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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 114 / Wednesday, June 16, 2021 / Rules and Regulations to provide a pointer, such as the budget string, since annual fees are a recovery of remaining costs associated with the particular business line budget reconciled to a fee class.
The fee rule and its supporting work papers are published so the public and licensees can understand how fees are determined for a fee class and a fee category. Consistent with the requirements of NEIMA, annual fees are calculated by business lines, product lines, and products based on the budget authority enacted for the current fiscal year. The NRC provides those business lines, product lines, and products in the fee rule work papers. The CBJ provides the agency explanation and justification for the resources being requested for the budget year, including increases and decreases, and the reason for changes in the budget request for the agency as compared to the prior year, at the business line and product line levels; it also includes the prior year actual amounts at the business line and product line levels.
Under NEIMA, the NRC must recover, to the maximum extent practicable, approximately 100 percent of its annual budget, less the budget authority for excluded activities. Under NEIMA, the NRC must use its IOAA authority first to collect 10 CFR part 170 service fees for NRC work that provides specific benefits to identifiable recipients, such as licensing activities, inspections, and special projects. In so doing, the NRC
establishes a professional hourly rate for its work. The 10 CFR part 170 direct work performed is included on the quarterly invoice, which includes the CAC/EPID combination, charges, and the names of the persons conducting the activities associated with the respective licensee fee class. With respect to 10 CFR part 170 service fees, the NRC staff time spent on licensing and inspection activities is subject to change, depending on the novelty and complexity of the application e.g., new licenses, renewals, amendments, special projects under review or the facility being inspected.
Because the NRCs fee recovery under the IOAA 10 CFR part 170 will not equal 100 percent of the agencys total budget authority for the fiscal year less the budget authority for excluded activities, the NRC also assesses annual fees under 10 CFR part 171 to recover the remaining amount necessary to comply with NEIMA. Thus, providing a pointer for annual fees such as the budget string, as suggested by the commenter, would be impractical.
At the same time, to increase transparency, the NRC first incorporated a reconciliation of the FY 2020 CBJ

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resources by business line to the associated fee class in the FY 2020 fee rule work papers so that stakeholders can trace the CBJ business line budgets to the resources recovered within each fee class budget by product line. The FY
2021 fee rule work papers include the reconciliation of the FY 2021 CBJ to the respective fee class. The NRC continues to strive to enhance transparency of how fees are determined.
No changes were made to the final rule as a result of this comment.
F. Public Participation in Budget Formulation Comment: Exelon supports the comments of the Nuclear Energy Institute on the FY 2021 Proposed Fee Rule. Given that there is no formal way for stakeholders to provide input into the formulation of the NRCs annual budget, Exelon encourages the NRC to consider these comments as part of its next budget and fee formulation process. Exelon respects the objective judgment that NRC exercises as an independent safety regulator. However, Exelon encourages the NRC to seek ways to improve its interactions with the regulated industry during budget development, within the limits required to maintain NRC independence.
Exelon Response: The NRC seeks information from licensees and other entities relevant to projected workload, through public meetings and other forms of public outreach, to better inform the NRCs budget formulation workload assumptions. This public outreach provides an opportunity for the regulated industry to provide information to inform the NRC budget.
However, as noted in the comment, the NRC is an independent regulator, and to preserve its independence the NRC does not involve non-government organizations and members of the public in budget formulation. In addition, OMB establishes the Executive Branch budget process through OMB
Circular No. A11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget. Section 22.1 of OMB Circular No. A11 requires that pre-decisional budget deliberations remain confidential until the release of the Presidents budget request and, in turn, the CBJ.
No changes were made to this final rule as a result of these comments.
G. Small Entity Comment: One commenter had comments regarding the NRCs small entity size standards and that the NRC
should consider establishing lower licensing fees by creating one or more
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additional ranges between the $520,000
and $7,000,000 gross annual receipts range. The commenter stated that a fee rate schedule with more steps for small businesses would help reduce the license fee burden on the smaller entities and help small business concerns. RE
Response: To reduce the significance of the annual fees on a substantial number of small entities, the NRC
established the maximum small entity fee in FY 1991. In FY 1992, the NRC
introduced a second lower tier to the small entity fee. Because the NRCs methodology for small entity size standards has been approved by the SBA, the NRC did not modify its current methodology for this rulemaking.
In FY 2020, the NRC conducted a survey of materials licensees to collect relevant data to help determine the need for changes to the NRCs small business size standards in 2.810. In addition, the NRC considered changes in the small business size standards published by the SBA.
On December 7, 2020, the staff submitted SECY200111, Rulemaking Plan to Amend the Receipts-Based NRC
Size Standards, to the Commission ADAMS Accession No. ML20268B327
with the staffs recommendations for amending the NRCs receipts-based size standards. While the NRC staff recommended making inflation-related increases and adjusting the methodology for consistency with SBA
regulations, the survey results did not suggest that the NRC should change its small entity size standards. In the SRM
for SECY200111 ADAMS Accession No. ML21029A186, the Commission approved the staffs recommendation to initiate a rulemaking to amend the NRCs small business size standards in 2.810 and to comply with the Runway Act and related SBA regulations and to reflect inflation adjustments, which will be part of a separate rulemaking activity.
Also, as part of that rulemaking activity, analogous to the proposed inflation adjustment in 2.810, the NRC will be proposing to increase the upper tier and lower tier receipts-based small entity size standards in 171.16c.
The NRC is currently in the process of developing the proposed rule for the small entity rulemaking activity. The NRC will continue to include updates on this rulemaking activity in the Federal Register notifications associated with the FY 2021 and FY 2022 fee rules to ensure that affected licensees are adequately informed. The public can track all NRC rulemaking activities, including the rulemaking on the NRCs size standards, on the NRCs Rulemaking Tracking and Reporting
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