Nuclear Regulation: Preventing Problem Plants Requires More Effective NRC Action
RCED-97-145
Published: May 30, 1997. Publicly Released: Jun 17, 1997.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) oversight of the nuclear power industry, focusing on how NRC: (1) defines nuclear safety; (2) measures and monitors the safety condition of nuclear plants; and (3) uses its knowledge of safety conditions to ensure the safety of nuclear plants.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Nuclear Regulatory Commission | To enhance licensees' accountability, the Commissioners of NRC should direct NRC staff to develop strategies to more aggressively act on safety deficiencies when they are discovered. To achieve this goal, NRC should require inspection reports to fully document for all plants the status of the licensees' actions to address identified problems under NRC's corrective action requirements, including timetables for the completion of corrective actions and how NRC will respond to nonconformance with planned actions. |
NRC reports that it has given its inspectors more guidance for assessing the effectiveness of a licensee's corrective action program by focusing on what a licensee has done, as opposed to what it plans to do. NRC also says it is developing ways to better identify and track licensing commitments and to verify their implementation. However, NRC is not tracking the status of corrective actions for all licensee-identified issues, including how NRC would respond to non-conformances with planned actions. Instead, NRC plans to periodically review a sample of NRC and licensee identified issues to ensure that the licensee has taken appropriate corrective action.
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| Nuclear Regulatory Commission | To enhance licensees' accountability, the Commissioners of NRC should direct NRC staff to develop strategies to more aggressively act on safety deficiencies when they are discovered. To achieve this goal, NRC should make licensees' responsiveness to identified problems a major feature of the information provided to the participants of the Senior Management Meetings, including how NRC will respond if problems go uncorrected. For example, NRC should describe the range of sanctions that it will impose on the licensees on the basis of the potential seriousness of their failure to resolve problems within a predetermined time. These sanctions should range from assessing fines to involuntary shutdown of the plant. |
NRC developed a nuclear power plant performance evaluation template and strengthened its corrective action evaluation criteria, and the agency is developing better performance trending indicators that could provide a more objective basis for judging whether a plant should be placed on or removed from the NRC Watch List. NRC says that these improved indicators and objective will prompt more effective enforcement actions. While these actions are useful, NRC rejected the recommendation that it should advise licensees what sanctions will be imposed if they do not correct their problems. NRC conducted pilots to improve its inspection, assessment, and enforcement processes and have developed new guidance.
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| Nuclear Regulatory Commission | To enhance licensees' accountability, the Commissioners of NRC should direct NRC staff to develop strategies to more aggressively act on safety deficiencies when they are discovered. To achieve this goal, NRC should require that the assessment of management's competency and performance be a mandatory component of NRC's inspection process. |
While NRC agrees that management competency is "instrumental" to a nuclear plant licensee's safety performance, it has rejected including the inclusion measurement of management as part of its inspection process. NRC reports that such an assessment would not result in a "comprehensive and direct assessment of licensee management performance."
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AccountabilityElectric utilitiesEnergy industryFines (penalties)InspectionNuclear powerplant safetyPerformance measuresQuality assuranceReporting requirementsSafety regulationSafety standards