ML18067A312
| ML18067A312 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/27/2018 |
| From: | NRC/Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel (LSNARP) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML18067A312 (198) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Rockville, Maryland Date: Tuesday, February 27, 2018 Work Order No.: NRC-3529 Pages 1-197 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 LICENSING SUPPORT NETWORK ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL 5 + + + + +
6 MEETING 7 + + + + +
8 TUESDAY 9 FEBRUARY 27, 2018 10 + + + + +
11 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 12 + + + + +
13 The Advisory Committee met at the Nuclear 14 Regulatory Commission, Three White Flint North, Room 15 01C3, 11601 Landsdown Street, Rockville, Maryland, at 16 10:03 a.m., Andy Bates, Chairman, and Chip Cameron, 17 Facilitator, presiding.
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
2 1 BOARD MEMBERS:
2 ANDY BATES, Chairman, LSNARP 3 JESSICA BIELECKI, NRC 4 LAURIE BORSKI, State of Nevada 5 ANNE COTTINGHAM, NEI*
6 DIANE CURRAN, Eureka County, Nevada 7 ROBERT HALSTEAD, State of Nevada 8 ABIGAIL JOHNSON, Eureka County, Nevada*
9 PHIL KLEVORICK, Clark County, Nevada*
10 L. DARRELL LACY, Nye County, Nevada*
11 SUSAN LYNCH, State of Nevada*
12 MARTIN MALSCH, State of Nevada 13 REX MASSEY, Churchill and Lander Counties, Nevada*
14 LEVI MCALLISTER, DOE 15 TIM MCCARTIN, NRC 16 ROD MCCULLUM, NEI 17 JOHN MCINTIRE, NEI 18 LOREEN PITCHFORD, Churchill and Lander Counties, 19 Nevada 20 THOMAS POINDEXTER, DOE 21 BRYAN PYLE, White Pine County, Nevada*
22 KAITLIN REKOLA, NEI 23 CARRIE SAFFORD, NRC 24 CONNIE SIMKINS, City of Caliente, Nevada, and 25 Lincoln County, Nevada*
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
3 1 BOARD MEMBERS (CONTINUED):
2 JUDY TREICHEL, Nevada Nuclear Waste Taskforce, Inc.
3 HEATHER WESTRA, Prairie Island Indian Community*
4 IAN ZABARTE, Native Community Action Council*
5 6 ALSO PRESENT:
7 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 8 PAUL BOLLWERK, NRC, ASLBP 9 RUSSELL CHAZELL, Office of the Secretary, NRC 10 K.G. GOLSHAN, Branch Chief, OCIO, NRC 11 MARGIE JANNEY, Acting Administrator, LSN, NRC 12 REKHA NAMBIAR, NRC 13 BRIAN NEWELL, Office of the Secretary, NRC 14 ANDY WELKIE, IT Specialist, NRC 15 THOMAS WELLOCK, NRC Historian, NRC 16 17 *Present remotely 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
4 1 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 2 Call to Order and Opening Remarks . . . . . . . . 5 3 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 4 Opportunity for Public Comment . . . . . . . . . 40 5 (None) 6 Status of the Yucca Mountain Adjudicatory . . . . 42 7 Process 8 History of the LSN and LSN Library . . . . . . . 54 9 Introduction of LSN Reconstitution/Replacement . 63 10 Options Paper 11 Status of EIE/EHD and Exhibit Submission Gap . . 71 12 Opportunity for Public Comment . . . . . . . . . 94 13 Option 1, Traditional Discovery . . . . . . . . 101 14 Option 2, NRC ADAMS LSN Library . . . . . . . 152 15 Adjourn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
5 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 10:39 a.m.
3 CHAIRMAN BATES: (presiding) Good 4 morning, everybody.
5 I'm Andy Bates, the LSNARP Chairman and 6 the designated federal employee for the meeting. I'm 7 with the NRC's Office of the Secretary.
8 I want to welcome all of the Committee 9 members and the public who are in attendance today, 10 both in person and virtually.
11 Before we get into introductions, let me 12 go through a couple of formalities. This is an open 13 public meeting of NRC's Licensing Support Network 14 Advisory Review Panel, and it's being held in 15 accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, 16 FACA for short.
17 It was announced in The Federal Register 18 on January 10th, 2018, and included the topics for the 19 discussion and a preliminary agenda. And updated 20 agenda was posted to the internet on February 23rd.
21 There are sign-in sheets at the back of 22 the room, and I ask that everybody please sign in.
23 For those members of the public in the 24 room, there's wifi available, and the wifi password is 25 posted on the wall. Please note that the connection NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
6 1 is going to timeout after four hours and you'll need 2 to reconnect.
3 The meeting is going to be transcribed, 4 and we expect the transcript to be available in about 5 a week. We also expect to post it on the internet and 6 send it to the members by March 9th.
7 This is the first meeting of this panel 8 since December of 2003, and it's the first time we 9 have used virtual meeting technology for the 10 Committee. Since this meeting is being held with both 11 attendees here in Rockville and virtually, I'll ask 12 that everybody make sure to identify yourself for the 13 record whenever you speak, so our transcriber can 14 produce an accurate record of the meeting.
15 For the LSNARP members who are 16 participating using GoToMeeting, please self-mute your 17 audio connection by clicking on your audio icon in the 18 GoToMeeting control panel. During the portions set 19 aside for member comments, we'll ask for comments from 20 members in the room first and, then, using GoToMeeting 21 and, then, any member not using GoToMeeting but using 22 the audio-only option.
23 If you would like to make a comment, 24 please turn your name tent on its end, so that we can 25 see it through your web camera. When we call on you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
7 1 for comment, please unmute your audio and wait a few 2 seconds before providing your comment or question, as 3 it takes a moment for the audio signal to unmute.
4 If you are not using a web camera, please 5 use the chat feature to send a message that you wish 6 to provide the comment or a question, and that message 7 will be forwarded to our meeting facilitator. When 8 sending and using the chat feature, please make sure 9 to choose "organizers only" when you send the message.
10 If there's technical difficulties, you can 11 all 888-395-2501. The listen-only code is 12 4-6-5-2-5-5-4. Members should refer to the email that 13 was sent out that contains the GoToMeeting link if you 14 have difficulties.
15 I would like now to go around the room and 16 ask each Committee member who's here to introduce 17 themselves and, then, we're going to go to those who 18 are connected by GoToMeeting, where I'll go through a 19 list of the participants that I have. And we expect 20 to try to follow that process during the day, where we 21 go to members here in the meeting and, then, go to 22 members who are online through GoToMeeting. And then, 23 subsequently, several locations during the course of 24 today and tomorrow, we'll ask if members of the public 25 have any comments that they want to make, and they can NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
8 1 participate by sending questions in through the 2 GoToWebinar or our audio connection, if they're 3 connected by telephone.
4 Let me go to first to Jessica.
5 MS. BIELECKI: Good morning. Jessica 6 Bielecki, NRC staff.
7 MS. CURRAN: I'm Diane Curran, 8 representing Eureka County.
9 MR. POINDEXTER: Tom Poindexter, Morgan 10 Lewis, counsel to DOE.
11 MS. TREICHEL: Judy Treichel from the 12 Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force.
13 MR. HALSTEAD: Bob Halstead, Nevada Agency 14 for Nuclear Projects, which is part of the Office of 15 Governor Brian Sandoval.
16 MR. McCULLUM: Rod McCullum, Nuclear 17 Energy Institute.
18 MR. GOLSHAN: K.G. Golshan, LSN staff.
19 MS. JANNEY: Margie Janney, Acting LSN 20 Administrator.
21 CHAIRMAN BATES: And online we have Ian 22 Zabarte. And I apologize if I mispronounced your 23 name.
24 MR. ZABARTE: Ian Zabarte, Native 25 Community Action Council.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
9 1 CHAIRMAN BATES: Okay. Thank you.
2 Is there anybody else that we've missed at 3 this point?
4 MR. LACY: Darrell Lacy, Nye County.
5 MR. PYLE: Bryan Pyle, White Pine County.
6 CHAIRMAN BATES: Abby, are you there?
7 Abby Johnson, are you on?
8 MS. JOHNSON: Abby Johnson, Eureka County.
9 CHAIRMAN BATES: Okay. Thank you.
10 I'm not sure at this point whether we have 11 members of the public here in the room. As I 12 indicated before, periodically, we will go and open up 13 the floor and the audio to members of the public. We 14 do have a microphone in the back here, if you would 15 use that when we ask for any comments that you may 16 have.
17 A couple of other logistical issues.
18 We're planning to break for lunch no later than about 19 one o'clock today. We'll take several 15-minute 20 breaks during the day.
21 There are restrooms back to the right in 22 the main lobby and, also, to the left around the 23 corner.
24 I'll turn now, introduce Chip Cameron, 25 who's going to help facilitate the discussion over the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
10 1 next three days, couple of days, two days, to provide 2 some introductory comments on the meeting process and 3 that we want to follow over the next two days in order 4 to facilitate a good discussion amongst all of the 5 members.
6 Chip?
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 8 you, Andy.
9 Andy W., is my lavalier on? Can everybody 10 hear me? Okay. Great.
11 Good morning to everybody here and online.
12 My name is Chip Cameron, and I'm going to be serving 13 as your facilitator for this two-day meeting of the 14 Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel.
15 We're going to try to keep acronyms down, 16 but one acronym you're going to hear a lot is LSN.
17 And the most important objective of these 18 two days of meeting is to hear the Advisory Review 19 Panel's ideas, both collectively and individually, on 20 the options for a reconstituted or replacement LSN.
21 The NRC ARP staff has done some research on possible 22 options for you to consider, and we'll be discussing 23 those during the next two days, as well as any other 24 options that you may want to suggest.
25 At this point, I should note that the NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
11 1 LSN staff is composed of representatives from the 2 Commission's Office of the Secretary, the Office of 3 the Chief Information Officer from the Atomic Safety 4 and Licensing Board Panel, and we have Margie Janney, 5 who is the Acting LSN Administrator.
6 And that term "NRC LSN staff" 7 distinguishes it from the NRC staff who's here at the 8 table, Jessica Bielecki, and Carrie Safford will also 9 be joining us. And we have members of the NRC 10 technical staff here. They are the staff who's 11 responsible for the licensing process for the high-12 level waste repository.
13 I would emphasize that all members of the 14 LSN Advisory Review Panel who are with us today and on 15 GoToMeeting, a webinar technology, that you're all 16 going to get a chance to participate and talk to one 17 another. Some of the members of the ARP may be more 18 familiar with the LSN or more interested in the LSN.
19 And I know we're going to be hearing a lot from them, 20 but we want to hear from all of the panel members.
21 We're in a virtual meeting setting, so 22 we're not going to be able to be as spontaneous as if 23 we were in a face-to-face meeting. So, we're going to 24 have to be a little bit more disciplined about how we 25 go through the discussion process, so that we can NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
12 1 avoid at least some chaos during the next few days.
2 But, before I go through the meeting 3 guidelines, the discussion guidelines, let me explain 4 the backdrop of all who are involved in this meeting.
5 We have the member organizations of the ARP, and each 6 of those organizations has a designated primary, and 7 in most cases a secondary, representative. One or 8 both representatives may be in attendance here in 9 person in Rockville or they may be one here, one on 10 the virtual technology GoToMeeting.
11 And I've asked each member organization to 12 designate a spokesperson to sort of act as a 13 gatekeeper for when the other members of their team 14 want to speak. I think the spokesperson will probably 15 be the main discussant, but I want to emphasize again 16 that everyone going to get a chance to talk, if they 17 have something to say.
18 Now each member organization can 19 participate in one of three ways, here physically at 20 the table in Rockville. The second way is those on 21 through GoToMeeting. And third, we have a dedicated 22 phone line for ARP members, and they can come in 23 through that phone line.
24 Members of the public can also participate 25 in the meeting, and we're looking forward to hearing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
13 1 any comments or questions that members of the public 2 have today. And they can be here in person. We'll 3 find out who is here in person and as a member of the 4 public. They can be on virtually through a technology 5 called GoToWebinar. And we'll see how many times I 6 can foul up and confuse the GoToMeeting and 7 GoToWebinar. But GoToMeeting, ARP members; 8 GoToWebinar, members of the public.
9 There is also a separate phone line for 10 members of the public to come in on. Okay? And 11 that's how they'll be coming in. Members of the 12 public who are on through GoToWebinar can also use 13 that technology to type a text into the NRC LSN staff, 14 and that will be relayed up here, so that we can hear 15 that comment or answer that particular question.
16 For comments, there's always going to be 17 comments that are out of sequence on the agenda.
18 Usually, we have a parking lot to put those items in, 19 and we come back and address them at the appropriate 20 time. We're going to use a corral. Okay? That's in 21 deference to all the people here from the West, from 22 the State of Nevada. At any rate, we'll do that.
23 Now discussion guidelines, we'll start 24 each segment with a brief NRC presentation, and the 25 staff is going to keep their presentations brief NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
14 1 because they want to hear from you. But it will sort 2 of set the stage for whatever agenda topic is there.
3 And just hold your questions until they finish that 4 presentation.
5 And then, we're going to follow this 6 process at each discussion point: we're going to go 7 to anyone who wants to talk from the ARP who's here at 8 the table. Then, we're going to go to the ARP members 9 that are on through GoToMeeting. Then, we'll see if 10 anybody is on the phone who wants to make a comment.
11 So, once we get those initial comments in, 12 then we're going to come back to the table and try to 13 have an interactive discussion, to hear what anybody 14 thinks about a comment that's been made previously, 15 either in the room, on the phone, through GoToMeeting.
16 As usual when we have these meetings, I'm 17 going to ask those of you who here in the room to 18 raise your name tent if you want to make a comment.
19 Okay? That will alert me to who wants to talk.
20 The members of the ARP who are on through 21 GoToMeeting also have name tents that they will raise 22 if they want to make a comment. Okay? And we have 23 great staff back here who is going to alert me to who 24 might have their name tent on up there.
25 Okay. Andy mentioned that we have a court NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
15 1 reporter. This is Sam Wojack who's with us. He is 2 eventually going to get to know who's in the room, but 3 we're asking everybody to state their name, so that he 4 knows who to properly attribute the comment to. And 5 that's going to be especially important for all of you 6 who are on through GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar.
7 When we get to the public comment portion 8 -- and I'll repeat this at that time -- we usually in 9 a face-to-face meeting have a member of the public 10 come up and make their comment and, then, we'll see 11 whether the NRC staff or members of the ARP have 12 anything to say about that comment. They may not.
13 But, in this case, we're going to hear from a member 14 of the public in the room, if they want to talk.
15 We're, then, going to go to those members of the 16 public who are on through GoToWebinar, those who are 17 on through the dedicated phone line for the public, 18 then come back to all of you for ARP members here and 19 through GoToMeeting to offer anything they want to say 20 about that public comment.
21 And I would just ask you to all have 22 patience and bear with us today in this virtual 23 meeting. There's a lot of moving parts involved, but 24 we want to make sure that we get to everyone and that 25 we can try to actually form some, what I call, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
16 1 discussion threads, have a dialog on everything.
2 And I'm almost done here. This seems like 3 it's going on a long time.
4 But I do have some instructions for those 5 people, the public, who are on through GoToWebinar.
6 So, if you're using GoToWebinar to participate in 7 today's meeting, you're going to see an orange arrow 8 that will open the GoToWebinar control panel. The 9 orange arrow is typically found in the upper righthand 10 portion of your screen after you connect to 11 GoToWebinar.
12 When this control panel is open, you have 13 two options to ask questions or make comments. The 14 first is to use the GoToWebinar "raise your hand" 15 feature. You can use that "raise your hand" feature 16 to orally ask questions or make comments throughout 17 the meeting. So, you can raise your hand. We'll 18 recognize you and we'll unmute your phone. Note that, 19 if you're on through GoToWebinar, your phones are 20 muted until you use the "raise your hand" function.
21 The other option with GoToWebinar is the 22 questions feature. You open the questions panel, type 23 in your question, and press Send. And so, those will 24 be relayed to us up here in the front of the room.
25 Finally, I just have a couple of notes on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
17 1 the agenda. In a few places after the NRC 2 presentation, we're going to start the discussion with 3 a brief presentation by the State of Nevada. And I 4 believe that the State of Nevada's PowerPoint slides 5 are in the back of the room, for anybody who needs 6 them.
7 And if you look at your agenda, there's a 8 10:45 slot that is "Comments on the Meeting Process 9 and Agenda". At that point when we open the 10 discussion for the ARP, we're going to open with Bob 11 Halstead. Then, we're going to get comments from 12 anybody else who's here physically, then comments from 13 ARP members who are on through GoToMeeting, the phone, 14 if we have anybody on the phone. Then, we're going to 15 come back for a discussion with all of you and the NRC 16 staff on what they heard from the NRC staff or our 17 meeting process, agenda, what Bob Halstead said, 18 whatever.
19 After the "Status of Yucca Mountain 20 Adjudicatory Process" -- that's 11:45 on your agenda 21 -- we're going to have a short presentation by Marty 22 Malsch from the State of Nevada's legal team. And 23 then, we're going to roll on through history of the 24 LSN, all the way up to lunch. And these are summary 25 presentations. This material will be addressed at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
18 1 various other points during the day. So, we're not 2 going to have a big discussion period, but we are 3 going to take clarifying questions then.
4 When we move to this afternoon, you'll 5 note there's an option 2 at 2:45, "NRC ADAMS LSN 6 Library". We're going to hear a presentation from 7 K.G. Golshan on that option, brief. And then, to open 8 up the discussion, we're going to go to Laurie Borski 9 from the State of Nevada's team, who has a number of 10 slides based on some research that she's done 11 searching the ADAMS LSN Library.
12 After that, there's a few points I think 13 that K.G. and his team will present. And then, we'll 14 go to discussion, follow the usual process, here in 15 the room, GoToMeeting.
16 And I think that's about it.
17 Andy, where do we go next?
18 CHAIRMAN BATES: Well, Chip, let's go 19 back. I think since we got started here initially, 20 we've had several other people from GoToMeeting join 21 us online. And I understand Rex Massey is on.
22 Rex, I see you on screen.
23 MR. MASSEY: Hi.
24 CHAIRMAN BATES: Have you unmuted your 25 audio?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
19 1 MR. MASSEY: I did.
2 CHAIRMAN BATES: Okay. Good morning.
3 I understand, also, that Connie Simkins 4 from Lincoln County is on. Is Connie there?
5 MS. SIMKINS: That's correct.
6 CHAIRMAN BATES: Thank you.
7 Also, as before, Ian Zabarte is online.
8 MR. ZABARTE: Hello.
9 CHAIRMAN BATES: Darrell Lacy from Nye 10 County.
11 MR. LACY: Yes, Darrell Lacy and Celeste 12 Sandoval are here together --
13 CHAIRMAN BATES: Okay.
14 MR. LACY: -- in a conference room.
15 CHAIRMAN BATES: All right. Thank you.
16 Heather Westra from the Prairie Island 17 Indian Community.
18 Heather, are you there?
19 (No response.)
20 Muted? Heather, you must be on mute.
21 (No response.)
22 Okay. Let me go on to Byron (sic) Pyle of 23 White Pine County.
24 MR. PYLE: I am here. It's Bryan.
25 CHAIRMAN BATES: Bryan? Okay.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
20 1 MR. PYLE: Yes.
2 CHAIRMAN BATES: Thank you.
3 MR. PYLE: Thank you.
4 CHAIRMAN BATES: And Abigail Johnson from 5 Eureka County?
6 MS. JOHNSON: I'm here.
7 CHAIRMAN BATES: Okay. Thank you.
8 The next item on the agenda this morning 9 is kind of an overview of the goals of what we would 10 like to accomplish in the next two days.
11 First, it's been about 15 years since this 12 Committee has met. So, we have some members who have 13 participated back in the late 1980s and during the 14 '90s. Others are new to the Committee. And 15 consequently, some of you are going to have to bear 16 with us as we go over material that you're familiar 17 with. We really kind of want to recap some of the 18 history of the Committee and bring everybody up to a 19 common level of understanding on really three main 20 topics.
21 First, the status of the LSN document 22 collection, that the NRC is now housed in a separate 23 library within the NRC ADAMS document system. Those 24 documents were provided to the NRC at the time the 25 hearing was suspended back in 2011.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
21 1 Secondly, we would like to go through the 2 capabilities and functionality of the current ADAMS 3 LSN Library, just to have an understanding of what the 4 current collection capabilities are in the library 5 collection.
6 And finally, go through a variety of 7 options that might be considered to reconstitute the 8 LSN system if the high-level waste proceedings are 9 going to be restarted.
10 We've structured the meeting to provide, 11 again, a series of short overviews on the topics.
12 We've built a lot of time into the agenda to provide 13 for a discussion and feedback. And we want all the 14 members to participate and provide their views and 15 offer up suggestions that can be constructive towards 16 moving forward, again, if the high-level waste 17 proceedings should be restarted.
18 At the end of the meeting tomorrow 19 afternoon, we really plan to ask for the views of the 20 members on whether they've got a preferred option 21 amongst those that we've presented. Negative comments 22 about various options, positive comments about 23 options, reservations, things that maybe needed to 24 make an option function better, all of that feedback 25 and, then, discussion will be valuable to us.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
22 1 As I indicated earlier, the meeting 2 transcript should be available in a week or so, and we 3 will post that online. We would like to get any 4 additional comments that people might have as a 5 followup, once you've thought about it and reviewed 6 the transcript, get that back in writing by March 7 23rd, which is about two weeks after the transcript 8 will be posted.
9 Following the meeting and any additional 10 input, the LSN staff, the Board, and SECY will be 11 providing basically a summary of the meeting and all 12 of the comments that we've received from the members 13 to the Licensing Board Chairman for recommendations 14 that eventually we assume will go to the Commission 15 for any action on a restart of proceeding.
16 With that, Chip, I'll pass the time to you 17 for, I guess, the next item we've got. Bob Halstead 18 from the State of Nevada has asked for a short 19 opportunity to make some comments.
20 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Let me just call your 21 attention to, at the end of today, there is an 22 orientation session on searching the ADAMS LSN 23 Library. We're lucky to have Rekha Nambiar who is 24 going to do that for us at the end of the day. It's 25 an optional session, but please attend if you want to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
23 1 see more about it.
2 We do have these green cards which, if you 3 have specific questions about searching the system, 4 you can use those to write your question down and give 5 to us. And so, Rekha will know that before she starts 6 the orientation. That might be helpful for her. But, 7 also, like anything else, we're going to have a live, 8 so to speak, session where people can ask questions 9 after Rekha goes through that. But I just want you to 10 know that.
11 As Andy just mentioned, we're going to go 12 to Bob Halstead to lead us off with the public or the 13 comment discussion, the ARP comment/question 14 discussion. So, we'll go to Bob.
15 I'm going to look around to see if anybody 16 else here at the table has their name tent up. We'll 17 go to you, and then, we're going to look for anybody 18 who's on through GoToMeeting, whether their name tent 19 is up. Then, the phone. And then, we're going to 20 come back for a discussion.
21 And after that discussion, we'll also see 22 if there's any member of the public who has some 23 comment or question. And then, we'll all go to lunch.
24 So, Bob, you can come up here or I can 25 give you this clicker. Which would you prefer?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
24 1 MR. HALSTEAD: What's best for 2 transmission? I think I'll come up and do this.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Good.
4 And, Andy, we have all of Bob's slides?
5 Okay.
6 MR. HALSTEAD: We are going to use the 7 slides.
8 MR. CAMERON: Yes, yes.
9 And there is that thing. Don't ask me how 10 to operate it. I have no clue.
11 MR. HALSTEAD: Well, good morning. Let me 12 begin by saying how much we appreciate the opportunity 13 to participate as members of this Advisory Review 14 Panel, how much we appreciate the rescheduling of the 15 meeting, this meeting, and how much we appreciate the 16 revising of the agenda. And I particularly want to 17 thank our Chairman, Dr. Bates, and our Facilitator, 18 Chip Cameron, but I also want to thank the NRC staff 19 contact people, Mr. Chizell and Mr. Newell.
20 And on our team, I want to especially 21 thank Laurie Borski, who you'll hear from later this 22 afternoon; Susan Lynch, our Technical Program 23 Administrator, who's participating from Carson City, 24 and, of course, always Marty Malsch for his guidance.
25 Next slide, please.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
25 1 The LSN and any LSN substitutes serve 2 truly important purposes. One is to allow the public 3 to stay informed about Yucca Mountain. But the 4 principal objective of the LSN and any LSN substitute 5 must be to provide an electronic discovery tool that 6 will serve the needs of the participants in the 7 licensing proceeding.
8 And this, of course, especially important 9 to the State of Nevada. We plan to defend over 200 10 contentions, probably under strict deadlines, and we 11 will be the party, we believe, that suffers the most 12 if the LSN or the LSN substitute performs poorly.
