POLICY ISSUE 


NOTATION VOTE 


March 4,2011 SECY-11-0033 

FOR: The Commissioners 

FROM: R. W. Borchardt 

Executive Director for Operations 

SUBJECT: 	 PROPOSED NRC STAFF APPROACH TO ADDRESS RESOURCE 

CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH REVIEW OF A LARGE NUMBER 

OF NFPA 805 LICENSE AMENDMENT REQUESTS 

PURPOSE: 

To propose an approach for consideration by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on how 

to address a large number of license amendment request (LAR) submittals from licensees 

transitioning to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 50.48(c) using National 

Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 805, "Performance-Based Standard for Fire 

Protection for Light Water Reactor Electric Generating Plants." 

BACKGROUND: 

Lessons learned from the performance and review of two NFPA 805 pilots show that the staff 

and the industry have underestimated the complexity and resources necessary to address the 

technical issues associated with review and approval of LARS for use of NFPA 805. 

Furthermore, the staff anticipates that the agency will receive about 30 NFPA 805 LAR 

submittals, 25 of them by the end of June 2011 as a result of current Commission policy. 

Completing the reviews in a 2-year timeframe of such a large number of submittals received in 

such a short time period is a Significant challenge to the agency. This paper describes an 

alternate approach to address this challenge. 

DISCUSSION: 

The staff proposes _ the current resources for NFPA 805 LAR reviews so that these 

reviews will be completed by fiscal year (FY) 2016. The staff also proposes to work with the 

industry to stagger the LAR submittals with a goal to complete each LAR review within a 2-year 

timeframe. 

CONTACTS: Jerry Dozier, NRR/DRA 

(301) 415-3925 

Alex R. Klein, NRRlDRA 

(301) 415-2822 
The Commissioners - 2­

The staffs proposed approach is intended to achieve better efficiency and higher quality 

applications and reviews. Using a staggered approach, the staff anticipates that the NRC will 

receive 7 LARs in FY 2011, followed by 10 in FY 2012,10 in FY 2013, and 3 in FY 2014. 

The staff will propose the safety and efficiency criteria and engage the industry through public 

meetings to establish an acceptable submittal schedule. Examples of criteria could include the 

following: 

• plant-specific safety benefits derived from NFPA 805 implementation, 

• licensee-proposed implementation and modification schedule, and 

• quality and completeness of the LAR. 

The staggered review approach has the following advantages: 

• capitalizes on lessons learned from successive reviews, 

• allows licensees to improve the technical quality of subsequent LAR submittals, 

• minimizes undue burden to licensees while ensuring safety and regulatory stability, and 

• allows LARs to be reviewed in a timely manner after submittal. 

The staff will develop a staggered review approach similar to that used by the license renewal 

program. This review approach will also include other positive aspects such as consistency of 

acceptance reviews, onsite audits, web-based information sharing with licensees, and periodic 

meetings with industry and other stakeholders on lessons learned. 

RESOURCES: 
The Commissioners - 3­

Impacts from Reallocating Resources 

Only a limited number of NRC staff and contractor personnel possess the required expertise to 

perform these reviews. The Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR), Office of New 

Reactors (NRO), and Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES) have coordinated and have 

identified appropriate staff with the requisite skills and knowledge that could be available to 

perform the NFPA 805 LAR reviews. 

Should the identified member of RES staff be assigned to support NFPA 805 reviews, the staff 

member will be detailed to NRR, but RES will retain the budgeted FTE. As a result of the 

detailing of this staff member, some risk-informed fire protection research programs will be 

impacted. These include delays in updating the fire events database to refine fire initiating 

event frequencies for fire PRAs and future updates to NUREG/CR-6850, "Fire PRA 

Methodology for Nuclear Power Facilities" to incorporate resolution of future NFPA-805 

Frequently Asked Questions. RES can effectively manage these delays to ensure the safety 

mission is not impacted. In addition, non-conflicted contractor resources in this area are limited 

and, in part, are supporting fire research. The impact to this research of the proposed increased 

utilization of the contractor resources is not yet determined and would need to be carefully 

managed. 

Also, should NRO staff be assigned to support the NFPA 805 reviews, there could be some 

near term delays in reviews of the fire protection program and reviews of the loss of large area 

(10 CFR 50.54 (hh)(2)) applications for U.S. Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor and U.S. 

