1: Safety
Ensure adequate protection of public health and safety and the environment. Other Information:
Discussion: The NRC’s primary function is to regulate the safe use of radioactive materials for civilian purposes to ensure
adequate protection of public health and safety and the environment. In responding to anticipated developments in the nuclear
arena over the next several years, including the review of a number of new nuclear reactor applications, the NRC will continue
to place significant emphasis on strengthening the interrelationship among safety, security, and emergency preparedness. The
NRC achieves its Safety goal by licensing individuals and organizations to use radioactive materials for beneficial civilian
purposes and then ensuring that these licensees perform at acceptable safety levels. In particular, the agency maintains vigilance
over safety performance through licensing reviews, inspections, expanded oversight (when needed), rulemaking, and incident
response. The NRC continually seeks to identify and resolve potential safety issues, including those with generic implications
for multiple reactors and licensees. The NRC also uses enforcement actions to require licensees to correct license deficiencies.
These include issuing orders for corrective action, issuing shutdown orders, imposing civil penalties, seeking criminal prosecution,
or suspending or revoking a license. The agency’s regulatory activities are consistent with the risk presented by specific
uses, incorporating sound science and operating experience to ensure that licensees have adequate safety margins. In carrying
out its safety mission, the NRC employs the full range of actions necessary to ensure that a licensee’s performance does not
fall below acceptable levels. Important current and future challenges for the agency include materials degradation issues
at existing nuclear power plants; high-level waste transport, storage, and disposal; new and evolving technologies, including
digital instrumentation and controls; and analyzing domestic and international operating experience and other events of national
interest for lessons learned and best practices. Other considerations include upgrading incident response systems, employing
a multifaceted regulatory approach, and cooperating and coordinating with other domestic agencies and government entities.
About half of the operating nuclear power plants in the United States have received 20-year extensions of their operating
licenses, and most of the rest are expected to apply for license extensions in the future. Materials degradation is the primary
consideration in granting a license extension. The aim of the license renewal process is to evaluate whether aging effects
are monitored, managed, and controlled such that safety is ensured for the renewal period. License renewal applications for
aging plants call for analysis of the robustness, longevity, and continued performance of nuclear power plant components,
such as electric cabling, piping, and containment structures. Nuclear facility licensees are replacing analog instrumentation
and control equipment with digital equipment because analog replacement parts are becoming more difficult to obtain. Digital
systems also offer potentially better performance and features than analog systems. New advanced reactor plants are expected
to use advanced digital instrumentation and control systems and control room operator interfaces, presenting regulatory and
licensing challenges for the agency and the nuclear industry. The agency is preparing for the review of applications to construct
and operate a new generation of nuclear plants. The agency has reorganized its headquarters reactor licensing organization
to dedicate the necessary resources to conduct timely reviews of these applications while also ensuring that adequate resources
are available to support the operational safety of the current fleet of reactors. With the development of new reactor designs
and other new facilities and technologies, the NRC is working closely with regulators in other countries interested in participating
in the Multinational Design Evaluation Program, in which several nations jointly cooperate in sharing information regarding
the review of new reactor designs. These next-generation designs require detailed evaluation of their vulnerability to accidents
and attacks, as well as development of inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance criteria for their construction. First-of-a-kind
construction, startup, and operation of several U.S.-designed nuclear power plants will continue to occur outside of the United
States. A significant percentage of the major components both for these initial plants and for plants that may eventually
be built in the United States will be manufactured in other countries. In response, the NRC is actively engaged with its counterpart
regulatory authorities in these countries in enhancing the sharing of relevant information, experience, and expertise. The
agency is also preparing for the review of the DOE’s anticipated application to establish the Nation’s first repository for
high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The NRC’s review of this application will require evaluation of a
wide range of technical and scientific analyses and the resolution of various regulatory issues on a challenging schedule.
Additionally, the Nation will require the continued safe management of interim storage capacity for spent nuclear fuel. Toward
that end, the NRC regulates various options for interim storage, including onsite spent fuel pools and dry casks at independent
spent fuel storage installations in a risk-informed and performance-based manner consistent with the approach the NRC takes
to regulating reactors. In addition, the NRC regulates the safety of spent fuel transportation packages. These packages are
evaluated, tested, and certified as capable of safely transporting spent fuel from reactor sites or other storage facilities.
Industry interest in fuel cycle facilities is expected to continue, with these projects requiring NRC review. The staff expects
to receive two new license applications for uranium enrichment plants. The agency is also reviewing applications for new uranium
recovery sites, restarts, or expansions of existing facilities from U.S. corporations participating in the domestic and international
uranium markets to support the new generation of nuclear plants. Furthermore, the NRC is reviewing a license application for
a mixed-oxide fuel facility that would use plutonium salvaged from decommissioned nuclear weapons to fabricate fuel assemblies
for use in nuclear power plants as a technique to reduce existing quantities of weapons-usable materials. The NRC employs
a multifaceted regulatory approach to meet the continuing challenge of insisting that its licensees operate nuclear facilities
and use radioactive materials safely. Additionally, the NRC believes that close cooperation among Federal agencies, State
authorities, and local and Tribal authorities will lead to more effective regulation. Therefore, the NRC works with other
Federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Food and Drug
Administration, and the DOE, Transportation, Justice, and Homeland Security, as well as State, local, and Tribal authorities,
to ensure appropriate coordination for the accomplishment of its mission. States that have entered into Agreements with the
Commission carry out coordinated and comparable programs for nuclear materials within their borders. Nuclear safety is a global
issue and a continuing challenge. The NRC closely cooperates with its counterpart foreign regulatory bodies and international
organizations, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s
Nuclear Energy Agency, to share information, resources, best practices, and lessons learned from operating experience and
to influence the development of standards and guidance consistent with U.S. objectives. Safety Goal Strategies 1. Develop,
maintain, and implement licensing and regulatory programs for reactors, fuel facilities, materials users, spent fuel management,
uranium recovery, and decommissioning activities to ensure the adequate protection of public health and safety and the environment.