13 Next slide, please.
14 Here we talk about the determination of 15 the users' needs. Now the Advisory Review Panel was 16 established under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, 17 and as required by FACA, it operates under an NRC-18 approved charter. The charter says that the primary 19 focus is to be on technical issues relating to the 20 operation and maintenance of the LSN and the 21 continuing assessments as to how and whether the LSN 22 is performing its intended function and serving users' 23 needs.
24 The users' needs, and especially the needs 25 because we have a large and diverse group of 19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
26 1 participants, in our opinion, can only be determined 2 through active participation by all the members in the 3 Advisory Committee process and, we believe, in a 4 subsequent rulemaking. All 19 participants must be 5 involved, especially in the early stages when the 6 criteria for the architecture selection and 7 architecture options are put forward.
8 Next slide, please. Next slide, please.
9 Certainly, we all understand that these 10 are interesting times for the Yucca Mountain 11 Repository Project. There are many uncertainties and, 12 clearly, constrained circumstances. With the 13 proceeding having been suspended for over six years, 14 prospects for resumption unclear at best, no new 15 federal funding in the current fiscal year, it's 16 certainly not reasonable to expect the kind of 17 participant involvement at this time that we believe 18 is going to be required.
19 And the Commission has recognized that 20 participants' funding limitations must be taken into 21 account in deciding how to move forward. To move 22 forward with this Advisory Committee process, we 23 believe all of the members will need adequate 24 resources, so that they can participate effectively, 25 especially in formulating criteria for architecture NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
27 1 selection and, then, putting options forward for 2 further consideration. And let me say especially that 3 the State is concerned about the need for resources on 4 the part of the Nevada counties and Native American 5 organizations that are part of the process.
6 Next slide, please.
7 Our expectations for this meeting. First, 8 let me say that Nevada understands that our Chair, Dr.
9 Bates, and the representatives of the Atomic Safety 10 and Licensing Board Panel and all of the other NRC 11 staff are now, and will in the future, be constrained 12 by directives from the Commission. Nevertheless, 13 Nevada wishes to state for the record that, while we 14 are participating in this meeting, we will object to 15 any process whereby an inadequately funded Advisory 16 Review Panel would be asked to provide final advice 17 after only this one meeting. And we further suggest 18 that the proper deliverable from this meeting cannot 19 be final opinions and options to the Atomic Safety and 20 Licensing Board Panel. Instead, we suggest that the 21 deliverable, if there must be a deliverable, should be 22 a path forward for facilitating effective 23 participation in future meetings and obtaining the 24 Advisory Review Panel's advice that reflects all of 25 the users' needs. Now Nevada's view of this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
28 1 proceeding is, the overall licensing proceeding, we 2 expect a fair field and no favor, and the LSN as a 3 primary tool for making sure that the process is fair.
4 Now let me turn to some slides -- next 5 slide, please -- where we're offering Nevada's view of 6 user needs based on many person-decades of experience, 7 searching the documents in this docket. But let me, 8 again, say that these are Nevada's views. Other users 9 are going to have other needs. And so, they'll need 10 to be considered as well. But we thought it would be 11 useful for you to hear at the beginning what Nevada 12 would like to put on the table.
13 Now in this first slide -- and this is a 14 slide where, again, I want to acknowledge the work 15 that Laurie Borski did -- in this slide we address the 16 overarching system design issues. They're almost 17 common-sense rules.
18 That software has to be designed with the 19 end-users in mind. Not all the end-users are going to 20 use the database the same way or for the same purpose.
21 The designers need to be aware of these various end-22 user needs and functions at the beginning to reflect 23 them. And again, while this is a listing of desired 24 attributes based on our experience, it's Nevada's 25 experience only.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
29 1 Next slide, please.
2 In this slide we generally address issues 3 of access to the system and the documents. So, the 4 desired attributes are rapid speed for access, search, 5 filters, view, and download; centralized search 6 capability through a single-portal access to the 7 entire library; accessible to all viewers via the web; 8 accessible via a range of popular web browsers, and 9 not just Internet Explorer; equal access by agencies, 10 participants, and interested members of the public, 11 and a stable collection of documents and headers.
12 Next slide, please.
13 Now in this slide we address some document 14 entry and searching issues. And the desired 15 attributes are a transparent process for adding, 16 revising, and deleting documents, although we 17 recognize deleting documents is rare; new versions of 18 documents already in the database are added. They do 19 not replace existing versions of documents. And 20 importantly, documents with marginalia are treated as 21 new documents.
22 The search templates need to have logical 23 search properties, such as the date, the title, the 24 LSN number, the acquisition number, and the type. And 25 the content search of documents must include the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
30 1 entire document and not be limited by page or line 2 breaks. Search items need to be highlighted in the 3 search results list, and the search template needs to 4 be designed so that it disappears to reveal search 5 results and does not have to be hidden manually by the 6 user.
7 Next slide, please.
8 So, in this slide we address some document 9 viewing and handling issues. The desired attributes 10 are the ability to narrow and filter search results, 11 the ability to set the number of documents displayed 12 per page of the search page. The display headers and 13 bibliographic information with each document need to 14 be listed in the search results. The ability to 15 scroll through pages of search results rapidly or a 16 page jump is needed.
17 Very importantly, the ability to print the 18 search results needs to be addressed with a little 19 extra attention because many people are going to want 20 to do this. I realize we're trying to live in a world 21 of reduced paper requirements and electronic offices, 22 but we would like to see a system with one-click 23 printing and not a copy-and-paste workaround, which is 24 often the case.
25 We believe the system has got to allow the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
31 1 actual document to be viewed without being downloaded 2 first. And then, of course, most importantly, at the 3 end of this, the system has to provide for the easy 4 and rapid download of the documents, many of which are 5 quite voluminous.
6 Let me say, in closing, that there are 7 three overall things that we would like to say about 8 the meeting. First, we believe that the Advisory 9 Review Panel should be the prime mover in 10 reconstituting the Licensing Support Network.
11 Secondly, the Licensing Support Network must be 12 designed from the beginning to meet the needs of the 13 users. And thirdly, the Licensing Support Network 14 must support both traditional, face-to-face 15 interactions in discovery and at hearing, but it must 16 also be designed to support virtual access to the 17 hearings.
18 Thank you very much. I'm looking forward 19 to a very informative and helpful meeting for all of 20 us. Thank you.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Bob.
22 And we're going to go to discussion.
23 MR. HALSTEAD: Yes.
24 MR. CAMERON: And there may be specific 25 questions or comments for you at some point, which I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
32 1 believe you can just stay at your seat to address.
2 And the last two slides that you did on 3 some attributes or criteria about the LSN, I don't 4 think that it's the appropriate time to get in-depth 5 on those. The time to do that will be as go through 6 some of the options. But, be that as it may, if 7 members of the ARP want to comment on the general idea 8 that you put forth at this point, we should hear those 9 comments. I just don't want us to get too wrapped up 10 in specific LSN attribute issues at this point.
11 Judy Treichel?
12 MS. TREICHEL: Judy Treichel, Nevada 13 Nuclear Waste Task Force.
14 I think it's extremely important for NRC 15 to be aware that the LSNARP came into being a year 16 before there was a Google. And I remember sitting at 17 those tables when we were meeting back then; it never 18 occurred to any of us that we would actually own 19 personal computers, and certainly not that we would 20 have a personal computer that looked like this that we 21 could also use as a camera or phone, whatever.
22 But, in doing this, we all know now --
23 primarily I know because I have children and 24 grandchildren that are very well-versed in computers 25 -- but this is absolutely doable to put together a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
33 1 system that Bob was talking about or that people 2 expect, because they've all done internet searches.
3 The public is very aware of how to do this.
4 And it's really important for NRC to 5 understand that the public is skeptical, particularly 6 in Nevada. People are very skeptical. They're 7 worried. They're concerned that we're being dumped 8 on. And even if somebody is looking for something 9 that's not there, something that doesn't even exist, 10 if they can't find it, it's going to be NRC's fault; 11 NRC is going to be hiding something from them, even if 12 it's not there. Or, if anything is very difficult, it 13 comes back to you, and it becomes part of a pile of 14 complaints that people have about the NRC.
15 So, it really would be a good thing for 16 you, as well as for us out there in the public, to 17 have a system that's independent from you and that you 18 make sure works, that they have to be answerable to 19 you as well as to us. But it should not be just you.
20 So, thank you.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Judy.
22 Rod?
23 MR. McCULLUM: Yes, I want to thank both 24 the NRC and the State of Nevada for a lot of 25 thoughtful preparation into this meeting. We've got NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
34 1 multiple revisions of an option paper. The reason I 2 believe there's multiple reasons is that NRC has been 3 taking to heart the input that they've been receiving 4 from the various participants.
5 And I think it is appropriate that the 6 State of Nevada lead things off, as they are the most 7 significant intervener in this proceeding.
8 This proceeding is required by law to move 9 forward. NRC is under a court order to continue the 10 Yucca Mountain licensing process so long as it has 11 funding, and a certain amount of carryover funding has 12 been identified, which has made this meeting possible.
13 I think, as Bob said, the prospects for 14 additional fundings are uncertain. We all can easily 15 predict what Congress will do next in so many areas.
16 But, given that the amount of funding that is certain 17 is small, and given that there is a mandate for NRC to 18 move this process forward -- and certainly this 19 process does need to move forward; I think we do need 20 an answer to this question that's before the nation on 21 disposal of nuclear waste -- I think this activity of 22 the LSNARP is probably the most worthwhile thing you 23 can do with the limited amount of money that you have 24 now.
25 I kind of shuttered a little bit when it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
35 1 was mentioned that the last time this Committee met 2 was 15 years ago, because I was there. And now I 3 officially feel old on the record.
4 (Laughter.)
5 But these last 15 years have seen a 6 revolution in technology which to say it's 7 unprecedented is an understatement. And I think that 8 the member needs that Bob has outlined are certainly 9 very valid things, not things that we would disagree 10 with.
11 However, I would like to put forth a 12 little bit more sense of optimism, that I think this 13 Committee can do this. I think that one of the key 14 aspects of this information revolution that we've 15 experienced is that we have so much more capability 16 now. This should be easier, not harder.
17 And I think, as evidenced by the 18 participation you're getting in this meeting, that the 19 parties should not require an extensive amount of 20 resources to come to a decision on which option to 21 move forward with. Now, beyond that, whether NRC has 22 the resources to deploy that option, that's up to 23 Congress.
24 But I just want to start off by conveying 25 a sense of optimism that the body I see assembled in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
36 1 this room should be capable of choosing a path 2 forward. And then, we just have to wait for the 3 resources to see it implemented.
4 Thanks.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Rod. Thank you 6 very much on that.
7 And we're going to go to Diane Curran.
8 MS. CURRAN: Yes. Thank you, Chip.
9 MR. CAMERON: Yes, Diane.
10 MS. CURRAN: I just want to say a few 11 words for Eureka County. We very much endorse what 12 Bob Halstead said about the importance of making sure 13 that, whenever final decisions are made about this LSN 14 system and about the discovery system for the Yucca 15 Mountain proceeding, that all of the interested 16 parties be able to participate with sufficient 17 resources to do it. And we don't have that right now.
18 So, we are looking at this as a 19 preliminary discussion. I'm a lawyer. This seems to 20 me like an advance notice of proposed rulemaking where 21 ideas get discussed, but nothing is set in stone.
22 There are, obviously, a lot of complicated 23 issues having to do with the usability of this LSN 24 system. I noticed a couple of statements in the NRC's 25 materials that the LSN collection is up and usable.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
37 1 Well, there's a long, long list of problems with it, 2 and I think that is one of the issues that's going to 3 have to be discussed. And all the parties are going 4 to need to be able to put on the table what their 5 needs are and whether this system is set up in a way 6 that can meet them. This is an awful lot of 7 documents.
8 So, just wanted to emphasize that point 9 that I appreciate the opportunity to participate here, 10 but we are assuming -- and I think it's appropriate to 11 assume -- that this discussion is preliminary.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 14 you, Diane.
15 Let's go to the GoToMeeting people. Does 16 anybody have their card up out there, their tent, name 17 tent?
18 MR. ZABARTE: Can you hear me?
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We have Ian Zabarte 20 on the phone.
21 Hi, Ian. Why don't you go ahead?
22 MR. ZABARTE: Good morning. My name is 23 Ian Zabarte. I'm the Secretary for the Native 24 Community Action Council. We're the only unfunded 25 parties in the proceedings.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
38 1 We're here and open to develop and present 2 our issues that the United States cannot prove 3 ownership to Yucca Mountain because it's under treaty 4 with the Western Shoshone Government. And we feel 5 that there is a level of environmental racism involved 6 in these proceedings with the abject purpose of 7 saddling the Shoshone Nation with nuclear waste. And 8 we don't appreciate that. We think that funding needs 9 to be made available.
10 Our resistance here is 10,000 years. So, 11 if Nevada can prove somehow that their rights have an 12 interest of paramount to the Shoshone Nation, I'd like 13 to see that. But that's where we're coming from, and 14 our 10,000-year history, our 10,000-year language in 15 relation to this place is at risk, and Nevada can't 16 touched that. So, I take exception to whoever 17 suggests that these proceedings are about to help 18 Nevada. Nevada doesn't exist in his country and 19 that's what the law says, and those are things that 20 we're going to be contending.
21 Thank you.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for that, 23 Ian.
24 Anybody else with their name tent on?
25 (No response.)
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
39 1 Okay. Well, let's come back to the room 2 for a discussion, if there needs to be any, of what 3 was said. And I'm going to put Ian's point up here.
4 He used the term "environmental racism". And also, 5 that's certainly related to funding for Native 6 Americans to participate.
7 Anybody else? Anybody else around the 8 table who wants to say anything? We are in a general 9 point.
10 Bob?
11 MR. HALSTEAD: Yes, I want to reiterate 12 what I said before about the State's concern about the 13 resources that all the members of the Advisory Panel 14 are going to need to be involved in this process.
15 But, in particular, the Nevada counties and Native 16 American organizations, which there are two who are 17 admitted parties or interested governmental entities 18 in the licensing proceeding itself.
19 There is a larger issue. It isn't just a 20 matter of resources to participate in the Advisory 21 Panel's work. There is a larger issue of funding for 22 those parties to remain involved, even in simply 23 monitoring what is going on with the proposals to 24 restart the licensing proceeding. And that is an 25 issue that hangs over this meeting.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
40 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Bob.
2 Diane?
3 MS. CURRAN: I'm chiming in to ask for a 4 five-minute break at some point soon.
5 MR. CAMERON: What was that? I missed 6 that.
7 MS. CURRAN: A five-minute break at some 8 point.
9 MR. CAMERON: Oh, yes, we're going to take 10 a break. It will be longer than five minutes.
11 We have one more element of this opening 12 discussion which we'll do that, which is to see if we 13 have any members of the public who wanted to comment 14 on Andy Bates' overview, anything that was said at the 15 table or, for example, by Ian Zabarte.
16 So, let me see. Is there any member of 17 the public in the room who wants to say anything?
18 (No response.)
19 Okay. Well, let's go to GoToMeeting --
20 GoToWebinar. So, I did it one time. Okay. Keep 21 track.
22 (Laughter.)
23 (No response.)
24 Okay. GoToWebinar, do we have anybody 25 from the public on GoToWebinar? No hands raised?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
41 1 Tara, our operator, Tara, are you there?
2 OPERATOR: Yes, I am.
3 MR. CAMERON: Do we have anybody who's on 4 the phone from the public who wants to say anything at 5 this point?
6 OPERATOR: If you would like to ask a 7 question, please press *1 on your phone and restate 8 your name in order to introduce your question. If you 9 need to retire a question, please press *2. Again, to 10 ask a question, please press *1.
11 It will take a few moments for the 12 question to come through. Please stand by.
13 (Pause.)
14 We show no questions at this time.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks a lot, Tara.
16 We'll be back to you later on in the day.
17 And we have a break now, and the break was 18 originally scheduled from 11:30 to 11:45. So, we're 19 about a half-hour ahead of where we are on the agenda.
20 So, why don't we break from -- why don't you come back 21 at 10 after 11:00? That's a 20-minute break. And 22 then, we'll get started with the next part of the 23 program.
24 But thank you. Thank you all.
25 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
42 1 the record at 11:00 a.m. and went back on the record 2 at 11:21 a.m.)
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, everybody, we're going 4 to get started in about 30 seconds.
5 And I just have a few announcements. One 6 of them, the most important one, I think, is that 7 you've been introduced to all the people who are on 8 the phone through the GoToMeeting website, GoToMeeting 9 technology. We have Loreen Pitchford that we're going 10 to try to get her on, so she can introduce herself to 11 you. But Loreen has been involved working for various 12 counties in Nevada, advising on the LSN. So, she has 13 a lot of experience in this. When we do get her on, 14 we'll put her on. Okay? I just wanted to note that 15 she is on.
16 At the lunch break, we're going to be 17 showing in here and other places, I guess, online --
18 there's 11 training videos on the search process on 19 LSN ADAMS, and it's going to be a continuous loop.
20 After you watch that two or three times, if you still 21 want to see some more, you can go onto the YouTube 22 site at NRC and tune into those training videos. I 23 just wanted to call that to your attention.
24 We're going to start off now and finish up 25 with this in the morning. But we have a number of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
43 1 what I call summary topics. These are just to give 2 you some context; for example, the Yucca Mountain 3 adjudicatory process, and we're going to hear from 4 Margie Janney, the Acting LSN Administrator, who is 5 going to talk about history of the LSN.
6 So, we're not going to go for discussion 7 after each of those. We will have time for clarifying 8 questions at the end of all of those, with the 9 exception that after Judge Paul Bollwerk talks about 10 the status of the Yucca Mountain adjudicatory process, 11 we're going to have Marty Malsch from the State of 12 Nevada legal team come up and just give us a few 13 points on legal issues, some of which Judge Bollwerk 14 will be introducing in his presentation.
15 So, that's how we're going to spend the 16 morning. And it's time for the status of the Yucca 17 Mountain adjudicatory proceeding. We'll hear from 18 Judge Bollwerk and, then, we'll go to Marty. And 19 then, we'll continue down the list, come back for 20 clarifying questions at the end.
21 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you, 22 Chip.
23 Good morning, everyone. My name is Paul 24 Bollwerk, and I'm a legal administrative judge with 25 the agency's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
44 1 And as Chip mentioned, I will be giving a series of 2 background presentations by the LSN staff, intended to 3 provide a common understanding regarding a number of 4 the matters that the Advisory Review Panel members 5 will be discussing over the next several days.
6 And I'm going to take a real chance. Mr.
7 Halstead took the safer approach. I'm going to try 8 the clicker. We'll see who made the better choice.
9 I bet it's going to be you, but we'll see.
10 So, the adjudicatory process associated 11 with the Department of Energy, or DOE's, Yucca 12 Mountain high-level Radioactive waste repository 13 construction authorization application and the LSN are 14 closely linked, as the LSN exists as a tool to 15 facilitate participation in the adjudicatory process.
16 That being said, I'm not going to try to provide a 17 history of the LSN. Acting LSN Administrator Margie 18 Janney is going to be talking about the LSN's history 19 in a couple of minutes, although given the 20 relationship between the high-level waste repository 21 adjudication and the LSN, our presentations may touch 22 on some of the same items.
23 My presentation this morning has a 24 different purpose, which is to provide some background 25 information about the status of the adjudication NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
45 1 itself. And in doing so, I'm not going to review the 2 early stage of the adjudication, which began back in 3 October 2008 with The Federal Register publication of 4 a hearing opportunity notice and the subsequent filing 5 of intervention petitions regarding the DOE 6 construction authorization application for the Yucca 7 Mountain repository. Certainly many of you in this 8 room and participating online know that history well 9 because you were involved in the proceeding as it was 10 before the Commission or one or more Construction 11 Authorization Boards. Instead, I'm going to start at 12 the point some three years later when the adjudication 13 and the original LSN were no longer in an active 14 status and bring things up to the present, as that 15 portion of the proceeding's history is most relevant 16 to the LSNARP's efforts over the next several days.
17 Also, as an aid in following along, as 18 well as a reference tool for those who might want to 19 do some additional research into what I'm going to 20 discuss, a timeline will be displayed, which is also 21 part of the meeting presentation slides that are 22 available on the LSN Library website.
23 So, to begin, in early September 2011, in 24 CLI-11-7, the Commission directed that the then-25 presiding Construction Authorization Board, or CAB-04, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
46 1 should complete all activities before the Board by the 2 close of fiscal year 2011.
3 Thereafter, in late September 2011, CAB-04 4 in LBP-11-21 -- and these, again, are Commission or 5 Licensing Board decisions -- suspended the Yucca 6 Mountain adjudication. Also, consistent with this 7 Commission direction, the Licensing Support Network 8 was shut down and decommissioned at about the same 9 time.
10 Skipping ahead, in August 2013, in the 11 Aiken County case, the United States Court of Appeals 12 for the District of Columbia Circuit directed the 13 Commission to resume the Yucca Mountain licensing 14 process, and you've already heard that particular 15 court case referenced this morning as something the 16 Commission is seeking to comply with.
17 In response to the Court's direction, in 18 CLI-13-08, another Commission decision, the Commission 19 indicated its intent to, quote, "advance the licensing 20 process in a manner that is constructive and 21 consistent with the Court's decision and the resources 22 available". Close quote.
23 Knowing that the agency then had in hand 24 approximately $11 million in unobligated carryover 25 funding, appropriated from the Nuclear Waste Fund, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
47 1 Commission further indicated that it would, quote, 2 "take an incremental approach, since the agency cannot 3 engage in all licensing activities that we would 4 undertake if fully funded. For example, we cannot at 5 this time complete a formal hearing requiring 6 depositions of nearly 300 contentions." Close quote.
7 Accordingly, the Commission looked to the 8 schedule set forth in 10 Code of Federal Regulations, 9 or CFR, Part 2, Subpart J, and Appendix D, and 10 identified activities that represented, quote, "the 11 next logical steps in the process". Close quote.
12 To implement that approach, in CLI-13-08, 13 the Commission took the following steps:
14 Directed the NRC staff to complete its 15 Safety Evaluation Report, or SER, for the Yucca 16 Mountain facility.
17 Requested that DOE prepare a Supplemental 18 Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, to address the 19 potential construction authorization associated 20 impacts on groundwater and from surface discharges of 21 groundwater.
22 And third, as an aid to the NRC staff's 23 SER completion efforts, and to ensure appropriate 24 treatment in accordance with agency records 25 requirements, directed incorporation into an internal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
48 1 ADAMS database of the LSN documentary material that 2 had been residing with the Office of the Secretary 3 since the LSN was decommissioned in 2011.
4 Thereafter, an internal ADAMS database of 5 the LSN documentary material -- oops, I think I messed 6 up. I know I should have been careful.
7 Thereafter, an internal ADAMS database for 8 the LSN documentary material was established in April 9 of 2014, while the SER was completed in January of 10 2015, and after DOE declined to do so, the 11 Supplemental EIS was completed by the NRC staff in May 12 of 2016.
13 In February 2015, in the Staff 14 Requirements Memorandum, or SRM, for 15 SRM-COMSECY-14-0041, the Commission approved the 16 placement of the LSN documentary material into a 17 public ADAMS database, which is now referred to as the 18 LSN Library and which became operational in October of 19 2016.
20 In July of 2017, in the SRM for 21 COMSECY-17-001, the Commissioned authorized the Office 22 of the Secretary and the Atomic Safety and Licensing 23 Board Panel as a, quote, "next logical step," unquote, 24 in keeping with the Court's direction in the Aiken 25 County decision to proceed with organizing and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
49 1 conducting a virtual LSN Advisory Review Panel meeting 2 to provide options and input to the Commission 3 regarding reconstituting or replacing the LSN in the 4 event the high-level waste proceeding should be 5 restarted.
6 Two questions generally raised regarding 7 the potential restart of the adjudicatory process are:
8 first, what process will the Commission follow in 9 restarting the adjudication? And second, will that 10 process include rulemaking to address items such as 11 the provisions in 10 CFR Part 2, Subpart J, regarding 12 LSN functionality and operation?
13 We cannot offer an opinion on the 14 Commission's direction for the restart of the 15 adjudication. Lifting the suspension of the 16 adjudication, the issuance of any Commission decision 17 about the adjudicatory process and what guidance might 18 be given to the litigants are matters for a Commission 19 decision.
20 In CLI-13-08, however, the Commission 21 provided some insight into its possible approach 22 regarding each of these items by noting that, quote, 23 "Should we lift the suspension in the future, 24 participants will have the opportunity to resubmit 25 requests associated with the conduct of the proceeding NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
50 1 at that time. Among the questions we leave for 2 another day is whether to reconstitute the LSN, either 3 as it was originally implemented or in a different 4 incarnation." Close quote.
5 The Commission observed as well that, 6 quote, "Questions relating to how the LSN might be 7 configured in the future, the need for and scope of 8 any potential revisions to the LSN regulations in 9 Subpart J, and how those revisions might take place, 10 whether by a specific order or rulemaking, would be 11 decided at that time." Close quote.
