[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 172 (Friday, September 4, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 53585-53586]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-22050]
[[Page 53585]]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2015-0063]
Reassessment of NRC's Dollar Per Person-Rem Conversion Factor
Policy
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Draft NUREG; request for comment.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for
public comment draft NUREG-1530, ``Reassessment of NRC's Dollar Per
Person-Rem Conversion Factor Policy, Revision 1.'' This proposed
revision to NUREG-1530 would revise the dollar per person-rem
conversion factor. The NRC uses the dollar per person-rem conversion
factor in cost-benefit analyses to determine the monetary valuation of
the consequences associated with radiological exposure and establishes
this factor by multiplying a value of a statistical life (VSL)
coefficient by a nominal risk coefficient.
DATES: Submit comments by November 3, 2015. Comments received after
this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the
Commission is able to ensure consideration only for comments received
on or before this date.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2015-0063. Address
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-415-
3463; email: [email protected]. For technical questions, contact
the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of
this document.
Mail comments to: Cindy K. Bladey, Office of
Administration, Mail Stop: OWFN-12-H08, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
For additional direction on obtaining information and submitting
comments, see ``Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments'' in the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Alysia Bone, Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-
0001; telephone: 301-415-1034, email: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments
A. Obtaining Information
Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2015-0063 when contacting the NRC
about the availability of information for this action. You may obtain
publicly-available information related to this action by any of the
following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2015-0063.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly-available documents online in the
ADAMS Public Documents collection at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the search, select ``ADAMS Public Documents'' and
then select ``Begin Web-based ADAMS Search.'' For problems with ADAMS,
please contact the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at
1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by email to [email protected]. The
draft NUREG-1530, Revision 1, ``Reassessment of NRC's Dollar per
Person-Rem Conversion Factor Policy'' is available in ADAMS under
Accession No. ML15237A211.
NRC's PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public
documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1-F21, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.
B. Submitting Comments
Please include Docket ID NRC-2015-0063 in the subject line of your
comment submission, in order to ensure that the NRC is able to make
your comment submission available to the public in this docket.
The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact
information that you do not want to be publicly disclosed in your
comment submission. The NRC posts all comment submissions at http://www.regulations.gov as well as entering the comment submissions into
ADAMS. The NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to remove
identifying or contact information.
If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons
for submission to the NRC, then you should inform those persons not to
include identifying or contact information that they do not want to be
publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should
state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to
remove such information before making the comment submissions available
to the public or entering the comment submissions into ADAMS.
II. Discussion
This proposed revision to NUREG-1530 would revise the dollar per
person-rem conversion factor. Revision 0 to NUREG-1530 was published in
December 1995 (ADAMS Accession No. ML063470485). The NRC uses the
dollar per person-rem conversion factor in cost-benefit analyses to
determine the monetary valuation of the consequences associated with
radiological exposure and establishes this factor by multiplying a VSL
factor by a nominal risk coefficient. Revision 0 to NUREG-1530 set the
dollar per person-rem value at $2,000. This number resulted from the
multiplication of the VSL ($3 million) by the risk coefficient for
stochastic health effects (7.0 x 10-4 per person-rem).
This proposed revision to NUREG-1530 would make five main changes.
First, the revision to NUREG-1530 would revise the dollar per person-
rem conversion factor to $5,100 per person-rem. The value is based on
an updated VSL of $9.0 million and a nominal risk coefficient factor of
5.7 x 10-4 per person-rem. The VSL estimate is derived from
the average of both the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) and
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's VSL in 2014 dollars. The
nominal risk coefficient value is from the International Commission on
Radiological Protection Publication No. 103.\1\
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\1\ ICRP, 2007. The 2007 Recommendations of the International
Commission on Radiological Protection. ICRP Publication 103. Ann.
ICRP 37 (2-4).
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Second, the NRC would also adopt low- and high-VSL estimates. The
NRC would adopt a low-VSL estimate of $5.3 million and a high-VSL
estimate of $13.2 million. These estimates are derived from the median
of low- and high-VSL estimates from DOT, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, and Office of Management and Budget. These values will create
low- and high-dollar per person-rem estimates of $3,000 and $7,500,
respectively.
Third, this revision would indicate that the staff will round to
two significant figures instead of simply rounding to the nearest
thousand dollar value. Historically, the NRC has rounded this number to
the nearest thousand dollars for the purposes of dollar per person-rem
estimates. Given the large uncertainties inherent in this approach,
updates would have little to no impact on this value between periodic
baseline reviews.
[[Page 53586]]
Fourth, this revision would also establish a methodology for
keeping the dollar per person-rem conversion factor up-to-date.
Appendix A of the NUREG has a worksheet template that provides a format
for calculating updated dollar per person-rem values. The NUREG also
would provide procedures for re-baselining the dollar per person-rem
conversion factor.
Finally, this revision would provide guidance to the NRC staff on
when to use a higher dollar per person-rem factor in accident
sequences. On a case-by-case basis, the NRC staff should use a Dose and
Dose Rate Effectiveness Factor for calculating dollar per person-rem
values to a portion of the affected population.
The NRC staff held a Category 3 public meeting on April 2, 2015, to
discuss the update to NUREG-1530. The NRC presentation can be found in
ADAMS under Accession No. ML15086A112, and the meeting summary can be
found in ADAMS under Accession No. ML15098A649. In response to this
meeting, the Nuclear Energy Institute submitted a letter to the NRC,
which provided feedback on the proposed update. This letter and the
associated attachement can be found at ADAMS Accession Nos. ML15126A489
and ML15126A498, respectively.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of August, 2015.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Lawrence E. Kokajko,
Director, Division of Policy and Rulemaking Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation.
[FR Doc. 2015-22050 Filed 9-3-15; 8:45 am]
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