ML18177A318
| ML18177A318 | |
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| Issue date: | 06/21/2018 |
| From: | NRC/SECY |
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| Download: ML18177A318 (70) | |
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1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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MEETING WITH THE ORGANIZATION OF AGREEMENT STATES (OAS)
AND THE CONFERENCE OF RADIATION CONTROL PROGRAM DIRECTORS (CRCPD)
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THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2018
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ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND
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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Hearing Room at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, at 10:00 a.m., Kristine L. Svinicki, Chairman, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
KRISTINE L. SVINICKI, Chairman JEFF BARAN, Commissioner STEPHEN G. BURNS, Commissioner ANNIE CAPUTO, Commissioner DAVID A. WRIGHT, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:
ANNETTE VIETTI-COOK, Secretary of the Commission MARGARET DOANE, General Counsel
2 OAS & CRPD LEADERSHIP PRESENT:
DAVID ALLARD, Certified Health Physicist, Director, Bureau of Radiation Protection, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, CRCPD Past Chair KAREN BECKLEY, Program Manager, Radiation Control Program, Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, CRCPD Chair MATTHEW McKINLEY, Administrator, Radiation Health Program, Kentucky Cabinet for health & Family Services, OAS Past Chair JENNIFER OPILA, Program Manager, Hazardous Materials & Waste Management Division, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, OAS Chair-elect JARED THOMPSON, Program Manager, Radioactive Materials Program, Arkansas Department of Health, CRCPD Past Chair DAVID TUBERVILLE, Assistant Director, Office of Radiation Control, Alabama Department of Public Health, OAS Chair
3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (10:03 a.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Well, good morning, everyone, 4 welcome, it's good to see everyone. This morning the Commission 5 convenes in public session for a meeting that we conduct annually, or as 6 close to it as we can get.
7 Given everyone's schedules this is our meeting with the 8 Organization of Agreement States as well as the Conference of Radiation 9 Control Program Directors.
10 Again, there is a very rich tapestry of engagement between 11 the two organizations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at all levels 12 and on a lot of areas of expertise.
13 There is the discussions that go on throughout the year, 14 but this is our annual opportunity for the Commission to meet with the, it 15 tends to be the chairs and the chairs-elect and other presenters who are 16 deeply involved in the many important activities that we have ongoing 17 between our agreement state partners, our non-agreement state partners, 18 and the NRC staff.
19 So this will bring these issues before the Commission's 20 attention, which I know is something I know I always look forward to. I know 21 the Commission as a whole really values all the work that's going on in our 22 engagement with each of you.
23 So the structure of today's meeting will be that we will 24 have, again, a series of topical presentations from the good folks seated at 25 the table here, and I will introduce you each in turn before you are 26 recognized to give the presentation that you intend on the topic that you
4 1 have indicated you will speak on and then the Commission will have a round 2 of questions and answers of Commissioners so that we have an opportunity 3 to further explore those things.
4 Before we begin with that do any of my colleagues have 5 any opening comments they would like to make?
6 (No audible response) 7 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay, I think we're all eager just 8 to dive right in to the topics we have before us today. So, again, I will just 9 recognize and I'll introduce each of you I guess in a very summary way, but 10 I'll introduce each of you before you present.
11 And my understanding is that the preferred order is what I 12 am going to go by here, but we would begin with Mr. David Tuberville who is 13 the Assistant Director, Office of Radiation Control of the Alabama 14 Department of Public Health, and he is the current Organization of 15 Agreement States Chair, so I recognize you to please begin.
16 MR. TUBERVILLE: Good morning. My topic today is on 17 the current General License Program. In 2005 the Organization of 18 Agreement States submitted a petition for a rulemaking to NRC requesting 19 that NRC amend its 10 CFR Part 31 to strengthen the regulations by 20 requiring a specific license for higher activity devices available under a 21 general license.
22 Although a final rule was submitted to the Commission in 23 2010 after some consideration the Commission chose not to approve 24 publication of that final rule.
25 Recently in response to GAO Report 16-330 the 26 Commission directed the staff to take specific actions to evaluate whether it
5 1 was necessary to revise the rules or processes governing source protection 2 and accountability.
3 From that assessment a need was identified to re-evaluate 4 the current general license program. This time the assessment was not 5 based on security but was based on health and safety.
6 From that the General License Re-Evaluation Working 7 Group was established earlier this year. The working group currently 8 includes three agreement state representatives.
9 The purpose of the re-evaluation is to either, one, provide 10 sufficient basis that changes to the provision of the GL program are needed 11 to ensure the continued protection of public health and safety in the current 12 environment, or, two, document that the existing GL program continues to 13 ensure the protection of public health and safety.
14 I know the working group has done a mountain of work in a 15 very short amount of time. It's my understanding that the working group 16 evaluation will be documented in a notation paper to the Commission in the 17 very near future.
18 They have reached out to the agreement states in the form 19 of a very comprehensive survey and got responses back from 30 of the 37 20 agreement states. That is an indication that the agreement states are very 21 interested in this program and have some strong opinions as it relates to the 22 GL issues.
23 At last year's OAS meeting in Memphis the Monday 24 morning session was devoted to a panel discussion on the General License 25 Program with lively discussions there.
26 The OAS has encouraged that NRC is taking another look
6 1 at the GL program. OAS is of the opinion that changes are indeed needed 2 for the current GL program and we hope that the working group will come to 3 the same conclusion.
4 I would like to take a few minutes here today to discuss 5 some points that OAS sees as issues in the current GL program and should 6 be considered in its re-evaluation.
7 First, OAS believes that we should come to a consensus to 8 restrict the activity of radioactive material in the general license devices to 9 something below Category 3 activity.
10 Anything above that level should be specifically licensed.
11 This was proposed in the original OAS petition for rulemaking back in 2005.
12 Second, OAS believes that manufacturers and distributors 13 have an obligation to better inform the end user of their regulatory 14 responsibilities as a general licensee.
15 As a past inspector my experience has found that there is 16 a low awareness of the regulatory requirements by general licensees. The 17 end user routinely has an inadequate knowledge of his or her responsibilities 18 that pertains to the radiation safety for the GL devices and there is high 19 personnel turnover in these industrial sectors causing a quick loss of 20 institutional knowledge as it pertains to the use of these devices. This is an 21 area that needs to be addressed, perhaps even in the form of a rulemaking.
22 Third, OAS believes that the age of the GL program is a 23 problem in itself. Personally, I am uncertain as to when GLs came into 24 existence but from the records that I have seen early to late 1960s 25 documenting transfers into Alabama.
26 Generally in the past general license registration and the
7 1 inspection programs have been a low priority in the agreement states and in 2 NRC regions.
3 Inspection Manual 2800 states "Routine inspections of 4 general licensees are not normally performed." Old records and incomplete 5 databases make it difficult for these states that may be trying to get a handle 6 on that problem.
7 In Alabama in 2010 we recognized our GL program as a 8 weakness and we made a concerted effort to locate all the general license 9 devices in our state. This required an extensive review of our files and 10 databases as well as conducting site visits.
11 At that time when we did start we had a database with over 12 600 facilities that had registered GL devices in the past. That database did 13 not differentiate between active and inactive facilities.
14 From our review we have gotten that number down to 15 around 190 active GL registrants. What our investigation found was that 16 many of the facilities that were in the database had long gone out of 17 business and were now vacant lots.
18 This was a very time consuming and labor intensive job 19 requiring a lot of man hours that some agreement states can't afford to give 20 up.
21 Fourth, and finally, OAS believes under the current GL 22 program lost and/or found GL devices will continue to be a problem. AS 23 companies age and some go out of business oversight of the GL devices is 24 compromised.
25 GAO devices routinely end up as part of the scrap metal if 26 a plant is dismantled or the device is sold and transferred to another facility
8 1 in violation of the current rules and accountability is lost or compromised.
2 Personally I don't have any national numbers, but in the 3 last five years Alabama has had a total of 26 events involving gauges 4 containing radioactive material.
5 Of those 26 events nine were actually GL devices, 6 including three that were found in scrap metal loads, one that was lost and 7 not found, and one that had the potential to be lost.