12 What this suggests is that, first, if and 13 when the Commission decides that it's appropriate to 14 begin the process of restarting the Yucca Mountain 15 adjudicatory proceeding, it likely would invite 16 adjudication participants to comment on the matters 17 noted in CLI-13-08 and potentially other procedural 18 matters.
19 And second, whether a case-specific order 20 or rulemaking would be the appropriate vehicle for 21 implementing any aspect of that procedural approach 22 will be decided by the Commission as part of the 23 restart process.
24 And with that, I'll conclude my remarks 25 and step aside to allow Chip to introduce the next NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
51 1 presentation.
2 Thank you very much.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Paul.
4 We're going to have Marty Malsch come up 5 and just give us a few comments that are relative to 6 Paul's presentation. And then, we're going to go with 7 the rest of the agenda before we go for clarifying 8 questions, and if we have time, any discussion.
9 Marty?
10 MR. MALSCH: Hi. Thank you, Chip. I just 11 have four, maybe five, very brief remarks.
12 First, to point out that the LSN was 13 developed only after numerous Advisory Committee 14 meetings and consideration of options prepared by a 15 Special Technical Working Group that reported to the 16 LSNARP.
17 Also, both the LSN and its predecessor, 18 the LSS, were incorporated into Part 2, principally 19 Subpart J of Part 2, only after notice and comment 20 rulemaking. And we would stress here that we think 21 the same process should be followed here, assuming --
22 and I think most people are assuming this -- that the 23 old LSN cannot simply be revived.
24 And we wanted to stress that an 25 immediately effective change to Part 2, Subpart J, or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
52 1 some sort of exemption from Part 2, Subpart J, as 2 opposed to notice and comment rulemaking, would only 3 cause confusion, delay, and possibly prejudice. And, 4 in fact, if the Commission were to proceed to amend 5 Subpart J to accommodate a new electronic discovery 6 system, and to do so without prior notice and public 7 comment, actually it would raise a significant legal 8 question whether it's violated Section 189(a) of the 9 Atomic Energy Act, which we don't have to go into 10 detail here. Just to say that this would raise a 11 significant legal issue.
12 And in that regard, I just wanted to point 13 out that, while the Commission was very good, in 14 response to the Aiken County Mandamus, in asking the 15 views of the parties on how to restart and continue 16 with the Yucca Mountain licensing process, it's been 17 not so great in its decisionmaking processes since 18 then.
19 As just two "for examples," it approved 20 the idea of DOE of the staff, rather than DOE 21 completing the Supplemental Environmental Impact 22 Statement. That itself raises a significant legal 23 question, and the views of the parties were not 24 solicited in that respect. The Commission just did 25 it, and in doing so, did something extremely unusual.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
53 1 It actually reconsidered and amended a formal 2 adjudicatory decision by a SECY requirements memo, 3 which I don't think has ever been done in the agency's 4 history.
5 And then, they also decided to move 6 forward with at least one LSNARP meeting, again, 7 without consulting the parties.
8 So, we hope in the future the Commission 9 will be a little more, express a little more concern 10 and be a little more interested in hearing about the 11 views of the public.
12 So, with that, that's my remark.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 14 very much, Marty.
15 And I think there's at least one issue 16 that we might want to have some views and discussion 17 on, which is Marty's point on the need for notice and 18 comment rulemaking. So, I don't want to just rule out 19 discussion on that because this is basically summary 20 topics.
21 But thank you. Thank you, Paul. Thank 22 you. Thank you, Marty.
23 And when we get to the discussion, the 24 clarifying questions, can we get Loreen to introduce 25 herself, since she's on GoToMeeting? Okay, we'll do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
54 1 that then. She may have something to say on this.
2 We'll see that.
3 But, right now, we're going to go to the 4 history of the LSN and LSN Library. And we have 5 Margie Janney with us, who's the Acting LSN 6 Administrator.
7 Margie?
8 MS. JANNEY: Good morning. I am Margie 9 Janney, and I am the Acting LSN Administrator. I used 10 to work under Dan Graser, starting in 2000. So, I 11 have a lot of history here and I've met many of you in 12 the room.
13 10 CFR 2, Subpart J, defines the LSN 14 Administrator as "the person within the NRC 15 responsible for coordinating access to, and the 16 integrity of, data available on the Licensing Support 17 Network".
18 I'm going to talk for a few minutes on the 19 history of the LSN, so that we can all have a common 20 understanding of the original document collection.
21 Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 22 1982, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is responsible 23 for evaluating the Department of Energy's application 24 for authorization to construct a permanent geologic 25 repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and determining NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
55 1 whether to authorize construction of the proposed 2 repository.
3 The NRC's licensing process primarily 4 consists of a technical Review by the NRC staff of 5 DOE's construction authorization application and a 6 licensing adjudication before NRC Construction 7 Authorization Boards.
8 To support the NRC's adjudicatory 9 responsibilities, the Licensing Support Network was 10 established as the means of making discovery material 11 electronically available to the various participants 12 in the adjudication via a publicly available 13 distributed database network that was expected to be 14 available for both the initial construction 15 authorization and subsequent receive and possess 16 licensing proceedings. A distributed database means 17 that there are different servers across the nation, as 18 opposed to one server or server farm that contains all 19 the documents in a single location. In other words, 20 all of the documents that you could find via the LSN 21 existed in servers across the whole nation.
22 The development of the original LSN began 23 in 1997 when the NRC issued a proposed rule that was 24 intended to take advantage of technological 25 developments that had occurred since the original NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
56 1 Licensing Support System rule was adopted in 1989.
2 That proposed rule, 10 CFR 2, Subpart J, which was 3 adopted at the end of 1998, initiated a series of 4 meetings and discussions with the Licensing Support 5 Network Advisory Review Panel that culminated in the 6 April 2000 submission to the NRC Information 7 Technology Business Council of a business case 8 analysis that discussed several LSN implementation 9 options, including the distributed database 10 configuration that was ultimately implemented.
11 In October 2001, the original LSN became 12 operational and continued to operate through September 13 2011, when it was decommissioned. It has been more 14 than six years since the original LSN operated, and 15 since that time, there have been many technological 16 developments and changes in federal IT policy.
17 The development of the functional 18 requirements for the LSN culminated in a June 2001 LSN 19 baseline design requirements document. The LSN 20 guidelines were prepared under the direction of the 21 LSN Administrator to document the decision reached by 22 the LSNARP and the technical aspects of the July 2001 23 amendments to 10 CFR 2, Subpart J, that implemented 24 the original LSN technical solution.
25 In addition, they were written to help the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
57 1 participants develop their piece of the technical 2 solution, such as how to set up their LSN repository, 3 acceptable image file formats, and optical character 4 recognition, or OCR, accuracy requirements, so that 5 you could actually perform searches on the content, on 6 the words within the documents. They in no way 7 affected, superseded, or otherwise relieved a 8 participant from compliance with 10 CFR Part 2.
9 The LSN comprised 19 servers in a local 10 area network environment connected to the internet in 11 an offsite data center, and it was accessible by the 12 public at www.lsnnet.gov. The system was connected to 13 the internet through a firewall and was protected by 14 an intrusion detection device. Interconnectivity was 15 provided by multiple switches and hubs.
16 Additionally, each high-level waste 17 participant operated a website that hosted its 18 collection of LSN headers and documents. The headers 19 assisted with searching for documents in the LSN.
20 They're also called the metadata, an index, 21 bibliographic information. So, they contained the 22 title, the document date, the author name. You can 23 think of them like looking through the old-fashioned 24 library card catalog, how many different ways you can 25 find access to one single book.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
58 1 The server count and configuration listed 2 on this slide does not include the components that 3 were required for each participant site. So, the LSN 4 crawled or spidered the participant servers to create 5 an index, much like Google does. So, the LSN did not 6 actually contain the documents, but went out to the 7 individual participant servers and brought back the 8 information to an index that was contained in the LSN.
9 Each of the participant's servers had their own 10 information, the actual documents. The LSN just 11 contained the index.
12 So, using the LSN search and retrieval 13 capabilities, you would be able to locate, identify, 14 and retrieve documents on the server of the party, 15 potential party, or interested governmental 16 participant. So, just like Google doesn't actually 17 own any of those documents that your search results 18 point you to, Google sends you to that, the owner of 19 those documents.
20 Shutting down the LSN. The high-level 21 waste proceeding was suspended in September of 2011, 22 and as part of an orderly suspension and to preserve 23 the document discovery materials, the ASLBP 24 Construction Authorization Board issued an order on 25 April 11th, 2011, directing that all high-level waste NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
59 1 participants, LSN document collections, both the 2 headers and the documents, be submitted to the Office 3 of the Secretary in portable document format, or PDF.
4 That order also stated that the Office of the 5 Secretary would add those headers and documents to the 6 NRC's agencywide Documents Access and Management 7 System, more commonly known as ADAMS, and make them 8 available to the public.
9 The submissions of these headers and 10 documents to the Office of the Secretary triggered 11 federal records requirements that obligated the NRC to 12 declare the hearing participant headers and documents 13 as NRC official agency records, and to preserve them 14 in compliance with the National Archives and Records 15 Administration's requirements and other applicable 16 federal laws.
17 The high-level waste hearing participant 18 collections are now part of the ADAMS environment and 19 have a narrow approved disposition schedule. The 20 headers and documents are stored in an internal ADAMS 21 Library to meet federal records requirements, but they 22 are available on a public library for the use of the 23 United States public and foreign countries.
24 As Judge Bollwerk said a couple of minutes 25 ago, on August 13th, 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
60 1 for the District of Columbia Circuit directed the NRC 2 to resume the licensing process for the DOE high-level 3 waste repository construction authorization 4 application.
5 The Commission decisions and communication 6 that I've provided on this slide show the history of 7 why the participants' collections were placed into 8 ADAMS and made publicly available. As I mentioned on 9 the last slide, on November 18th, 2013, the Commission 10 directed staff to put the LSN document collections 11 into ADAMS, so that the staff could easily work on the 12 Safety Evaluation Report.
13 On January 24th, 2014, the Commission 14 directed agency staff to make the LSN document 15 collection publicly available. On February 3rd, 2015, 16 the Commission directed that, consistent with 17 10 CFR Part 2.1011, LSN document activities shall be 18 coordinated by the Office of the Secretary and the 19 Atomic Safety Licensing Board Panel. On December 1st, 20 2015, the Office of the Secretary and ASLBP informed 21 the Commission that the project to make the LSN header 22 and document collection publicly available in ADAMS 23 would begin in December 2015. On July 29th, 2016, the 24 Office of the Secretary and ASLBP informed the 25 Commission that the ADAMS LSN Library would become NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
61 1 publicly available on August 19th, 2016, and it did, 2 indeed, become publicly available on that date.
3 When the NRC was loading the 3.692 million 4 documents formally located through the LSN, we did a 5 quality assurance check. Each document originally 6 loaded to a participant server was required to have a 7 Participant Accession Number. When those documents 8 were indexed in the LSN, we also assign them, or they 9 LSN assigned them, an LSN Accession Number.
10 The ADAMS LSN Library contents were 11 verified using the final list of the LSN Accession 12 Numbers generated by the LSN Administrator before the 13 LSN was shut down against the corresponding lists of 14 Participant Accession Numbers that were received when 15 the participants were required to turn over copies of 16 their documents to the Office of the Secretary. The 17 LSN Administrator found 130 issues. The Office of the 18 Secretary and ASLBP, then, informed the Commission 19 about the issues and what the resolution of those 20 anomalies would be.
21 The LSN Library Anomaly Result Report was 22 originally documented in December 2016 and last 23 updated in March 2017. Sixty of the 130 documents 24 were NRC documents whose status had changed from 25 publicly available to non-publicly available because NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
62 1 of the sensitivity of the information contained in 2 those documents. The other 70 were participants' 3 documents. Those were documents that either we had on 4 the LSN Accession Number list and were never received 5 or the participants had on their list -- or else we 6 received documents, but we didn't have them on the LSN 7 Accession Number list. So, we did resolve all of 8 those issues of the 70 participant documents except 9 for one or two. So, the ADAMS LSN Library accurately 10 reflects the content that was on the LSN except for 11 one or two documents out of that 3.692 million.
12 I do want to point out that, when the 13 documents came to the NRC's Office of the Secretary, 14 no changes were made. So, every header and every 15 document was loaded in with any errors that may have 16 already existed. So, if there was an incorrect date 17 or a title misspelling, they still exist. The NRC did 18 not make any changes to those 3.692 documents.
19 In sum, since the LSN was shut down, the 20 NRC has acted to: preserve all LSN documents in 21 accordance with the National Archives and Records 22 Administration record requirements; resolve anomalies 23 in the documents and indexes submitted by the parties 24 to the proceedings, and made LSN records available and 25 searchable for NRC staff and for public use in a new NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
63 1 LSN Library database.
2 On a final note, the LSN was a public 3 discovery database. The ADAMS LSN Library is a public 4 library system that experiences more than 500 hits per 5 month.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 8 Margie, for that history. And there are some issues 9 there that I think we will probably be going into 10 later on this afternoon.
11 We are going to now have Margie do a 12 preview, a prelude to the options that are going to be 13 discussed this afternoon and the next day. And she is 14 going to give you a summary of that. Is that correct?
15 MS. JANNEY: That is correct. Thank you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
17 MS. JANNEY: So, once again, I'm Margie 18 Janney, and I'm the Acting LSN Administrator.
19 The purpose of this presentation is to 20 introduce the different options in the options paper 21 outlining the reconstitution/replacement options for 22 the Licensing Support Network. The latest version, 23 Version 4, was emailed this past -- oh, it's sitting 24 over there.
25 (Laughter.)
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
64 1 So, we just keep improving it. The 2 version before that had added Inyo County, 3 California's estimates. This one adds Nye County's 4 estimates.
5 So, the scope of the options paper is 6 limited to the technical discussion of the options to 7 reconstitute or replace the original LSN. Each option 8 discussed assumes, unless otherwise noted, that any IT 9 system developed to emulate or replace the original 10 LSN would meet the functional requirements found in 11 Appendix A of the options paper.
12 As a reminder, we will be polling the 13 LSNARP membership at the end of our two-day meeting as 14 to their opinion of the best option to reconstitute or 15 replace the LSN, should funding become available to 16 continue the high-level waste proceeding. If the 17 adjudication were to proceed, we would need to 18 evaluate the performance of any replacement or 19 reconstitution of the LSN.
20 There are a number of factors that will 21 influence a decision to either reconstitute or replace 22 the original LSN potentially with one of the options 23 outlined in the options paper. This list provides 24 factors that will need to be taken into consideration 25 when reviewing the various options.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
65 1 10 CFR 2, Subpart J, provided specific 2 rules governing the purpose and operation of a 3 discovery system for the high-level waste proceeding, 4 and these rules remain. All of the options provided 5 in the option paper will require modifications to, or 6 exemptions from, parts of 10 CFR 2, Subpart J.
7 An LSN Administrator within ASLBP would be 8 appointed to oversee the design, implementation, and 9 operation of a reconstituted or replacement LSN. The 10 hardware and software components that constituted the 11 NRC-operated portion of the original LSN are no longer 12 available nor supported. The original LSN guidelines 13 would be updated by the LSN Administrator in 14 coordination with the LSNARP to provide technical 15 guidance on the operation of a reconstituted or 16 replacement LSN.
17 A reconstituted LSN or a replacement 18 system will need to remain in operation through the 19 construction authorization licensing proceeding, the 20 interim period between the construction authorization 21 and the receive and possess licensing proceeding, 22 through the receive and possess licensing proceeding, 23 and through any judicial appellate proceedings 24 following the receive and possess licensing 25 proceeding. Remember, that's a long period of time.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
66 1 Think about your options.
2 The bibliographic information provided by 3 each participant in 2011 continues to be associated 4 with each header and document. The original LSN 5 Accession Number needs to be able to be used to find 6 the headers and documents that are right now within 7 the ADAMS public LSN Library.
8 Document sizing responses. Just as we did 9 with the LSN, we have to have sizing information.
10 Basic IT practice requires the knowledge of the 11 database.
12 On October 27th, 2017, I sent to the 13 parties to the proceeding that had 500 or more 14 documents in the original LSN, or who had sponsored 10 15 or more admitted contentions, a request to provide an 16 estimate as to the number of new documentary material 17 documents and header-only materials that each might 18 produce, should the proceeding resume. The 19 information was requested to assist ASLBP in 20 developing options for technical implementation 21 solutions for the possible reconstitution or 22 replacement of the LSN and an enhanced exhibit 23 submission process.
24 Inyo County, California provided a rough 25 estimate of approximately 50 documents with no header-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
67 1 only documents.
2 A header-only document typically is an 3 indication that there is no publicly available 4 document because it could represent a videotape or a 5 rock sample or a photograph, or else it could be a 6 privileged, confidential safeguards or other type of 7 limited-access documentary material that should not be 8 publicly available.
9 NEI provided a rough estimate of between 10 100 and 500 documents with no header-only entries.
11 The State of Nevada provided a rough 12 estimate of more than 1,000 documents. However, at 13 this time they could not provide an accurate estimate.
14 DOE provided a rough estimate of more than 15 1,000 documents with approximately 9 percent as 16 header-only documents. However, additional license 17 application work and the number of new contentions 18 will influence the amount of new material.
19 The NRC staff provided a rough estimate of 20 between 1,000 and 2,000 new documents with 21 approximately 1 percent as header-only. However, 22 significant uncertainties related to the resumption of 23 the adjudication may impact their rough estimate.
24 Nye County, Nevada provided a rough 25 estimate of between 200 and 300 documents with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
68 1 approximately 500 as header-only.
2 The two entities that did not provide a 3 formal written response to the inquiry were the 4 California Energy Commission and Clark County, Nevada.
5 So, the new documentary material estimates 6 total between 3,350 to perhaps 5,000 or more.
7 The general objective of the options paper 8 is it outlines possible IT system options for the 9 replacement of the original LSN, as well as discusses 10 the option of reconstituting the original LSN. Each 11 option includes a cost and time estimate, risks and 12 challenges, and pros and cons.
13 All cost and time estimates provided in 14 this options paper are estimated based on available 15 information and are intended to provide a consistent 16 comparison basis between the options. Depending on 17 the option selected, market research and a more 18 detailed independent government cost estimate may be 19 conducted as part of budget formulation or procurement 20 activities to develop a more precise cost.
21 A project plan, depending on the option 22 selected, may be developed to provide a more accurate 23 schedule.
24 The final implemented solution for the 25 selected option may vary from the description provided NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
69 1 in this paper, as the selected option will be subject 2 to design reviews and user acceptance testing.
3 The LSN Administrator may be coordinating 4 these activities in conjunction with the LSNARP.
5 So, as a high-level overview, Option is 6 traditional discovery. It uses existing public ADAMS 7 LSN Library to access previously submitted documentary 8 material, and new material will be exchanged amongst 9 the parties, as Judge Paul Bollwerk will be discussing 10 a little bit later.
11 Option 2 is the existing public ADAMS LSN 12 Library as a base. This option would build upon the 13 existing ADAMS LSN Library enhanced by additional 14 requirements. The library would be the base used to 15 access previously submitted and any new documentary 16 material. The document intake and document 17 modification processes would either use a modification 18 to the Electronic Information Exchange, or EIE, 19 system, or a semi-manual process, which will be 20 discussed later by K.G. Golshan.
21 Option 3 is a cloud-based system.
22 Previously submitted any new documentary material 23 would be moved from the existing ADAMS LSN Library to 24 a cloud-based system. The document intake and 25 document modification processes would be moved to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
70 1 cloud. And K.G. Golshan will also be presenting this 2 option.
3 Option 4 is the original LSN design as it 4 existed in 2011. And I will be discussing this 5 option.
6 Appendix A includes the original LSN 7 functional requirements that couldn't be met by one or 8 more of the options or would need to be modified based 9 on new technology. Appendix A does not include 10 original LSN functional requirements that are not IT-11 system-related or currently provided by other systems 12 or have been overtaken by events.
13 Appendix B describes the risk factors that 14 were considered for each option, and we came up with 15 a relative risk score.
16 Appendix C lists proposed new functional 17 requirements such as enhanced exhibit processing and 18 a feature that was lacking, which was the ability to 19 take documents directly out of the LSN and file them 20 as exhibits. The newly identified functional 21 requirements would permit that capability.
22 And Appendix D is an options summary 23 table.
24 Thank you.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
71 1 you, Margie.
2 I just want to put a finer point, before 3 we go to the next presentations on Electronic 4 Information Exchange and the Electronic Hearing 5 Docket, which gives you a whole context, I just want 6 to put a little finer point on a word that Margie 7 used. She indicated that we would be "polling,"
8 P-O-L-L-I-N-G, ARP members at the end of tomorrow.
9 And we are going to be asking you what your opinions 10 are on all of these options, but I didn't want anybody 11 to think that this was going to be some type of a vote 12 that might be given to the Commission that 5 of the 16 13 ARP members voted for the cloud, or something like 14 that. So, I just wanted to clarify that.
15 MS. JANNEY: Thank you, Chip.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
17 So now, e-filing in the Electronic Hearing 18 Docket, we are going to have Russ Chazell from the 19 Office of the Secretary talk to us about that. And 20 then, we're going to hear from Andy Welkie about 21 another thing.
22 Russ?
23 MR. CHAZELL: Good morning, everyone.
24 Thank you for attending today, either remotely or in 25 person, our meeting of the LSNARP.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
72 1 As Chip said, my name is Russell Chazell, 2 and I'm with the NRC Office of the Secretary.
3 With me, Brian Newell, if you could stand 4 up? With me today is Brian Newell. Brian's an 5 administrative and litigation assistant in the Office 6 of the Secretary. And he, along with two others, 7 handle most inquiries about the Electronic Information 8 Exchange and the Electronic Hearing Docket systems.
9 Many of you have spoken or emailed Brian while 10 planning to attend this meeting. Brian will handle 11 EIE/EHD logistics for high-level waste adjudicatory 12 proceeding, if it is restarted in the future.
13 Thanks, Brian.
14 Today I will provide an overview of the 15 Electronic Information Exchange, or EIE, and the 16 Electronic Hearing Docket, or EHD, systems. This 17 presentation is relevant to your discussions because 18 several of the options under consideration include the 19 EIE as the document intake system, and it's within the 20 mandate of the LSNARP because, if it is part of the 21 reconstituted LSN, it will be part of the LSN 22 infrastructure.
23 First, some background. I guess I should 24 do the slides, huh?
25 The NRC-mandated electronic filing for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
73 1 high-level waste proceeding in 10 CFR Subpart J, 2 Section 1013. Further, that section in Subparagraph 3 (a)(2) mandates that the Office of the Secretary, or 4 SECY, manage e-filing systems, again, known as EIE and 5 EHD.
6 EIE is used for filing adjudicatory 7 documents such as pleadings, motions, orders, 8 transcripts, and admitted exhibits. EHD is the ADAMS 9 Library where the documents are housed after they're 10 filed.
11 The NRC's EIE permits users to make 12 electronic submissions in a secure manner using 13 digital signature technology. Upon receipt of 14 transmission, EIE timestamps the documents and sends 15 the submitter an email notice confirming receipt of 16 the documents. The interface may look a little 17 different than what some of you may remember because 18 the NRC has made some changes in the last few years.
19 We use these systems for all of our adjudications, not 20 just the high-level waste system.
21 So, to access EIE, you go to the NRC home 22 page at www.nrc.gov to find the EIE. And then, you 23 click on "Adjudicatory Submissions" at the bottom of 24 the page right there.
25 As I said earlier, a digital certificate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
74 1 is required to submit documents to EIE. The 2 certificate serves to authenticate documents and 3 validate the identity of the person submitting the 4 information. Certificates are issued to appropriate 5 parties upon request to the Office of the Secretary.
6 The process to obtain a certificate is started at this 7 URL there. So, many of you may already have digital 8 certificates, but they may now be expired or would 9 need to be renewed before you could access EIE.
10 So, once you've arrived at "Adjudicatory 11 Submissions," you click on "Obtain a Digital 12 Certificate". Then, that will take you to a page 13 there called "External Credential Service," and you 14 click there. "Electronic Submittals - Adjudicatory".
15 I'm just going through this real quick, so you can get 16 a flavor for how the system works. Then, you click on 17 "Apply Now" right there. And then, that takes you to 18 a page called "Level 1 Credentialing". And as with 19 all government websites, there's a nice warning there 20 that you need to read. And after you've read the 21 warning, click to "Level 1," continue to "Level 1 -
22 Credentialing".
23 Then, there's a form to fill out. You 24 fill out the form and click "Continue". At this 25 point, the NRC IT team will review and approve the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
75 1 request, if appropriate, and email you a digital 2 certificate with instructions on how to upload it to 3 your machine.
4 There are some browsers and operating 5 systems that are more challenging to use than others.
6 If you're using one of those challenging browsers, the 7 NRC Help Desk can walk you through that process. I'll 8 provide the contact information and hours of operation 9 for the Help desk later in my presentation.
