NEI Asks NRC to Focus on Tier 1 Issues

NEI Asks NRC to Focus on Tier 1 Issues

by vbarq

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview.
NEI is urging the NRC to remain focused on the high-priority recommendations from the agency’s Fukushima task force before proceeding with implementation of the lower-priority items.
“Preliminary industry assessments indicate that the Tier 1 items, when completed, will achieve as much as 90 percent of the safety benefit from all recommendations,” NEI said in a comment letter last week. “At this time, the safety benefits derived from proceeding with implementation of the Tier 2 or Tier 3 recommendations are unclear.”

Last October the NRC staff grouped the task force’s recommendations into three tiers, with the first tier consisting of those recommendations to be begun “without unnecessary delay.” Tier 2 and 3 recommendations cover issues that require more assessment, depend on the resolution of Tier 1 issues, or depend on the availability of critical skill sets.
NEI’s letter follows a meeting last month at which NRC staff, while acknowledging that the Tier 1 recommendati