8 Nine GL incidents in a 5-year span may not sound like a 9 lot, but recognizing Alabama is a small player when it comes to radioactive 10 material use, and I, along with many others in the agreement state, believe 11 that lost GL devices are under reported as a whole.
12 I do recognize that general license devices are inherently 13 safe but one cannot guarantee such safety when control is lost. Personally, 14 if I could, I would abolish the GL program, and specifically license or 15 exempted devices based on any accepted criteria.
16 If you asked all the agreement state program directors I 17 am sure you would come up with a multitude of answers and differing 18 opinions on how to correct this problem, but the agreement states, who are 19 your partners, have some good ideas that work for their programs. History 20 has proven that.
21 So what I ask is that you don't handcuff the agreement 22 states with a Compatibility B designation on any rule changes that might be 23 considered.
24 These are just some of the points I wanted to bring to your 25 attention today. OAS recognizes the working group will most likely have 26 additional recommendations possibly in the form of revised inspection
9 1 procedures, databases, and or changes to the regulations, and we look 2 forward to their findings and recommendations.
3 I commend them all on the work that they have done in 4 such a short amount of time. But I do ask that when you consider each 5 recommendation make sure to consider how it will affect the agreements 6 states and their limited staffs before making any final decisions.
7 As I said earlier, the agreement states are very interested 8 in this topic and I would encourage you to continue to get their input as you 9 move forward. Thank you for your time.
10 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much. Next we 11 will hear from Ms. Jennifer Opila. Is that -- Yes, thank you -- who is the 12 Program Manager for Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division 13 of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and she is the 14 OAS Chair-Elect. Please proceed.
15 MS. OPILA: Thank you very much for having me today.
16 My topic is the National Materials Program. The National Materials 17 Program represents the partnership between the agreement states and the 18 NRC to ensure radiation safety through regulatory programs.
19 As you know in 2017 the NRC Office of the Inspector 20 General conducted an audit of the NRC's implementation of the National 21 Materials Program. OAS welcomed the OIG audit and appreciated the 22 efforts that the OIG team took to gather input from the agreement states.
23 The OIG attended the 2017 OAS annual meeting and 24 presented the scope and the objectives of their audit. Additionally, the OIG 25 was available during the meeting to collect feedback from the agreement 26 states on the National Materials Program.
10 1 After the OAS meeting the OIG reached out to officials 2 from all 37 agreement states as well as officials from Wyoming and Vermont 3 who are on their way to becoming agreement states.
4 Based on the feedback I received from agreement states 5 the OIG report accurately describes the information that they received from 6 the agreement states.
7 I would like to discuss the OIG findings and the OAS 8 reactions to the findings. First, the OIG found that stakeholders do not have 9 a consistent understanding of some of the National Materials Program's 10 tenants, including membership, members roles and responsibilities, and the 11 activities covered under the program.
12 The OAS agrees with this finding. In particular, that 13 having defined roles and responsibilities would be helpful in providing a 14 more effective relationship between the agreement states and the NRC.
15 Second, the OIG found that the regional state agreement 16 officers serve an important liaison role between the NRC and the agreement 17 states. The OAS also agrees with this finding.
18 In November of 2017 the OAS Board sent a letter to NRC 19 emphasizing the roles of the RSAOs. This letter expressed the agreement 20 states partnerships with the RSAO and emphasized the value of having such 21 a resource readily available, usually just a phone call or email away.
22 OAS also encouraged the NRC to continue the practice of 23 including the RSAO as part of the IMPEP teams for the agreement state 24 program reviews.
25 Third, the OIG found that there was inconsistency of 26 addressing the National Materials Program at these annual Commission
11 1 briefings. The OAS agrees with this finding and commits to including the 2 National Materials Program and its remarks at future OAS/CRCPD 3 Commission briefings.
4 Fourth, the OIG found that frequent NRC management 5 turnover can negatively impact the National Materials Program. The OIG 6 found that in the approximate ten years between October 2007 and January 7 2018 there have been eight different managers who held the NMSS or 8 MSST Division Director position.
9 These changes are still occurring. In the eight weeks in 10 late 2018 to early 2018 -- I'm sorry. In late 2017 to early 2018 the manager 11 of the Director of MSTR or MSST changed twice.
12 The OAS strongly agrees with this finding. As the OIG 13 states, "Different managers have different beliefs and levels of 14 understanding of how the National Materials Program should be 15 implemented."
16 Additionally, the OIG was accurate when they stated that 17 agreement states staff expressed frustration with having to constantly 18 re-establish working relationships with new NRC managers.
19 A recent example of this is that Kevin Williams represented 20 the NRC at the March 2018 OAS Board Meeting. At this meeting we work 21 with NRC management to develop priorities for the NRC and the OAS and 22 the National Materials Program.
23 When Kevin was at our meeting he expressed that he had 24 only been in his role for a short time and was still learning. Shortly after this 25 Kevin was rotated to the Executive Director's Office to support 26 transformation.
12 1 It is unclear how the information exchanged between Kevin 2 and the OAS Board will be implemented with Kevin no longer even working 3 in NMSS. It is difficult for the OAS and the agreement states to develop 4 partnerships with the NRC when the representatives from the NRC are 5 frequently changing.
6 Finally, the OIG found that 45 percent of agreement states 7 are not satisfied with the level of influence they have on the National 8 Materials Program. The OIG states that many agreement states do not see 9 their relationship as an equal partnership and they have a lack of influence 10 relative to the prioritization of changes in policy and rulemaking.
11 The OAS Board has heard similar concerns from the 12 agreement states and has been working with the NRC to enhance the level 13 of partnership between the agreement states and the NRC.
14 We believe that progress has been made in this area. In 15 the past few years the NRC has worked with the OAS director of rulemaking 16 to adjust the timing of request for comments in a manner that does not 17 overwhelm agreement states staff.
18 And recently the NRC chose to add an OAS board 19 member to the Common Prioritization of Rulemaking Working Group. We 20 believe these two efforts by the NRC are valuable steps forward in 21 partnering with the agreement states.
22 The OIG had two recommendations in their audit report.
23 The OIG recommended that the Executive Director formalize the National 24 Materials Program framework in a document to include a definition, vision, 25 missions, goals and objectives, membership, members roles and 26 responsibilities, and activities.
13 1 The OIG also recommended that the Executive Director 2 designate an NRC individual to serve as the National Materials Program 3 champion and to encourage the agreement states to create a co-champion.
4 The OAS agrees with these recommendations and 5 appreciates the NRC's response to the recommendations.
6 The OAS has dedicated a session of our 2018 annual 7 meeting in August to discuss the OIG's recommendations and to work with 8 the NRC on developing a framework document for the National Materials 9 Program as well as selecting a champion and co-champion for the National 10 Materials Program.
11 The OAS remains committed to enhancing our partnership 12 with the NRC and implementing the National Materials Program. Thank you 13 very much for having me.
14 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you for your presentation.
15 Next we will hear from Mr. Matthew McKinley who is the Administrator of the 16 Radiation Health Program for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family 17 Services, and he is the recent past Chair of OAS. Mr. McKinley, please 18 proceed.
19 MR. MCKINLEY: Thank you. My topic today is the 20 IMPEP, which is the Integrated Materials Performance Evaluation Plan, 21 process and implementation.
22 So I wanted to start, actually I have two slides basically, I 23 just wanted to start with a little bit of background so that we can all be talking 24 about the same thing as I move into my second slide.
25 IMPEP has been around since 1996, really 1994, it was a 26 pilot. It was fully implemented in '96. I myself have been around for about
14 1 two-thirds of that time. I started in 2003.
2 I have been through four IMPEPs in a leadership position 3 within Kentucky. I have served on two IMPEP teams and been a member 4 of various MRBs representing the agreement states, so I have seen the 5 program for a while from a number of different perspectives.
6 I look around the room and I see people who were here 7 when it first began and were actually responsible for its implementation and 8 overall the program is a fantastic program, one of the best of its kind that I 9 have ever had the pleasure to work within.
10 However, it's not without its potential shortcomings, and 11 since this is kind of the nature of this discussion I want to bring up a few 12 issues for discussion, and in keeping with the IMPEP process I will call them 13 recommendations for consideration.