Evolutionary Power Reactor Design Certifications and several of the Combined Operating 

Licenses that reference those certifications. However, these near term delays are not 

anticipated to delay the overall review schedules for these designs. 

Additionally, certain NRR review activities will no longer be fully funded within that year's 

budget, and unless other efficiencies can be realized, will be delayed. NRR anticipates delays 

in some topical reports and lower priority licensing reviews. Also, NRR will defer some lower 

priority tasks in the Reactor Oversight Process risk tool enhancement initiative. In addition, 

certain risk-focused licensing work may be impacted. NRR anticipates receipt of additional 

submittals under 10 CFR 50.69, "Risk-Informed Categorization and Treatment of Structures, 

Systems and Components for Nuclear Power Reactors," beyond the pilot application, additional 

submittals for risk-informed technical specification allowed outage times (Initiative 4b) beyond 

the pilot application, and other risk-informed technical specification submittals. Accomplishment 

of these risk-informed submittals will be challenging and NRR will carefully manage that work to 

ensure the safety mission is met. 

The staff will notify the Commission of any significant reallocation of resources in accordance 

with Management Directive 4.2 (>$500Kl4.0 FTE). 

ENFORCEMENT POLICY: 

Under the current Enforcement Policy, licensees will lose their enforcement discretion if they do 

not submit their LAR: (1) 3 years from the date specified by the licensee in its letter of intent to 

transition to NFPA 805; or (2) if the licensee requested and received additional enforcement 

discretion, 6 months after the date of the safety evaluation approving the second pilot plant LAR 

review (June 29, 2011). If the Commission approves the proposed staggered approach, the 
The Commissioners -4­

staff would later submit to the Commission, for approval, a revision to the Enforcement Policy, 

which would propose to extend enforcement discretion to correspond with the new LAR 

submittal dates. 

RECOMMENDATION: 

The staff recommends that the Commission approve this approach for 

NFPA 805 LAR reviews and for developing a staggered submittal and review process for these 

reviews. If approved by the Commission, the staff will submit a separate policy paper outlining 

the recommended associated changes to the Enforcement Policy. 

COORDINATION: 

The Office of the General Counsel has reviewed this paper and has no legal objection. The 

Chief Financial Officer has reviewed this paper and concurs. 

The staff requests that this document be treated as "Official Use Only - Sensitive Internal 

Information" because of the presence of pre-decisional budget-related information. 

IRA by Martin J. Virgilio fori 

R. W. Borchardt 

Executive Director 

for Operations 
The Commissioners -4­

staff would later submit to the Commission. for approval. a revision to the Enforcement Policy, 

which would propose to extend enforcement discretion to correspond with the new LAR 

submittal dates. 

RECOMMENDATION: 

The staff recommends that the Commission approve this approach for 

NFPA 805 LAR reviews and for developing a staggered submittal and review process for these 

reviews. If approved by the Commission, the staff will submit a separate policy paper outlining 

the recommended associated changes to the Enforcement Policy. 

COORDINATION: 

The Office of the General Counsel has reviewed this paper and has no legal objection. The 

Chief Financial Officer has reviewed this paper and concurs. 

The staff requests that this document be treated as "Official Use Only - Sensitive Internal 

Information" because of the presence of pre-decisional budget-related information. 

IRA by Martin J. Virgilio fori 

R. W. Borchardt 

Executive Director 

for Operations 

Accession Number: ML11083A061 *via e-mail EDATS: NRR-2011-0003 

OFFICE NRRlDRAlAFPB NRRlDRAlAFPB:BC QTE* NRRlDRA: NRR/DORL* 

NAME JDozier AKlein KAzariahKribbs 

. MCheok JGiitter 

DATE 03/01/2011 03/01/2011 02/28/2011 03/01/2011 310112011 

OFFICE RES: OD* NRO: OD* OE: OD* OCFO* NRR: OD 

NAME BSheron 

(DCoe for) 

MJohnson 

(CAder for) 

RZimmerman 

(NHiiton for) 

JDyer 

(JGolder for) 

ELeeds 

(BBoger for) 

DATE 03/02/2011 03/02/2011 03/02/2011 310312011 03/03/2011 

OFFICE OGC* EDO 

NAME EWilliamson RBorchardt 

DATE 03/01/2011 03/412011 

OFFICIAL RECORD COpy