Up & Atom

Following the July 12, 2019, release of “Power Reactor Cyber Security Program Assessment,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Director of Physical and Cyber Security Policy in the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response issued a memorandum to NRC Staff on August 6, 2019.

In a June 25, 2019, letter to the Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Senators John Barrasso and Mike Braun requested that the agency develop a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for the construction and operation of advanced reactors.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a public meeting on August 8 to provide information and receive comments on the regulatory basis supporting the NRC’s rulemaking on physical security requirements for advanced reactors.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, by a 3-1 vote on August 7, agreed with the NRC Staff’s recommendation to discontinue a rulemaking on third-party arbitration of access authorization and fitness-for-duty determinations. The decision leaves admitted ambiguity, including a potential enforcement risk in the event that a licensee reinstates an individual’s revoked access authorization or a fitness-for-duty determination.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) published a final rule in the August 2 Federal Register that revises DOE’s Contractor Employee Protection Program. The program appears in 10 CFR Part 708 (Part 708) and extends employee protections to employees of DOE contractors and subcontractors modeled after the protections for federal employees that appear in the Whistleblower Protection Act, 5 USC §§ 1201 et seq. DOE’s Office of Administrative Appeals (OHA) administers the Part 708 program.

Please be aware that it appears the NRC has taken an unusual step of requesting public comment on SECY 2019-67, which is focused on proposed enhancements to the Regulatory Oversight Program (ROP). Comments are due by October 7, 2019.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered PJM Interconnection, LLC’s (PJM) on July 25 to suspend its 2019 Base Residual Auction (BRA), which provides for capacity payments to electric generators.

On July 25, 2019, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released GAO-19-384, a report to congressional requesters analyzing the cybersecurity risk management of 23 civilian agencies—including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

In SECY-19-0068 dated July 1 but recently made available, the NRC staff has asked the Commission to approve a proposed direct final rule that would eliminate one of the two financial tests used to qualify a company to issue a parent guarantee for decommissioning funding assurance.

NRC staff proposed to the Commission (see SECY-2019-067) certain changes to the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) on June 28. Overall, these changes, if approved by the Commission, will result in a net reduction in the amount of time the NRC spends on planning and implementing certain inspections, and how it addresses the results of those inspections in the ROP.