10 So, once your certificate is installed, 11 you can get to EIE from the "Adjudicatory Submissions" 12 page shown earlier. You, then, click "Submit 13 Adjudicatory Documents" right there.
14 When you arrive at the EIE front page, 15 you'll get another warning. Read the warning. Click 16 "Consent to Monitoring" and, then, click "Continue".
17 Then, you'll get a front page that tells 18 you what's going on with the system. Are there any 19 maintenance issues going on, or whatever? It's a 20 splash page that tells you the current status of the 21 system.
22 So, then, once you've read that, you click 23 on "New Submission". And then, you click on "Type of 24 Submission," which is in most cases a public 25 submission.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
76 1 Then, you select the proceeding from the 2 dropdown menu. There are a number of active 3 proceedings happening at any given time, and the 4 dropdown box will only show you the proceedings to 5 which you have access. If high-level waste is the 6 only proceeding you're involved in, you'll only see 7 that on your dropdown. Now you can see there "High-8 Level Waste". There's the docket number, CAB-04. So, 9 you click on that box, and it takes you to the page 10 for submitting the information.
11 So, you fill out the form. You upload 12 your documents. Right there, you type in the 13 submission title, and you can upload your documents 14 there. And this is a straightforward document upload 15 process like you do for lots of other kinds of 16 applications outside the NRC.
17 Once the document is filed, all parties 18 will receive an email notification acknowledging the 19 submission with a link to open the document. You'll 20 see the page scrolling through many names here. So, 21 you say "Add Another File," if you want to. And then, 22 you can scroll through all of these names, and you get 23 down to the bottom. You'll the page. The high-level 24 proceeding has a long service list, and I think we 25 abbreviated that. But the first iteration of this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
77 1 slide scrolled to like four pages because there were 2 that many people that are on the service list for 3 high-level waste. So, once you see that, you sign and 4 date and, then, click "Submit".
5 Please note that 10 CFR Part 2, Subpart J, 6 mandates specific attributes for filed documents.
7 These attributes include, for example, optical 8 character recognition and resolution requirements.
9 The NRC has an add-in to Adobe Acrobat called 10 Preflight that will flag attribute issues with the 11 document. Such issues need to be resolved before the 12 document is filed. And again, our Help Desk can help 13 you work through installing Preflight as an add-on to 14 your Adobe and that kind of thing.
15 So, once you've filed your document, 16 within one to three days after filing, the document is 17 added to the Electronic Hearing Docket specific to the 18 relevant procedure. The EHD is a database that houses 19 a visual representation of the docket for a particular 20 proceeding and a link to all the filings in that 21 proceeding. The EHD can be accessed at that URL 22 there, adams.nrc.gov/ehd. As you can see from the 23 URL, EHD is a subset of ADAMS.
24 Currently, high-level waste adjudicatory 25 documents, such as pleadings, motions, orders, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
78 1 transcripts, privileged logs, and admitted exhibits, 2 are housed in EDH. Documentary or discovery 3 materials, as defined by 10 CFR Part 2, Subpart J, are 4 housed in the ADAMS LSN Library. So, only the stuff 5 that's admitted to the proceeding is in EDH.
6 Everything else in the ADAMS LSN Library. These 7 discovery materials are used to develop adjudicatory 8 material and admitted exhibits.
9 So, to access the EHD, you go to the home 10 page again, nrc.gov. And then, you go to the "NRC 11 Library," and you can see "Electronic Hearing Docket" 12 down there at the bottom. You just click on that 13 link, and then, you'll get a page that says 14 "Adjudications". That was the same page we were at 15 before. "Electronic Hearing Docket" then comes up.
16 And then, you can click on "Access the Electronic 17 Hearing Docket". And once you're there, you see web-18 based ADAMS. So, anybody that's done a search of web-19 based public ADAMS has seen this interface before.
20 Once inside there, you can navigate to the 21 desired proceeding and its folders. Here we've 22 navigated to the high-level waste proceeding, CAB-04, 23 motions and pleadings.
24 On the right, you can see the packages and 25 files contained in that folder. Publicly available NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
79 1 documents are visible to, and can be opened by, anyone 2 accessing the folder. For non-public files such as 3 files subject to a protective order, everyone can see 4 the title of the documents, but only those on the 5 proceedings service list who have executed a non-6 disclosure agreement can open, view, download, or 7 print them.
8 So, detailed guidance for using these 9 applications and obtaining digital certificates is 10 available on the NRC public website. The NRC operates 11 a Help Desk to assist users with the applications and 12 digital certificates. Just call 866-672-7640, Monday 13 through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Eastern 14 time, and our Help Desk staff can work you through 15 those issues.
16 If you have further questions, I've got my 17 contact and Brian's contact information here on the 18 slide.
19 And thanks again for attending today.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Russell. Thank you 21 very much, and thanks for that offer for people to 22 talk to either you or Brian.
23 And we have one final presentation and, 24 then, we're going to go out to all of you. This is 25 Andy Welkie who's going to talk to us.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
80 1 MR. WELKIE: Good morning. As Chip 2 mentioned, my name is Andy Welkie. I'm an IT 3 Specialist with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 4 Panel.
5 And one of my roles with the panel is I am 6 the exhibit processor or the exhibit stamper. So, 7 during evidentiary hearings, I am the one who puts the 8 electronic stamp on all the official exhibits.
9 So, to give a little bit of background 10 information on exhibit submission, and again, I'm an 11 IT guy; I am not a lawyer; I'm not a paralegal. So, 12 if I screw up these next couple of bullets, please 13 forgive me.
14 So, exhibits are documents or objects that 15 are offered as evidence to support written or oral 16 testimony, just to set that basis. And so, these 17 little 10 CFR definitions or these section quotes I'm 18 probably going to screw up. So, 10 CFR Section 19 2.1001, under Definitions, describes the LSN, as 20 Margie also mentioned, "a combined system that makes 21 documentary material electronically available to 22 parties".
23 It also goes on and says that the 24 Electronic Docket, as Russ mentioned, is "the 25 information system that receives, distributes, stores, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
81 1 and retrieves the Commission's adjudicatory docket 2 materials; i.e., the EIE and the EHD systems".
3 10 CFR Section 2.1013 talks about the use 4 of the Electronic Docket during the proceeding, and 5 little (b) says that, "Absent good cause, all exhibits 6 that are tendered during the hearing must have been 7 made available to the parties in electronic form 8 before the commencement of that portion of the hearing 9 where the exhibit will be offered."
10 And then, 10 CFR Section 2.304, little 11 (g), talks about prefiled written testimony exhibits 12 and says that, "Written testimony of each individual 13 witness or witness panel and each individual exhibit 14 shall be submitted as an individual electronic file."
15 Simply, that rule is in there, I'm assuming, so that 16 we can stamp each document electronically individually 17 as opposed to "Exhibit 6 consists of 30 exhibits."
18 So, one of the things when developing the 19 paper -- and quite frankly, this gap I feel existed 20 back in 2011 and even before that -- is there is a gap 21 between getting a document that's in the LSN and 22 taking it directly into the Electronic Hearing Docket.
23 So, there's an assumption that a high percentage of 24 the evidentiary material or the exhibits that are 25 going to be submitted in this proceeding are already NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
82 1 in the LSN. Again, there was not process back then, 2 and, quite frankly, if we went through with the 3 existing functional requirements, there would be no 4 way in a new system that you could take a document 5 directly out of the LSN and submit to the Electronic 6 Hearing Docket.
7 So, if you submit a document through the 8 Electronic Hearing Docket, or through the Electronic 9 Information Exchange, when you submit that document, 10 the only thing you really enter, as Russ showed in his 11 slide deck is you have to put in the exhibit title.
12 So, all the information, the document's author, the 13 addressee affiliation, the author affiliation, all 14 that information would have to be re-entered, and 15 that's typically done by the NRC's Document Processing 16 staff.
17 So, for a document to get into ADAMS as 18 official agency records, there are certain 19 bibliographic information or properties that have to 20 be entered. So, all that information is already in 21 the header that's in the LSN. But, if you download it 22 and resubmit it through EIE, that information as to be 23 re-entered by somebody, and it would be the Document 24 Processing Center. There's also potential significant 25 participant labor effort to take those documents out NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
83 1 of the LSN, log into the Electronic Information 2 Exchange, and refile those documents.
3 So, I'll just run through the process of 4 how you would take a document out of the LSN and file 5 it as an exhibit if the proceeding had continued in 6 2011. You do your search in the LSN. You find your 7 document or documents. You, then, have to download 8 that document, and you would either have to decide to 9 use the entire document as your exhibit or take parts 10 of that document as an exhibit, because I believe 11 there is also a blurb in 10 CFA Part 2 that says you 12 should only submit the part of the document that you 13 really need to use and not the entire thing.
14 You would, then, have to place an exhibit 15 number on each document. You, then, have to log into 16 the EIE, fill out information about the exhibit, and 17 really that is just the title. Then, you would have 18 to submit that exhibit. And currently, there is a 19 100-megabyte aggregate file size limitation. So, if 20 you have a document that's 100 megabytes, you can file 21 it as a single document. If you have two documents 22 that are 50 MB in total size, you can file two 23 documents. But, if you get something that's bigger 24 than that 100-megabyte aggregate file size, you have 25 to either break that document apart or do multiple NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
84 1 submissions.
2 You, then, receive a confirmation, a 3 confirmation email, that it was submitted 4 successfully. And then, in current practice for our 5 existing proceedings, the Board typically asks the 6 parties to file an exhibit list. And so, you would 7 have to take the title of that document, add it to the 8 exhibit list, and include your exhibit number on that 9 list as well.
10 So, the red box is kind of the place where 11 we really see the gap. And again, a new system or a 12 reconstituted system, I think we could probably 13 address that gap.
14 So, this would be the potential gap 15 closure process. You would still have to find your 16 document in whatever reconstituted or replacement 17 system was put in place. But, then, the idea would be 18 that, as opposed to having to download that document, 19 an exhibit cart could be created. So, you could check 20 a box next to each document or you could have a little 21 button that says "Add This Document To My Cart".
22 So, then, for each document that gets 23 added to the cart, you would go in and have a checkbox 24 to say "Use the Full Document" or "Use Part of the 25 Document". And then, you would provide an exhibit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
85 1 number. So, you would type that in, because you're 2 still going to have to provide that. And then, you 3 would just submit the exhibit cart. And so, whatever 4 documents you added to the cart, it would, basically, 5 pull those documents out of the LSN, pull the header 6 information that's already in the LSN, and ship all 7 that information over to the Electronic Hearing 8 Docket.
9 And then, you receive confirmation that 10 the documents that were in your cart were submitted.
11 And then, you could, then, download that exhibit cart 12 list, as opposed to having to recreate yourself. So, 13 we could create a downloadable spreadsheet or -- I'm 14 looking at K.G. -- we could do something that would 15 basically let you not have to retype all that 16 information again.
17 And again, so that is the place that this 18 potential gap closure process could fill. There are 19 some limitations. So, it would only be available for 20 public documents that are contained in a reconstituted 21 or replacement LSN system, because header-only 22 documents, again, are either going to be non-public 23 documents, you know, a representation in the LSN as a 24 non-public document, or it's a physical exhibit. So, 25 obviously, you can't file a physical exhibit through NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
86 1 EIE. So, you would not be able to do that through 2 this enhanced exhibit processing system. And again, 3 any non-LSN documents, things like prefiled testimony 4 or other non-discovered material that's not in the LSN 5 would have to be filed through the normal process.
6 And there are some options that it is 7 applicable, and there are two that it is not 8 applicable to. So, it would be possible for option 2, 9 using the existing public ADAMS LSN Library. It would 10 be something that could be added to option 3, move to 11 the cloud; alternative 1 or alternative 2(a), or it 12 would be applicable to option 4, rebuilding the 13 original LSN.
14 For option 1, traditional discovery, as 15 it's currently in the options paper, it would not be 16 available, but you could make an enhancement, 17 theoretically, to the existing system to be able to 18 add that capability, although you would only be able 19 to transfer existing documents, not anything new.
20 And then, option 3, move to the cloud, 21 alternative 2(b), K.G. will talk about this, but in 22 that instance that option and that alternative, the 23 NRC really doesn't have the collection, nor does it 24 maintain the index. So, in the ones where it is 25 possible, as a possible capability, the NRC either NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
87 1 holds the document collection or it holds the index 2 into those collections.
3 That's all I have to say on exhibit 4 submission. And I will turn that back over to Chip 5 now.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Andy.
7 So, we're going to go for questions, see 8 if there are any comments. What I would like to do is 9 we're going to follow our usual process, but I would 10 like to change it up a little bit and go to the people 11 on GoToMeeting first. So, we're going to see if 12 anybody on GoToMeeting has their name tent up.
13 But I really want to introduce Loreen 14 Pitchford.
15 Some of you out there on GoToMeeting have 16 your cameras turned off and you can keep them turned 17 off if you want, but if you want to ask a question or 18 make a comment, you're going to have to send a chat 19 message into us because we won't be able to see your 20 name tent, obviously.
21 Can we get Loreen up there?
22 MS. PITCHFORD: Yes. Hi, Chip. I'm here.
23 MR. CAMERON: Hey, thanks, Loreen. Thank 24 you very much.
25 And Loreen helps a lot of the counties NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
88 1 out.
2 Do we have any chat messages or anybody 3 who has their name tent up out there on GoToMeeting?
4 Oh, good. Okay. We have Darrell Lacy 5 from Nye County.
6 Darrell, go ahead.
7 MR. LACY: I just wanted to say, as far as 8 from our perspective, the work we've looked at, the 9 LSN ADAMS process works well. The only real questions 10 we have are the new documents and how we get those 11 identified. If the NRC is comfortable with managing 12 that process, then that's so much better for the rest 13 of us. And we, of course, have to put up a new server 14 and manage it ourselves. It's time and funding and 15 money, but we would prefer not to do it if we don't 16 have to. So, we appreciate what the NRC is doing 17 here. We think you put together a very difficult 18 process, and the insertions that we've done are 19 actually much easier than what we used to be able to 20 do on the old LSN. So, thank you.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Darrell.
22 And I should point out that we're going to 23 have a discussion of these specific options and, also, 24 asking people what they like. So, I want people to 25 remember what Darrell said about option 2.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
89 1 And, Darrell, we'll come back to you 2 during option 2 and at the end of the day tomorrow to 3 hear anything more that you have to say on that. So, 4 thank you.
5 And Darrell gave his rationale for that, 6 too. So, we shouldn't forget that.
7 Anybody else have their name tent up or 8 have chat message out there on GoToMeeting?
9 Judge Bollwerk's reminding me in a way 10 that there were a number of presentations, including 11 Russ Chazell and Andy Welkie's presentation, which 12 were fairly detailed presentation. So, if you have 13 any questions about any of the presentations, 14 including those, out there in GoToMeeting land, please 15 ask them. I don't think we'll be able to get into a 16 detailed discussion on either Russ or Andy's 17 presentation, but if there are questions, let's get 18 them out there and we'll try to answer them.
19 Okay. I don't see anybody else on 20 GoToMeeting, but I think we should see if anybody's 21 calling in who is an ARP member.
22 And Brandon is our operator, but we don't 23 have any calls. Okay.
24 Let's go to the table here and go to Judy 25 Treichel.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
90 1 Judy?
2 MS. TREICHEL: I had a comment on one of 3 Margie's slides or during her presentation where she 4 mentioned that reconstituted or replacement LSN needs 5 to maintain an operation through the hearings and 6 receive and possess hearings. It's sort of my 7 thought, from, lo, these many years of following this, 8 that whatever winds up on the LSN is probably going to 9 be sort of like the owner's manual for this thing, if 10 there's a repository, because you've got confirmatory 11 testing that would go on for years and years and 12 years. And this is really the repository for 13 everything that's known or been studied about the 14 thing. And I think that whatever winds up being the 15 LSN is going to have to last on and on and on.
16 In addition, you also were talking about 17 the ADAMS LSN and the fact that there were 500 hits 18 per month, and that seems really small. I don't know 19 how many hits you could think that you were getting 20 per day, but, as far as making that a gauge for what 21 would happen during discovery or during a hearing, 22 that would be irrelevant. So, I just wanted to 23 mention that.
24 Thanks.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks. Thanks, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
91 1 Judy.
2 Margie, do you have anything that you want 3 to add?
4 MS. JANNEY: The point I was trying to 5 make about there are actually 500 people on there, 6 when we're not even having a proceeding yet. So, 7 there is still interest right now, and I can only 8 imagine it's going to be exponentially larger interest 9 in being able to access the LSN, however it exists, at 10 a time when the high-level waste proceeding may 11 continue.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 13 both.
14 Rod?
15 MR. McCULLUM: Yes. First of all, we want 16 to echo the sentiments of Nye County on the 17 simplicities of option 2, but I know we'll get to that 18 this afternoon.
19 What I really want to do is I want to hark 20 back to slide 39 in our package here in Margie 21 Janney's presentation. And you don't have to call it 22 up.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
24 MR. McCULLUM: I didn't have reading 25 glasses the last time this group met.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
92 1 (Laughter.)
2 The first bullet in Margie's slide is, 3 "Options will require modifications to, or exemptions 4 from, 10 CFR Part 2, Subpart J." This was something 5 she stated as an underlying assumption.
6 And without taking a position on whether 7 or not that assumption is correct -- and we're not 8 taking a position at that time -- I think that is a 9 very key assumption going forward, particularly in 10 light of Marty Malsch's presentation, as he pointed 11 out some potential concerns with what might or might 12 not be a rulemaking process. And I also want to be 13 respectful of what Bob mentioned, that all of the 14 participants, NEI included, have limited resources at 15 this time.
16 So, I guess my recommendation for this 17 afternoon and tomorrow, and for the immediate 18 deliberations of this panel, is let's focus on the 19 options and not on the question of whether or not it 20 requires rulemaking. If we could up with an option 21 that works, the best option, then, you know, it's 22 either going to be easy or hard to do what we have to 23 do in 10 CFR Part 2, Subpart J, space. And I think 24 the participants will have a lot to say with whether 25 it becomes easy or it becomes hard.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
93 1 But, given that this is right now a 2 limited-funded proceeding, I think the time of this 3 group would be spent -- let's focus on the options 4 and, then, let the rulemaking, potential rulemaking 5 implications follow on as something that gets 6 discussed when maybe there's more resources on the 7 table, if Congress has acted.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. The point is that 9 you're not expressing an opinion on whether rulemaking 10 or some other method should be used, but at this point 11 it's too premature --
12 MR. McCULLUM: I'm asking to set that 13 question aside. Yes, it's a premature question at 14 this point.
15 MR. CAMERON: Yes.
16 MR. McCULLUM: Let's just get the best 17 option. And once we get the best option, then there 18 will be an opportunity to figure out, because, you 19 know, this has to be done in accordance with the 20 Commission's rules and requirements and administrative 21 procedures, and all that. But let's put that aside 22 for this discussion and really focus on the options, 23 is what I'm saying.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Rod.
25 And, Bob?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
94 1 MR. HALSTEAD: Well, I have two other 2 comments, but I have to respond to Rod on this. We 3 don't think you can separate the issue of evaluating 4 the options and the requirement for rulemaking. And 5 I'll just leave that at that.
6 In response to two of the slides, there 7 were just a couple of comments I wanted to make. I 8 guess it was in Margie's presentation on the document 9 sizing responses. This is a big task for us in Nevada 10 to define our document sizing input into your 11 consideration. So, we weren't trying to be 12 uncooperative. We just really have an enormous 13 challenge in answering that question for you.
14 And then, it seems to me on Andy Welkie's 15 presentation, on slide 69, the exhibit submission gap, 16 that is potentially a very, very significant resource 17 issue, presumably, mostly a resource issue for the 18 Commission staff in carrying out that work. And I 19 appreciated the fact that that issue was highlighted.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Good. Good.
21 We'll come back if there's any further 22 comments, but now we're going to go to see if there's 23 any public comments.
24 Any member of the public in the room that 25 wants to come up to the microphone and say anything?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
95 1 (No response.)
2 Okay. Let's go to GoToWebinar. Do we 3 have anybody on GoToWebinar from the public who wants 4 to say something?
5 MR. KLEVORICK: Phil Klevorick, Clark 6 County.
7 MR. CAMERON: Oh. Hey, Phil, how you 8 doing?
9 Phil is a member of the ARP, for 10 everybody. I think everybody knows that.
11 But go ahead, Phil.
12 MR. KLEVORICK: Thank you. I apologize 13 for not having a web cam because I know you guys want 14 to see my beautiful face this morning.
15 (Laughter.)
16 I have a comment that goes back to, I 17 believe it was Marty who made a comment about Clark 18 County not supplying any information regarding our 19 projected number of documents going forward. And the 20 reason why I didn't submit any of that stuff is 21 because it's very difficult to estimate what our work 22 will be if we ever get reconstituted with funding.
23 Because, at the end of the day, I don't want to be 24 giving out any false expectations. I don't think it's 25 going to make a big difference, even a very little NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
96 1 difference, to the number of documents that, 2 obviously, were proposed of 3,000 to 5,000 documents.
3 I mean, we would certainly be less than 1 percent of 4 any of those documents. So, that's the reason why I 5 didn't feel it was necessary to update with a newer 6 version of any new documents that may be coming 7 forward.
8 And, of course, some of that would be 9 required for any new contentions that Clark County may 10 propose. But all of that is well in advance of where 11 we are currently because, certainly, we don't have any 12 ability to update any of our current contentions on 13 any research or studies. So, I just wanted to make 14 sure that everybody is aware that that's why I didn't 15 submit it.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thanks, 17 Phil.
18 And I guess I should ask the NRC staff, 19 with relation to that question, is that -- as I 20 understand it, the NRC staff wanted to get some 21 estimates of volume in terms of anticipating any 22 sizing of the system. But it's not like there's going 23 to be any legal implications of anyone not providing 24 an estimate or anybody's estimate being ultimately 25 incorrect. Is that true?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
97 1 MS. JANNEY: I would like to point out, 2 Chip, that it was the LSN staff who that question is 3 important to, as opposed to the NRC staff.
4 MR. CAMERON: Good.
5 MS. JANNEY: Yes, when one builds an IT 6 system, if you think your database is going to be a 7 thousand documents and you get a hundred thousand 8 documents, that's a different size system, and you 9 have to put more effort and more cost and more time 10 into it. So, we were trying to get a rough estimate, 11 and we did the exact same thing when we originally 12 build the LSN, so we would have approximate sizing 13 capabilities or requirements in order to know how many 14 servers we would need and just all the software that 15 would be involved, because it is a difference in cost 16 and time estimates. We're just trying to provide a 17 rough estimate.
18 And I appreciate the efforts and 19 understand the efforts, especially if there is no 20 funding available to provide a response. So, thank 21 you to everyone who at least read my email.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Margie.
23 And I should have said the NRC LSN staff, 24 because we have Jessica and Carrie here, and others, 25 from the NRC licensing staff.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
98 1 MR. KLEVORICK: Chip, if I may? It's Phil 2 Klevorick again.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Phil.
4 MR. KLEVORICK: Yes, I don't think my tens 5 of documents is going to make a big difference to 6 anybody's calculation and how robust the system is or 7 how accurate the system is going to be. So, I don't 8 think that that would have made much of a difference.
9 So, I just want to make sure that's on the record.
10 But there was one thing that was brought 11 up by, I believe it was Rod and maybe Bob a few 12 minutes ago. And I don't want it to be lost because 13 I'm not sure at what point this is going to be part of 14 the conversation. But, certainly, the timing of all 15 of this is going to materialize, and whether it's six 16 months or two years from now, some people are 17 significantly going to be disadvantaged by the timing 18 of any reconstructing of the process. And I want 19 people to appreciate who may not understand the 20 difficulties of AULGs or smaller operations, the 21 tribals, or whomever, to get their processes going 22 again. So, I just want to make sure that we're going 23 to have some kind of a discussion on that later on, if 24 we can.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Phil. I'm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
99 1 going to put that, I'll put that in the corral.
2 MR. KLEVORICK: Thank you.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. You're welcome.
4 And I should remind the public that are on 5 through GoToWebinar that, if you do want to say 6 something, use the "Raise Hand" feature of 7 GoToWebinar.
8 And I don't think we see any raised hands, 9 but I should ask, while we're waiting, Brandon, 10 Brandon, are you with us?
11 OPERATOR: Yes, I'm here.
12 MR. CAMERON: Is there anybody on the 13 phone lines from the public who wants to say anything 14 at this point?
15 OPERATOR: I'm currently showing no 16 questions at this time.
17 I would like to remind participants that, 18 if you would like to ask a question or leave a 19 comment, to please press *1.
20 (Pause.)
21 All right. Currently, showing no 22 questions or comments on the phone line.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Brandon.
24 And just one last check. Anybody, any of 25 the ARP members on GoToMeeting have anything to say at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
100 1 this point before we break for lunch?
