May 16, 2016 

The Honorable Thad Cochran 

Chairman, Committee on Appropriations 

United States Senate 

Washington, DC 20510 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

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

second quarterly report related to the NRC’s processes on certain licensing actions and rightsizing commitments as directed in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the 

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016. 

To monitor the NRC’s progress against its licensing goals and right-sizing commitments, 

the Joint Explanatory Statement directed the Commission to report: 1) “the on-board strength of 

full-time equivalent [(FTE)] employees, including any identified areas of critical skill shortages 

and targeted hiring strategies against these shortage areas”; 2) “actions taken to right-size the 

NRC in accordance with the recommendations of the Project Aim report, to include rebaselining 

assumptions and projection of FTEs and required budget authority”; 3) “progress to eliminate 

the backlog of pending licensing actions in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation by 2017”; 

and 4) “progress to complete the licensing reviews of pending reactor license renewal 

applications (power and research reactors), combined license applications, early site permit 

applications, design certification applications, and uranium recovery applications (initial and 

renewal) against currently projected schedules.” 

 The agency has been carefully monitoring projected year-end FTE utilization and 

expects to utilize approximately 3,552 FTE by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2016. Hiring of 

additional agency staff has been limited to only those skills that are both critical to agency 

operations and are not available within the existing agency workforce. The NRC has identified, 

based on known or projected workload changes, additional skill needs in the areas of 

cybersecurity, cloud computing, probabilistic risk assessment, health physics, acquisitions, and 

advanced reactors (non-light water reactors) and is implementing strategies to mitigate any 

future critical skill gaps in these areas. These strategies include retraining and redeploying 

current agency staff, partnering with other Federal agencies, and supplementing the NRC 

workforce with contractor support. 

As stated in our initial report, as part of Project Aim, the staff engaged in a one-time rebaselining effort and identified $10 million of savings in FY 2017 in the Rulemaking, Travel, and 

Corporate Support areas that have already been incorporated into our FY 2017 budget request. 

Furthermore, the Commission has recently approved additional recommendations for savings in 

FY 2017 of approximately $31 million. The staff also provided information to the Commission 

on additional longer-term efficiencies and improvement projects where savings could be 

achieved (SECY-16-0035, “Additional Re-baselining Products,” Agencywide Document Access 

and Management System Accession No. ML16077A184). One of these actions is a further 

review of Corporate Support resources required after implementation of changes in the agency 

as a result of the Project Aim re-baselining. The results of this effort are currently under review; 

a recommendation of further efficiencies in Corporate Support services that could be realized in 
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FY 2018 and FY 2019 will be provided to the Commission in early June 2016. The 

Commission’s decisions will be provided in a future publicly available Project Aim 

Implementation Status Update. As reference material for your awareness, enclosed is a recent 

Project Aim Implementation Status Update, which was dated April 8, 2016 (Enclosure 1). 

The staff continues to make progress in reducing the backlog of licensing actions, 

completing 94% within one year or less during the first half of FY 2016. Progress in completing 

other licensing actions is provided (Enclosure 2). 

Please feel free to contact me or Eugene Dacus, Director of the Office of Congressional 

Affairs, at (301) 415-1776 if you have questions or need more information. 

 Sincerely, 

 /RA/ 

 Stephen G. Burns 

Enclosures: 

1. Implementation Status 

Update – March 2016 

2. Progress on Licensing 

Applications – Quarters 1 and 2 

cc: Senator Barbara Mikulski
Identical letter sent to: 

The Honorable Thad Cochran 

Chairman, Committee on Appropriations 

United States Senate 

Washington, DC 20510 

cc: Senator Barbara Mikulski 

The Honorable Harold Rogers 

Chairman, Committee on Appropriations 

United States House of Representatives 

Washington, DC 20515 

cc: Representative Nita Lowey