Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 96 / Wednesday, May 20, 2009 / Notices 23749 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Mary Rupp, Secretary of the Board, 

Telephone: 703–518–6304. 

Mary Rupp, 

Board Secretary. 

[FR Doc. E9–11843 Filed 5–18–09; 11:15 am] 

BILLING CODE P 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

[NRC–2008–0154] 

Criteria for Identifying Materials 

Licensees for the U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission’s Agency 

Action Review Meeting 

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission. 

ACTION: Notice of availability. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission (NRC) is announcing the 

completion and availability of the new 

criteria for identifying nuclear materials 

licensees for discussion at the Agency 

Action Review Meeting (AARM). The 

new criteria may be found in SECY–08– 

0135 in the Agencywide Documents 

Access and Management System 

(ADAMS) Accession Number: 

(ML082480564) or in the supplementary 

information below. 

ADDRESSES: A copy of SECY–08–0135 is 

available for inspection and/or copying 

for a fee in the NRC Public Document 

Room (PDR), 11555 Rockville Pike, 

Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available 

documents related to this notice are 

available electronically through the 

NRC’s Electronic Reading Room at 

http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/reading-rm/ 

adams.html. From this site, the public 

can gain entry into ADAMS, which 

provides text and image files of NRC’s 

public documents. If there are problems 

in accessing the documents located in 

ADAMS, contact the PDR Reference 

staff at 1–800–397–4209, 301–415–4737 

or by e-mail to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Duane White, Division of Materials 

Safety and State Agreements, Office of 

Federal and State Materials and 

Environmental Management Programs, 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

Washington, DC 20555–0001, telephone 

(301) 415–6272, e-mail: 

Duane.White@nrc.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

In 2002, NRC developed a process for 

providing information on significant 

nuclear materials issues and adverse 

licensee performance. This process was 

provided in SECY–02–0216, ‘‘Proposed 

Process for Providing Information on 

Significant Nuclear Materials Issues and 

Adverse Licensee Performance,’’ dated 

December 11, 2002 (ADAMS Accession 

Number: ML022410435). As part of this 

process, criteria were developed to 

identify nuclear material licensees with 

significant performance problems that 

will be discussed at the AARM. These 

criteria may be found in Table 1 of 

SECY–02–0216. 

The AARM is an agency meeting that 

allows senior NRC managers (1) to 

review agency actions resulting from the 

performance of nuclear reactor licensees 

for those nuclear power plants with 

significant performance problems as 

determined by the reactor oversight 

process (ROP) action matrix, (2) to 

review results of the staff’s assessment 

of ROP effectiveness, (3) to review 

industry performance trends, and (4) to 

review agency actions concerning fuel 

cycle facilities and other nuclear 

materials licensees (including 

Agreement State licensees) with 

significant performance problems. 

In 2008, the NRC staff developed new 

criteria to be used in identifying nuclear 

material licensees with significant 

performance problems that will be 

discussed at the AARM. The agency will 

continue to identify nuclear material 

licensees with significant performance 

problems based on operating 

performance, inspection results, and 

judgment of the severity of the safety 

performance problems. However, the 

new criteria provide additional clarity 

and incorporate NRC’s current policy 

and procedures. The criteria were 

submitted to the Commission for 

information in SECY–08–0135. 

Discussion 

New Criteria for Identifying Nuclear 

Materials Licensees for the AARM 

The new criteria for identifying 

nuclear materials licensees for 

discussion at the AARM are as follows: 

(1) Strategic Plan—Licensee has an 

event that results in the failure to meet 

a strategic outcome for safety and 

security in the NRC strategic plan 

(NUREG–1614); or 

(2) Significant Issue or Event— 

Licensee has an issue or event that 

results in: (a) An Abnormal Occurrence 

Report to Congress (per NRC 

Management Directive 8.1), or (b) a 

severity level I or II violation, as 

described in the NRC Enforcement 

Policy (including equivalent violations 

dispositioned by Alternative Dispute 

Resolution), or (c) a level III or higher 

International Nuclear Event Scale 

Report to the International Atomic 

Energy Agency (per NRC Management 

Directive 5.12), and there are unique or 

unusual aspects of the licensee’s 

performance that warrant additional 

NRC oversight (e.g., a significant event, 

which requires an incident investigation 

team (IIT) or augmented inspection team 

(AIT)); or 

(3) Performance Trend—Licensee has 

multiple and/or repetitive significant 

program issues identified over more 

than one inspection or inspection 

period, and the issues resulted in a 

severity level I, II, or III violation, as 

described in the NRC Enforcement 

Policy (including equivalent violations 

dispositioned by Alternative Dispute 

Resolutions (ADR)), and there are 

unique or unusual aspects of the 

licensee’s performance that warrant 

additional NRC oversight (e.g., oversight 

panel formed for order implementation). 

You can find NRC’s strategic plan 

(NUREG–1614) and the referenced 

management directives and enforcement 

policy on NRC’s public document 

collections Web page at http:// 

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/. 

Public Comments on the Proposed 

Criteria 

The proposed criteria for identifying 

nuclear materials licensees with 

significant performance issues were 

published on March 17, 2008 (73 FR 

14278). The comment period ended on 

May 1, 2008. The NRC received one 

public comment on the proposed 

criteria. This commenter indicated that 

it supported the proposed criteria and 

requested clarification or modification 

as to why category 3 ‘‘Performance 

Trend’’ of the criteria explicitly 

references NRC’s ADR as an element of 

the enforcement process but, category 2 

‘‘Significant Issues’’ does not reference 

ADR. Also, the commenter indicated, 

for clarity, that the title of criterion 2 

should be changed to ‘‘Significant Issue 

or Event’’ to reflect NRC’s intent to 

include both issues and events. In 

response to these comments, the 

proposed criteria were revised by 

changing the title for category 2 to 

‘‘Significant Issue or Event’’ and adding 

a reference to ADR in category 2 of the 

criteria. 

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day 

of May 2009. 

James G. Luehman, 

Deputy Director, Division of Materials Safety 

and State Agreements. 

[FR Doc. E9–11704 Filed 5–19–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P