14 So the way the IMPEP works is first of all it is authorized, 15 it's justified directly back to the Atomic Energy Act, Section 274, Part J, that 16 says the Commission on its own initiative after reasonable notice and 17 opportunity for hearing to the state which an agreement under Subsection B 18 as become effective, or upon request of the governor of such state, may 19 terminate or suspend all or part of its agreement with the state and reassert 20 the licensing and regulatory authority vested in it under the Act if the 21 Commission finds that termination or suspension is required to protect public 22 health and safety or the state has not complied with one or more of the 23 requirements of this section.
24 So, obviously, the NRC has responsibility under this Act to 25 make sure that states who have signed an agreement are continuing to be 26 compatible and adequate to protect public health and safety.
15 1 To that end, the Commission shall periodically review such 2 agreements and actions taken by the state under the agreement to ensure 3 compliance with the provisions of this section.
4 So clearly it's an NRC responsibility to look at programs 5 periodically to re-evaluate, make sure that everything is still going along 6 smoothly. So that's the basis of the program.
7 The way it is implemented is it is broken into performance 8 indicators. Many of you who have been around are quite familiar with 9 those. Some may not be as familiar so I am just going to read what they 10 are. It's a very short list, really.
11 There are common performance indicators, which as the 12 name would imply, apply to all programs, including NRC regions that 13 undergo the IMPEP process, and they are technical staffing and training, 14 status of materials inspection program, technical quality of inspections, 15 technical quality of licensing actions, and technical quality of incident and 16 allegation activities.
17 And then there are a number of non-common performance 18 indicators which may or may not apply to an individual program, and they 19 include compatibility, of course, they don't apply to the regions because the 20 regions are under the CFRs automatically, but for most states compatibility is 21 a big issue.
22 Sealed source and device evaluation program, low-level 23 waste, and uranium recovery round out the non-common performance 24 indicators.
25 So the process for the IMPEP is that the team assembles, 26 and it's made up of an NRC team leader and various NRC staff round out
16 1 the team along with agreement state participation.
2 So on each IMPEP team you'll have some NRC staff and 3 some agreement state staff, which is a good collaboration. It brings a lot of 4 different perspectives to each program.
5 The team will engage with the state before the IMPEP in a 6 couple of different ways. One is that they will actually send an advanced 7 person to the state to accompany state inspectors on inspections so they 8 can assess the technical quality of inspections. The only way to really do 9 that is to actually accompany inspectors in the field.
10 Another way is through the use of the IMPEP 11 questionnaire. So the state sends a lot of advance information to the 12 IMPEP team so that the IMPEP team is prepared to look at documents and 13 can go in with a good plan to be efficient through the process.
14 That all happens before. The IMPEP generally takes 15 about a week in which the team reviews all aspects of the program, looking 16 at all of these performance indicators that apply.
17 After that process the team will leave the state, write up a 18 draft report, send it to the state for comments, the state sends comments 19 back, and a final report is due out at 104 days post IMPEP.
20 At that point an MRB is scheduled and the findings 21 become official after the Management Review Board, MRB, has convened, 22 and heard the findings. So the end result of an IMPEP is hopefully that the 23 state is found to be adequate to protect public health and safety or they 24 could be found adequate but needs improvement, or in some cases I 25 suppose it's possible to be not adequate to protect public health and safety 26 that would be a bad situation.
17 1 The other portion that is considered is the compatibility 2 requirement and that would be either you are compatible or you're not 3 compatible, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about the compatibility issue 4 as we go along.
5 I have a second slide if we could go ahead and -- I don't 6 know if anybody is really looking at the slides, but just in case they are.
7 FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Next slide?
8 MR. MCKINLEY: Next slide, please.
9 FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Okay.
10 MR. MCKINLEY: Yes, thank you. So implementation, 11 there is a few issues that come up during consideration of how the IMPEP 12 process is actually implemented, and one of those is compatibility and I did 13 want to start to talk about that just a little bit.
14 Compatibility is very difficult to define and I have some 15 notes here and I should probably read them. I think I have some time here 16 so let me just grab my notes on this if I can find them. There we go.
17 The Kentucky agreement says that one of the things the 18 state will do as a part of the agreement is that it will use its best efforts to 19 maintain continuing compatibility between its program and the program of 20 the Commission for the regulation of like materials.
21 Similar language is used in the Atomic Energy Act. It is 22 very difficult to define what compatibility really truly means, but clearly the 23 intent is that we all maintain a program that is similar to all of the other 24 programs in the National Materials Program so that licensees could move 25 from one state to the next and the rules under which they are governed 26 would not change significantly.
18 1 The states do have some latitude, as has been mentioned 2 earlier, in compatibility categories. In some cases the states can't have 3 slightly different rules and the states can always be more restrictive than the 4 NRC if they deem it to be appropriate.
5 Another area that bears mentioning is metrics, and I have 6 that up here on my slide. I wanted to include it. It's a little bit hard to 7 understand what it means by just reading that one word, but much of the 8 IMPEP process is objective, and it's that way on purpose, and it has to be 9 that way.
10 However, when metrics are used there must be an 11 understanding that there is always a story behind the numbers. The 12 numbers don't lie, but numbers can mean different things depending on the 13 way in which those numbers were derived.
14 There have been instances where, and I am going to use 15 my own state as an example, I don't want to pull other states, you know, into 16 this, I haven't checked with them so I'm not going to, but I want to talk about 17 something that happened in Kentucky years ago and that was we had fallen 18 behind on our inspection performance, we had done some late inspections.
19 The metric is very clear and we did not meet the metric in 20 that IMPEP review, but had we wanted to we could have manipulated that 21 and simply not done inspections and just kept up with the ones that weren't 22 overdue and potentially driven that number down into an area where we 23 would have appeared to be more compliant when in fact we would have 24 actually been worse for public health and safety.
25 So there are considerations that need to be taken into 26 account by the IMPEP team and the Management Review Board when
19 1 dealing with metrics. They are good measures but there is always another 2 aspect to the metrics.
3 The last part under implementation that I wanted to talk 4 about was general licensing. David has given us a great presentation on 5 GLs and their position within the National Materials Program.
6 If general licenses, or general license material more 7 specifically, needs to be licensed perhaps it's time to consider whether or not 8 it shouldn't be added to Inspection Manual 2800 and included on IMPEP 9 reviews, at least in some capacity.
10 If not, then perhaps as David suggested we consider doing 11 away with the program and folding in all of those licensees or those that 12 need to be folded in under a specific license because right now there is a 13 pretty vast number of licensees out there that is really not part of the 14 evaluation process.
15 So speaking of process, the last couple of items that I 16 wanted to address regarding IMPEP involve state representation. Now 17 state representation is actually fairly good in a lot of ways.
18 The states participate as part of the IMPEP teams, which 19 is good, and that there is also a spot on the Management Review Board for 20 an agreement state representative.
21 However, that representative is non-voting member of the 22 Management Review Board, and so that might be something to consider if 23 more involvement, more direct involvement, could be had on the part of the 24 states that might be another recommendation that could be considered.
25 Regarding the Management Review Board, Jennifer 26 alluded to it, well she didn't allude to it, she came right out and said it, which
20 1 we all appreciate, the change in management is an issue and this is 2 apparent in a lot of different areas but particularly in the IMPEP where the 3 Management Review Board's are different people from year to year, and 4 maybe even in some cases from month to month.
5 There is enough subjectivity within the program, as I have 6 mentioned the metrics are great, they are objective, but there is a lot of other 7 issues that surround the numbers that need to be taken into account and 8 that's the Management Review Board's job, one of them anyway, and with 9 different people come different interpretations, different points of view on 10 these subjective findings which can lead to inconsistency of 11 recommendations or agreeing with the team's findings in various areas from 12 one state to the next.
13 And so part of the process I think to address some of the 14 National Materials Program issues is to really define what the National 15 Materials Program is, the roles and responsibilities of each participant, and 16 this would be very helpful in the IMPEP process to have a very specific set of 17 guidelines and means to provide clear understanding to each member of the 18 Management Review Board as they rotate into those positions as to the 19 nature of the relationship between the states and NRC and the flexibility that 20 needs to be brought into the process when either agreeing with or changing 21 a finding of the IMPEP team.