2. Continue to oversee the safe operation of existing plants while preparing for and managing the review of applications for
new power reactors. 3. Conduct NRC safety, security, and emergency preparedness programs in an integrated manner. 4. Improve
the NRC’s regulatory programs and apply safety-focused research to anticipate and resolve safety issues. 5. Use sound science
and state-of-the-art methods to establish, where appropriate, risk-informed and performance-based regulations. 6. Promote
focused attention on safety matters and individual accountability of those engaged in regulated activities. 7. Use domestic
and international operating experience to inform decisionmaking. 8. Oversee licensee safety performance through inspections,
investigations, enforcement, and performance assessment activities. 9. Effectively respond to events at NRC-licensed facilities
and other events of national interest, including maintaining and enhancing the NRC’s critical incident response and communication
capabilities. Means to Support Safety Strategies: The NRC conducts a number of programs and initiatives to ensure adequate
protection of public health and safety and the environment. The major programs include rulemaking, licensing, technical reviews
and inspection, incident response and emergency preparedness, domestic and international information exchange and cooperation
with the Agreement State program, and research programs. The NRC will conduct a number of programs and initiatives during
this strategic planning period, including the following: - Review licensing requests (e.g., new applications, amendments,
renewals, terminations) to confirm that they provide an adequate margin of safety consistent with the agency’s rules and regulations.
Conduct environmental reviews as appropriate to ensure that actions comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.
[Supports Strategies 1 and 2.] - Implement, review, and refine the Reactor Oversight Process, the principal program for overseeing
nuclear power plant operation, to better identify significant performance issues and to ensure that licensees take appropriate
actions to maintain acceptable safety performance. [Supports Strategies 5 and 8.] - Implement, review, and refine materials
oversight. [Supports Strategy 8.] - Maintain qualified inspectors at nuclear power reactor and certain fuel cycle sites (resident
inspectors), in the NRC’s four regional offices (regional inspectors and license examiners), and at the agency’s headquarters.
[Supports Strategies 1, 6, and 8.] - Maintain the readiness and capabilities of the NRC Headquarters Operations Center and
Regional Response Centers, which coordinate and monitor the agency’s response to incidents and reportable conditions and licensees’
actions to ensure safety at their facilities. [Supports Strategies 3, 5, and 9.] - Participate in emergency preparedness exercises
that involve a wide array of Federal, State, local, and Tribal authorities and emergency response personnel, and use cooperative
intergovernmental relationships to balance national response capabilities. [Supports Strategies 3, 6, and 9.] - Conduct a
program for the identification and resolution of reactor, fuel cycle, materials, and radioactive waste generic issues. [Supports
Strategies 2, 3, and 4.] - Establish and maintain stable and predictable regulatory programs and policies for all stakeholders.
Verify that all new regulatory initiatives adhere to these programs and policies. [Supports Strategies 1, 2, and 6.] - Maintain
an open, collaborative working environment that encourages all employees and contractors to raise safety issues and differing
views without fear of retaliation. [Supports Strategies 1, 3, and 5.] - Maintain a safety framework of rules, regulatory guidance,
and standard review plans that promotes licensee compliance with underlying safety principles and stakeholder understanding.
[Supports Strategy 8.] - Conduct research programs to identify, lead, and/or sponsor reviews that support the resolution of
ongoing and future safety issues, including providing tools and expertise needed to support the NRC’s independent decisionmaking
process. [Supports Strategies 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.] - Conduct prelicensing consultation and begin review of the potential application
for the Yucca Mountain repository when it is received. [Supports Strategies 1 and 2.] - Complete technical reviews and inspections
of new spent fuel dry storage systems and facilities for the safe and secure storage of spent fuel. Apply risk insights gained
from spent fuel dry storage probabilistic risk assessment in these reviews and inspections in a manner consistent with the
application of these insights in reactor regulation. [Supports Strategies 1 and 3.] - Test a representative spent fuel transportation
package design under transportation accident conditions to verify package performance and modeling capability. [Supports Strategies
1 and 5.] - Conduct periodic reviews of Agreement State programs to ensure that they are adequate to protect public health
and safety and the environment and are compatible with the NRC’s program. [Supports Strategies 2, 3, and 6.] - Work closely
with the Agreement States to develop consistent, risk-informed processes to review event information and identify safety issues
for materials licensees. [Supports Strategies 2, 3, and 6.] - Use the information from integrated safety analyses implementing
a graded approach to monitor and respond to activities at fuel fabrication facilities. Use the lessons learned from these
analyses to develop more risk-informed oversight programs. [Supports Strategies 1 and 4.] - Assess the key issues affecting
the safe management of civilian low-level radioactive storage and waste disposal to facilitate planning so that potential
disruption in access to the three licensed disposal sites does not adversely affect licensees’ ability to operate and decommission
their facilities safely. [Supports Strategies 1 and 6.] - Evaluate domestic and international operating events and trends
for risk significance and generic applicability in order to improve NRC programs. [Supports Strategy 7.] - Work with international
counterparts to exchange information, expertise, operating experiences, and ongoing research to recognize and respond to emerging
technical issues and to promote best practices. Participate in the development and evaluation of international standards to
ensure they are soundly based and determine whether substantial safety improvements can be identified and incorporated domestically.
[Supports Strategies 5 and 7.] - Review and refine an enforcement framework that emphasizes the importance of compliance with
regulatory requirements and encourages prompt identification and comprehensive correction of licensee violations. [Supports
Strategy 8.]
Objective(s):
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