NEI calls on NRC for more clarity in rule prioritization

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) states that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) needs to refine its processes or determine which rule proposals do offer safety and security benefits, they announced July 23.

According to NEI Senior Director for Strategic Programs John Butler, many of the NRC's high or medium-priority proposals offer little benefit to operational safety, and there seems to be little consideration on costs that would be associated with proposed rules. The NRC has approved a process to evaluate the prioritization process.

Currently, the agency website and the spring 2015 unified agenda from the NRC are not consistent with each other, and both are needed to obtain a complete scope of planned rules and their progress toward implementation.

“We encourage the NRC to assess all planned rulemaking activities in the [critical power ratio] CPR process and to include a full listing of rulemaking actions in future regulatory agenda and as part of the ‘Rulemaking Priorities’ website,” Butler said. “Such a comprehensive listing of all NRC rulemakings that are planned and under way is necessary to fully assess the cumulative effects of regulations.”

With the evaluation of the rule prioritization process, the NEI states that it hopes the NRC staff will take the time to reassess rules that add little value to safety and public health.