22 So one of the strengths of the IMPEP process, one of its 23 main strengths, is its flexibility, its ability to evolve and adapt and, of course, 24 that's only of value when we consider ways in which we might cause that 25 evolution or adaptation to take place.
26 And so that's really the nature of my presentation here
21 1 today is to simply bring some issues up that may be considered to help 2 adapt and improve the IMPEP process as a whole. Thank you.
3 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much for that 4 presentation. We will now pivot to our presenters who are speaking 5 regarding issues and representing the CRCPD. We will begin with Ms.
6 Karen Beckley who is the Program Manager of the Radiation Control 7 Program in the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health and Ms.
8 Beckley is also the current CRCPD Chair. Please proceed.
9 MS. BECKLEY: Thank you and good morning. I have a 10 few changes to this and I apologize. I have recently been promoted, so my 11 position is now vacant, I am going to do both.
12 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay, thank you. Thank you. I 13 mean, please, we prepare these sometime in advance, if there is some 14 correction that is needed please just let us know.
15 MS. BECKLEY: Right, right, I apologize. So my hat for 16 the state currently is Bureau Chief overseeing the regulatory programs, 17 including the Radiation Control Program.
18 I am also the state liaison and that is my limited role for the 19 state, and the reason I say that is because the topic I am prepared to talk 20 about today is the decommissioning of nuclear reactors.
21 So as we go forward with this the issue I am going to 22 present, as I said, is the decommissioning of nuclear reactors, and as you 23 may know many states are facing a shutdown of reactors in their states.
24 The potential economic impact will be significant in these 25 areas as well as the concern for the potential environmental impacts and the 26 site security issues.
22 1 There will be significant public input to any perceived 2 reduction of site security monitoring as we go forward. The Radiation 3 Control Programs will have a greater involvement in oversight of these areas 4 when the NRC terminates licensing and they will have reduced funding to do 5 this because the power plant will not be currently operating.
6 In March 2016 the CRCPD provided 29 pages of comment 7 to the NRC Docket Number NRC-2015-0070 expressing many of these 8 concerns. We continue to work collaboratively with the NRC to address 9 these issues but are becoming increasingly concerned with the imminent 10 closure of these sites and with rulemaking still not finalized as it's an ongoing 11 process.
12 As we know that there is -- Some of the casks will be 13 moved and put into new sites and we're not quite sure where all of the 14 rulemaking is going to go.
15 So as we have to deal with our administration it would be 16 very helpful for us to know what the perception of the NRC is going forward 17 and when we could expect the rulemaking process to go.
18 I know that there was a lot of NUREGs that were being 19 finalized in this process but then it seemed to stall somewhere along the line.
20 So I am just bringing this forward as a concern as we move into closure of 21 these reactor sites. Thank you for your time today.
22 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much. Next we 23 will hear from Mr. David Allard who is a Certified Health Physicist in addition 24 to being Director of the Bureau of Radiation Protection in the Pennsylvania 25 Department of Environmental Protection.
26 He is the recent CRCPD past Chair and a frequent
23 1 presenter at these meetings. Welcome back and thank you for being here 2 again. Please proceed.
3 MR. ALLARD: Thank you, Madam Chair.
4 Commissioners, it is always a pleasure and an honor to be here to brief the 5 Commission. First slide, please. I do have some slides as always. I 6 usually talk from my slides. So, thank you.
7 So one bit of good news here for the CRCPD we have a 8 birthday party going on, a year-long birthday party. We just celebrated, we 9 were fortunate to have Commissioner Baran down in South Carolina, we had 10 our annual meeting in May.
11 We are celebrating our 50th year here, a half century of 12 radiation protection. Despite the turbulent years of 1968, we had some very 13 forward-looking RAD control program directors back there that had some 14 financial support from the FDA and formed this organization, this great 15 organization. Next slide.
16 It's a little busy slide. CRCPD is a partnership dedicated 17 to radiation protection, and when we say "partnership" we mean partnership.
18 I don't think -- And I am involved with a lot of these organizations.
19 We touch and interact with many federal agencies here in 20 the country and professional organizations and we have a lot of our efforts 21 are towards liaison with these organizations, getting their input for our 22 suggested state regulations, having meetings, radiation protection 23 standards, and so we really have dozens and dozens of working groups and 24 task forces and such that work all these various issues. Next slide, please.
25 This is a slide I cobbled together, which I -- The states 26 really are the sort of the main spring of radiation protection in this country. If
24 1 there accidents, incidents, we're the ones on the ground that are going to be 2 responding to these events.
3 Thirty-seven of our partner states are agreement states, 4 but still if there is emergencies, transportation, whatever the event, we're 5 going to be responding.
6 So it really is where the rubber meets the ground with the 7 programs, whether it's a power plant so that we may not, we don't need a 8 license, or transportation through our states, so we are involved with that.
9 So we touch a lot of different areas. Next slide, please.
10 The organization itself we've got a wonderful Executive, 11 Ruth McBurney, who was a chair of the CRCPD and has been our Executive 12 for over ten years now.
13 I have been blessed to be involved with the Board as a 14 member at large and here as Chair-Elect and Chair and past Chair for the 15 past few years. All of these individuals on the Board and the officers have 16 oversight with these various task forces and working groups and groups that 17 are working, again, dozens of model state regulations.
18 We have literally hundreds of people, members of the 19 CRCPD, working these various work groups and it really is our membership, 20 too, that's doing all this work.
21 There is literally, and Jared is also reminding me of this, 22 literally thousands and thousands of hours of effort, volunteer effort, into this 23 organization and the dedication is really to be commended. Next slide, 24 please.
25 So into sort of the meat of my thesis here, this 26 presentation, I am old enough to be here to, having worked under ICRP 2,
25 1 now 2630, ICRP 60 is out there now and ICRP 103.
2 You know, our radiation protection systems evolved over 3 the years in the teens, '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s when we were working through 4 scenarios, you know, of tolerance, you know, how much radiation exposure 5 can a human tolerate.
6 As we have learned from following the Hiroshima and 7 Nagasaki survivors we know there is risk associated with radiation exposure.
8 So we have evolved into the '70s more of a probabilistic, as the NRC does 9 with licensing the power plants, a probabilistic view of cancer induction.
10 We always want to limit any sort of deterministic cue 11 radiation effects. But we have scenarios now where we want to justify the 12 radiation exposure.
13 We have lots of sources of radiation in medicine with the 14 x-rays, radiation sources, they are well utilized in medicine and industry for 15 the benefit of man, and we want to justify that use so we also want to 16 optimize use, we want to make sure exposures are the lowest reasonably 17 treatable, and we want to have that limitation system.
18 We want to have some limits where we don't want the 19 public or the workers to exceed those limits. And we have existing 20 conditions, plant scenarios, plant scenarios licensing where we license 21 radioactive material, and we have also emergencies.
22 So this is sort of the radiation protection framework that we 23 have evolved into. Next slide, please.
24 On the national level we have the National Council on 25 Radiation Protection of Measurement. This is one of my favorite slides.
26 Laurie Taylor was involved with ICRP and NCRP for many years, sort of the
26 1 father of health physics here in the states, and I love this quote that I found a 2 few years ago, "Radiation protection is not only a matter of science it's a 3 problem of philosophy, morality, and utmost wisdom," and I think us as 4 regulators this is what we deal with really every day.
5 And I think we looked to the NCRP, which is a 6 congressionally-chartered organization back in '64, they've been around 7 since 1928 with the ICRP, but we look to the NCRP for our guidance. Next 8 slide, please.
9 So in the '60s we had the Federal Radiation Council and 10 with the formation of the EPA that Federal Radiation Council went away and 11 that was the group that advised the President, advised all the regulators on 12 radiation protection standards.
13 That role is now with the Environmental Protection Agency 14 and it's actually the EPA that sets sort of the guidance for the whole country 15 and, of course, the NRC and your sister agency DOE and others, including 16 the states have to follow suit.
17 So we look to the EPA and the federal government to sort 18 of set the national standards for workers and the public. Next slide, please 19 However, we find ourselves in a scenario where sort of our 20 metrics for protection are a little off. We've got the international radiation 21 protection, ICRP standards that are out there, our NRC and agreement state 22 standards are less restrictive as far as this is the external whole body dose 23 limit for workers, and we've also got our colleagues over in OSHA that did 24 not update their regulations back in the early '90s as many of the other 25 federal regulators did.
