Society News Archive

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has announced that it is seeking comments on a petition from a representative of the Organization of Agreement States (OAS) requesting that the NRC amend its existing regulations in Appendix B to 10 CFR 30, "Rules of General Applicability to Domestic Licensing of Byproduct Material," to specifically add the appropriate radionuclides and their corresponding activities to the list of "Quantities of Licensed Material Requiring Labeling."

The NRC staff is requesting public comment on the following specific questions:

1. What products or technologies, other than the germanium-68 generators cited in the petition, are being or could be negatively affected because the radioactive materials required for these products or technologies are not currently listed on the table in Appendix B of 10 CFR 30?
2. Please provide specific examples of how the current NRC regulatory framework for decommissioning financial assurance has put an undue hardship on potential license applicants. Explain how this hardship has discouraged the development of beneficial new products or otherwise imposed unnecessarily burdensome requirements on licensees or members of the public (e.g., users of medical diagnostic or therapeutic technologies) that depend on naturally occurring or accelerator-produced radioactive materials (NARM).
3. Given NRC's current regulatory authority over the radiological safety and security of NARM, what factors should the NRC take into account in establishing possession limits for any of these materials that should be listed in Appendix B of 10 CFR 30?
4. Does this petition raise other issues not addressed by the questions above about labeling or decommissioning financial assurance for radioactive materials? Must these issues be addressed by a rulemaking or are there other regulatory solutions that the NRC should consider? 

Comments may be uploaded to the federal rulemaking website: http://www.regulations.gov.

Search for Docket ID NRC–2017–0159. Comments are due 6 November 2017.