Up & Atom

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 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published a Federal Register notice on July 16 requesting comments on a regulatory basis supporting a “limited scope” rulemaking to develop physical security requirements for advanced reactors.

To address national security interests and prevent the unauthorized transfer of scientific and technical information to certain foreign entities, the US Department of Energy (DOE) issued Order No. 486.1 on June 7.

Staff members from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response and Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation held a public meeting on June 17 to discuss a summary of the Assessment of the NRC’s Power Reactor Cyber Security Program.

The NRC on May 3 took the overdue step of withdrawing portions of certain power reactor security requirements—issued via three agency orders in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, which were subsequently captured in agency regulations

As we last reported on October 5, 2018, the NRC Staff appeared ready to recommend withdrawing a rulemaking on third-party arbitration of access authorization and fitness-for-duty determinations. On April 4, 2019, the NRC Staff formally made its recommendation in SECY-19-0033. In so doing, the NRC Staff “request[ed] Commission approval to discontinue the rulemaking activity, ‘Access Authorization and Fitness-for-Duty Determinations’,” which began nearly four years ago.