26 Now the NRC was going down the path, and we applaud
27 1 the NRC looking at 10 CFR Part 20 but we've recently backed off of that. I 2 would hope by -- I see this at some point in the future that as a country we 3 will get to the point where we can get back to some uniform, rational 4 approach in radiation protection standards.
5 For example, OSHA, if NRC or the states do not regulate a 6 radiation source OSHA kicks in. So if we have an incident, and emergency, 7 technically the OSHA regulations will apply, and there has been some recent 8 NCRP reports that have reflected that and had conversations with OSHA.
9 They know there is a problem but they are just resource 10 limited in being able to update their regs. So, again, I would hope, you 11 know, all of us would be able to get together at some point and sort all this 12 out. Next slide, please.
13 There are a couple specific things that are out there I want 14 to point out. One I pointed out last year, the lens dose, the ICRP reviewed 15 this an the NRCP just recently published Commentary 26 on this where they 16 are coming to find out it's not a threshold-type of a response that it may be a 17 stochastic, probabilistic response for cataract induction.
18 So the recommendation is to reduce the lens dose. This 19 is not going to impact the NRC's power plant for the licensees that much, but 20 in the states where we've got x-ray sources, fluoroscopy, for example, this 21 could be a big deal for states in implementing and the users of this type of 22 equipment.
23 So I think this is something that the NRC really wants to, 24 should look at. The other big issue is the LNT, linear no-threshold model for 25 radiation protection.
26 This has been out there as long as I have been in this field,
28 1 over 40 years. It's been as controversial for as long, if not longer.
2 However, I would point out just within the last several weeks NCRP just has 3 issued NCRP Commentary Number 27.
4 I would encourage you to get a copy and take a look at 5 that. It's an excellent report. Dr. Roy Shore from Columbia led that and it 6 was presented at the NCRP meeting this spring.
7 But you actually have a petition on your docket of this, 8 several, a couple, I think. So this might be a good report to look at. They 9 looked at 30 recent epidemiological studies and they conclude two-thirds of 10 those supported the linear no-threshold.
11 So they looked at the statistics, the quality of the data and 12 such, and they summarized this and there is a nice Table 1.1 there you can 13 look at. So this is a good document to look at as far as resolving your 14 petition. So, next slide, please. I'll do this to the beat of a drum.
15 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: For the record I am not gaveling 16 you down. We have dispatched someone to inquire about the pounder. I 17 apologize for that.
18 MR. ALLARD: That's okay. I was just commenting when 19 I took the second part of my Boards it was up in Boston and this actually had 20 -- We were just talking about this out in the hall, and one of the instructors 21 went out and took care of it, so -- Funny.
22 So just to kind of wrap up here, so I encourage and to 23 utilize your interagency steering committee on radiation standards. So the 24 NRC and the EPA co-chair ISCORS and it's all the federal partners and 25 there is a couple state observers, myself and Earl Fordham from 26 Washington.
29 1 So this group has actually pulled together Dr. Glenn, or 2 Senator Glenn, when the issues with cleanup standards were out there. So 3 this is a good group to come to to look at these kinds of issues and, of 4 course, the NCRP. Next slide, please.
5 So just to kind of wrap up the second topic, the training, 6 this is an easy one, quick, we are in a big way of hurt. We have talked 7 about this. Us baby boomers are waving out. Sadly, the number of health 8 physics degrees coming out of the bachelor's and graduate programs is in 9 the decline.
10 ORISE does a great review of this. They just did a 11 50-year review. Next slide, please. And, closer, the actual number of 12 enrollments is actually dropping, too.
13 This is very worrisome for us as a profession and as the 14 states. I was talking about this as being a wave before, this has really 15 turned into a tsunami.
16 We are seeing a huge number of staff retirements and new 17 staff coming in that need to be trained. We don't have the formal programs 18 out there. So I would encourage the NRC and other federal agencies to 19 help support these graduate programs out there. Next slide, please.
20 So, again, the NCRP looked at this back in about, I think it 21 was 2013 and in 2015 issued a nice commentary on this. Again, we are 22 looking at 30, 40 percent retirements.
23 This is the NRC, all the states, the federal agencies, the 24 utilities, everybody is looking at the same thing, so there is a great training 25 need, staffing need. Next slide, please.
26 So I just want to thank the NRC for their continuous
30 1 support, even the non-agreement staff are able now to take the online 2 fundamental radiation protection courses. The agreement state training is 3 great, it's needed, it's comprehensive, it's effective. We've got to keep it 4 going.
5 I would encourage the NRC staff to continue to move 6 these courses, internal dosimetry just got moved over online, continue to get 7 these online, and maybe even take some of the hands-on, like the industrial 8 radiography course, maybe do the academics online and then maybe move, 9 you know, the hands-on type training to say a regional area where the states 10 -- That's tough.
11 It's really tough getting out-of-state travel in the states, and 12 so maybe regional training have medical centers or industries host that. It's 13 really appreciated.
14 One thing I also might -- We'll talk to NRC staff about this, 15 with this tsunami of retirements it might be a good time to survey the states 16 on their needs. You folks know your needs, even staff that may be moving 17 around within NRC what sort of training you may need.
18 And maybe increase offerings. I know it's usually about 19 September or October that that training list comes out, so maybe it would be 20 a good time to survey the states and internally within NRC to see what sort 21 of the needs are.
22 And then my last slide, and I'm right on time, here. Tell 23 my wife. So I just got to pitch one -- We are organizing, the International 24 Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, asked the CRCP to host a meeting on NORM, 25 we could call it TNORM here in the states, these are things that are sort of 26 outside of NRC's purview for licensing, naturally occurring radioactive
31 1 material gets concentrated, oil and gas industries, the zircons and such, so 2 we are going to be host.
3 It's the first time in North America in September of 2019 4 and we've got the hotel booked, we're about to publish a call for abstracts.
5 Yes, but there are some -- We have an NRC staffer on the 6 committee pulling together the symposium and we are looking for 7 non-financial support from the NRC on this just to sort of, in kind, but there 8 are like mill tailings and mining tailings, over burden and that sort of thing 9 that may be applicable, so if we can encourage NRC involvement with this.
10 It's going to be out in Denver in Jen's backyard in 2019 11 and we're real excited. It's going to be a good venue and be a very good 12 meeting. So, thank you for your attention.
13 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much. And 14 providing the final presentation of this Panel will be Mr. Jared Thompson, 15 who is the program manager of the radioactive materials program of the 16 Arkansas Department of Health. And Mr. Thompson is also a CRCPD past 17 chair. Please proceed.
18 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Madam Chairperson and 19 Commissioners. I like to call myself the passed-out chair.
20 (Laughter) 21 MR. THOMPSON: I'm with you. And I want to say, I 22 want to express my appreciation to Commissioner Baran for coming to our 23 meeting and speaking. We almost begged him, so I really have to say 24 thank you for coming and making the agenda a little bit easier to fill out.
25 I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for 26 the help I received from Keisha Cornelius from Oklahoma. She is the
32 1 chairperson of the Conference of Radiation Control Programs G-34 2 Committee on Industrial Radiography. She provided excellence guidance 3 and information to help prepare these comments.
4 The CRCPD G-34 Committee on industrial radiography 5 was specifically identified as the lead organization for the national materials 6 program, Pilot Project 2 in 2003. This pilot project was one of five projects 7 which was a collaborative effort of the NRC, CRCPD and the organization of 8 agreement states, to further evaluate the national materials program.
9 The project was to initiate a national industrial radiography 10 safety certification program. Including approval and administration of 11 exams.
12 The objects of the project was to develop the process and 13 criteria for review and requests by the states or organization seeking 14 recognition as certifying entities and for reviewing program changes that 15 occur once recognition has been given. This joint effort would contribute to 16 the credibility of the certification program nation-wide.
17 David Turberville, current OAS chair, has been a member 18 of this Committee and currently serves as an advisor. Currently there are 19 nine states that have industrial radiography certification programs.
20 The American Society for Nondestructive Testing, is an 21 independent certifying organization. ASNT received recognition as a 22 certifying organization in 1998. This was accomplished by a formal review 23 performed by a NRC working group.
