Comment (5) of Douglas Walters on FR Doc # 2011-20112

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) appreciates the opportunity to comment on proposed revisions to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Enforcement Policy relating to certain construction-related topics. See 76 Fed. Reg. 48,919 (Aug. 9, 2011). These and other issues are being evaluated for possible inclusion in upcoming revisions to the policy. NEI’s comments are set forth in the attachment to this letter. As identified by the NRC staff during an August 30 public meeting, two additional Federal Register Notices (FRN) will propose other revisions to the policy, including changes that may affect the substance and overall impact of those provisions that are the focus of the subject FRN. Given this approach, it may be difficult for stakeholders to assess the full effect the policy changes until they are presented in their entirety. We therefore intend to review the complete set of proposed policy revisions when available and may provide additional comments based on that holistic review. One of the topics addressed in this FRN is the NRC’s Changes during Construction (CdC) Preliminary Acceptance Review (PAR) process which is currently under development for new reactor construction. NEI believes that a similar process should be considered for use in facilitating changes during construction needed at NRC-licensed fuel cycle facilities. The industry looks forward to working with NRC to develop a similar process for fuel cycle facilities, which would then lead to conforming changes to the NRC Enforcement Policy, consistent with Commission direction in SRM-09-0190. Please feel free to contact Russ Bell (202-739-8087; rjb@nei.org) or me if you have questions relating to these comments.