RELEASE: Former Nuclear Regulators Propose an Alternative Approach to Preliminary 10 CFR Part 53

On July 29, 2022, former NRC staff members Rani Franovich, Senior Policy Advisor for Nuclear Energy Innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, and Dr. Prasad Kadambi, Director of Kadambi Engineering Consultants, co-presented a Community of Practice (CoP) webinar entitled “A Performance-Based Approach for 10 CFR Part 53,” sponsored by the American Nuclear Society’s (ANS) Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C). On August 23, 2022, Franovich and Kadambi submitted a comment to NRC on the preliminary development of 10 CFR Part 53, incorporating by reference a recording of the July 29 webinar.

On August 26, 2022, Franovich presented related topics in more detail during a follow-up ANS RP3C CoP webinar. Franovich elaborated on the proposed alternative to the NRC staff’s approach to Part 53. The proposed alternative is modeled after the NRC’s flagship regulatory program, the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP). For over 20 years the NRC has successfully implemented the ROP, applying RIPB principles to focus NRC and licensee resources on matters most important to safety based on safety performance rather than compliance with prescriptive, deterministic regulations. On August 31, 2022, Franovich submitted a comment to NRC on the preliminary development of 10 CFR Part 53, incorporating by reference a recording of the August 26 webinar.

Franovich and Kadambi submitted their comments to NRC in the earnest hope of helping the Agency develop a draft rule that satisfies the basic elements of transformation espoused by the Commission in 1999, and more recently by Congress through the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act of 2019.