2 (No response.)
3 Anybody raised hands on GoToWebinar?
4 (No response.)
5 I just want to keep practicing this.
6 (Laughter.)
7 But we managed to get back right on time, 8 even though we finished early.
9 So, 12:45, and we're going to go to two 10 o'clock. Okay? Two o'clock. We'll be back.
11 Don't forget that, if you want to watch 12 the video loops of training, they will be shown here 13 continuously.
14 So, thank you all.
15 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 16 the record for lunch at 12:43 p.m. and went back on 17 the record at 2:00 p.m.)
18 MR. CAMERON: Good afternoon, everybody, 19 and welcome back to the afternoon session of the first 20 day of the Licensing Support Advisory Review Panel.
21 And just to remind everybody, we have members of the 22 panel here at the table in Rockville, Maryland, we 23 have members of the panel joining us virtually through 24 GoToMeeting, and we also have members of the public 25 primarily on through GoToWebinar joining us virtually.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
101 1 And now we're going to start to explore 2 the first of four options that the NRC LSN staff put 3 together for Advisory Review Panel consideration.
4 Option 1 is traditional discovery, and we have Judge 5 Paul Bollwerk from the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing 6 Board Panel here to talk to us about traditional 7 discovery.
8 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Good afternoon, 9 everyone. Again, I'm Paul Bollwerk. I'm a legal 10 judge with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 11 Panel. And I have the unenviable task of trying to 12 keep everybody awake right after lunch, but I'll do 13 the best I can, especially when we're talking about a 14 discovery database or how to conduct discovery. We'll 15 move along and see how it goes.
16 So, basically, in restarting the Yucca 17 Mountain adjudication, a principal concern will be 18 ensuring that the participants have suitable access to 19 discovery material, both old and new. This option 20 explores the possibility, given the existence of the 21 LSN library and taking into account the estimated 22 volume of new documentary material that likely will 23 need to be exchanged among the participants, whether 24 it is necessary to create another LSN-like electronic 25 system to hold the entirety of the participants' NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
102 1 documentary material.
2 Under this option, to ensure that all 3 participant documentary material is appropriately made 4 available to other adjudication participants, a 5 combination of methods would be used. Specifically, 6 current and future investment in making the existing 7 LSN collection available to the adjudication 8 participants and the public via the LSN library would 9 be combined for the purpose of making new discovery 10 materials available with traditional methods for 11 document discovery already available under the 12 agency's rules of practice. Discovery regarding new 13 documentary materials would be implemented by whatever 14 directives might be put in place by the Commission or 15 a construction authorization board, presumably after 16 consultation with the participants.
17 Before getting into the details regarding 18 this option, so that everyone will have a common 19 understanding of what is being proposed, I'd like to 20 provide a brief background explanation of what's 21 involved in an NRC hearing practice in conducting 22 discovery with respect to document disclosure. Under 23 10 Code of Federal Regulations, Section 2.336 of the 24 agency's rules of practice, which is entitled "General 25 Discovery," initially, after the admission of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
103 1 contentions, and periodically thereafter, the parties 2 are required to provide a copy or a description by 3 category and location of all relevant documents and 4 data compilations. This generally is implemented by 5 filing document lists in the electronic hearing docket 6 that identify the documents with document distribution 7 governed by participant-established protocols.
8 In the case of the NRC staff, this 9 generally means a list of documents with the ADAMS 10 accession number for each document which allows the 11 other participants in the proceeding to access any of 12 the documents from the agency's website via ADAMS.
13 For the participants, distribution may involve sending 14 electronic copies by email or hard copies by snail 15 mail or providing physical access to a document 16 repository.
17 With respect to the assumptions that 18 underlie this particular option, first, hearing 19 participants will have a small volume of new 20 documentary material. In this assumption, there are 21 several terms that I'd like to discuss in further 22 detail. The first is discovery or documentary 23 material, which I'll use those words interchangeably.
24 Under Section 2.1001's definition of documentary 25 material, disclosures include: A) any material, party NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
104 1 or interested governmental participant intends to rely 2 on or cite in support of its position in the 3 proceeding; B) any information known to a party that 4 is relevant to but does not support that party's 5 position; and C) any study or report prepared by a 6 party or interested governmental participant that is 7 relevant to the license application and the issues set 8 forth in the topical guidelines in NRC Regulatory 9 Guide 3.69, which I should mention is still in effect.
10 And for those of you that may not be familiar with it, 11 NRC Reg Guide 3.69, it's basically a list of issues 12 relative to the high-level waste repository that were 13 put together a number of years ago so that parties 14 will know, essentially, what sorts of things could 15 come up and what sorts of documents they needed to be 16 concerned about putting into the LSN before the actual 17 contentions were filed in the case. This option, as 18 well as the others discussed today, assume that this 19 definition of what is relevant information will not 20 change.
21 The second term I'd like to talk a little 22 bit about is the term "hearing participants."
23 Consistent with Section 2.1001's definition of 24 documentary material, as it indicates whose material 25 is covered by that definition, for the purpose of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
105 1 inclusion in the LSN, there are three participant 2 types: potential parties, parties, and interested 3 governmental participants. Seemingly, two of the 4 three participant types identified in that definition 5 would be involved in the Yucca Mountain adjudicatory 6 discovery process going forward if it were to be 7 re-instituted: A) those admitted as parties to the 8 adjudication under 10 CFR Section 2.309, such as, for 9 instance, the Department of Energy, the NRC staff, the 10 State of Nevada, the Nuclear Energy Institute, and Nye 11 and Clark Counties in Nevada; and B) those admitted to 12 the adjudication as interested governmental 13 participants under Section 2.315(c), such as Eureka 14 and Lincoln Counties in Nevada.
15 Regarding the third participant type 16 designated in Section 2.1001, that is the potential 17 party, given the 2009 issuance of the first 18 pre-hearing order, as defined in Section 2.1021(d) of 19 Subpart J, there apparently are no more potential 20 parties as defined under Section 2.1001 who need to 21 provide documentary material to the LSN or, for the 22 purpose of the litigation, need to have access to such 23 material as a participant in the proceeding. I would 24 also note, however, that this does not necessarily 25 preclude the admission of new parties to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
106 1 adjudication, which would be governed by the agency's 2 rules of practice and any directives that might be 3 issued by the Commission or construction authorization 4 board regarding the admission of new parties.
5 The third term I'd like to look at for a 6 second is a question of small volume. Based on the 7 sizing information received from six of the eight 8 adjudication parties with the greatest number of 9 documents in the LSN or the most admitted contentions, 10 based on that information that we've been provided up 11 to this point, a high-end estimate of new documentary 12 material, as you saw from Margie Janney's slides, is 13 approximately 5,000 documents. To be conservative in 14 its estimate as DOE and the State of Nevada were, 15 these are not necessarily upper boundaries for their 16 potential document submissions. Thus, we could say, 17 being conservative ourselves, maybe we need to 18 estimate 10,000 or 15,000 documents, basically double 19 or triple the number of documents. I should note 20 that's not an unreasonable estimate. I should note, 21 however, that this would be the sizing range for 22 discovery material that has been identified and 23 exchanged in recent large agency licensing 24 proceedings, such as the Indian Point license renewal 25 or several of the COL, or combined operating NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
107 1 licensing, proceedings in which there was no 2 centralized database.
3 The second assumption is that material now 4 in the LSN library is slated to remain publicly 5 available for the foreseeable future. Operations and 6 maintenance costs for the library are included in 7 future agency budget plans, as the library is a 8 component of the larger ADAMS environment and contains 9 federal records. Moreover, to the degree that 10 upgrades or fixes to the LSN library are identified as 11 needed to ensure its usability as a discovery 12 litigation database, those enhancements could be made 13 with respect to this option, as well.
14 So let's put that altogether and then have 15 a general description of the options. So under this 16 option, how would adjudication participants access 17 documentary material? The existing 3.692 million 18 pre-adjudication suspension materials could be 19 obtained from the public LSN library. New material 20 generated after the 2011 adjudication suspension would 21 be obtained via the Part 2 discovery process as 22 implemented by the Commission, construction 23 authorization board directives presumably issued in 24 consultation with the parties. The distribution of 25 new materials could include electronic access to or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
108 1 physical or electronic transfer of materials on a 2 periodic basis, as reflected in periodic e-filing 3 submitted document listings that would be available to 4 the adjudication participants and the public, as is 5 the case in the existing discovery. Public access to 6 new materials would depend on the method of document 7 transfer used between particular participants, such as 8 the availability on disclosing participants with 9 public websites of EHD-listed material.
10 With respect to the cost and time estimate 11 for this particular option, as this option should not 12 require the agency to create or significantly modify 13 any existing IT system, it is deemed not to involve 14 any significant cost or implementation time beyond 15 what is required to put the discovery system in place 16 via a commission or construction authorization board 17 directive.
18 With respect to an implementation risk 19 score factor, by way of background, the implementation 20 risk score assigned to the different options were 21 calculated based on the impact and the likelihood of 22 occurrence of risks associated with a number of 23 different factors, including acquisition, technical 24 complexity, technical obsolescence, IT policy, 25 technical expertise, and standardization. The scoring NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
109 1 process is explained in more detail in the options 2 paper. With regard to Option 1, an implementation 3 risk factor score was not assigned because this option 4 should not require the agency to create or 5 significantly modify any existing IT system.
6 With respect to the pros and cons for this 7 option, the pros being the advantages and the cons 8 being the disadvantages, the major advantages are 9 potential for prompt implementation and no or low 10 cost. With respect to the disadvantages, possible 11 problems with public access to participant material, 12 particularly those not readily accessible from a 13 participant website. Participants would be 14 responsible for distribution of their documentary 15 materials to other proceeding participants in accord 16 with discovery rules and a Commission or CAB 17 directive, although the use of periodic lists 18 submitted via e-filing could alleviate this issue to 19 some degree. No centralized search and retrieval 20 mechanism for new documentary materials or integrated 21 search for existing and new materials. Another con is 22 the lack of a centralized document numbering system 23 for documentary material. And also no established 24 process for modification or deletion of existing 25 headers or documents currently in the LSN library.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
110 1 We've also prepared a rank summary for 2 each of the options. This chart reflects a summary of 3 the estimates for each of the options as compared to 4 the other options for cost, time, implementation, 5 risk, and the pros and cons to arrive at a raw score 6 ranking. None of the ranking factors have been 7 weighed, so they all are basically treated the same 8 way.
9 In this chart, in general, the lower 10 numbers are the least costly, can be implemented the 11 fastest, have the least risks associated with 12 implementing the solution, and have more pros and 13 cons. For Option 1, as you can see, it is ranked 14 highest for cost, time, and implementation risk but 15 highest for cons over pros, as those are described in 16 the previous slide.
17 I should make one other comment, as well.
18 We had discussion this morning about sizing.
19 Obviously, one of the main things that drives this 20 option is the size of the database that we're talking 21 about. As I mentioned before, if we're talking 10,000 22 to 15,000 documents, that's something we deal with in 23 discovery already. Again, this is new material. If 24 we're not talking about that size, then that becomes 25 more important.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
111 1 Having lived through having to resize the 2 LSN several times after the database had been 3 established and had to re-size it twice, actually, 4 because the Department of Energy found they had more 5 documents that needed to be put in, that is not 6 something we want to do if we can avoid it. So 7 notwithstanding the fact that I understand the 8 concerns you had about being able to provide us with 9 accurate information, given funding and other issues, 10 it is very important for this option and the others 11 that we're talking about today that we have accurate 12 sizing information to the degree we can get that. And 13 it really was an important factor in setting up the 14 original LSN.
15 And with that, I will turn to Chip.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 17 Paul. Okay. We're going to go to those of you in the 18 room for discussion of Option 1, your thoughts on 19 that, perhaps a rationale for why you like it or don't 20 like it. And then we'll go to your colleagues on 21 GoToMeeting.
22 So once again, anybody want to put their 23 name tent up to tackle this one? And let's go, we'll 24 go to Bob and then, Marty, we'll come over to you.
25 MR. HALSTEAD: Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
112 1 see that. Just a clarification on what Paul was 2 saying, that the way that the traditional discovery 3 has been presented is that there would continue to be 4 NRC maintenance of the public LSN system. So the 5 traditional discovery would be for the new documents.
6 Did I misunderstand that?
7 MR. CAMERON: No, that's correct.
8 Correct.
9 MR. HALSTEAD: Okay. I think that's an 10 important distinction in that I think there are a lot 11 of people who, frankly, are willing to say, well, my 12 goodness, you know, we're moving forward technically 13 why, you know, why would we even consider seriously 14 traditional discovery. I think, particularly if you 15 have a number of documents, I think, you know, Paul 16 has properly focused that. Thank you.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Bob. Marty, 18 do you want to say something? And if you do, put it 19 on the mike.
20 MR. MALSCH: I just wanted to clarify my 21 understanding would that using traditional discovery, 22 the documents that would be disclosable would be the 23 same as would be disclosable under an LSN or LSN 24 replacement. So, for example, there's a waiver of 25 privilege for circulated drafts. There would still be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
113 1 a waiver of that privilege under traditional 2 discovery. I mean, if you just took the reg and 3 applied it, that waiver wouldn't so clearly apply.
4 Also, I'm assuming that discovery 5 traditional would be available to participants that 6 were not parties. Again, that's true under Subpart J.
7 It's not usually true under traditional discovery as 8 such. So I'm assuming that, if there was traditional 9 discovery, it would be extended to participants who 10 are not parties.
11 MR. CAMERON: So what's you're suggesting 12 is that if this option was selected, there would have 13 to be some necessary realignment, so to speak, between 14 Subpart J and traditional discovery techniques to not 15 take away some of the advantages in Subpart J?
16 MR. MALSCH: That's correct.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, all right. Do you 18 want to add anything, Paul? You don't have to. I'm 19 just . . .
20 MR. BOLLWERK: Do you want us to wait 21 until the end?
22 MR. CAMERON: No, no -- yes, wait until 23 the end. That's good. That's good. Anybody else at 24 the table? Anybody else before we go out there?
25 Okay. GoToMeeting.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
114 1 MR. LACY: This is Darrell Lacy.
2 MR. CAMERON: Hi, Darrell.
3 MR. LACY: I don't think we're a big fan 4 of going back to traditional discovery. It's already 5 got the LSN information on there, so Option 2 is our 6 preference.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Basically, you're 8 saying what you said before about Option 2 and that 9 you're not a big fan of traditional discovery. Okay.
10 MR. LACY: We've been using electronic 11 discovery for years on this, and we think that's the 12 proper approach.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Darrell. And 14 before we come back to the table, let's see if there's 15 anybody else out there on GoToMeeting. Okay. And we 16 probably don't need to check the phones, correct?
17 Okay. So we're coming back to the table to bring up 18 any other issues you want to about Option 1, 19 traditional discovery but anything to address 20 Darrell's comment, Bob's original comment, what Marty 21 threw in for us. Let's go to Anne first.
22 MS. COTTINGHAM: Thanks, Chip. NEI just 23 wants to concur with the remarks of Nye County that we 24 do not think Option 1 is the way to go.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So you agree with Nye NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
115 1 County on that one?
2 MS. COTTINGHAM: Yes.
3 MR. CAMERON: All right. Thanks, Anne.
4 Bob?
5 MR. HALSTEAD: I want you to go to your 6 board with your marker and write that the existing 7 electronically-searchable LSN collection would be 8 retained, again, because I think that's an important 9 distinction to make. We're talking about 3.6 million 10 documents and the possibility that so far you've heard 11 that maybe 5, 10, 15, or 25,000 documents would be 12 added. So I think it's important that people not just 13 throw this out, that the traditional discovery 14 supplemented by continuation of the existing system, 15 I'd like to see you recognize that on the flow sheet.
16 MR. CAMERON: And this is sort of an 17 application?
18 MR. HALSTEAD: Yes. I don't think that 19 carries it for those of us who live, eat, sleep, and 20 breathe this. Yes, we know that, but there are many 21 people, I think, who don't understand what the current 22 system is. I think there are many people, you know, 23 in our case, we've spent a lot of time doing 24 electronic document searches. We probably have, I 25 would say just our team that's here today, I believe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
116 1 we have about five decade persons' worth of searches 2 just between Marty and Laurie and myself. And I think 3 people who haven't used either the previous system or 4 the existing system may not understand that, for all 5 the faults we've documented with it and that they're 6 certainly going to be discussed with the 7 publicly-available portion now, that there is an 8 interestingly strong base, I think, there.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Does Option 1 only 10 for new documents, plus LSN ADAMS for the existing 3 11 million plus; is that --
12 MR. HALSTEAD: Yes.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. Thanks, 14 Bob. Anybody -- Jessica?
15 MS. BIELECKI: Just a clarification 16 question or something to keep in mind. While the 3.69 17 million documents will be available through ADAMS, any 18 of the new documents will not be available, right, 19 Judge Bollwerk? You were saying those would not be 20 publicly available, so they would not be easily 21 searchable.
22 MR. CAMERON: Yes, you better --
23 MR. BOLLWERK: Right. So let me be a 24 little more specific about it when I talk. For 25 instance, when the staff now files its list in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
117 1 EHD, each document is listed with an ADAMS, ML 2 accession number, excuse me. So, in theory, someone 3 can go to the ADAMS system and look at that document 4 anytime they want to. They can download it, they can 5 do whatever they want with it.
6 One of the ways, obviously, that this 7 could be implemented would be for the other parties, 8 particularly the parties that are going to have major 9 document collections such as the Department of Energy 10 or the State of Nevada. If you were willing to post 11 those documents on your website and every month or 12 whenever the periodic lists were put together, list 13 your accession numbers on those lists, and that 14 document database was available, then, in theory, 15 everyone could go and look at them. The public would 16 still have access to them.
17 The question becomes, certainly for public 18 participation, other than anybody that hasn't listed 19 them that way, how do you get those documents and in 20 fear that they would not be publicly available, as, 21 frankly, most discovery material in a regular case is 22 not. Did I answer your question?
23 MR. HALSTEAD: Thank you for that 24 clarification. That helps me very much. Thank you.
25 MR. BOLLWERK: I think Marty made the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
118 1 point that, you were talking about interested 2 governmental participants. There's normally a 3 question, you're right, about their availability to 4 get discovery. I don't think this option envisions 5 any change in those definitions within the rules, no.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So there's sort of an 7 asterisk here is that new documents could be made 8 available, they will be made available in the NRC.
9 MR. BOLLWERK: Again, that's standard 10 practice with the way the NRC staff does it, and we 11 see different things from other parties. But, yes, 12 that's the standard way the NRC staff does it. And, 13 again, how the documents are distributed among the 14 different parties is a matter that generally is 15 negotiated by the parties as part of the initial 16 discovery process. They decide who can do what and 17 how the best way for them to exchange the documents 18 among themselves and work it out. And then, 19 generally, the licensing board will issue an order 20 that memorializes all that and everybody goes off and 21 does their thing.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay, good. Anybody on 23 GoToMeeting that wants to talk about Option 1? No one 24 has their tent card up? Okay. Well, let's see. I 25 have to ask any member of the public? Tommy may be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
119 1 the only one. Okay. No one in the room. Is anybody 2 on GoToWebinar from the public who wants to talk?
3 And, Brandon, are you still with us? Is Tara? Tara?
4 OPERATOR (TARA): Yes, I'm still here.
5 MR. CAMERON: Can you see if there's 6 anybody on the public phone that wants to say anything 7 to us?
8 OPERATOR (TARA): Of course. If you would 9 like to ask a question, please press *1 on your phone 10 and record your name clearly. One moment, please. I 11 show no questions at this time.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Tara.
13 Well, we're ready to move on to Option 2, and this 14 should be an interesting discussion. And we're going 15 to have K.G. Golshan do a presentation. And then what 16 we're going to do is Laurie Borski from the State of 17 Nevada team is going to share the results of her 18 considerable research on the existing LSN ADAMS 19 library.
20 And at that point, I think we're due for 21 a break. Before we go to the break, though, K.G. and 22 some of his colleagues, Tom Wellock who's here at the 23 table, they're just going to give a few slides in 24 terms of their impressions of Laurie's research. Then 25 we'll take a break, and then we'll come back and we'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
120 1 start our discussion. K.G.?
2 MR. GOLSHAN: Okay. I'm going to try to 3 use the clicker here. Good afternoon, ladies and 4 gentlemen. My name is K.G. Golshan from the Office of 5 Chief Information Officer. Thank you for this 6 opportunity, and I'm going to just take a few minutes 7 of your time for the Option 2 today and, hopefully, 8 Option 3 tomorrow.
9 We are responsible, our group is 10 responsible for implementing the final Commission 11 decision regarding the Licensing Support Network.
12 Now, before I start the discussion, I want to bring in 13 a couple of points into perspective. As my colleagues 14 have mentioned in earlier presentations, the current 15 LSN library, as a result of Commission order to make 16 3.6, close to 3.7 million documents that was used by 17 staff to prepare the SER and the EIS publicly 18 available. I don't think it was ever intended to be 19 the, at its current form, to be intended to be the 20 litigation database. That was not.
21 This platform, as Watson, IBM Watson, we 22 installed it out of the box, exactly out of the box 23 with, you know, the original configuration on a bare 24 minimum infrastructure due to budgetary constraints, 25 which everybody is aware of. So with that in mind, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
121 1 let us start the conversation.
2 This option, as I said, leverages the 3 current platform, the current investment of NRC, has 4 two alternatives as far as for intaking the new 5 documents and also requests for modifying the existing 6 collection. Before we proceed, two assumptions that 7 I want everybody to keep in mind is that, for the 8 first alternative which is leveraging the Electronic 9 Information Exchange as the mean for bringing new 10 submissions or the requests for modifications of the 11 collection, in order to justify that investment, we 12 are assuming that the average number or the total 13 number of header document actions per month will be 14 about a thousand for the duration of the proceeding.
15 So that is an assumption. Otherwise, really a cost 16 benefit analysis that whether we spent money for this 17 option, for this alternative, whether it would be 18 worthwhile. The other assumption is that the NRC 19 would be responsible for the federal record-keeping of 20 the existing documents and any new documents that are 21 submitted to NRC for, you know, to publish, to be 22 published to LSN.
23 So two alternatives, as I mentioned, this 24 option leverages the Watson technology that's already 25 in place. Watson is one of the leaders, I make that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
122 1 statement because we've done our research, is one of 2 the leaders in the market. Using Watson, parties can 3 perform simple or advanced searches on bibliographical 4 information and the content of the documents in the 5 public LSN library.
6 Two alternatives for adding, deleting, and 7 modifying documents and headers. The first 8 alternative uses the existing Electronic Information 9 Exchange, as Russ, my colleague, talked about. And 10 the second option is a manual submission. We say 11 semi-manual because the process of publishing and 12 capturing these for record-keeping and publishing it 13 to the public LSN, those processes will remain 14 automatic.
15 Neither of these alternatives require any 16 substantive changes, except, of course, meeting the 17 requirements, as Mr. Halstead mentioned about some of 18 the basic requirements that we have to revisit and 19 these functional enhancements that has to be made to 20 the current platform to bring it up to par and usable 21 for the participants. In both cases, logs of changes 22 will automatically be generated on a nightly basis and 23 it will be published in the public LSN library home 24 page.
25 The key difference between the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
123 1 alternatives. The alternative one leverages the EIE, 2 which you, by now, are aware of what it is, and it 3 provides three ways for users to submit new documents 4 or request to change or delete documents and header 5 information. One is that one at a time the 6 bibliographical information are typed into form and 7 you attach the PDF document, of course, if the PDF 8 document is publicly available. The second way is the 9 interface allows the upload of a list of multiple XML 10 files which represent the bibliographical information 11 and then the corresponding PDF documents which are 12 attached in the form of a list. And the third is 13 using a bulk load, which is a collection of the 14 documents and the bibliographical information are 15 loaded. And, of course, LSN accession numbers are 16 assigned as these documents are loaded. The same 17 three ways would be available for making changes or 18 requesting changes or deletion of the documents from 19 the existing collections.
20 EIE provides an advantage since it has 21 been used by the participants previously and it is a 22 stable and a reliable system, as well as it provides 23 the security controls and the secure transmission of 24 the documents which are managed through digital 25 certificates.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
124 1 Now, the second alternative for the 2 intake, removal, and modification utilizes this 3 semi-manual process. In this alternative, parties 4 would be required to make their submissions to an 5 authorized NRC individual on an electronic media, like 6 CD or a DVD. Now, as before, a daily log of all these 7 transactions are generated and posted to the LSN home 8 page.
9 This slide shows the time and the cost.
10 The cost and time all is incurred by NRC for 11 activities such as contracting action, design, 12 solution design and development, and implementation, 13 deployment, and testing, and, of course, functional 14 enhancement that may be required to this platform to 15 make it the litigation database.
16 Now, the gray boxes there, it basically 17 shows how the time and cost of these two alternatives 18 rank among other alternatives and options described in 19 the option paper. Option 2, alternative one, ranks 20 four for both cost and time; and Option 2, alternative 21 two, ranks three for both time and cost.
