| The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
is changing its regulations on the use of the agency’s electronic Licensing
Support Network and electronic hearing docket for the expected licensing hearing
on the potential disposal of high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada.
The primary purpose of these regulations is to establish standards for the
electronic submission of documents for the hearing. Among other things, the
changes to Part 2, Subpart J, of the Commission’s regulations in Title
10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, specify how large and complex documents
should be submitted.
The agency’s current regulations require all potential participants
in the license application hearing to make their relevant documents available
to other potential participants and the public in electronic form through
the Licensing Support Network individual web site, accessible through http://www.lsnnet.gov. The Network provides full text search and retrieval access to the relevant
documents of all parties and potential parties to the hearing, beginning in
the time period before the Department of Energy submits a license application
for the repository. The changes clarify that Licensing Support Network participants
must continue to augment their original information until discovery is completed,
but need not provide duplicates of documents provided by other participants,
and add a category of material (Congressional correspondence) that may be
excluded from the Network.
Under the current regulations, the Department of Energy must make its material
available no later than six months in advance of submitting its license application
to the NRC to receive and possess high-level radioactive waste at the Yucca
Mountain geologic operations area. The NRC must make its material available
no later than 30 days after the DOE certification of compliance with the submittal
requirement. Other potential parties must make their material available no
later than 90 days after the Department of Energy certification.
Further details of the changes to the regulations are contained in a Federal
Register notice to be published shortly. A proposed rule on this subject
was published for public comment on November 26, 2003. Changes made in response
to the comments received are described in the Federal Register notice.
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