The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is amending its regulations regarding environmental protection regulations for domestic licensing and related regulatory functions to establish new requirements for the environmental review of applications to renew the operating licenses of nuclear power plants. The amendment defines those environmental impacts for which a generic analysis has been performed that will be adopted in plant-specific reviews for license renewal and those environmental impacts for which plant-specific analyses are to be performed. The amendment improves regulatory efficiency in environmental reviews for license renewal by drawing on the considerable experience of operating nuclear power reactors to generically assess many of the environmental impacts that are likely to be associated with license renewal. The amendment also eliminates consideration of the need for generating capacity and of utility economics from the environmental reviews because these matters are under the regulatory jurisdiction of the States and are not necessary for the NRC's understanding of the environmental consequences of a license renewal decision. The increased regulatory efficiency will result in lower costs to both the applicant in preparing a renewal application and to the NRC for reviewing plant-specific applications and better focus of review resources on significant case specific concerns. The results should be a more focused and therefore a more effective NEPA review for each license renewal. The amendment will also provide the NRC with the flexibility to address unreviewed impacts at the site-specific stage of review and allow full consideration of the environmental impacts of license renewal. The NRC is soliciting public comment on this rule for a period of 30 days. In developing any comment specific attention should be given to the treatment of low-level waste storage and disposal impacts, the cumulative radiological effects from the uranium fuel cycle, and the e