22 The risk factors, as Judge Bollwerk 23 mentioned, are calculated based on the impact and the 24 likelihood of occurrence of these risk factors shown 25 in the blue bar. And the ranges of these risks are 6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
125 1 to 54, and the 6 being the lowest risk and 54 2 presenting the highest risk solution. And the risk, 3 you know, the risk factors have been collectively 4 argued and decided, and this is what we have come up 5 with, 15 for both alternative one and alternative two.
6 Now, this slide shows pros and cons common 7 to both alternatives. The pros are it's a relatively 8 quicker implementation. It utilizes a centralized and 9 a single repository, leverages an investment that NRC 10 has already made, continues with the standardization 11 of the LSN accession numbering scheme, and the search 12 platform, it's a robust, it's a leading search 13 platform, and then automated audit capabilities is 14 also available. The cons is additional cost 15 associated with federal record-keeping, although NRC 16 will maintain the collections but additional steps are 17 required by the participants to make their additions 18 and deletions to their collections. And 19 modifications.
20 And the unique pros and cons to the 21 alternatives, for alternative one, since it's all 22 electronic and it's automated, it allows for a quick 23 processing of large volumes of the documents. The 24 cons for the alternative one is the aggregate size of 25 the submissions, both headers and the documents, could NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
126 1 not exceed 100 megabytes, although I have to bring to 2 everybody's attention that number is currently under 3 review and that number will be increased. I'm not in 4 a position to tell you what that number is at this 5 juncture, but that number will be increased. If I 6 have to guess, I'd say it will be at least twice as 7 much of this.
8 The alternative two semi-manual process, 9 there's no submission size restrictions there. And 10 then, of course, since it is partially manual, for 11 larger volumes of submissions there may be a 12 processing delay.
13 This slide, it's an overall ranking of 14 these two alternatives in relationship with the other 15 alternatives and options. So, you know, again, each 16 of the rankings are there for these two alternatives 17 in the green rows for cost, time, risk, pros and cons, 18 and the total.
19 So with that, I will defer to Chip to see 20 whether we could answer any questions and any 21 concerns. Thank you very much for your time.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, K.G. And we're 23 going to have Laurie Borski from the State of Nevada 24 legal team. You can come up here if you want, Laurie.
25 And she's going to go through the results of her NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
127 1 research on what's known as ADAMS LSN, and then we're 2 going to have Tom or K.G. will come up and just say a 3 few -- yes, yes, yes.
4 We're supposed to take a break at 3:30.
5 I don't know where we'll be at the end of that, but 6 what I don't want you to lose sight of is that 7 Laurie's research is focused on the existing LSN 8 ADAMS. I don't want you all -- and we'll discuss that 9 as much as we want, but I don't want you to lose site 10 of the two so-called leveraging alternatives that are 11 associated with Option 2. Certainly existing LSN 12 ADAMS is the foundation and important. But when we go 13 to discussion, if you want to talk about the 14 leveraging alternatives, let's do that, too. Laurie?
15 MS. BORSKI: Thank you. Good afternoon.
16 My name is Laurie Borski. I'm a paralegal. I work 17 with Egan Fitzpatrick Malsch & Lawrence, and they are 18 special deputy attorney generals for the State of 19 Nevada, hence my involvement and work for the State of 20 Nevada.
21 Just by way of background, generally, I 22 have over 30 years, it doesn't seem possible, 23 litigation and trial experience as a paralegal. And 24 I have used many litigation support systems, some 25 early on in their stages and some later on. I have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
128 1 been responsible for large databases of documents, 2 whether they be in paper form, even foreign language 3 forms, and the digital. So I've gone from Bates 4 numbering by hand-stamping to using early versions of 5 Compulit and Summation and Concordance, which 6 basically searched by an index that was prepared by 7 the user. So they were very much garbage-in 8 garbage-out type of deals. And then my favorite was 9 Liquid Litigation Management, which was a database 10 that PDF documents in OCR format, and you could search 11 for any word in any documents. So it didn't matter 12 that you had the equivalent of 100 boxes of documents.
13 You could find anything very fast.
14 So I was asked to analyze the public ADAMS 15 LSN library, which I'll call ADAMS LSN just for short.
16 That's the knowledge base I brought into it.
17 So my concerns have been, as experienced, 18 and I know that this is something that changes a lot, 19 but some problems have been resolved, for example, but 20 too many significant error messages were being 21 received by me for a database that was so advanced in 22 development. I could not, for example, ask to display 23 a hundred documents at a time without getting an error 24 message.
25 The LSNDR D-2.1 said sites must be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
129 1 provisioned to be able to satisfy not less than 500 2 web page requests per minute. That was on the old 3 LSN. And my question was does the ADAMS LSN have the 4 same capability? And Margie was talking about 500 5 hits, about when you have a lot of people involved in 6 an active proceeding, it's going to go up 7 exponentially. So I just don't know. I'm not a 8 techie type person, so I just don't know. But it's 9 possible there could be 200 people on ADAMS at the 10 same time, not only the parties in a proceeding but 11 the judges, their staff, the NRC litigation staff 12 people and their staff, and then the public, 13 interested member of the public, and all the 14 participants and their staff.
15 So in my experience, attorneys usually 16 don't work alone. They have support staff work with 17 them. And so it would not be uncommon for a 18 participant to have attorneys and staff members all on 19 the same system all at the same time doing different 20 things.
21 Nevada asked several different people on 22 our team to conduct specific test searches on ADAMS 23 LSN and the same problems became evident to all 24 searchers at the same time. So it wasn't just me, it 25 wasn't just somebody else.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
130 1 Quotation marks, I found, must be freshly 2 typed because if they're copied from another document 3 they're disregarded. The ADAMS LSN feels very clunky 4 to the end user compared to other NRC and .gov 5 websites and litigation databases. NRC has spoiled me 6 a lot with the old system, the EIE and the EHD and the 7 DDMS, so that's kind of a standard to which you're 8 being held now, I'm afraid.
9 The document preview windows don't always 10 close. They don't always have a button to allow you 11 to close. And so I've had to actually exit the 12 program and then get back in. The computer problems 13 experienced during the second ADAMS LSN webinar with 14 freezing were reflective of user experience.
15 NRC documents occasionally download with 16 a default number that is not the LSN number and it's 17 not an ML number, but it's something totally 18 different. And sometimes it has a letter prefix and 19 sometimes it does not. So for me, I would have to 20 download the document and name all three names in 21 there so I could find it in the future.
22 Speed. Slow speed was an issue with the 23 LSN and not with web-based ADAMS so much and not with 24 the other ADAMS sites that I use for the 10 CFRs and 25 whatnot. LSNDR D-2.2 says sites must be provisioned NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
131 1 to deliver a web page or image page, on average, in 2 not more than five seconds to a web browser located on 3 the same LAN segment. This was the old LSN, but I 4 wasn't getting five seconds on the new one. Most of 5 my basic searches took and still do one to four 6 minutes to return a result. It took greater than two 7 minutes to narrow the results. It was almost as if 8 the system was conducting a whole new search instead 9 of searching within the results. The default setting 10 was used for number of entries displayed, so that was 11 not an issue here.
12 Searches were generally fastest if I had 13 an LSN number. Unfortunately, that's not always a 14 luxury.
15 My searches are more basic and broad to 16 discover what is on the LSN rather than trying to find 17 a particular document that I know is there or may be 18 there. One of my discoveries was that there's no 19 one-click printing of search results, and this is a 20 major database software error. One-click printing of 21 search results was available on the old LSNnet.gov.
22 I was told by the LSN IT that they would explore it as 23 a future option, and I totally understand budgetary 24 and procurement issues that necessitate that response.
25 Printouts are used for many purposes. In NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
132 1 my instance, I have one attorney that likes to see 2 what's there so he can ask me to download or print 3 certain of those documents that he thinks are most 4 relevant. Other times, printouts are used to show as 5 an exhibit or evidence of what is or is not on the 6 LSN. So they would be exhibits during a licensing 7 proceeding.
8 Users cannot cancel a request in progress.
9 And here, again, web-based ADAMS has spoiled me for 10 this, but this applied to search requests, page 11 scrolling, and refining searches. And this is an 12 issue because of the slow speed and the time it was 13 taking to conduct these searches and advanced 14 searches. The web-based ADAMS cancellation works, and 15 it works well. I've tried it many, many times.
16 Scrolling through pages of search results.
17 This was interesting. It took more than ten minutes 18 for one of our team members to scroll through 1124 19 search results at a hundred results a page. He was 20 able to get it to display a hundred results, but then 21 it took that long to get to the final one.
22 Scrolling through large search results 23 stops for me at document number 3,000. That's all it 24 would show. It did not matter if I was displaying 25 25 or 50 or 100 results per page, I could never get more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
133 1 than 3,000. And all too often, a chance to scroll 2 results were ending in a repeated error message for 3 me, which meant I had to get out of the system and get 4 back into the system.
5 There's no ability to page jump through 6 search results by typing in a desired page number to 7 view. I would just have to rely on it coming up and 8 it would tell me there are, it was showing 10 to 25 or 9 10 to 20, and click to 20 and then I'd just go from 10 there. And so I had to go through five or ten pages 11 at a time. It takes a lot of time.
12 Documents previewed. On the old LSN, you 13 could click on the document title and it would 14 actually bring up the document so you could see what 15 it was, what it looked like, because that was 16 important sometimes. The preview does not exist in 17 the option to view the PDF in the action drop-down, 18 and, on our team, the ability to preview a PDF has 19 differed by user but not necessarily the internet 20 browser used. At one time, I thought, oh, okay, with 21 Chrome, you can actually preview the document, but 22 with Mozilla Firefox you cannot. Well, I have now 23 proven that wrong, so I'm not sure. It could be a 24 setting on my browser or it could be the system.
25 The file view of the document is text only NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
134 1 and is not reliable enough to use to confirm a 2 document search, especially if you're looking for a 3 document that may have an image on one of the pages.
4 Next, we move to the actual landscape of 5 the LSN search. The facet chart has the same 6 information as the facet tree. It's located on the 7 right-hand side of your screen. Its function seems to 8 be that it merely visualizes the search results that 9 are shown in the facet tree on the left side of the 10 screen. It doesn't allow scrolling down to see the 11 entire listing for a given property. For example, if 12 I ask it for a display of document types and there are 13 more than, like, seven of them, and I want to keep 14 going down to see where the end is but I can't because 15 there's no scroll bar.
16 The facet charts are not even mentioned in 17 the LSN quick guide. The LSN user guide says the 18 facet chart allows you to visualize how many documents 19 are available as meeting a certain criterion, but the 20 facet tree on the left-hand side gives you the actual 21 number of types of documents for whatever property you 22 choose. The facet chart takes up too much real estate 23 on the screen without providing any benefit, in my 24 opinion. And it often lags behind a current search, 25 displaying the results from my previous search if the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
135 1 new search returns zero hits. So I don't use it.
2 The facet tree. The more facet displays 3 for greater than 15 facet results, and there's a 4 smaller screen and it does take some getting used to.
5 Sometimes, the slider does not operate, so you cannot 6 scroll over to see more than a certain number. And 7 the LSN numbers and the participant accession numbers 8 listed in the facet tree are not in the same order as 9 those displayed in the list of document search results 10 by default.
11 The time series at the bottom has the same 12 information as the facet tree. It merely visualizes 13 search results shown in the facet tree and takes up 14 too much real estate on the screen without providing 15 any benefit, in my opinion, so I don't use it.
16 The advanced search feature takes up most 17 of the screen and does not retreat from the screen 18 once enter is pressed, as in most search software.
19 Users must manually click on hide advanced after every 20 search or modification in order to see more than one 21 line of search results, especially if you have your 22 time bars at the bottom still showing.
23 When changing the field query property, 24 the previous search term should disappear, as it does 25 on web-based ADAMS but, instead, must be manually NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
136 1 deleted each time.
2 Document dates. This was fun. Some of 3 these problems I know have been addressed and 4 resolved. The user should be aware that the original 5 LSN database, as much as we loved it, contained many 6 document date errors and those were all propagated to 7 the ADAMS LSN because NRC did not change the documents 8 they were given by anyone. And so just users should 9 just be aware of that.
10 An advanced search for documents dated 11 between January 1, 1900 through December 31, 1901, 12 which would be the default date for a partially-dated 13 document or undated document, returned 35,322 14 documents dated between 1899 and 1902. Eleven of the 15 documents were dated December 31, 1899. I think that 16 may be one of the things that's been solved now.
17 Over 3,000 were dated 12/31/1900. I was 18 not able to go past that because of that little 19 scrolling problem. And a search for documents dated 20 12/31/1900, and there are some, returns zero 21 documents, so you cannot find the document if you know 22 it's dated 12/30/1900, and that's all you have to go 23 by.
24 I've given some numbers that displays 25 having a date of 1900 in the header but then on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
137 1 time search bar it shows 1901. Three documents I've 2 also put in here, but when you search for dates 3 between 1902, just in 1902, two of them are dated in 4 1901 and one is dated 1902.
5 Related records I had a problem with, and 6 I highlighted the actual numbers of the ones that I 7 could not find. I might get a document that had eight 8 related records. I could get to seven of those 9 records but not to one of them. So if all I have is 10 the participant accession number and I can't find the 11 document, is it on the LSN? Is it not on the LSN?
12 What am I doing wrong? There's got to be a way to 13 solve this problem.
14 I searched for a document title on a 15 presentation, and I thought that if I had a partial 16 title that it would search. But that was not the 17 results I was getting. So I now understand there may 18 be an issue with document in grayscale as being read 19 by the OCR.
20 I had a long title of a document, so I 21 went ahead and searched on the whole document title 22 and got zero results. So then I broke it down to the 23 second half of the title and got zero results. And 24 the third search was on the front portion of the 25 title, and I got 58 results, including 13 direct hits.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
138 1 So it's hard to know if you can, if you're looking for 2 a document as not being returned in a search by the 3 participant accession number and that's the only 4 information you have, how are you supposed to find the 5 document?
6 There's also a difference between 7 participant accession numbers and document numbers, 8 and apparently a document number, it displays in the 9 properties but it might be a copy of the same document 10 that has a different participant accession number on 11 it but they're related.
12 A basic search of a known paper yielded 13 seven results, three of which were the correct NRC 14 documents but the other four had no words highlighted 15 in the blurb. And so I'm not sure how they were 16 relevant, and I didn't want to take the time to 17 download and search them.
18 In the olden days, before the licensing 19 proceeding was suspended, we had an issue with a 20 document that was titled "TDMS_Master_32807," and one 21 of our beefs was that you cannot find this because on 22 the LSN this was a title that was given to the 23 document. It's not the proper title for the document.
24 And so I tried to search for it again on this ADAMS 25 LSN and found that it is now part of a longer title, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
139 1 so I'm assuming that that got changed during the OCR 2 process somehow and NRC inherited this as it is.
3 Let's see. I did an advanced search by a 4 participant accession number and got one hit and then 5 tried for another, and this time I got two hits and it 6 took four minutes plus to perform. The advanced 7 search by exact phrase returned two hits took over 8 four minutes to perform. So if you're trying to find 9 all versions of a document to include those with 10 marginalia, is there a more efficient way to perform 11 this search? I usually assume that whatever goes 12 wrong is something that I'm not doing right, so I try 13 to approach it from that point of view.
14 I've asked if there would be a help desk 15 for the LSN in a restarted proceeding that was similar 16 to the help desk we had in the other proceeding before 17 it was suspended. I'm afraid you guys have just 18 spoiled me rotten on this one. That help desk was so 19 awesome, so I hope to see it again. Otherwise, if the 20 licensing proceeding is restarted and, say, we are in 21 Las Vegas in a licensing hear, then at 1:00 local time 22 there would be no one to help with IT issues. And so 23 I think we can all know that computers can hear us 24 think and talk sometimes, and so that's when problems 25 would likely occur.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
140 1 Right now, LSN errors are reported by 2 going to the PDR library and then she forwards them on 3 to an LSN IT person. Responses are usually not the 4 same day, and if additional information is requested 5 from the user there's no feedback unless the user 6 specifically follows up on it.
7 And I've had several help desk 8 experiences. Most of them are experiencing a delay in 9 getting back to me. I wait for a week. If I haven't 10 heard something, then I contact PDR again and say have 11 you heard anything on this from LSN IT? Like when I 12 discovered that you couldn't print document results or 13 search results, I asked about it. And so I followed 14 up in a week, and they said it would be explored as a 15 future option. Okay, fine. So then a week later a 16 cut-and-paste workaround was offered to the public via 17 LSN FAQs, and then only on the following day after 18 publication to the world was I given an email with the 19 same information. And the workaround is not 20 satisfactory.
21 When I experience an error message, I 22 report them because I believe that makes the system 23 better because you don't know what's wrong if I don't 24 tell you. And my report usually includes a what did 25 I do wrong, and so I would appreciate something that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
141 1 says you didn't do anything wrong, it's just the 2 system, because I know that to err is human but to 3 really screw things up it takes a computer.
4 So I just, that's the end of my remarks.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. I was going to 6 make a joke and say is that all you found, but I 7 won't. But thank you, thank you, Laurie. That was 8 very thorough, and we thought it would be helpful to 9 hear from the NRC LSN staff just a few thoughts on 10 Laurie's findings. Tom, do you want to come up here 11 or do you want to stay? K.G., you're going to do it?
12 Okay. Okay, K.G.
13 MR. GOLSHAN: So first of all, I mean 14 that, Laurie. I'm very, very grateful that you spent 15 the time and you're sharing your experiences with us.
16 And I want to kind of give you our side. Hopefully, 17 you understand, you know, the limitations on our side.
18 As I said during my presentation, the 19 intention of this public, the public library was never 20 to be the, in its current form, was never intended to 21 be the litigation database. And we never intended to 22 really compare it with the old LSN, although I have no 23 experience with the old LSN. It was not there. So 24 it's been installed out of the box with the original 25 configuration on a bare minimum configuration, like, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
142 1 you know, literally one server, as you and I discussed 2 about it. So some of the slowness and all of that 3 that you experienced is because it really doesn't have 4 much power because we really didn't anticipate that 5 many people hitting it at one time since the 6 litigation is not going on.
7 But let's go through the error messages.
8 The 3,000 results, you are absolutely right. That was 9 a configuration, the buffer size that Watson was 10 shipped with. We have upped the limit, so that 11 problem has gone away.
12 The other thing which was the original 13 configuration was that, and my friend, Tom, is going 14 to go into detailed explanation of it, was that the 15 product was shipped configured for time zone 16 sensitivity. In other words, it adjusted the dates 17 based on the time zone of the place where you 18 conducted the search. So we turned off that feature, 19 so that should be in production and so you should not 20 see that time zone anomaly there.
21 So increased computing power and site 22 traffic and the speed, I agree with you. In its 23 current state, if you put in 200 people and perform a 24 complicated search, the system is not configured to 25 handle the load. You're absolutely correct on that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
143 1 The scrolling part, that we are going to 2 address. And I said that these are the concerns that 3 we may address, and the reason that we may, we put the 4 word "may" there is because, you know, spending money 5 on this option to enhance it, to meet certain 6 requirements, if this option is not going to be the 7 selected option, you know, there's a cost benefit 8 analysis there.
9 But the scrolling function, you know, I 10 wanted to bring it to your attention, all the panes 11 that are within the Watson UI are collapsible. So if 12 you don't like the dynamic facet chart, you could 13 easily collapse it and it will kind of get out of your 14 way. You find no use for it, and the facet tree will 15 serve you better, you could keep that pane. And also 16 the time series pane, it's the same way. So all of 17 these panes are expandable or collapsible, so you 18 could actually modify them to meet you.
19 And then page numbering, those things we 20 could easily add. Those are the features, as Mr.
21 Halstead brought it up which I totally agree with, 22 those features or requirements, we could enhance the 23 platform to be meeting those requirements if this 24 option, of course, is selected.
25 And then the other thing is that we really NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
144 1 haven't spent any much time to really study the 2 efficiencies of the indexes and try to enhance the 3 indexes, which actually makes your searching 4 experience more robust. At that time, we didn't have 5 the luxury, nor the budget, to really spend time to 6 enhance these indexes and all of that.
7 So thank you very much, and I'm glad that 8 you brought up these points and I'm glad that my 9 colleagues all heard it, so we'll be better prepared 10 if this option is selected. Thank you so much.
11 Yes, we are going to go -- oh, yes, I have 12 one. The help desk. Also, we don't have really a 13 help desk because there is no litigation going on, 14 there's no proceedings. There's no help desk. And we 15 have accounted budget-wise for a help desk that 16 hopefully will be just as robust as the help desk that 17 you had in the previous LSN. Right now, the PDR staff 18 have to coordinate their responses and all of that.
19 That may take a while, which you have experienced.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Now we have Tom, Tom 21 Wellock.
22 MR. WELLOCK: All right. Hello. K.G.
23 kind of covered the larger changes that can be made to 24 this system to deal with some of the issues of speed 25 and capacity that Laurie identified in her searches.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
145 1 I'm going to talk about a few of the more detailed 2 issues here that she brought up and, hopefully, can 3 get into ways that we could possibly work around these 4 things or perhaps some modifications, enhancements, to 5 the existing system that could deal with them.
6 One of the things that she had mentioned 7 in one of her slides was the issue of a close button, 8 being able to see it and being able to close out a 9 certain document. Rekha will, when she gives her 10 presentation later today about working with the 11 system, she will actually address that issue, so we 12 can talk about it then.
13 Given the size of some of these documents, 14 certainly you want to avoid a download if you don't 15 have to, especially if you simply want to find out if 16 a document is relevant. And as she pointed out, there 17 was one situation where you found three documents that 18 were relevant, but if you look at the little 19 descriptor below each of the documents you don't get 20 any hits, you don't see anything, so you don't know 21 whether this document is particularly relevant to what 22 you're doing.
23 Rather than download it, one of the things 24 that you can consider doing is looking at it in the 25 preview mode in the text. This is not ideal because NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
146 1 this really depends on the accuracy of the OCR 2 capability. But if you're simply trying to find 3 whether a document is relevant, if you open it up, it 4 opens up the document in text. And there's an advance 5 button. Again, Rekha can show this in her 6 demonstration later. There's an advance button that 7 will take you to the very first text search that you 8 do. So rather than having to download lots of 9 documents, you can at least do a quick search to see 10 if this is a relevant document that is useful to you.
11 That at least avoids this, you know, that is actually 12 quite fast and can be done quickly and without too 13 much pain.
14 One of the other things that were brought 15 up is the fact that document numbers and PDF names 16 were chosen by the participants. There isn't a 17 consistency with NRC documents. For some of the 18 counties, for example, actually identified their PDFs 19 by the title rather than document number. So those 20 are issues that exist with this system regardless of 21 the option you choose, and so, if those kinds of 22 things need to be worked out, that is something that 23 is going to have to be agreed upon and have to be 24 changed over time. But like I said, regardless of the 25 option we choose, that would have to be addressed.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
147 1 Regarding the facet tree, facet chart, and 2 time series, I'm not a fan of all of them either. My 3 favorite, I think, is the time series chart. I find 4 that when I do a search I instinctively look down at 5 the time series chart, and I look for a pattern in the 6 times, and that helps me choose what I want to look 7 for. If you don't like them, you can minimize them.
8 And, again, when Rekha does her demonstration later, 9 she'll show you how to minimize those and keep them 10 out of the way that will actually maximize the amount 11 that you can look at results. Since a lot of this 12 involves pulling out windows, especially for the 13 advanced search, having more real estate on the 14 screen, of course, is quite important.
15 And, finally, one of the other things I 16 wanted to mention was advanced searches. Field query 17 terms, as you pointed out, if you switch between 18 properties in the field query menu, there's a little 19 pull-down window that you can select the different 20 properties and do a search. It doesn't wipe out the 21 screen. I like that because, very often, if I have, 22 for example, an addressee affiliation, I then want to 23 go and flip and look under information source or 24 author affiliation, all those things I might want to 25 do. And if I simply tab between them and it doesn't, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
148 1 I don't have to type it back in. I'm wondering 2 whether a useful way around this is to simply add a 3 button next to that box that would allow you to just 4 clear the screen if that's what you want to do, and if 5 you want to leave the text it would allow you to do 6 that.
7 Okay. Specific concerns. K.G. said that 8 I was going to explain the date and time zone issue.
9 If a document was entered into the system for January 10 1st, 1901, it was usually given the time of 12 a.m.
11 So if you did a search in Texas for that document, it 12 would pull it up. It pulls up this January 1st, 1901 13 document, but it will display to you one hour earlier, 14 December 31st, 1900. So all of the issues that you 15 identified under your dates on your two slides dealing 16 with dates, that can be fixed by turning off that 17 function, as K.G. mentioned, and we're working on 18 doing that. So that will resolve this date 19 discrepancy issue. We wouldn't have known that, given 20 that we do our searches in Maryland. We never 21 recognized this.
