Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 236 / Thursday, December 7, 2000 / Notices 76669

The industry/government/union Task

Force for Byssinosis Prevention

sponsors research to develop washing

techniques which reduce bioactivity

and create processable cotton. That Task

Force has recommended that OSHA add

an additional washing process, batch

kier processing, to those that receive

partial exemption, because batch kier

processing, according to a specified

protocol, greatly reduces bioactivity.

That recommendation is supported by

studies and recommendations of the

National Institute for Occupational

Safety and Health, the U.S. Department

of Agriculture, industry groups and

unions. Consequently, OSHA is taking

prompt action to implement that

recommendation and increase the

flexibility available to the cotton textile

industry while protecting textile worker

health.

Signed at Washington, DC, this 18th day of

October, 2000.

Charles N. Jeffress,

Assistant Secretary of Labor.

[FR Doc. 00–31188 Filed 12–6–00; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4510–26–P

FEDERAL MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH

REVIEW COMMISSION

Sunshine Act Meeting

December 4, 2000.

TIME AND DATE: 2 p.m., Tuesday,

December 12, 2000.

PLACE: Room 6005, 6th Floor, 1730 K

Street, NW., Washington, DC.

STATUS: Open.

MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: The

Commission will consider and act upon

the following:

1. Northern Illinois Steel Supply Co.,

Docket No. LAKE 99–78–RM, etc.

(Issues include whether Northern

Illinois Steel Supply Company is an

‘‘operator’’ under section 3(d) of the

Mine Act).

TIME AND DATE: The Commission

meeting will commence following upon

the conclusion of the Commission

meeting to consider Northern Illinois

Steel Supply Co., Docket No. LAKE 99–

78–RM, etc., which commences at 2

p.m. on Tuesday, December 12, 2000.

PLACE: Room 6005, 6th Floor, 1730 K

Street, NW., Washington DC.

STATUS: Closed [Pursuant to 5 U.S.C.

§ 55b(c)(10)].

MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: It was

determined by a majority vote of the

Commission that the Commission

considered and act upon the following

in closed session:

1. Disciplinary Proceeding, Docket

No. D 2000–1.

TIME AND DATE: 10 a.m., Wednesday,

December 13, 2000.

PLACE: Room 6005, 6th Floor, 1730 K

Street, NW., Washington, DC.

STATUS: Open.

MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: The

Commission will consider its general

procedures for handling requests to

vacate defaults and requests to reopen

matters that have become final

Commission orders under section 105(a)

of the Mine Act.

Any person attending an open

meeting who requires special

accessibility features and/or auxiliary

aids, such as sign language interpreters,

must inform the Commission in advance

of those needs. Subject to 29 CFR

§§ 2706.150(a)(3) and 2706.160(d).

CONTACT PERSON FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Jean Ellen (202) 653–5629/(202) 708–

9300 for TDD Relay/1–800–877–8339

for toll free.

Jean H. Ellen,

Chief Docket Clerk.

[FR Doc. 00–31354 Filed 12–5–00; 3:57 pm]

BILLING CODE 6735–01–M

NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION

SAFETY BOARD

Public Hearing

The National Transportation Safety

Board will convene a public hearing

beginning at 11 a.m., local time on

Wednesday, December 13–15, 2000, in

the Safety Board’s Boardroom and

Conference Center at 429 L’Enfant Plaza

SW, Washington, DC 20594 concerning

Alaska Airlines Flight 261 off the coast

of California near Port Hueneme on

January 31, 2000. For more information,

contact Dick Rodriquez, NTSB Office of

Aviation Safety at (202) 314–6317 or

Terry N. Williams NTSB Office of

Public Affairs at (202) 314–6100.

Individuals requesting specific

accommodation should contact Mrs.

Carolyn Dargan on 202–314–6305 by

Friday December 8, 2000.

Dated: December 4, 2000.

Rhonda Underwood,

Federal Register Liaison Officer.

[FR Doc. 00–31169 Filed 12–6–00; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 7533–01–P

NUCLEAR REGULATORY

COMMISSION

Notice of Opportunity to Comment on

the Proposed Information Collection

Initiative

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory

Commission.

ACTION: Notice of opportunity for public

comment.

SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory

Commission (NRC) staff has prepared a

proposed initiative for the voluntary

submittal of information by external

stakeholders about the impact that

licensing actions and other regulatory

activities have on maintaining safety

and reducing unnecessary regulatory

burden for commercial nuclear power

plants. The purpose of this initiative is

to obtain information to assist the Office

of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR)

staff in (1) allocating staff resources and

(2) measuring how the work NRR staff

completes contributes to the agency

goals of maintaining safety and reducing

unnecessary regulatory burden. The

staff is requesting comments on this

proposed information collection

initiative.

DATES: The comment period expires

January 22, 2001. Comments received

after this date will be considered if it is

practical to do so, but the Commission

is able to ensure consideration only for

comments received on or before this

date.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be

submitted in person or via U.S. mail.

Submit written comments to: Chief,

Rules and Directives Branch, Division of

Administrative Services, U.S. NRC, Mail

Stop T6–D59, Washington, DC 20555–

0001.

Hand deliver comments to: 11555

Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland,

between 7:45 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on

Federal workdays.