24 The G-34 Committee initially formalized the draft criteria 25 based on acceptable standards and drafted a process for conducting initial 26 application reviews. As a follow-up to this project, at the request of NRC,
33 1 the G-34 Committee has been tasked to develop procedures to conduct 2 initial and periodic reviews of existing radiography certification programs.
3 NRC would use the results of these reviews as part of their 4 periodic review of a state program under the IMPEP process.
5 Draft criteria for the audit, of the radiography certification 6 program, has been developed. And it has been tested in the State of 7 Oklahoma.
8 Draft procedures are conducting the review have also 9 been written. Including an audit of how the certifying program administers 10 test.
11 Team findings of acceptable or unacceptable will be 12 submitted to the CRCPD executive board for approval. NRC will be 13 provided the final results.
14 If a certifying program is found unacceptable, what 15 happens next? CRCPD can certainly terminate the contract with a state 16 since we provide them the exams and remove the designation of a certifying 17 state.
18 I want to emphasize this, CRCPD does not have, nor 19 wants, any enforcement action authority.
20 Fingers won't cooperate. And I don't know what I was 21 going to say.
22 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: I think it's this humidity --
23 (Laughter) 24 MR. THOMPSON: There are some potential questions 25 and issues related to findings established by G-34 Committee. First 26 question is, what happens to all the individual certifications that were issued
34 1 during the review period in which a certifying organization performance was 2 found unacceptable.
3 The second question, who handle any necessary 4 enforcement action resulting from this type of review, and who determines 5 when or if a state or organization can become a certifying organization 6 again. And perhaps the biggest question out there is, will NRC accept 7 CRCPD's findings.
8 And actually, it's the last page. While it is unlikely, we 9 hope that a certifying organization will ever be found unacceptable, there is a 10 need to discuss the possibility and develop procedures just in case it should 11 occur.
12 The procedure is titled, procedures for initial and periodic 13 review of certifying entities has not been approved by the CRCP board, 14 CRCPD board, nor has it received NRC concurrence.
15 The G-34 Committee believes that the issues discussed 16 today need resolution before going any further. The CRCPD remains 17 supportive in the discussion of the national materials program.
18 And it is the desire of CRCPD to see the pilot program to 19 completion. Thank you.
20 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you very much, Mr.
21 Thompson. And, again, my thanks to all of you who have covered a fast 22 territory of information and in a very efficient amount of time. I'm certain that 23 the Commission will have a lot of questions for our back and forth in our 24 dialogue here.
25 As is our practice to rotate the order of recognition we 26 begin today's question and answer period with Commissioner Burns.
35 1 Please proceed.
2 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Thank you, Chairman, and 3 thank you all for being here and for your presentations. It's nice to see a 4 number of you again.
5 Actually, I think the last time I saw Mr. Allard was up at 6 Three Mile Island.
7 MR. ALLARD: It could have been.
8 COMMISSIONER BURNS: I think it was at Three Mile 9 Island.
10 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: You know, I met him at Three 11 Mile Island, perhaps it is there.
12 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Peach Bottom.
13 (Laughter) 14 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Oh, there you go.
15 COMMISSIONER BURNS: But it's good to see you all.
16 And, again, I think we all appreciate the work of the agreement states, it's an 17 interesting partnership that has developed since 1962 and I think the State 18 of Kentucky was, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, was the first state to enter 19 into the program.
20 I think we've heard a lot of interesting things today. I want 21 to mention as well, as I'm looking forward to attending the OAS annual 22 meeting in Montgomery, Alabama later. And I think Commissioner Wright is 23 going to try to join me there but I'm happy to speak at the conference and 24 engage with those who are attending.
25 Let me go over a few questions, and maybe I'll start with 26 you, Ms. Turberville. In terms of, you know, general licenses are, I think,
36 1 very interesting.
2 (Laughter) 3 COMMISSIONER BURNS: So, what, I think you 4 highlighted some of the potential failings or gaps in terms of control. And it 5 actually, in some respects, it reminds me.
6 I was sort of, well, in terms of some visits to Region I and 7 talking about some of the efforts that the NRC, and also the states.
8 Particularly in, I think, in New England and to the mid-west in terms of 9 recovery of old radium sources, the old gauges.
10 I remember seeing a picture and it was like going into a 11 flea market or something and seeing the old airplane gauges and things like 12 that. And so, when you talk about the types of things in terms of recovering, 13 it sort of reminded me, reminded me of that.
14 What do you think are, and actually, any of you can pipe in 15 on this is, what are the potential approaches do you think, without trying to 16 get too far ahead of the things, that might be alternatives to the general 17 licensing?
18 And I ask that because, in the context we all know that 19 there's a complexity in licensing. You know, a reactor license is an 20 extraordinary complex undertaking.
21 If you have a fixed radiation facility, that's going to be, 22 obviously more difficult. Is the, maybe is it the approach or the concerns 23 are for things that are now generally licensed that it's really about, where the 24 heck is that thing and how do we do it.
25 So, I'd be interested in maybe thoughts any of you have on 26 where do we, we might go with this.
37 1 MR. TURBERVILLE: Well, based on my experience, as I 2 say, I was an inspector for a long time, the general licensed devices that are 3 out there, many of them, very similar devices we already specifically 4 licensed.
5 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes.
6 MR. TURBERVILLE: So I, when I first started doing the 7 inspections it was very confusing to me, as an inspector, as to how you 8 made this decision that you could distribute something without it being a 9 specific license. So, I think we need to look at consistency in that area.
10 Specifically license them, put them on a routine inspection interval.
11 For Alabama, we don't get any fees associated with 12 registration so any fees that we get are through our specific licensing that 13 runs our program as well.
14 So that's where we come from, from our state. So it 15 would put those in a five year inspection category, which we're doing now, 16 for our general licensees. But that's dependent upon resources.
17 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes.
18 MR. TURBERVILLE: If we lose resources, we have to cut 19 back on something and it will be the general license program.
20 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes.
21 MR. TURBERVILLE: And that's the way we work it.
22 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Anybody else? Any thoughts 23 you want to share?
24 MS. OPILA: Well, I would just say, on the other end of the 25 spectrum there are a lot of things that are generally licensed that really don't 26 need to be regulated and that we could definitely go to an exemption.
38 1 And a tritium exit signs I think would be a definite good 2 example of something that should be more exempt, in the exempt category, 3 than generally licensed.
4 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay. All right, thanks.
5 A couple of themes or a couple of you touched on the 6 theme, the question of consistency of, consistency of actions partly due to 7 staff turnover. Mr. Allard, you mentioned 40 years, and it's my 40th year in 8 this area, as well.
9 And the question of turnover and sort of passing the baton 10 to a new generation, if you will, which I think has had, is some of the impact.
11 I think in some of the areas, as I reflect on in terms of 12 NRC, and I think I heard it not only from you all but in other places, this 13 potential for staff turnover, worrying about consistency. But then I sort of 14 think back, I think of a phrase that John Adams used that were government 15 of laws, not men.
16 So we need to make sure we've got a consistency of those 17 types of things. And I think both Mr. McKinley, Ms. Opila and Mr.
18 Turberville, I think all of you may have touched on some of this aspect of 19 enhancing guidance, enhancing some ideas of the framework.
20 So one of my questions, and, Ms. Opila, I'll start with you.
21 In reflecting on the IG study, or the IG audit report, it talked about potentially 22 bringing greater definition. What are some of the things you think might 23 help here as we begin to look at this more closely in terms of giving greater 24 definition in terms of the materials program and how would that help the 25 consistency?
26 MS. OPILA: Well, I think a lot of it is developing the
39 1 framework that was suggested by the audit. As particularly in defining the 2 rules and responsibilities of the different players in the national materials 3 program and in defining like what responsibilities we have through various 4 types of processes.
5 Particularly with prioritization of rulemaking and rulemaking 6 in general. I think that's where we could really improve on defining that 7 framework.
8 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Okay.
9 MS. OPILA: I would, I think I'm going to respectfully 10 disagree with you that the turnover that we're seeing in the management, 11 which is reflected in the OIG report, it's not necessarily because of 12 retirements, it really has been a lot of repositioning of managers in those 13 programs whereas, Kevin Williams is a good example, he came from 14 another part of NRC, was put into NMSS and then was repositioned six 15 months later into this transformation project that's going on.
