Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 96 Part 2.djvu/712

 96 STAT. 2074

PUBLIC LAW 97-415—JAN. 4, 1983

license shall take effect upon the promulgation by the Commission of the regulations required in such provisions. QUAUTY ASSURANCE Resident inspector program. 42 USC 5841 note.

Commercial nuclear powerplant construction, study.

"Independent inspector."

SEC. 13. (a) The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is authorized and directed to implement and accelerate the resident inspector program so as to assure the assignment of at least one resident inspector by the end of fiscal year 1982 at each site at which a commercial nuclear powerplant is under construction and construction is more than 15 percent complete. At each such site at which construction is not more than 15 percent complete, the Commission shall provide that such inspection personnel as the Commission deems appropriate shall be physically present at the site at such times following issuance of the construction permit as may be necessary in the judgment of the Commission. (b) The Commission shall conduct a study of existing and alternative programs for improving quality assurance and quality control in the construction of commercial nuclear powerplants. In conducting the study, the Commission shall obtain the comments of the public, licensees of nuclear powerplants, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, and organizations comprised of professionals having expertise in appropriate fields. The study shall include an analysis of the following: (1) providing a basis for quality assurance and quality control, inspection, and enforcement actions through the adoption of an approach which is more prescriptive them that currently in practice for defining principal architectural and engineering criteria for the construction of commercial nuclear powerplants; (2) conditioning the issuance of construction permits for commercial nuclear powerplants on a demonstration by the licensee that the licensee is capable of independently managing the effective performance of all quality assurance and quality control responsibilities for the powerplant; (3) evaluations, inspections, or audits of commercial nuclear powerplant construction by organizations comprised of professionals having expertise in appropriate fields which evaluations, inspections, or audits are more effective than those under current practice; (4) improvement of the Commission's organization, methods, and programs for quality assurance development, review, and inspection; and (5) conditioning the issuance of construction permits for commercial nuclear powerplemts on the permittee entering into contracts or other arrangements with an independent inspector to audit the quality assurance program to verify quality assurance performance. For purposes of paragraph (5), the term "independent inspector" means a person or other entity having no responsibility for the design or construction of the plant involved. The study shall also include an anedysis of quality assurance and quality control programs at representative sites at which such programs are operating satisfactorily and an assessment of the reasons therefor. (c) For purposes of— (1) determining the best means of assuring that commercial nuclear powerplants are constructed in accordance with the

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