22 Also, titles. Some of the other issues 23 that were raised dealt with the issue of titles and 24 not being able to find something that was by doing a 25 basic search. The titles box was not being searched NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
149 1 initially, and so we have turned that back on. And so 2 now, instead of the six hits that you find, you will 3 now find seven. And so that issue has been resolved, 4 too. So the text of the document and the title are 5 now all being searched, and so that resolves that 6 issue.
7 I only picked this up because of that 8 issue about the OCR not reading grayscale. I can 9 explain it in more detail later.
10 Finally, I did want to talk about related 11 records. The one thing you can do for related records 12 is to, instead of doing title searches, is go to basic 13 search and look. One of the things that you looked 14 for was an attachment and all you had was a title, and 15 you couldn't find it. I did find a document that was 16 actually the final version of that enclosure that you 17 had mentioned by doing it that way. But if you're 18 really interested in trying to find that original 19 version that was dated as you wanted it, that's not 20 going to help you. You want those original 21 participant accession numbers, and that has to be 22 done, this is not just related to record, there's 23 other records where attachments or enclosures, 24 particularly to emails, were not all added to the LSN 25 database, and so they were not transferred over to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
150 1 LSN library when we took possession of them.
2 So for those participant accession 3 numbers, the solution is to go back to the participant 4 and find out why those records were not added into the 5 system. I can't speculate as to why they weren't all 6 added. But those documents that are not there, this 7 has been identified previously, those numbers are not 8 in the current system and you have to go back to the 9 participant to determine why they're not in the 10 library.
11 So just in closing, I just want to make 12 three points. A number of these document issues I'm 13 talking about here are not really related to the 14 discussion we're having today, which is to choose an 15 option. They're going to be an issue regardless of 16 what direction we choose.
17 Finally, secondly, a number of these 18 changes had already been made, such as the title 19 issue, some of the dates. These are issues that we'd 20 solve. And some of these can be dealt with by adding 21 additional resources if there's actually a proceeding 22 and we move forward.
23 So whichever option we select, keep in 24 mind that we're going to have to do some customizing 25 along the way. And so these kinds of changes are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
151 1 normal, and so it's certainly a good thing that we are 2 exploring how this system works now because it can 3 only help us down the road, whichever option is 4 selected.
5 And I'll turn it back over to K.G. Excuse 6 me, to --
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. And thanks, K.G.
8 and Tom. Laurie, do you have any general reaction to 9 what you heard from K.G. and Tom? I thought I'd give 10 you an opportunity to say anything you wanted to say.
11 MS. BORSKI: I very much appreciate the 12 opportunity to share the knowledge that I was able to 13 acquire on this. We had a discussion this morning, 14 some might say ex parte, but they explained these 15 items to me, so I very much appreciate their taking 16 time to look at the issues, take them seriously, and 17 then resolve what they can and put in line to be 18 resolved the rest. I think it will only help in the 19 long run.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Good. Thank you.
21 And we're slated to take a break at 3:30. We're 22 almost there, so we'll do that. Before we do, I just 23 want to, we're going to come back and have a 24 discussion of Option 2 and everything that you heard.
25 As I said before, though, what we've just heard is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
152 1 very important because it relates to the foundation, 2 as I call it, of Option 2. Let's get some comment 3 also, if anybody has it, on the two leveraging 4 alternatives that K.G. talked about.
5 And just one clarification. K.G.
6 mentioned that all of this with the search capability, 7 etcetera, etcetera, of ADAMS LSN was important for 8 Option 2. Isn't it also important for these things to 9 be fixed in terms of Option 1? Okay? Because Option 10 1 is going to be the new docs, you still have the 11 foundation, the system. So it's a broader issue than 12 just Option 2.
13 And with that, let's take a break and 14 let's come back at, let's come back when we were going 15 to, at 3:45, and then we're going to have a discussion 16 of Option 2. Thank you.
17 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 18 the record at 3:20 p.m. and went back on 19 the record at 3:44 p.m.)
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much.
21 This is the last discussion item of the day, and of 22 course it's an important one. And I just would remind 23 you that Rekha is going to do an orientation for us at 24 5:15 or maybe 5:00, whatever. And that you're going 25 to be able to interact with her during that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
153 1 orientation, but if you want to fill out a green card 2 and put a question on there, that may be helpful. But 3 you don't have to do that.
4 We're going to hear, we're going to go a 5 discussion around the table, and then we're going to 6 go to participants on through GoToMeeting. And I know 7 that Loreen Pitchford has a question, and when we go 8 to the ARP participants on GoToMeeting, I'm going to 9 perhaps ask her to clarify it after I read it. We 10 have a typed version of it, but Loreen will be, maybe 11 she'll be able to want to express that orally to us.
12 In general for those of you who are on 13 through GoToMeeting, if you want to hold up your name 14 tents so that you can be noticed to ask a question or 15 make a comment, please turn your camera back on. A 16 lot of people don't have their cameras on. Or you 17 can, under GoToMeeting, you can hit the chat, you can 18 do a chat and type something in, it's up to you.
19 And I'm just checking, Phil, are you with 20 us still, Phil Klevorick?
21 MR. KLEVORICK: Of course I am.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Phil. I just had 23 to, I'll be asking you that throughout the meeting.
24 MR. KLEVORICK: You have to make sure I'm 25 awake, that's good, thank you.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
154 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Phil. Okay.
2 You've heard K.G. about leveraging the options, we've 3 heard from Laurie about some of the concerns about 4 using LSN ADAMS searching it. And we've heard from 5 the NRC LSN staff on what they might, what they might 6 have done, explanations, whatever. So I just open it 7 up to the table for any discussion on what you've 8 already heard. Judy.
9 MS. TREICHEL: Okay. Fasten your 10 seatbelt.
11 MR. CAMERON: So are we getting ready for 12 what?
13 MS. TREICHEL: Yeah, I'm ready to unload 14 here. I don't know when this turned into us versus 15 them, but we've got four options, and no one of them 16 should be any more important than the other. And 17 nobody should feel the right to defend this one.
18 And with the vigorous defense that you did 19 for this one, I want to reiterate again that NRC does 20 not want to be stuck with this thing if this is what 21 you end up with. And if they're the sort of problems 22 that they have right now, the public and possibly 23 other parties are going to see this as being NRC not 24 playing fair.
25 But the idea that you're throwing Option NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
155 1 2 out there, that we're supposed to be talking about 2 in terms of hearings, but yet they Option 2 that was 3 put up was never expected to be the litigation 4 database, makes this whole discussion sort of crazy.
5 Because if the thing is being overloaded 6 now, or if you're saying that it might be, people are 7 used to Google, and Google gets a billion hits an 8 hour9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br />. And we're talking about this thing maybe having 9 a little problem if there's 200 hits at the same time 10 or close together.
11 But, well, number one, I want to go 12 totally on record that I'm opposed to having 13 simultaneous hearings happening, or more than one 14 hearing at a time. But there's a lot of talk about 15 multiple hearings. That would really tax the system, 16 and the current system couldn't do it. And I'm not 17 sure that with the possible work that you're planning 18 to do on this thing if you're successful in getting 19 your own option in there, that you'd be able to do 20 that.
21 So the one thing I liked hearing was when 22 K.G. said that one of the reasons Option 2 hadn't been 23 totally fixed is maybe it won't have to be. And I 24 would hope that to be the case. But these are, I 25 haven't heard the presentations for Option 3 and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
156 1 Option 4, but it doesn't appear, from what we've been 2 doing today and over the last couple of months, that 3 you're going to fight as hard for those as you have 4 been for this one.
5 So I would just say that it's, it appears 6 that this is not being a level playing field for these 7 options. And there may in fact be other options.
8 When we did this the first time, and we were working 9 on it in the late 90s, we weren't even sure that this 10 kind of thing was possible. Google hadn't been born 11 yet, so nobody had anything to judge it against.
12 But right now, one of the things that you 13 may have a problem with is making a choice. If you 14 actually go out there to honestly look at what's 15 available, there's all kinds of systems. And Laurie 16 talked about one that she really liked in the 17 litigation that she was involved in that worked 18 beautifully.
19 So there's no end of options. And I don't 20 think that the time to set it up and the money to do 21 it need to be terribly important features when you're 22 looking at something that's supposed to stay, stay for 23 a million years, and costs $100 billion. So that's 24 just my take. And I don't want to argue about it, I 25 just want to put those things out there. That's the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
157 1 way it hit me in listening to these presentations this 2 afternoon.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Judy. And I'm 4 not going to answer for the NRC staff. I think that 5 what we saw that perhaps created sort of a distorted 6 impression when we heard from Laurie, and then we 7 heard from the NRC staff, talking about the current 8 NRC LSN ADAMS. Those problems that were identified 9 are going to have to be fixed for whatever option is 10 chosen, 1 or 2, and I guess there's applications of 11 having a good NRC ADAMS for options 3 and 4.
12 So I would just mention that, but I guess 13 I would ask Judge Bollwerk to perhaps put in 14 perspective what the NRC LSN staff is, why they put 15 these options together, what's going to go to the 16 Commission. And keep in mind that what's going to the 17 Commission is not just the LSN, NRC LSN staff 18 summarizing what they heard in these two days.
19 But also you'll have two weeks after Sam 20 gets the transcript together, and I know he's going to 21 have it done in a couple of days probably. He's 22 shaking his head yeah. But no, I think he has a week 23 on that. But you can get your comments in on 24 anything, okay. So you're going to have that whole 25 chance to do it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
158 1 But Paul could you, you've heard Judy, and 2 you know, there's a feeling that the NRC is really 3 trying to push Option 2 on people. So could you talk 4 a little bit about that Option, Paul, process.
5 MR. BOLLWERK: And again, in putting the 6 paper together and the way this developed with the 7 Commission, given the task we were given, the that 8 directive we were given, which was the whole long 9 meeting, we felt we need to put something in front of 10 the ARP in terms of options.
11 And while you're, folks here have had 12 experience over the years with dealing with the LSN 13 and with other databases. And one of the things you 14 obviously would want to look at is you have a system, 15 can you leverage it. That's really all this says is, 16 can you leverage the existing system and use it in a 17 way that makes sense.
18 But you're right, there are other options 19 out there. There's the cloud option, and that's got 20 several variations that we're going to hear about 21 tomorrow. But the one thing I would point out with 22 respect to the LSN library is it actually exists.
23 Laurie can go out and others can go out and use it.
24 That was not the case with the LSN.
25 I will say we took Dan Graser's word, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
159 1 he came up with, and working with the Technical 2 Working Group, came up with some things. But I don't 3 believe that Autonomy was ever tested before it was 4 actually put in place. And it was more or less a good 5 system. Laurie said she had some problems with it, I 6 think others did too.
7 So to some degree, you're right, we're 8 presenting you with something that's working option at 9 this point. Although it's not perfect, it's got to 10 have improvements. Also, you're going to get a chance 11 to use it in a way you didn't have an opportunity to 12 use the original LSN as you're looking at the options.
13 In terms of what Chip mentioned about what 14 the, what will happen next, at this point, we're going 15 to take all the comments that you have to give us. In 16 the end, it's the responsibility of the chief 17 administrative judge, as the LSN kind of gives 18 information to him and he passes it along to the 19 Commission, to provide whatever input you want him to 20 provide to them at that point about the process that 21 we talked about this morning, about these options, 22 about whether there are other options. About other 23 approaches.
24 It's our responsibility to sort of lay 25 that out for the Commission and then let the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
160 1 Commission decide what it wants to do as a next step.
2 And we've heard some concerns about 3 monetary expenses. If you, we do a monthly report to 4 the Congress, and some of you may be aware of it. If 5 you looked at that carefully on the back page, the 6 Agency really only has about $400,000 left in 7 high-level waste money at this point that isn't spoken 8 for in other ways. So that's going to be something 9 that's going to come into the process as well.
10 But the Commission did want us to go out, 11 talk with the LSN ARP, and get the input that they 12 could provide us, given the direction they gave us.
13 And that's sort of what we tried to do here to the 14 best of our ability.
15 And the next step for us that's important 16 is to get your comments, whatever they are, and to 17 pass them along to the Commission so that they know 18 what your feelings are, individually and collectively, 19 to the degree that's possible about what we've put in 20 front of you, and what other things you want to see 21 done with the process. That's the --
22 MS. TREICHEL: Do you think there's any 23 possibility of, like the first time we did this, 24 having a technical working group in which you get 25 people who really know what they're talking about, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
161 1 about what all is out there, what all is possible, and 2 kind of how long it takes, maybe how much it costs.
3 And be able to have them present to this group and to 4 you in the Commission this is what you got. And then 5 we can put in options like we did the first time 6 around.
7 MR. BOLLWERK: Well, again, that would be 8 a question for, to some degree, based on the money we 9 have left, can we do that before we get more money?
10 Four hundred thousand dollars is not a whole lot of 11 money.
12 MS. TREICHEL: No, but you don't want to 13 build this thing before you really get it.
14 MR. BOLLWERK: Oh, no, no, absolutely, we 15 would not do that. I mean, we're not, there's not, I 16 think it's pretty clear, I don't think I'm speaking 17 out of turn here that until more money arrives, the 18 Commission has basically said that the adjudication in 19 the form it was envisioned cannot start.
20 Having said that, it's my perception, you 21 can tell me if I'm wrong, that this database is going 22 to be very important to restarting that adjudication.
23 And so it's, one of the reasons talking about next 24 logical steps, it struck us as important to give the 25 Commission whatever information we could about this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
162 1 database and how it should be set up.
2 How the Congress is going to approach 3 this, I don't know. You see, for instance, HR3053, 4 this basically says 30 months from the time the bill 5 is passed. Doesn't say 30 months from the time the 6 money arrives. So that's something to think about.
7 But you know, we have to take these things 8 into account as well. We're trying to plan, we're 9 trying to think about what the best approach is. But 10 you all have to deal with the database, and so we're 11 hoping you can give us your input and let us know and 12 let the Commission know what your thoughts are.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Paul. And 14 this, Judy's recommendation about a technical working 15 group, that will be something that is in the staff's 16 report to the Commission about the meeting, okay.
17 Let's go to Laurie and then over to Diane, and then 18 we'll come back to Bob and Rod. Laurie.
19 MS. BORSKI: Thank you. I just have two 20 brief comments. First of all, there are a lot of 21 parties that don't have adequate funding to do their 22 testing and provide the information such as I 23 provided. And so I think that is important to hear 24 from them when the time comes and not make decisions 25 before they're allowed to, to even get out of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
163 1 gate, as it were.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
3 MS. BORSKI: My next is a specific comment 4 on the Options document at page ten. It talks about 5 document updates to Option 2, and they're talking 6 about replacing original documents with newer versions 7 of the same document.
8 MR. CAMERON: Oh, okay.
9 MS. BORSKI: And that has not happened in 10 the past, and that cannot happen in the future because 11 attorneys often use the older documents, document 12 versions, in discovery. And so why would we change 13 horses in the middle of the stream, for one thing?
14 But then why would we replace older versions of 15 documents with newer versions? They should be added 16 as brand new documents.
17 MR. CAMERON: Well, I'm going to ask, 18 we'll see what the NRC's LSN staff has to say about 19 that. But yeah, obviously there may be something in 20 the older document that has implications in terms of 21 a particular contention, so why are you replacing it.
22 Anybody, K.G., Tom, page ten, that statement on there.
23 Do we know what that means?
24 MR. GOLSHAN: Yeah, this is just basically 25 the capability that the group talked and we thought NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
164 1 about building it, and it just does not make sense.
2 I suppose that we have to change the, you know, change 3 the requirements and put them in the requirements 4 whether this function is needed or not.
5 MR. CAMERON: Oh, go ahead, Margie.
6 MS. JANNEY: Hi, sorry. Laurie, can you 7 point out exactly what paragraph, because --
8 MS. BORSKI: It's the second full 9 paragraph that starts with, The process for the 10 modification.
11 MS. JANNEY: And then halfway down when it 12 says, For a document update.
13 MS. BORSKI: Uh huh.
14 MS. JANNEY: That is talking about adding 15 a new document for a revision to a document, it is not 16 talking about replacing a document.
17 MR. CAMERON: Ah.
18 MS. JANNEY: Guideline 14, remember the 19 old LSN guidelines? Oh, you -- yeah, Guideline 14 20 actually discusses that.
21 MS. BORSKI: It does, and this seems 22 contrary, because it says, When copied to the public 23 ADAMS LSN library, the original document would be 24 removed and replaced with the updated document. And 25 so --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
165 1 MS. JANNEY: It does read that.
2 MS. BORSKI: I took that to mean you would 3 take the old one out and put the new one in.
4 MS. JANNEY: Yeah.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, because that's going 6 to have to be fixed.
7 MS. JANNEY: Yes, yes, that's contrary to 8 our intention and our practice.
9 MS. BORSKI: Okay.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, thank you, 11 Laurie.
12 MS. BORSKI: I thought I was, I thought 13 maybe I'd read that wrong, but thank you.
14 MS. JANNEY: Sorry I did not catch that.
15 Thank you, thank you for pointing that out.
16 MR. CAMERON: Diane.
17 MS. CURRAN: I really have a conceptual 18 question about this whole thing. Just the way I'm 19 looking at it, I want to see if I can get confirmation 20 that this is a reasonable way to look at it. It seems 21 to me that we had this LSN library for the documents 22 that already exist.
23 And question one is, is this system 24 adequate to go forward with a hearing and be able to 25 get access to the documents that are already in this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
166 1 collection. And there's lots of questions about that 2 that were raised by Laurie.
3 The second question is what do you do 4 about documents that come in in the future? Do you do 5 something to add on to this existing collection, do 6 you supplement it with something completely different 7 and you put the two things together?
8 And then the third question is, given that 9 there's so many problems with the existing collection, 10 do you just put everything together in a new system?
11 And I think that's what Judy's referring to, is let's 12 look at what exists now that could be used for the 13 entire thing, because there's plenty of problems with 14 what we've got now.
15 That's how I'm looking at it. It's how it 16 fits, goes together to me or seems logical. And I 17 just wondered is that an unreasonable to look at it, 18 is that how you're thinking about it?
19 MR. CAMERON: And I'm going to ask the NRC 20 staff. I have an understanding of it, but could we 21 address Diane's questions? And the first one, can LSN 22 ADAMS, would that be sufficient to use as a litigation 23 support system, I think is the question. And I think 24 we've heard some answers to that. But K.G., do you 25 want to start, and you --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
167 1 MS. CURRAN: I'm not exactly looking for 2 the answer to that question. I'm asking is this what 3 -- I mean, I really think the purpose of this meeting 4 should be to figure out what is it that needs to be 5 addressed. And I frankly find these options and 6 alternatives a little confusing. And I'm just 7 wondering are the questions I'm asking, the questions, 8 are you thinking of it in that way too, or am I 9 missing the boat in some way?
10 MR. GOLSHAN: Yes, if I may answer, yeah, 11 I think we're thinking about what you're thinking.
12 And all the time. So to answer your question whether 13 the platform in Option 2, again, if I came across to, 14 you know, show any preference between these options, 15 that was not my intention. I've always said, we're 16 the pizza maker, you tell us what to make, we'll make 17 it for you.
18 So I have no preference as to which 19 options, you know. So I'm just presenting the options 20 the way they are. So --
21 MS. CURRAN: But K.G. --
22 MR. GOLSHAN: Number one --
23 MS. CURRAN: Could I just interrupt you 24 and ask you, when you talk about Option 1 and Option 25 2, those apply to the prospective, the records to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
168 1 put in, gathered in the future, right? It doesn't 2 relate to what we already have.
3 MR. GOLSHAN: No, no, I think you're 4 confusing the alternatives with the options. Every 5 options has alternatives, different alternatives. So, 6 I know in Option 2, we presented two alternatives for 7 in-taking new documents. But the platform was being 8 leveraged, it was the Watson. You know, and I said 9 over and over that the platform in its current 10 position was not intended to be the litigation 11 database.
12 So we are aware that this thing has to be 13 enhanced with additional functional enhancements to 14 meet your requirements, so. But let me also elaborate 15 that I think collectively we have to decide, any of 16 these options, whether they're viable to be the 17 litigation database or not. So there's the viability 18 is one thing, and also the functionality is another 19 thing, and what other function it has to have.
20 And I know Judy compared that to Google.
21 Yeah, but Google has a river that cools their server 22 farms, versus this current platform that we have runs 23 on a single server. So that's why it doesn't have the 24 kind of a performance attribute as Google. And 25 whether it would ever be like Google, I don't know.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
169 1 But you know we could try, you know, throw money and 2 efforts and resource at the current platform if it is 3 selected.
4 But there are other options available too.
5 So the Option 3 that we're going to talk about 6 tomorrow, that leaves it wide open for us to examine 7 other search engines, other ways of basically 8 collecting and transferring the current collections 9 there and keeping it up to date. So again, I think we 10 have to keep an open mind and talk about it.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks K.G. And I see 12 that Paul has his name tent up. Do you want to add 13 anything to what KG said?
14 To just simply, Diane's questions are 15 straightforward and fairly simple questions, and if we 16 could give her a simple answer. I mean the answers 17 are not always simple, but if we could clear this up, 18 I think it would be very important to do.
19 MR. BOLLWERK: Correct. And so --
20 MR. CAMERON: Besides what K.G. has 21 already said.
22 MR. BOLLWERK: So when you look at the LSN 23 library the way it's configured now, I think what this 24 meeting has made clear is it is a library, it may work 25 all right. But as a discovery database, maybe it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
170 1 doesn't. So there needed to be fixes to it and there 2 need to be improvements.
3 In terms of the Option 1, again, both of 4 those, both Option 1 and Option 2 leverage the LSN 5 libraries. So in some way, shape, or form, they both 6 depend on that being available in a way that works as 7 a discovery database.
8 In terms, but again, you're right, but 9 there may be other options out there. And sort of 10 Option 3 goes into that. And one of the things we try 11 to think about is in terms of -- so Options 1 and 2 12 both deal with the LSN library.
13 Option 3 tends to take it further and try 14 to think in the world of the cloud, and that's where 15 lots of people operate now, how is the best way to set 16 up a system, what would it look like. And we come up 17 with, we'll talk about it tomorrow, we're getting a 18 little ahead of ourselves.
19 But there's a cloud where the NRC runs the 20 database, the index, where the parties would each run 21 their own indices. There's all kinds of ways to do it 22 out on the cloud. Those have advantages and 23 disadvantages, and that's what we need to talk about 24 tomorrow.
25 The one thing that's a little different, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
171 1 though, when we're talking about out in the cloud is 2 you don't really know what the search engine's going 3 to be. So you get into different questions about how 4 you're going to basically implement it.
5 For instance, for the LSN, we chose the 6 Autonomy search engine. But there's lots of different 7 ways to do it when you get out in the cloud. And so 8 it does get a little bit more, a little broader. But 9 again, there are some disadvantages for the parties, 10 and potentially the folks that didn't like the fact 11 that the LSN required them to put together a database 12 and to interconnect and all that, the cloud may still 13 be an issue for them.
14 So there are some things that are still 15 there. There's other things, there's other vistas 16 that are going to be explored, sure. I don't know if 17 I've answered your question.
18 MR. CAMERON: Does that do it?
19 MS. CURRAN: Helps, thanks.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay, great, thank you, 21 Paul. Thanks, K.G.
22 MR. GOLSHAN: Can I add one other thing?
23 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.
24 MR. GOLSHAN: Just in the 40-odd years 25 that I've been in this field of, you know, information NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
172 1 technology, I've discovered there is, you know, in 2 electronic computing, there's not, the word perfect 3 really doesn't exist. So some people like Google, the 4 others like Bing. Some like, you know, Yahoo Search 5 and all of that. Each of them have separate 6 algorithm. You go to one, you gain something, but you 7 lose another thing, and vice versa.
8 The same thing is with the search portals 9 and then the appliances that are out there. Everyone 10 gives you a certain advantages, but it takes anyway 11 another advantages that the ones has had.
12 So it's just a matter of coming to 13 consensus as to what it is, whether it meets your 14 requirement as far as being a viable portal as a 15 discovery, you know, as a discovery portal and a 16 litigation database. And we have to strive to get to 17 that point.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, K.G. Bob 19 Halstead and then Rod McCullum. Bob.
20 MR. HALSTEAD: Well, I want to summarize 21 some things that I think we heard in three areas that 22 maybe help us move forward. Actually, things we heard 23 in one area, things that are laid out in the fourth 24 revision of the options report, and then some things 25 I guess that we haven't said in this review.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
173 1 First of all, I think if I were to try to 2 summarize for Nevada what, you know, all the points 3 that Laura already made, the points I made on user 4 needs. If we were to try put this in terms of 5 functional requirements for the LSN going forward, 6 they needs to be fair, and to me part of being fair is 7 being transparent. So it's got to be fair.
