December 16, 2013 

The Honorable Thomas Carper 

Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security 

 and Governmental Affairs 

United States Senate 

Washington, DC 20510 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

On behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), I am writing to provide the 

NRC's response to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations in 

GAO-13-743, “Nuclear Power: Analysis of Regional Differences and Improved Access to 

Information Could Strengthen NRC Oversight” (Report) dated September 12, 2013. 

In its Report, the GAO assessed the NRC’s oversight of nuclear reactors, and 

highlighted differences in the number of “non-escalated” findings and violations that were 

identified by the NRC’s four Regional Offices since the implementation of the Reactor Oversight 

Process. As explained in the GAO report, these findings and violations are of very low safety 

significance. The report, also noted that the “number of escalated findings, which equate to 

greater risk significance, were more similar across the regions.” 

As the NRC stated in its response to GAO, the NRC agrees with the GAO’s finding that 

the extent to which non-escalated findings have been identified differs across NRC regions. 

Further, the NRC agrees with the GAO’s observation that the NRC was aware of these regional 

differences and has taken steps to address them. Additionally, the NRC staff provided the 

following in its response to GAO: “However, the GAO maintains that, while the NRC has 

undertaken these steps, the NRC has not conducted a comprehensive analysis of these 

differences consistent with Federal standards of internal control. Although the NRC believes 

adequate internal controls to ensure alignment between regions exist through program office 

oversight, audits, regional counterpart calls and meetings, and procedural criterion specified in 

the Enforcement Policy, Enforcement Manual, and Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) 

implementing procedures, the agency agrees to seek enhancements, particularly as they relate 

to less significant findings and violations.” 

In sum, the Commission believes the NRC’s existing ROP is reliable and effective at 

assessing licensee performance and determining appropriate regulatory responses, 

commensurate with the risk and safety significance of identified findings. Since the ROP was 

implemented in 2000, the agency has striven to improve the consistency, objectiveness, and 

predictability of the regulatory actions taken in response to licensee performance. Thus, 

consistent with the philosophy of continuous improvement, the Commission agrees with the 

GAO’s recommendations, and the NRC staff has begun implementing the recommendations. 

The three GAO recommendations and the NRC response to each are below. 
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GAO Recommendation 1: To better meet its goal of implementing objective and 

consistent oversight, direct agency managers to conduct a comprehensive analysis of 

the causes of the differences in the identification and resolution of findings. 

NRC Response: The NRC agrees with this recommendation. The NRC’s Enforcement 

Policy, Enforcement Manual, and ROP all provide tools to inspect and assess licensee 

performance, with the goal of being objective, predictable, and risk informed. In addition, 

the NRC emphasizes inspector training, internal self-assessments, staff knowledge 

transfer, and use of operating experience to further enhance objective and consistent 

oversight. The NRC has determined that the available guidance has been effective in 

providing the agency with objective assessments of its licensees’ performance. 

Notwithstanding, the NRC will revisit its initiatives with respect to implementation of the 

ROP and the non-escalated enforcement process to identify potential enhancements. 

The NRC is conducting an analysis to determine the causes of regional differences in 

the identification and resolution of very low-safety-significant findings. The analysis will 

examine program criteria used to evaluate potential findings and determine how the 

regions apply those criteria. The NRC will use the results of the analysis to identify what 

program enhancements are appropriate to continue to ensure consistent and objective 

regulatory oversight. 

GAO Recommendation #2: To improve transparency and better enable the public, 

Congress, and others to independently track findings, all documents related to the 

findings, and the finding’s resolution, direct the agency to either modify NRC’s publicly 

available recordkeeping system to do so or develop a publicly accessible tool that does 

so. 

NRC Response: The NRC agrees with this recommendation. The NRC’s official 

recordkeeping system is the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 

(ADAMS). All retained NRC documents, related findings, and their resolution, as 

applicable, are stored in ADAMS and made publicly available, with the exception of 

sensitive or protected information. As part of the ROP enhancement project, which was 

initiated at the direction of the Commission in late 2012, the NRC is working on ways to 

improve communication. The NRC will identify ways to improve transparency, and 

effectively and efficiently track documents related to inspection findings through 

improved tools to facilitate public access to inspection information. 

GAO Recommendation 3: To help NRC staff more efficiently use past experiences in 

their oversight activities, direct agency officials to evaluate the challenges inspectors 

face in retrieving all relevant information on plant performance and previous oversight 

activities, and improve its systems accordingly to address these challenges. 

NRC Response: The NRC agrees with this recommendation. The NRC will make plant 

performance and oversight information more readily searchable and available to NRC 

inspection staff and other NRC personnel. 

The NRC is currently working to upgrade the Reactor Program Systems software and 

improve inspector access to operating experience. This will make plant performance 

and oversight information more readily available to appropriate NRC staff. 
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The NRC continues to believe that the implementation of the Reactor Oversight Process 

ensures the adequate protection of the health and safety of the public. The NRC appreciates 

the opportunity to comment and to identify the agency actions that have been, or are being 

taken regarding the recommendations in the GAO Report. If you need any additional 

information, please contact me or Rebecca Schmidt, Director of the Office of Congressional 

Affairs, at (301) 415-1776. 

Sincerely, 

/RA/ 

Allison M. Macfarlane 

cc: Senator Tom Coburn 
Identical letter sent to: 

The Honorable Thomas Carper 

Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security 

 and Governmental Affairs 

United States Senate 

Washington, DC 20510 

 cc: Senator Tom Coburn 

The Honorable Darrell Issa 

Chairman, Committee on Oversight 

 and Government Reform 

United States House of Representatives 

Washington, DC 20515 

 cc: Representative Elijah Cummings 

Mr. Frank Rusco, Director 

Natural Resources and Environment 

U.S. Government Accountability Office 

441 G Street, NW 

Washington, DC 20548 

 cc: Edwin Woodward, GAO