COMSECY-17-0010 

 March 23, 2017 

MEMORANDUM TO: Chairman Svinicki 

 Commissioner Baran 

 Commissioner Burns 

FROM: Victor M. McCree /RA/

 Executive Director for Operations 

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR APPROVAL OF CHANGES TO THE 

FREQUENCY OF STAFF REPORTS TO THE 

COMMISSION REGARDING THE STATUS OF GENERIC 

ISSUES 

The purpose of this memorandum is to request the Commission’s approval to change the 

frequency of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff reports to the Commission 

regarding the status of generic issues (GIs). Specifically, the staff proposes to report the status 

of GIs twice a year instead of four times a year. Current tools maintained by the staff such as 

the Generic Issues Dashboard, which is located on both the internal and external NRC 

websites, provide the Commission and external stakeholders with more complete and timely 

information than the existing quarterly reports. 

Since 1983, the NRC staff has provided the Commission with updates on its progress in 

resolving active GIs. In a staff requirements memorandum (SRM) dated May 8, 1998, “Staff 

Requirements: SECY 98-030 – Implementation of DSI 22 Research” (Agencywide Documents 

Access Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML003752314), the Commission 

reinforced this practice by directing the staff to provide an annual summary of activities related 

to open GIs. Subsequently, the staff began providing annual reports to the Commission entitled 

"Summary of Activities Related to the Generic Issues Program." 

In COMSECY-13-0009, “Modification or Closure of Action Items in the Commission Tracking 

System" (ADAMS Accession Nos. ML13072A534 (package), ML13072A549 (memo), and 

ML13072A588 (enclosure)), the staff proposed eliminating various recurring reports to the 

Commission, including the annual report on GIs. In lieu of the annual report, the staff proposed 

to keep the Commission informed using the NRC’s public web site for the Generic Issue 

Management Control System (GIMCS) report.1 In response, the Commission issued 

SRM-COMSECY-13-0009, Modification or Closure of Action Items in the Commission Tracking 

System” (ADAMS Accession No. ML13220B056), which approved the staff's recommendation 

CONTACT: Thomas H. Boyce, RES/DE/RGGIB 

 301-415-7335 

 

1 "Quarterly Generic Issues Status Reports," http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/genericissues/quarterly/. 

PLEASE RESPOND BY:

April 7, 2017
The Commissioners - 2 - 

and directed the staff to e-mail the GIMCS report to the Commission each quarter. Currently, 

the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES) staff distributes the GIMCS report to senior 

management in the program offices and the Commission and makes the report available to the 

public on the external NRC website. 

More recently, the staff has successfully reduced the number of active GIs, and the regulatory 

offices are reporting fewer significant activities on active GIs. As a result, the staff has had 

fewer items of significance to convey in the GIMCS quarterly report. 

In a separate but related action, the staff has been reporting the status of GIs in the agency’s 

semiannual report to Congress. An example of this report is "Semiannual Status Report on the 

Licensing Activities and Regulatory Duties of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission" (ADAMS Accession No. ML16111B108). Because the significant activities that 

the staff describes in the GIMCS report and the semiannual report to Congress are essentially 

the same, replacing the GIMCS report to the Commission with the existing semiannual report to 

Congress would allow the agency to enhance efficiency. Therefore, the staff proposes 

changing the frequency of reporting GI status to the Commission from quarterly to semiannually. 

The staff also proposes using the semiannual report to Congress to report on GI items. 

In 2012 and 2013, RES and the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) evaluated the GIs 

program. The results of the staff’s evaluation were documented in a memorandum titled 

“Completion of Generic Issues Program Tiger Team Activities” dated October 24, 2013 (ADAMS 

Accession No. ML13296A417). Enclosure 4 of the memorandum (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML13296A425) contained recommendations to improve the GI Program. In response to 

Recommendation 4 of this enclosure, RES staff worked with the Office of Chief Information 

Officer to develop an online application where stakeholders would be able to see the status of 

each active GI at any time without waiting for the quarterly GIMCS report. The resultant 

application is called the Generic Issues Dashboard and is readily available and accessible to the 

NRC staff and Commissioners on the internal NRC website2 and to the public on the external 

NRC website.3 The GI Dashboard provides stakeholders with the current status of active GIs 

and the progress being made towards their resolution. The GI Dashboard will be updated 

quarterly and more frequently if needed. The staff can report on the status of GIs less 

frequently and still provide complete and timely information to stakeholders. The GI Dashboard 

also displays the detailed information that is currently reported in the GIMCS report. Therefore, 

the staff will be modifying the current quarterly report to eliminate the detailed information 

contained in an enclosure of the GIMCS report and will simply provide a link to the GI 

Dashboard. This effort will help increase the efficiency of the staff. 

The changes described above will keep the Commission fully and currently informed, reduce 

administrative burden on the staff, and ensure that the NRC communicates relevant information 

on GIs to internal and external stakeholders in a timely and more accessible manner. 

 

2 http://gid.nrc.gov/planning

3 http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/gen-issues/dashboard.html
The Commissioners - 3 - 

Therefore, the staff requests that the Commission approve the following recommendation: 

• Change the frequency of the staff report on GI status to the Commission from quarterly to 

semiannually, utilizing the information in NRC’s semiannual report to Congress and a link 

to the GI dashboard. Staff would provide these semiannual updates by email as directed 

in SRM-COMSECY-13-0009. 

SECY please track. 

cc: SECY 

 OGC 

 OCA 

 OPA 

 OCFO 
The Commissioners - 4 - 

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR APPROVAL OF CHANGES TO THE FREQUENCY OF STAFF 

REPORTS TO THE COMMISSION REGARDING THE STATUS OF GENERIC ISSUES: DATE: 

MARCH 23, 2017 

DISTRIBUTION: 

M. Johnson, OEDO 

F. Brown, OEDO 

M. Weber, RES 

W. Dean, NRR 

B. Holian, NSIR 

V. Ordaz, NRO 

M. Dapas, NMSS 

D. Dorman, RGN I 

C. Haney, RGN II 

C. Pederson, RGN III 

K. Kennedy, RGN IV 

A. Veil, ACRS 

T. Boyce, RES 

M. Case, RES 

S. Gardocki, RES 

B. Thomas, RES 

M. Thaggard, RES 

V. Cusumano, NRR 

L. Perkins, NRR 

L. Lund, NRR 

K. Hsueh, NRR 

H. Nourbakhsh, ACRS 

M. Bank, ACRS 

G. Young, OCIO 

K. Golshan, OCIO 

ADAMS Accession No.: ML16298A117 

OFFICE QTE RES/DE BC:RES/DE D:RES/DE 

NAME QTE S. Gardocki T. Boyce B. Thomas 

DATE 11/7/2016 1/13/17 1/17/17 3/02/17 

OFFICE D:RES EDO 

NAME M. Weber V. McCree 

DATE 3/08/17 3/23/17 

 OFFICIAL RECORD COPY