NRC NEWS

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

 Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200

 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov 

 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA

No. 01-088 July 16, 2001

NRC APPROVES GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS FOR LICENSE RENEWAL

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved three new guidance documents that describe

methods acceptable for implementing the license renewal rule, as well as the process to be used by NRC

in evaluating applications to renew the operating license of a nuclear power plant.

The guidance documents are:

1) Regulatory Guide 1.188 ñ Provides a uniform format and content for submitting information

in an application for renewal of a nuclear power plant operating license. This document endorses a

Nuclear Energy Institute guidance document (NEI 95-10, Revision 3) for complying with the NRC

requirements in the license renewal rule. This document supersedes the draft Regulatory Guides

DG-1104 and DG-1047 which were issued for public comment in August 2000 and August 1996,

respectively, proposing to endorse earlier versions of NEI 95-10.

2) Standard Review Plan for Review of License Renewal Applications for Nuclear Power

Plants (NUREG-1800) ñ Provides guidance to the NRC staff for performing safety reviews of license

renewal applications. A working draft of this document, dated September 1997, has been available in

the NRCís Public Document Room. The improved guidance incorporates lessons learned from the

review of the initial license renewal applications, as well as clarifications resulting from the resolution

of generic renewal issues.

3) Generic Aging Lessons Learned (GALL) report (NUREG-1801) ñ Provides a compilation

of generic evaluations of existing programs to manage aging effects on plant structures and components,

documents the basis for determining the adequacy of those programs and identifies where staff review

should focus on whether existing programs may need to be augmented for license renewal. Where

GALL determines that a program is adequate to manage certain aging effects for a particular structure or

component, the report indicates that no further NRC review is recommended. Otherwise, the report

recommends areas where the NRC should focus its review. The report reflects comments received from

the industry and members of the public, and it is intended to be used in conjunction with the Standard

Review Plan to focus the NRC safety evaluation. Even where the report recommends no further staff

evaluation, the NRC would sample those program features as part of the inspection activities that verify

the safety evaluation conclusions.
Draft versions of the documents were issued for public comment in August 2000, and a license

renewal public workshop was held in September 2000 to facilitate comments. Written comments were

received from 101 individuals, 15 public interest groups and 12 industry groups. The staff also held

public meetings with stakeholders to discuss their comments. A fourth document, ìAnalysis of Public

Comments on the Improved License Renewal Guidance Documentsî (NUREG-1739), contains the

NRC response to the stakeholder comments.

The Commission approved the guidance documents on July 2, 2001. The pre-publication

versions of the guidance documents are available for public inspection and duplication at NRCís Public

Document Room by calling (301) 415-4737 or 1/800/397-4209, through the NRCís Agency-wide

Documents Access and Management Service (ADAMS), and on the agencyís web site at: 

http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/REACTOR/LR/index.html . The final published versions of these documents

are expected to be available about August 1, 2001, at NRCís Public Document Room, ADAMS and the

agencyís web site.

Additional information is available by calling Dr. Sampson Lee of the NRCís Office of Nuclear

Reactor Regulation at 301-415-1183. These documents will be described in greater detail in a notice to

be published in the Federal Register by mid-August.

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