Copies of comments received may be

examined at the NRC’s Public Document

Room, One White Flint North, 11555

Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,

Maryland.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Pat

Madden, Mail Stop O8E6, Division of

Licensing Project Management, Office of

Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

Washington, DC 20555–0001, telephone

301–415–2854, email pmm@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: As

applicants submit requests for

regulatory deliverables (e.g., license

amendment approvals, topical report

reviews, rulemaking petitions), they

would voluntarily provide information

76670 Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 236 / Thursday, December 7, 2000 / Notices

about the impact their request would

have on maintaining safety and

reducing unnecessary regulatory

burden. Ideally, measures for safety

impact would include changes in

person-rem dose or changes in core

damage frequency (CDF). Similarly,

measures for regulatory burden

reduction would include changes in

licensee costs or power production

capability. However, the staff recognizes

that it may not be possible or practical

to provide actual risk metrics or dollar

savings, and that more qualitative

measurements may be more realistic.

The staff invites comments from our

external stakeholders to ensure that the

measures are uniform, practical, and

meaningful, and provide the appropriate

yardstick for measuring the impact that

a proposed activity has on safety and

regulatory burden. This information

would be collected for many types of

external stakeholder submittals

including license amendments, topical

reports, rulemaking petitions, and

license renewal applications. The staff

encourages suggestions on what other

submittals such information should be

collected for in response to this

initiative. Recognizing that there are

many factors that could inhibit licensees

and other stakeholders from providing

such information, we invite comments

to obtain an understanding of what the

factors are and how they may be

overcome.

The information described above

would assist NRR in (1) allocating staff

resources and (2) measuring how the

work NRR staff completes contributes to

the agency goals of maintaining safety

and reducing unnecessary regulatory

burden. The staff is requesting

comments on this proposed information

collection initiative.

With respect to the first purpose,

allocating staff resources, NRR would

use the information collected to

improve its effectiveness by pursuing

those regulatory activities that maintain

safety (or involve acceptable reductions

in margin) but provide the highest

return in reducing unnecessary

regulatory burden. NRR is establishing a

‘‘work planning center’’ to centralize the

planning and scheduling of NRR work

activities, including the prioritization of

specific work items. The priority factors

include consideration of public health

and safety, operational significance,

statutory significance, and stakeholder

standing and merit. Also factored into

the work prioritization process is the

required responsiveness (e.g., normal,

increased, or immediate). The

information collected through this

initiative would become part of the

input for this work planning and

scheduling.

This use of information provided by

licensees in order to prioritize agency

work is similar to a regulatory approach

employed by the agency and licensees

in the early 1990’s for cost beneficial

licensing actions (CBLAs). In this

approach, licensees identified for the

agency those licensing actions that had

high economic benefits, minimal impact

on safety, and required minimal agency

review time. Such actions were termed

CBLAs, and the agency afforded these

actions higher priority treatment. One

difference between this proposed

information collection initiative and the

CBLA approach is that the latter was

limited in its scope to licensing actions

meeting the above criteria. A second,

more important distinction between the

two is that this proposed initiative has

another purpose, which we describe in

the following paragraph.

With respect to the second purpose,

measuring how the work NRR staff

completes contributes to the agency

goals of maintaining safety and reducing

unnecessary regulatory burden, the

information collected would support the

agency’s efforts toward becoming a

performance-based organization. This is

consistent with the enactment of the

Government Performance and Results

Act (GPRA). The agency has established

a framework for implementing the

performance-based approach called the

Planning, Budgeting, and Performance

Management (PBPM) process. This

PBPM process consists of setting the

strategic direction, budgeting resources,

and measuring and assessing

performance. The agency reports the

measures and assessment of

performance in yearly reports to the

President and the Congress. The

information collected as described in

this initiative would be used in these

yearly reports to demonstrate to

stakeholders that safety is being

maintained even as the staff allows for

unnecessary burden reduction. The staff

would also use the information

collected to demonstrate to stakeholders

what the staff has accomplished with

the resources that we have been given.

This type of information would allow

the staff to better align its outputs (e.g.,

license amendments) to NRR

performance goals (e.g., maintain

safety). By compiling this type of

information over the fiscal year, instead

of simply stating that the NRR staff

completed 1500 licensing actions per

year (outputs), the staff can also

quantify such performance measures as

direct cost savings to licensees, personrem savings, and reduced shutdown risk

that resulted from approval of those

licensing actions (outcomes).

The success of this voluntary

initiative is dependent on industry’s

willingness to provide the information.

The staff realizes that there may be

concerns with how we will use the

information collected to prioritize work

within NRR. The staff invites comments

and suggestions such that we may

directly address such concerns. We also

recognize that this information

collection initiative should be as simple

as possible while still providing

meaningful information. We encourage

comments on how to most simply

characterize the safety and regulatory

burden impact such that this

information collection initiative does

not become time-consuming or

resource-intensive.

After receiving formal comments in

response to this Federal Register notice,

the staff plans to hold a public meeting

to develop a consensus as to the type of

voluntary information that could be

used to measure impact on safety and

reduction in unnecessary regulatory

burden. This meeting is currently

planned for February 2001. Finally, if

reasonable and acceptable metrics can

be developed and made available to all

stakeholders, the staff expects to begin

using voluntary information submitted

under this initiative after October 1,

2001.

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 1st day

of December, 2000.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

John A. Zwolinski,

Director, Division of Licensing and Project

Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor

Regulation.

[FR Doc. 00–31155 Filed 12–6–00; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P

NUCLEAR REGULATORY

COMMISSION

In the Matter of Mr. William Kimbley

Mrs. Joan Kimbley; Order Prohibiting

Involvement in NRC-Licensed

Activities (Effective Immediately)

I

Mr. William Kimbley and Mrs. Joan

Kimbley were previously officers of

Midwest Testing, Inc., an entity that was

a holder of NRC License No. 13–24866–

02 issued by the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission pursuant to 10 CFR Part 30.

The license authorized the possession

and use cesium-137 and americium-241

as sealed sources in moisture density

gauges. The license was issued on

August 19, 1992, and was terminated on

June 12, 1995.