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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2016
Being an...
If I look from the beginning of my
career, when I came to the NRC for
the first time in 1978, you saw greater
development in terms of this kind of
engagement with the regulated and with
the public or other interested stakeholders,
about the approaches to regulation.
One of the things and examples I
would give from an industry standpoint
was the initiative that’s now about five or
six years old, with respect to assessment
of cumulative effects of regulation. And I
think one of the learnings there was, that
what we used to do is we would issue the
regulation and then figure out what the
regulatory guide or the implementation
guides would be. If we go down this path
and adopt this new regulation in this area
… because the regulations usually are
broadly or more generally are broadly
phrased, they’re performance-based,
but there are some important details
sometimes about how you would actually
implement it. And I think understanding,
getting the commentary, putting that type
of guidance out at the beginning, that
helps the engagement with industry, with
others who may be interested or affected
by the rule, and determining how it
should come out.
One thing I would emphasize in all
this is that it’s important to have that kind
of engagement. That’s, frankly, what
the administrative process in the United
States requires, and I think that’s a good
and healthy one. But ultimately, what
it does come down to, is that decisions
will be, from our viewpoint, focused
on technically sound and technically
defensible decisions related to the
safety or the security issue that they are
addressing.
4.
In your speech at RIC 2016, you
indicated about changes in 2015- 2016
to the reactor oversight program (ROP)
which you considered a new way of doing
business. Please clarify your intent.
In the speech, I was trying to give an
example where I believe an important part
of being a good regulator is this notion of
the regulatory craft I spoke about. Having
reached decisions in the past, those
things are not always set in stone or are
immutable, can’t change over time. The
ROP which came together finally around
2000, plus or minus a year was itself the
culmination of a journey that the staff
had taken about improving the oversight,
focusing it on the most significant things
that we can learn from inspections,
that might be violations or deficiencies
observed during the inspection process,
and assuring good oversight of the
operating fleet. And we came to certain
decisions about how to, in these various
columns of significance where we might
enhance our oversight, that we came to
decisions about how many findings of the
one type versus another would it take to
go from column to column. And one of
the things the staff did in stepping back,
they reassessed how many findings it
should take to move from column three
to column four. (Editors Note: The
NRC has a graded approach to oversight
– one to five – with each successive step
drawing greater NRC scrutiny. Column
Four is the last step before an NRC-
ordered plant shutdown because of safety
concerns.)
It was the notion that white findings,
which have a fair degree of significance,
it had originally taken just two of these
findings to shift a plant into more
oversight. The staff evaluated that. They
engaged the industry. There was a healthy
and robust debate within the staff itself
about making changes. But ultimately,
the staff and the EDO had recommended
to the commission that it go from two to
three white findings before you change the
column. So that was an idea of looking
at the significance, relative significance
of those types of findings. It was put in
front of the commission. I know I talked
to people in the staff who supported it,
as well as those who said they did not
think we should change. Ultimately,
the commission approved the proposed
change. I use that as an example because
that was an area where we were willing
to change. That is one of the things we
have to do as a regulator -- assess our
experience, look back, see whether we
are where we think we ought to be -- and
be willing to change things with good
technical or regulatory reason. And that’s
why I use that example. (Editors note:
The NRC uses a color-coded system to
denote the significance of inspection
findings – green, white, yellow and red in
order of severity.)
5.
Elaborate on pursuing the sweet
spot between under regulation and
overregulation.
I think that is always a goal that we
should have in mind. I think a lot of times
we reach it or we approach it. Sometimes
maybe we don’t. From my standpoint,
it’s something we should always keep in
mind. Where is that sweet spot? And the
key is, that we use the processes of risk-
informed decision-making to the extent
practicable in the context of issues that
may be faced. Even in a fee-based agency,
we don’t get unlimited resources. And we
also want to be focused on what we think
are the most significant issues. So I think
that’s why I view that as a goal. And so I
NRC Chairman Burns at the Regulatory Information Conference.
Photo Credit: U.S. NRC.
