The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a government initiative promulgated in 2006, was in part a plan to close the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle by incorporating advanced burner reactors and industry-led domestic reprocessing. Recognizing the possibility that these facilities could be constructed in the future, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff began reviewing existing regulations to assess the efficiency of licensing and regulating such facilities. Although support for GNEP had waned by 2008, the industry began expressing interest in building commercial reprocessing facilities outside of the GNEP initiative. In response, the staff focused on reviewing gaps related solely to reprocessing facilities. The resulting gap analysis revealed 23 high-, moderate-, and low-priority gaps in existing regulations that could complicate licensing and regulation of reprocessing facilities. In 2011, NRC staff published its Draft Regulatory Basis for Licensing and Regulating Reprocessing Facilities, which provided preliminary recommendations to resolve 19 high- and moderate-priority gaps. Based on these recommendations, the staff proposed to develop a new reprocessing-specific regulation, 10 CFR Part 7X, that would provide a more efficient approach to licensing and regulating reprocessing facilities. The NRC Commission accepted this recommendation and directed staff to begin work on a high priority gap, Gap 5, to address safety and risk considerations for a reprocessing facility and to select a suitable risk assessment methodology for such facilities. Efforts to address Gap 5 were halted in 2016 due to budgetary constraints and higher priority regulatory actions. In this paper, following a brief review of the regulatory history of commercial reprocessing facilities in the U.S., a summary of NRC staff efforts to develop a reprocessing framework, with particular emphasis on the recommendations described in the Draft Regulatory Basis, is presented.