16 And we're seeing a lot of that where managers are coming 17 in and then just getting re-purposed somewhere else in NRC. And like I 18 mentioned, it's hard for us to develop those relationships at the higher level.
19 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes, and let me clarify. I 20 understand why you may interpret my comment that way.
21 I agree with you. It's not solely retirement, it may have an 22 impact because we need to be doing staff development here.
23 But the question is, and I think the question you raise I 24 think is a good one, which is, where do you balance staff development with 25 stability in the organization, stability in the program?
26 And that's not an easy nut to crack but that is, I think that is
40 1 the important question. And it's something I think we need to look at.
2 Mr. McKinley, I think, going off the same thing, I think you 3 touched on it as well, this question that you have, you may have different 4 members on the team, this may not have anything to do with because 5 people are moving around, you just have, sometimes, different members on 6 the management review boards.
7 Are there particular things you think we could enhance that 8 would help that consistency, either processes, procedures, training 9 members, things like that?
10 MR. MCKINLEY: Oh, absolutely. And I think that that's 11 kind of the theme of the answer here is, as your John Adams quote indicated 12 --
13 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes.
14 MR. MCKINLEY: -- it's about the process, it's about the 15 responsibilities and the authorities of the people and then those people 16 having an understanding of what their role is and the nature of the 17 relationships that exist in the national materials program. And I think that 18 would go a long way to helping the consistency.
19 There's no possibility of 100 percent consistency.
20 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes.
21 MR. MCKINLEY: I don't expect that. I don't think 22 anybody would expect that.
23 I just, I would suggest that perhaps in cases where 24 inconsistency did come up or perceived inconsistency, perhaps one thing 25 that's been suggested is, at the end of the MRB, if the state was still in 26 disagreement with the ultimate finding to have an opportunity for that state to
41 1 include its descent, or comments within the final IMPEP report as a 2 potentially solution to at least mitigate what might be perceived as 3 inconsistency.
4 Inconsistency is very difficult to define, but, so I couch that 5 by saying perceived consistency.
6 COMMISSIONER BURNS: Yes. Yes. As you say, 7 there may be enhancements of procedures or enhancements of approaches 8 may help.
9 You're not going to do everything it's like, I think lots of 10 people say, I never want to go in front of that judge versus the other one but 11 we do the best we can. Thank you, Chairman.
12 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you, Commissioner. We 13 now recognize Commissioner Caputo. Please proceed.
14 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you. Well, I'm new 15 here, so when it comes to turnover and building new relationships, I'm going 16 to have to beg your indulgence as we build a relationship and I learn more 17 about the work of the CRCPD and the agreement states.
18 So, bear with me in my education here. I look forward to 19 learning as much as I can from all of you today. And I'm sure in the years 20 going forward.
21 So, as I'm learning about the legal side of this, I 22 understand the legal requirement for agreement states to be compatible with 23 NRC regulations. And that when we make changes, agreement states need 24 to make changes as well to remain compatible.
25 And at this point, near as I can find, on average that's at 26 least ten to 15 changes a year in terms of just rulemaking and guidance.
42 1 Are there other changes that we make that also impact your workload in 2 addition to that?
3 Do you have any sense of the scope or the scale of that?
4 MR. MCKINLEY: I think I've been elected to answer that 5 question.
6 (Laughter) 7 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Short straw.
8 MR. MCKINLEY: I think you hit on the various areas of 9 rulemaking, everything from legislation to policy that can impact, recently, 10 fairly recently, there was the security orders. Started off as interim 11 compensatory measures and moved through the process and now it's Part 12 37.
13 And those things are certainly impactful to state programs 14 requiring resources and effort. I think, and I can speak again for my state, I 15 don't want to bring anybody else along into this conversation, but we have 16 struggled mightily with compatibility in Kentucky.
17 And I can say that without attempting to sound like I'm 18 making an excuse, our process is extremely cumbersome. And our parts 19 don't necessarily match up with CFR parts.
20 So, often a change that's very simple, from a CFR 21 standpoint, is much more complex in a state where there is not a good 22 match. We may have to open three or four parts of our regulations.
23 And then once their open and in a long process, we can't 24 go get them again and do anything until they come back final on the first 25 change. So --
26 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So does that mean that
43 1 presents a situation where you could be in the process, I think incorporating 2 one update when we put out another update that then has to be --
3 MR. MCKINLEY: That's exactly right.
4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay.
5 MR. MCKINLEY: Yes. And the three years is fairly 6 generous. And I think most states have a pretty good track record of 7 meeting that. Some states struggle, and Kentucky is one of them.
8 And I will tell you we've recently, I hate to use the analogy 9 of throwing our hands up in the air, but essentially we've said, look, we 10 cannot keep up.
11 And so we are now attempting to adopt by reference, 12 which is now allowed by our state. We were not ever able to do that before 13 but now we are.
14 And that's our solution so that we never have to worry 15 about compatibility again. But that's a process as well. So, that's where 16 we are.
17 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: And does that three year 18 time frame, is that just for the state to implement the change or does that 19 also, does that also include time for actually communicating the change to 20 your licensees and making sure that they are implementing those changes --
21 MR. MCKINLEY: The three year --
22 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: -- towards or is that yet 23 another time increment?
24 MR. MCKINLEY: No. The three years is to implement, is 25 to have our own capable legislation.
26 And through the rulemaking process within each state, that
44 1 would involve reaching out to the licensees and making sure they 2 understand what the new rule is going to be so that they can be compliment 3 when the rule becomes effective. So that all happens within that same 4 three time frame, ideally.
5 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Does anyone else want to 6 add to that?
7 MR. TURBERVILLE: What I would like to mention is, Matt 8 mentioned the referencing of the rules as part of the rulemaking. That's 9 somewhat of a disturb, I've heard other states were doing that and that's 10 somewhat of a disturbing trend because it's kind of taking away from the 11 states opinion as far as the way we run our program.
12 A prime example of, Jared talked about the national 13 radiographer certification program. That was not developed by NRC, that 14 was the State of Texas.
15 They had good ideas back then that we, that we 16 recognized and it became the national policy. So, it's just one of the things.
17 And I just want to bring up, I know a lot of states are doing 18 it because it is easier, because it does take less time to do it.
19 And hopefully as we move forward, as Jim talked about 20 getting more agreement statement representation on the front of this 21 rulemaking with the prioritization, that we feel, that I'll feel a little more 22 comfortable about that, as long as we have some agreement statement input 23 as we move forward.
24 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So, does incorporating by 25 reference have the result of limiting a state's flexibility and creativity to have 26 a more tailored solution?
45 1 MR. TURBERVILLE: Yes, it does. As I say, if it, 2 depending upon the compatibility category, if it's a compatibility, see where 3 we can be more stringent in a state. If we're referencing by rule we don't, 4 we're just basically doing what the NRC has done for the 10 CFR. 5 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: But the nature of being 6 required to be compatible, doesn't really give you the ability to sort of triage 7 and set priorities either, because it all has to be done.
8 MS. OPILA: Exactly. Exactly. And I think another 9 reason why more states are going to adopting by reference is I believe that 10 we're seeing, in the development of rules, more items that are being 11 designated as compatibility A or B. A being you have to be exact and B 12 being you have to pretty much almost be exact.
13 And then the further interpretation, when the rules are 14 being reviewed by NRC, that there isn't really any flexibility in that 15 compatibility B designation. And if the NRC isn't giving us flexibility when 16 they designate new rules or new parts of rules, if they aren't giving us 17 flexibility and compatibility, we might as well just do adopt by reference.
18 Which, again, I agree with David is a disturbing trend 19 because it doesn't give us the creativity as you described.
20 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. I understand we are 21 considering changes to the IMPEP process, what recommendations would 22 you folks have, do you think would make that process more workable for the 23 states?
24 MR. MCKINLEY: Well, I guess since that was my topic I'll 25 address that one too.
26 (Laughter)
46 1 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: I think we all have McKinley.
2 (Laughter) 3 MR. MCKINLEY: Right.
4 (Laughter) 5 MR. MCKINLEY: And I'm speaking for me. It's very 6 difficult to speak for a large group of people.
