadvertent and negligent errors; only deliberate errors,” according to Lieberman. “NRC by this action has endorsed a regime where submitters of reports for NRC approval have a moral but no legal incentive or obligation to provide complete and accurate material information.”
The original petition proposed to add language on completeness and accuracy of information only to NRC regulations for nuclear reactors. Lieberman amended his petition in September 2013 to cover regulations on radioactive materials, waste disposal, transportation, and spent fuel storage activities covered under separate regulations.
In a March 2015 Federal Register notice, the NRC said it had determined the issues cited in the amended petition were viable for a rulemaking. But it assigned low priority to the proceeding. There are no signs of significant process in the rulemaking since then, apart from a 2017 letter from Lieberman. “I am not aware of the actions if any, the NRC took on my petition that was originally submitted in 2013,” he wrote.
In its September Federal Register notice, the NRC said it found just one case of safety-significant bad information in a topical report that had not been addressed in a 1999 rule on agency licensing requirements. Staff also noted the regulator’s authority under the Atomic Energy Act to revoke licenses of entities that make “material false statements.” Based on these and related findings, the agency terminated the rulemaking and denied Lieberman’s amended petition.
“I have great confidence in the Staff’s ability, through its rigorous and thorough review process, to detect and remediate any incomplete or inaccurate information provided by applicants,” Commissioner Annie Caputo wrote in discussing her vote to end the proceeding.
Baran said he was not convinced by the argument from NRC staff that addressing the “regulatory loophole” should be considered low priority, that there was not likely to be funding for the rulemaking in the near term, and that “the lack of this obvious regulatory requirement” had not to date presented a problem.
“The staff was correct in 2015 when it publicly stated that a requirement for all applicants to submit complete and accurate information is fundamental to our regulatory process,” wrote Baran, the commission’s sole Democrat. “The petitioner has identified a regulatory loophole that should be closed.”
