The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's process to evaluate licensee operational safety performance

The paper describes the United States Regulatory Commission (NRC)'s process to evaluate licensee operational safety performance. A brief discussion of the transition in safety philosophy between the past predominantly design-construction phase of US nuclear power to the now predominantly operating reactors is included. The unique character of the US nuclear power industry is described to illustrate its licensee performance evaluation challenge. With this introduction, the process of licensee operational safety performance evaluation at the NRC is discussed. The process consists of combining the past Systematic Assessment of Licensee Performance (SALP) programme, newly revised, with a dedicated performance evaluation headquarters group and a series of reviews and evaluations involving various levels of NRC senior managers. The intent of the process is to retain and improve the SALP programme, while strengthening the process by expanding the scope of the evaluation and progressively focusing the attention of NRC senior management on plants of concern. The goal of the process is to anticipate the plants of concern before they can become a threat to the public health and safety. (author)