Use of Standard Review Plans and Interim Staff Guidance Memoranda in Reviewing Radioactive Material / Spent Reactor Fuel Applications

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has developed Standard Review Plans (SRPs) to guide the NRC staff in performing consistent regulatory reviews. The SRPs serve an additional benefit in that it provides industry insights into what the staff will be looking for in an application. From time to time, the staff in the NRC’s Spent Fuel Project Office (SFPO) have found it necessary to augment the SRPs with an interim staff guidance (ISG) memoranda to address emerging technical issues. This paper highlights the process by which an SRP is revised to incorporate ISGs for dry cask storage systems, spent fuel dry storage facilities, transportation packages for radioactive material and transportation packages for spent nuclear fuel. The SRPs and ISGs are intended to ensure the quality and uniformity of the staffs’ reviews, present a basis for the review scope, and identify the regulatory bases for the scope of the review. It should be note that the SRPs are not regulatory requirements. They may identify acceptable methods for meeting NRC’s requirements. Alternative methods can be proposed for meeting NRC’s requirements.