8 It's got to be accessible. It's got to be 9 fast, it's got to be accurate. It's got to be 10 comprehensive. And while we don't have to be cheap 11 about it, government programs, even ones that are 12 supported by user fees that have peculiar 13 congressional funding mechanisms, it's got to be 14 cost-effective. And you know, I'm sure we'll come 15 back to these when we're doing closing points 16 tomorrow.
17 Now, the way I read the cost numbers and 18 the calculations that we've made in Nevada about what 19 would actually be involved in a restart of the 20 licensing, what we like to refer to repeatedly as the 21 legally mandated licensing process that we think we're 22 entitled to and that we think the country wants to do 23 to make a good decision, say we're talking five years.
24 Now, when I take the cost data that are 25 prepared in the options document, it looks to me like NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
174 1 to do the initial installation and operate for five 2 years looks like your most expensive option. You need 3 to take the high-end choices, which is the original 4 LSN. And I get somewhere in the twelve to sixteen 5 million dollar area to build it, rebuild it and 6 operate it for five years.
7 Whether that's a good idea or not, but 8 that gives you kind of a high number. And then you 9 look at your numbers for Option 2 and Option 3.
10 Again, building it and operating it for five years 11 with your numbers, you know, you're in the range, you 12 know, maybe as low as six million, maybe as high as 13 ten or twelve million.
14 But the point is there are not big dollar 15 differences here. So you're talking somewhere maybe 16 a difference over five years in constant year dollars 17 of eight million at the low end and sixteen million at 18 the high end.
19 Boy, now my third point is that isn't even 20 peanut shells compared to what's going to be spent on 21 five years of licensing. Two NRC chairman have given 22 the number of $330 million as their estimate for 23 licensing costs over a multiple year proceeding, 24 usually assumed, given the GAO report from last year, 25 as three to five years.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
175 1 Let's be generous and say whatever HR3053 2 might intend, it allows an extra year to be requested.
3 So you're probably talking about a five-year process.
4 So it's harder to estimate DOE's costs.
5 But if you go back to the very detailed 6 total system life cycle cost assessment done in 2008, 7 which looked at everything through the end of fiscal 8 year 2006, you take that $1.66 billion number in 2007 9 dollars. Subtract about half a billion for what DOE 10 actually spent in fiscal years '07, '08, and '09. And 11 if they're anywhere accurate, that gives you a number 12 that you can bring into current year dollars, 13 multiplying it by a factor of about 1.2.
14 I can see Rod and all the Public Service 15 Commission members around the country saying, Well, 16 he's doing this on the back of an envelope. No, he's 17 doing on the back of an NRC agenda. But the long and 18 the short of it is you're probably talking 1.4 to 1.6 19 billion dollars in DOE costs. So you're talking about 20 a total cost, when you roll in federal money for the 21 state, my goodness, there's got to be money for the 22 counties and the tribes in this, you're talking about 23 a $2 billion number.
24 And so hey, the amount of money here, 25 money should not at all drive the decision that we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
176 1 make in evaluating either the four option, that are 2 nicely evaluated in the paper, or maybe other options 3 that we want to bring in.
4 And I think that's enormously liberating 5 to look at it that way, even though I know that the 6 people who are trying to get $120 million for DOE out 7 of the current Congress and $30 million for, this is 8 the fiscal year 2018 request that was never acted upon 9 in the Senate.
10 All that said, cost should not drive the 11 decision on which of these options the Commission 12 pursues. It ought to be what's fair, what's 13 accessible, what's fast, what's accurate, what's 14 comprehensive, and what's cost effective. And what 15 would give the country the basis of a decision on a 16 construction authorization at the end of those five 17 years that would be well supported. So thank you.
18 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Bob, for that 19 perspective. And we're going to go to Rod next. And 20 I would just ask others around the table, others on 21 through GoToMeeting if you would want to comment on 22 Bob's statement that cost should not drive the choice, 23 other attributes should drive the choice.
24 And he put that in perspective in terms of 25 total life cycle costs for the repository. And Rod, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
177 1 you can, you know, obviously address that too if you 2 want, but you may have another way.
3 MR. McCULLUM: Yeah, I'll start there, 4 because it is an intriguing question Bob has put 5 before us here, and that wasn't the reason I 6 originally raised my name tent. I'll get back to that 7 in second.
8 But you know, representing the electric 9 utilities that collected this money from real, live 10 consumers of electricity, the cost does matter. But 11 I would agree it's important to do it in a 12 cost-effective way. One should not be penny wise and 13 pound foolish.
14 I think even more so than the cost, when 15 you look at the differences between the options, is 16 the time. While the cost compared to the 330 might 17 appear small, I guess I might not agree it would take, 18 that those $330 million dollar estimates are really 19 what's it's going to take. And I also, I wouldn't 20 necessarily agree they're small.
21 But the time differences are significant.
22 If this process is to resume and if this process is to 23 reach a conclusion, currently the law requires that, 24 and Congress may or may not be about to reinforce that 25 law, and Congress may or may not fund the law, whether NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
178 1 it reinforces it or not. But that's Congress.
2 But nevertheless, if the process is to go 3 to a conclusion, I would think the -- I know for 4 industry, and I would think for Nevada as well, living 5 with uncertainty for a period as long as 52 months 6 before you could even get to the adjudication, that's 7 a lot of uncertainty. And you know, money has time 8 value too.
9 So I think that both the cost and the time 10 to implement. Because if this is a go, I think both 11 sides would want to get to an answer sooner rather 12 than later. And obviously we both want different 13 answers. But so that's enough for that.
14 We came into this, as we stated in our 15 letter, in response to the initial Federal Register 16 notice supporting Option 2, Alternative 1. I don't 17 think we've heard anything this afternoon that would 18 cause us to change that position, although we do have 19 one question. And Laurie, your presentation is the 20 genesis of this question in part.
21 We thank you for your very thorough 22 running of the system through its paces. We also 23 thank NRC for the efforts that they've both already 24 conducted and as well as promised to conduct to 25 address those concerns. I think, as Laurie was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
179 1 running through the concerns, we had somebody here 2 trying to do some of those things. Apparently, NRC 3 has already successfully addressed a number of those.
4 One of our reasons for liking this is, you 5 know, the LSN does not exist in a vacuum. It's funny 6 what, you know, this thing was ground-breaking when we 7 first created it, starting around the turn of the 8 century. But around ten years after that, the federal 9 court system did put in place an electronic court 10 filing system that our lawyers are very familiar with.
11 And we see this particular option as being 12 sufficiently similar to that that it would be equally 13 workable. Our lawyers have a lot of experience with 14 that system.
15 And also I should add that, you know, 16 NRC's efforts to address these issues in the contexts 17 of Option 2, Alternative 1, I wouldn't agree that 18 those reflect a bias toward that option because I 19 think we're seeing that a lot of those concerns would 20 exist no matter which option you picked. I mean, 21 obviously, the LSN and ADAMS have to work together.
22 And if there's something about ADAMS that limits the 23 LSN, then maybe you do have to go somewhere else.
24 Again, I think we're still thinking that 25 that can be made workable. We say this with a lot of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
180 1 familiarity with ADAMS and a lot of familiarity with 2 comparable systems. The question I have is NRC has 3 conceded that there's still some additional work to do 4 to bolster the system, and I think that's been evident 5 this afternoon.
6 Looking at these cost and time estimates, 7 and again, I think time is as important as money here, 8 does NRC envision that it could do the things that 9 you've committed to do this afternoon without altering 10 those cost and time estimates? In other words, can 11 you do those things within the cost and time estimates 12 you've provided?
13 And I'm referring to Appendix D of the 14 options paper now. So really that's the question.
15 Can you address those concerns that have been raised 16 that you haven't already addressed in those handouts.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Rod. I don't 18 know if NRC LSN staff wants to try to provide some, an 19 answer to that at this point, or treat it as a 20 question that you want to think about going forward.
21 Not a rhetorical question, but.
22 MR. McCULLUM: Yeah, if I can make it a 23 little less rhetorical perhaps. Certainly, when you 24 update this option paper, and again, I compliment NRC 25 for being responsive to input it receives as we're on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
181 1 Revision 4 now. And when you come out with the next 2 product or the final product, certainly can you at 3 least commit that you will make sure you factor 4 addressing those concerns into whatever you're showing 5 us in terms of the cost time?
6 And I forgot to mentions risks as well.
7 I think in terms of certainty, the risk profile is 8 important too.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. All right, 10 Bob, do you want to say something else before we go?
11 MR. HALSTEAD: Yes, I just want to say a 12 quick response. I appreciate the way, I appreciate 13 Rod's measured response to what I said. And I had 14 looked at the times in Appendix D too. And it is true 15 that your worst case there is 52 months. But we've 16 looked at the lead time looking at some options that 17 we've looked at at the state level.
18 It's no secret to anyone that the parties 19 are concerned that perhaps we're going to need to 20 supplement whatever the LSN is with internal search 21 capabilities. And when I look at these months and 22 costs, they look pretty reasonable to me. And I think 23 it's important not to be put off on the time versus 24 cost by the high-end numbers here of 38, 42, and 52 25 months.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
182 1 I think we need some refinement on that.
2 And I think it's quite possible that cost is not a 3 significant delineator here. And in fact the lead 4 times, you know, are in range where, you know, you're 5 probably talking about somewhere between 12 months and 6 30 months in reality, in my opinion.
7 But again, there are always things that 8 aren't going to go as well as you expect when you try 9 to develop and implement a system. But I really 10 appreciate the measured way in which Rod has replied 11 to this, and I'm very encouraged by the kind of 12 discussions that we've had here this afternoon. Thank 13 you.
14 MR. CAMERON: That's great, that's great.
15 Thank you, Bob. We're going to go to the ARP 16 participants on GoToMeeting and see what they have to 17 say on these issues. And I'm going to go first to 18 Loreen Pitchford. And I'm going to try to read what 19 she sent typed in, and I'm going to give Loreen an 20 opportunity if she wants to orally address that, 21 reframe it to do that, okay.
22 And she frames this in terms of 23 alternative. She is unmuted -- Loreen, do you just 24 want to talk to us?
25 MS. PITCHFORD: Sure. Actually, I think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
183 1 that this particular question that I had was cleared 2 up with Laurie and Margie's earlier conversation. It 3 was the same thing I was questioning about the 4 deleting of documents that were currently existing.
5 And you know, it was on page ten in that paragraph, 6 and I had noticed the same thing. So I think that was 7 answered very well.
8 MR. CAMERON: Oh, that's great. So you 9 noticed the same comment on page ten that Laurie did.
10 And that's what your question was based on, and we 11 have an answer to that, which is the language on page 12 ten has to be revised, basically.
13 MS. PITCHFORD: Yes, correct.
14 MR. CAMERON: All right, well thanks for 15 noticing that too, Loreen. Do we have anybody else on 16 GoToMeeting who has their tent up, put a chat into us?
17 MR. LACY: This is Darrell Lacy.
18 MR. CAMERON: Who was that?
19 MR. LACY: Darrell Lacy.
20 MR. CAMERON: Oh, Darrell. Okay, go 21 ahead, Darrell.
22 MR. LACY: Don't disagree a whole lot with 23 much of what anybody said. And you know, back to what 24 Laurie was indicating in regards to some of the 25 challenges she was dealing with on the first places NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
184 1 she spent more time looking at the process than we 2 have. Although what we have looked at does not run 3 into any of those challenges. But we also might look 4 at kind of keep it simple.
5 And as a smaller player at this, I think 6 we were looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 100, 120 current docs that we need to upload as soon 8 as we get started back and, you know, maybe another 9 couple of hundred over the period of time is what my 10 estimate was.
11 I want to keep it simple for some of the 12 smaller players here, especially the folks that are 13 smaller than us that don't necessarily justify 14 full-time people and keeping them trained on how to do 15 electronic submittals. Having the option of the 16 manual submittal of additional documents for the 17 smaller people may definitely be a preference.
18 And just in the vein of keep it simple, if 19 the problems are running across a current ADAMS 20 capabilities server that could be easily corrected, 21 then to me that's definitely the preferred option, 22 rather than starting with something new. That's 23 really all I have to say. Thanks.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And Darrell, the 25 implications of what I hear you saying is that when NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
185 1 the Advisory Review Panel is putting together 2 recommendations over the next several months and the 3 NRC LSN staff is informing the Commission, should the 4 choice of option, should there be, should one 5 criterion that they consider is what the impact or 6 implication should be for, as you phrased it, the 7 smaller players?
8 MR. LACY: Well, some of the electronic 9 submittals and other things definitely have additional 10 training requirements and other things for the party 11 to keep people trained and ready to go. I've used 12 some of these smaller players, the process may not 13 have more than ten or twenty documents to worry about 14 over the next three years.
15 Have to get full-time people in training, 16 they wanted do that. I think always allowing a 17 manual submittal as an option for the smaller types 18 should be an options.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, well, thank you, 20 Darrell, for that perspective. And let's see who else 21 we have on GoToMeeting. ARP members, anybody, Lisa?
22 MR. KLEVORICK: Phil Klevorick.
23 MR. CAMERON: Hey Phil, go ahead.
24 MR. KLEVORICK: Yeah, thank you. I kind 25 of look at this as kind of almost like a good news/bad NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
186 1 news situation. The good news situation is for the 2 situation of the old LSN as it was, was somewhat 3 cumbersome and difficult to navigate at times, as 4 already been pointed out many times.
5 And of course the good news is now we can 6 look at trying to reconstitute the old system into 7 something that's more workable and manageable based on 8 newer technologies, Google-like or Yahoo-like, or 9 whatever you want to call it -like.
10 But at the end of the day, I don't want it 11 to be lost, but whatever is materialized out of the 12 discussion and eventually the selection of the 13 process, it needs to be useful for the general public.
14 And then not just the attorneys who have experts and 15 deal with it and some of the players who have a little 16 bit more knowledge on it than the average person.
17 But the average person needs to be able to 18 do this with capabilities that would be seen as pretty 19 logical and reasonable. So I want to make sure that 20 that gets in there. I'm not into discussing how much 21 things cost per document dollar or whatever the heck 22 it is. It's just, that's something to be worked out, 23 I guess, when you start doing a true comparative 24 analysis on all the different proposals.
25 And I would probably guess that by the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
187 1 time some of this discussion is all done in the next 2 48 hours5.555556e-4 days <br />0.0133 hours <br />7.936508e-5 weeks <br />1.8264e-5 months <br />, that there may be other IT gurus out there 3 who may come up with another idea of, well, have you 4 looked at this plan or proposal. So I just want to 5 make sure that the general public point of view is put 6 in there no matter what process is chosen.
7 And the other thing I want to do is I want 8 to support what Darrell was just saying, and Bob 9 alluded to it way earlier in the meeting, is that the 10 smaller players in stature doesn't make us any less 11 important in the whole process.
12 And what I mean by that is simply is just 13 because we're not going to have a thousand and more 14 documents to upload and provide into the system, we 15 need to be treated the same as anybody else who is 16 within the party. And part of that is understanding 17 our limitations and our capabilities based on 18 economics, our employee situation, our logistical 19 issues, etc.
20 And I know that that's what's put in the 21 corral by you, by a comment I made earlier.
22 MR. CAMERON: Yes.
23 MR. KLEVORICK: But I do want to make sure 24 that that gets addressed as part of this whole bigger 25 discussion. Thank you.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
188 1 MR. CAMERON: And we will address it. And 2 there's, I think, that's a great follow-on to what 3 Darrell said. And I'm sorry, Phil, you still have 4 some more?
5 MR. KLEVORICK: No, no, I'm good, thank 6 you.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so I think what you're 8 suggesting is we heard Bob Halstead list out several 9 attributes that should be considered for any system.
10 Fair, transparent.
11 MR. HALSTEAD: Let's call it functional 12 requirements.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, functional 14 requirements. And he listed a bunch, and not that I'm 15 saying he would add what you said to it, but some 16 might say that a functional requirement should be 17 useful to the general public. And we heard from Judy 18 on that.
19 MR. HALSTEAD: And that's the fairness 20 issue.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and all also the 22 smaller players.
23 MR. HALSTEAD: Right.
24 MR. CAMERON: The fairness issue.
25 MR. HALSTEAD: That encompasses that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
189 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
2 MR. HALSTEAD: I totally agree with you.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so agree with both 4 Darrell and Phil.
5 MR. HALSTEAD: Darrell and Phil. They 6 make excellent points.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, let's make a note of 8 that, that's good. Anybody else on GoToMeeting? No, 9 okay. This is good discussion, and we're going to 10 come back to the table. But I just want to make sure 11 what we hear from the public at this point.
12 So we're going to go to webinar. Tommy 13 Heitman's not going to come up here again, but how 14 about GoToWebinar public? Anybody? Okay, no one on 15 GoToWebinar from the public.
16 And our operator's name is, what is it?
17 Gabrielle. Okay, Gabrielle, are you there?
18 Ox: Yes, I am.
19 MR. CAMERON: Can you see if anybody's on 20 the phone who wants to make a comment.
21 OPERATOR: I absolutely can. To ask a 22 question on the phone line, please press star one.
23 And please stand by one moment for those to come 24 through. Okay, it looks like we have no questions or 25 comments from the phone line.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
190 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks a lot, 2 Gabrielle. And let's come back to the table and see 3 if anybody has anything more to say about costs or 4 whatever. Rod?
5 MR. McCULLUM: Yeah, I just want to say, 6 for the record, those functional attributes are okay 7 with the Nuclear Energy Institute. Those are things 8 the system should have. I would add we probably 9 can't, we certainly can't, as has already been 10 recognized, get to those by going backwards to a 11 system that is obsolete already, which would be the 12 old system.
13 I don't think we believe that we need to 14 create something entirely new, either, to get to those 15 attributes. So there's definitely some options on the 16 table there.
17 Taking it back to the glass half full 18 perspective, the improvement in technology that's 19 occurred over the last 15 years is a good thing. We 20 should be able to get to those attributes. And I look 21 forward to tomorrow's discussions to, you know, see 22 what else we should consider in that regard.
23 MR. CAMERON: So are you saying that, I 24 mean, you agree with the attributes we've been talking 25 about. But you're saying that also that we don't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
191 1 need, necessarily need, to have something completely 2 new to fulfill all those attributes.
3 MR. McCULLUM: That's correct.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay, all right.
5 MR. KLEVORICK: Chip, if I may, this is 6 Phil Klevorick again.
7 MR. CAMERON: Yeah, go ahead, Phil, then 8 we're going to come back to Judy and Bob.
9 MR. KLEVORICK: I'm sorry, yeah, sorry 10 about jumping in. Somebody made a comment earlier 11 about the platform and searchability and all that 12 stuff, you know, Firefox or Chrome or whatever the 13 heck it was. And in all honesty, I think that that's 14 probably going to be the limiting factors.
15 Because as we know, under the current way 16 of searching, a lot of things are not interactive.
17 And I'm not an IT guy, so I may be using the wrong 18 terms. But I'd be cautious on the platform in which 19 anything is going to be created so that it is 20 basically searchable by whatever platform a end user 21 may have available to it.
22 So if it's the NRC LSN staff, maybe they 23 could talk a little bit about that tomorrow or later 24 on today, you know, where the problems may arise, that 25 kind of thing.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
192 1 MR. CAMERON: So Phil, just let me make 2 sure I understand this. Are you saying one of the 3 attributes, one of the functional requirements that 4 should be considered is that it should be searchable, 5 I don't know if that's the right term, by a broad 6 range of platforms?
7 MR. KLEVORICK: Correct, like whatever 8 browser a person has available. Because some people 9 don't, haven't updated their computer, or whatever the 10 case be. I think it's got to be searchable or be able 11 to usable under various different types of browsers.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and that may be 13 considered under the fair, functional requirement.
14 But thank you for that.
15 MR. KLEVORICK: Okay, thank you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Let's go to Judy first, and 17 then Bob. Judy.
18 MS. TREICHEL: Well, very quickly, I agree 19 with that list that you have, and especially including 20 what Phil just put in. Because there are people in 21 all sort of parts of the country, whether it's rural 22 or urban or whatever that have different sorts of 23 systems, and they should be able to do that.
24 And I guess that's what I was getting at 25 when I asked that there be a technical working group.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
193 1 And it doesn't have to last for a year. It can be 2 very quick now because we know what we're asking 3 somebody to build something. We're asking them to 4 guide us to something that's already there.
5 MR. CAMERON: So would you give the 6 technical working group a list of functional 7 requirements? And I'm not saying these would be the 8 functional requirements, although there seems to be 9 some agreement on that.
10 MS. TREICHEL: Yeah, that's what we did 11 the last time. It needs to do this, this, this, and 12 this.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, all right. Thanks.
14 Bob.
15 MR. HALSTEAD: Couple quick close-up 16 things. First of all, as Marty reminded me, I forgot 17 that there's this interesting discussion on page 42 18 that affects the general consideration of options. It 19 says, The federal government has adopted a cloud-first 20 policy. It is intended to accelerate the pace at 21 which government will realize the value of cloud 22 computing. It continues.
23 So I think there are a couple of points 24 here. If we have a federal government cloud-first 25 policy, that not only has some implications for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
194 1 certainly downgrading, if not eliminating, 2 reconstitution of the original LSN is an option, I 3 think frankly it has some serious implications for the 4 two Option 2 variations. And maybe that's something 5 we can come back to in our closing discussion 6 tomorrow, about going forward with options.
7 The second thing I want to say is that it 8 really is important and cannot be said enough that 9 both for this LSN Advisory Review Panel and for 10 participation in the licensing proceeding there are 11 very special needs on behalf of the Native Community 12 Action Council and the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.
13 The National Congress of American Indians 14 is a member here, and there are many Indian nations 15 that are going to be affected by various parts of the 16 proposal. So some thinking must be given to providing 17 resources to the tribal entities. To more effectively 18 define what their user needs are, it has to be done in 19 a timely way so that their needs can be worked into 20 this whole process.
21 And the same certainly has to be said for 22 the Nevada counties who are parties. Some will argue 23 that some counties, like Nye and Clark and Esmeralda 24 and Lincoln, because of both being host county and 25 transportation counties, that they have a higher NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
195 1 calling. But I think all the Nevada counties feel 2 that they are directly affected by this process.
3 And that means they have to have some 4 resources to help them define their needs as user 5 participants in the licensing proceeding and are 6 seated here, or virtually, on the Advisory Review 7 Panel.
8 And I just, I would be remiss if I did not 9 come back and say these things again, that we really 10 need to make sure that all the people who are entitled 11 to have a voice in defining their used needs have some 12 resource, provide some resources provided to them to 13 do that. Thank you.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Bob, and 15 thank you all. And we do have an issue in the corral 16 that we will address tomorrow, and it deals with 17 resources, timing, and Phil Klevorick first raised it 18 in terms of the AULGs. Clark County is one of the 19 two, and NYE, AULGs. We heard a reference to needs of 20 tribal governments, and Bob talked about all Nevada 21 counties.
22 We'll come and have a discussion of that, 23 and I think that we'll need to spend some time before 24 tomorrow figuring out where that should be placed and 25 to try to be more articulate about framing that issue.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
196 1 But we'll do that. And I should ask my colleague 2 who's the Chair of the Advisory Committee to, I guess, 3 close it out, and whatever else you want to say, Andy.
4 CHAIRMAN BATES: I think this has been a 5 great discussion today. If there's other thoughts 6 that anybody had at this point, welcome to it.
7 Tomorrow we're going to go into Options 3 and Options 8 4, which are more cloud-based, and some of the broader 9 considerations there. And I'm looking forward to that 10 discussion.
11 And I hope this has been productive for 12 everybody. It certainly has been educational and 13 productive for us, I think. And we appreciate all the 14 work that people have put into this to get your 15 thoughts together. Laurie, for her work on the 16 system.
17 It's been very beneficial to our staff 18 here to identify issues and problems that the LSN 19 library has. It also clearly points towards what we 20 need to look at in the future for any system that we 21 implement, whether it's one of our options that we've 22 considered or something else that comes forward over 23 the next couple days or the months ahead.
24 Laurie mentioned the possibility of you 25 know, looking at some of the other litigation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
197 1 databases that are out there, how that would fit in 2 with a cloud-based system or not. And Judy's comments 3 with regard to the fairness issue and perception that 4 the NRC owns the system, all of that I think is an 5 important consideration going forward.
6 MR. CAMERON: Andrew?
7 CHAIRMAN BATES: I thank you for your 8 efforts here today, too.
9 MR. CAMERON: Oh, you're welcome. So 10 we're adjourned now.
11 CHAIRMAN BATES: Yeah, and then as about a 12 15-minute break, I think. And then around five 13 o'clock --
14 MR. CAMERON: We can have break-up, do the 15 -- and Rekha, you're going to come up here, right?
16 Okay, Rekha will be here. And do you think at like 17 five after five or ten after five? Well, let's get 18 everybody set up. And some people are going to be 19 leaving and everything. So let's take 15 minutes, 20 five after five. Okay, thank you all.
21 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 22 off the record at 4:48 p.m.)
23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433