[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 159 (Friday, August 15, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 47983-47984]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-18920]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Draft Regulatory Guide: Denial of Extension of Comment Period
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of denial of request to extend the comment period of
Draft Regulatory Guide (DG)-1200, ``An Approach for Determining the
Technical Adequacy of Probabilistic Risk Assessment Results for Risk-
Informed Activities.''
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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mary Drouin, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone: (301) 415-6675 or e-
mail to Mary.Drouin@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Introduction
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued for public
comment DG-1200, which was published in the Federal Register, 73 FR
35170, on June 20, 2008. DG-1200 is proposed Revision 2 of Regulatory
Guide 1.200 in the agency's Regulatory Guide Series. This series has
been developed to describe and make available to the public such
information as methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for
implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques that
the staff uses in evaluating specific problems or postulated accidents,
and data that the staff needs in its review of applications for permits
and licenses.
II. Further Information
The NRC staff requested receipt of comments on DG-1200 by August
25, 2008, (including any implementation schedule) and its associated
regulatory analysis or value/impact statement. Comments received after
August 25, 2008, would be considered if practical to do so, but the NRC
is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before
this date. Although a time limit is given, comments and suggestions in
connection with items for inclusion in guides currently being developed
or improvements in all published guides are encouraged at any time.
III. Request to Extend the Comment Period
Basis for the Request
The NRC received the following extension request:
``This draft regulatory guide revision delineates the NRC's
expectations for technical adequacy of PRA [probabilistic risk
assessment] information used in support of risk applications and
represents a significant expansion over the current Revision by
including detailed technical information on fire and external events
PRAs. NEI [Nuclear Energy Institute] is coordinating industry comments
with the NSSS [nuclear steam supply system] owners group, vendors and
licensees to ensure that the comments submitted by industry are of high
quality and that
[[Page 47984]]
they reflect a consensus industry perspective. However, the comment
period provided in the June 20 Federal Register Notice is insufficient
given the volume of material and need for a thorough technical review.
Extending the comment period would provide the time necessary to fully
assess the impact of these proposed changes and arrive at a set of
comments that are of value to the NRC staff.''
Response to Request
The request for an extension to the comment period is denied.
The information contained in DG-1200 regarding internal fire and
external events has been available to the public prior to the issuance
of DG-1200 in June of 2008 for public comment. Therefore, DG-1200 does
not ``represent a significant expansion over the current Revision
[Revision 1] by including detailed technical information on fire and
external events PRAs.''
DG-1200 provides high level discussions on what constitutes a
technically acceptable Level 1 and Level 2 PRA for internal and
external events, which has been in the previous revisions of the guide.
Specifically, the information for external events in DG-1200 has not
changed since the previous revision. The information for internal fires
in DG-1200 was revised from the previous revision; however, the
information is high level and was revised to be consistent with the
standard (i.e., there was not anything added to the DG-1200 that was
new or differing from the standard).
With regard to the internal fire standard (Part 3 of the ASME/ANS
RA-S-2008 standard), as documented in DG-1200, the staff has no
objections to the majority of the standard's requirements. The staff
has continually noted its position during development of the standard
and in a formal letter to ASME in November 2007 (ADAMS (http://
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html), under Accession No. 073030364), and
in an April 2008 interoffice letter from M. Cunningham to C. Lui (ADAMS
under Accession No. 080880202) which are publicly available.
The staff issued DG-1138 in September 2004 which provided the staff
position on Revision 0 of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) external
events standard. Revision 1 of the ANS standard (which is Part 4 of the
ASME/ANS RA-S-2008 PRA standard) addressed the majority of the staff
objections. The staff position in DG-1200, for the objections not
addressed in Part 4 of the ASME/ANS RA-S-2008 standard, is unchanged
from DG-1138.
Requests for technical information about DG-1200 may be directed to
the NRC contact, Mary Drouin at (301) 415-6675 or e-mail to
Mary.Drouin@nrc.gov.
Electronic copies of DG-1200 are available through the NRC's public
Web site under Draft Regulatory Guides in the ``Regulatory Guides''
collection of the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/
reading-rm/doc-collections/. Electronic copies are also available in
ADAMS (http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html), under Accession No.
ML081200566.
In addition, regulatory guides are available for inspection at the
NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), which is located at 11555 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The PDR's mailing address is USNRC PDR,
Washington, DC 20555-0001. The PDR can also be reached by telephone at
(301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4205, by fax at (301) 415-3548, and by e-
mail to pdr.resource@nrc.gov.
Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is
not required to reproduce them.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 11th day of August 2008.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stephen C. O'Connor,
Acting Chief, Regulatory Guide Development Branch, Division of
Engineering, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. E8-18920 Filed 8-14-08; 8:45 am]
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