Nuclear Regulation

In the United States today, 103 operating nuclear power plants supply electricity to about 65 million households, meeting about 20 percent of the nation's needs. Now, the entire electric utility industry is faced with an unprecedented development--the transition from a regulated to a competitive industry. This report provides information on (1) some of the challenges that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear power industry could experience in a competitive environment, (2) issues that NRC needs to resolve to implement a risk-informed regulatory approach, and (3) the status of NRC's efforts to apply a risk-informed regulatory approach to two of its oversight programs?plant safety assessments and enforcement. GAO found that as the electric utility industry is restructured, operating and maintenance costs will affect the competitiveness of nuclear power plants. In a competitive environment, NRC will need to ensure that safety is not compromised by utilities' cost-cutting measures and that decisions utilities make in response to economic considerations are not detrimental to public health and safety. Some issues will need to be resolved. NRC has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy that considers risk information in its safety regulation of nuclear plants. Also, some utilities do not have current and accurate design information for their nuclear power plants, which is needed for a risk-informed approach. In addition, neither NRC nor the nuclear utility industry has standards that define the quality or adequacy of the risk assessments that utilities use to identify and measure risks to public health and the environment. In January 1999, NRC released for comment a proposed risk-informed process to assess the overall safety of nuclear power plants.

GAO noted that: (1) Congress and the public need confidence in NRC's ability to ensure that the nuclear industry performs to the highest safety standards; (2) as the electric utility industry is restructured, operating and maintenance costs will affect the competitiveness of nuclear power plants; (3) competition challenges NRC to ensure that safety margins are not compromised by utilities' cost-cutting measures and that the decisions utilities make in response to economic considerations are not detrimental to public health and safety; (4) NRC has not developed a comprehensive strategy that could move its regulation of the safety of nuclear plants from its traditional approach to an approach that considers risk information; (5) in addition, NRC has not resolved certain basic issues; (6) some utilities do not have current and accurate design information for their nuclear power plants, which is needed for a risk-informed approach; (7) neither NRC nor the nuclear utility industry has standards that define the quality or adequacy of the risk assessments that utilities use to identify and measure risks to public health and the environment; (8) furthermore, NRC has not determined the willingness of utilities to adopt a risk-informed approach; (9) according to NRC staff, they are aware of these and other issues and have undertaken activities to resolve them; (10) in January 1999, NRC released for comment a proposed risk-informed process to assess the overall safety of nuclear power plants; (11) this process would establish industrywide and plant-specific safety thresholds and indicators to help NRC assess plant safety; (12) NRC expects to phase in the new process over the next 2 years and evaluate it by June 2001, at which time NRC plans to propose any adjustments or modifications needed; (13) in addition, NRC has been examining its enforcement program to make it consistent with, among other things, the proposed process for assessing plant safety; (14) the nuclear industry and public interest groups have criticized the enforcement program as subjective; and (15) in the spring of 1999, NRC staff expect to provide the Commission with recommendations for revising the enforcement program.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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