7 I think a couple of things that were discussed, mostly 8 related to MRB consistency and perhaps having some recourse beyond the 9 MRB's decision, whether that be, I know there's been discussion of some 10 kind of an appeals process. That's very difficult to implement, as you can 11 imagine.
12 And I don't think a lot of, there is some disagreement that 13 that's the way to go. I think another idea that I mentioned earlier was the 14 ability to put descent into the final report so that at least if a state doesn't 15 fully agree with --
16 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: To concerns --
17 MR. MCKINLEY: -- with the action, at least that descent 18 is documented in that final report. And there may be other things.
19 I think my intent with this presentation was to start, or 20 continue, the discussion that's already ongoing with that regard.
21 And some of the other things that I mentioned, looking at 22 GLs, and I think that's sort of in conjunction with the whole GL issue. If 23 they're important enough to regulate, maybe we should be looking at that in 24 some capacity at least, or giving a state a work practice if they have a good 25 GL program.
26 And, I mean, there's probably half a dozen things we could
47 1 talk about that, at least in my opinion, would improve the process. But I 2 think those are the big ones.
3 MS. OPILA: So, we just had our IMPEP in April and one 4 thing that the team did that I think really improved, was something they were 5 flexible with us on that really helped and should be looked at more is the use 6 of electronic records and review of electronic records.
7 So, we have, all of our records are electronic in Colorado 8 and we were able to provide the team with, basically we gave them a list of 9 our licensing actions ahead of time, our inspection actions, and we said, 10 which ones would you like to look at. And we were able to pull those files 11 electronically and put them on a disc before the team even arrived in 12 Colorado.
13 And then they were able to review them electronically and 14 in a very efficient fashion. And it ended up making our IMPEP a day 15 shorter. The team finished a whole day quicker.
16 And I think we could transition that even into some of the 17 IMPEP records review happening before they even come onsite.
18 So if I was on an IMPEP team, I would, again, identify the 19 records I wanted to look at, get those records from the state ahead of time, 20 review them in my office in Colorado. And then when I came onsite to the 21 IMPEP review, all I would need to do is ask questions of the particular state 22 staff on which record questions I had.
23 So that could really decrease the amount of resources that 24 the NRC is spending by having people actually at the site facility, usually for 25 a week, to do an IMPEP review. And I think that would be a lot more 26 efficient.
48 1 And, we could scoop up web-based licensing in that as 2 well. Which I could go on for days on that.
3 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Well, if I could ask just one 4 follow-up to Mr. McKinley. So this concern about the need for an appeal's 5 process, if a state gets a negative finding from the management review 6 board, that's documented until the next IMPEP is complete, correct?
7 So that's a four year time span where this state is more or 8 less labeled as efficient. What about, what would your thoughts be on the 9 possibility that as soon as whatever problem it is that's been corrected and 10 verified that it's been corrected, that the state was then given a clean bill of 11 health?
12 I mean, is that, would that go some distance toward 13 addressing the design for an appeal?
14 MR. MCKINLEY: Well, any kind of recognition would, it 15 would depend on the context and how it was implemented. I think that sort 16 of speaks to the relationship issue.
17 One of the things that we've talked about over the years is 18 the difference between the NRC agreement state relationship and the NRC 19 reactor licensee relationship. That's why there are recommendations on an 20 IMPEP and not violations.
21 So, it's a little bit different relationship. That being said, 22 the NRC maintains the responsibility based on the Atomic Energy Act, to 23 make sure that those agreements are still being upheld.
24 So, in some respects it's an inspection, in other respects 25 it's a collaborative review. And I think in most cases what we would prefer 26 is more of that collaboration that co-regulator feel to the process.
49 1 Adding state representation, I think will go a long way to 2 that in enhancing, beefing that up a little bit. And any kind of process that 3 shortens the time of having that bad mark so to speak or being on monitoring 4 or heightened oversight.
5 And that's something that we have been talking about just 6 this morning actually, trying to come up with ways to shorten the time that a 7 state spends on heightened oversight or monitoring.
8 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Well, I'm always sensitive, 9 and I'm over my time, but I'm always sensitive to bad marks that continue to 10 exist after the problem has been corrected. Because I don't think that 11 presents an accurate transparent picture to the public. Of the state of 12 situation. So thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Thank you, Commissioner.
14 Commissioner Wright, please proceed.
15 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you very much. And 16 this has been very interesting. Your presentations were great, and I'm 17 looking forward, I guess we meet this afternoon, I'm looking forward to that 18 as well.
19 So Ms. Opila, I'm going to ask you a question. You talked 20 about the OIG audit. Were there any concerns that the agreement states 21 have that were not identified in the audit?
22 MS. OPILA: I can't think of any off the top of my head. I 23 think that, like I said, the agreement states that, a lot of the agreement states 24 reached out to me personally after they spoke with the OIG and said, you 25 know, I just wanted to tell you this is what I told them.
26 And there were some comment themes in there. And my
50 1 interpretation was that those were accurately reflected in the report.
2 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. Also, you know the 3 Commission is looking at transformation and areas where we can transform 4 within this agency. Do you see any areas where the NRC could transform 5 the NMP while still maintaining its role and with the agreement states?
6 MS. OPILA: Well, I think that I touched on some of that, 7 but I believe that really increasing the idea of a partnership with the 8 agreement states as we are co-regulators, you know, not only the steps that 9 are already being taken with the NRC with getting the agreement states 10 involved further up in the process of rulemaking so that we get to have a say 11 in which rules or guidance or policy are getting worked on in what order and 12 what the priorities of those, I think that is very helpful.
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So just to get a little into the 14 weeds on that, were there any licensing practices that maybe the states 15 have that maybe the NRC should look at adopting. Do you have any 16 recommendations on things like that?
17 MS. OPILA: On licensing processes in particular?
18 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Yes. I mean, yes.
19 MS. OPILA: I think the actual licensing process is actually 20 pretty variable from between the states and the NRC and we like having that 21 flexibility.
22 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. Thank you very 23 much.
24 MS. OPILA: Yes.
25 PARTICIPANT: David?
26 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Part of the David caucus.
51 1 You know it means beloved so if you ever get fussed at. So have the, I like 2 to look at the positive side of things too. So I've heard some issues about 3 the general license program. But tell me, in your opinion, what have the 4 agreement states found to be successful regarding the GL program?
5 MR. TURBERVILLE: Well, I think there's certain states, 6 and somebody may have to help me. I know Florida has a very strong GL 7 program, and it takes time and resources. I think they have a process 8 where they register every one of their -- Mississippi as well, and I think New 9 York also has a very strong GL program.
10 We in Alabama, ours, we follow NRC's guidelines for 11 registration but we do have one caveat that we do not allow portable devices 12 to be used except in one location. That's because that's an accountability 13 issue in that sense. Some states may not even allow portable devices to be 14 generally licensed.
15 So there's certain things that states do that work for them.
16 I'm sorry, I don't have any specifics other than that.
17 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So earlier, Commissioner 18 Burns was asking about the inspections as well. So are there, and I'm new 19 too so are there inspections done for specific licenses?
20 MR. TURBERVILLE: Absolutely. For this type of --
21 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: How do they differ from the 22 GL's inspections?
23 MR. TURBERVILLE: Well --
24 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: And I guess go further than 25 that. Are there any of the concerns that are noted in the GL inspections 26 seen in this special licensing?
52 1 MR. TURBERVILLE: Well, let me just say for a specific 2 licensee, they've got an established radiation safety program, training 3 program. And they have a radiation safety officer, so it's more -- and it's still 4 accountability is what it comes down to for those types of devices and 5 making sure that they leak tested the devices in accordance with it.
6 And I say the inspection of it is set up on a criteria based 7 on inspection manual 2800 five year inspection interval.
8 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. Yes, sir?
9 MR. THOMPSON: I want to kind of follow up on that.
10 The one thing that's really big with GLs separating from a specific license is 11 that because of the security requirements on a specific license there may be 12 some grey areas that affect the GL. Some of the GLs may require 13 additional security which is not really addressed at this time.
14 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. So I'm actually going 15 to blend a question. Did you have another comment? So I guess I'm going 16 to blend a question that I had for David and I'm going to open it up to all of 17 you because this end of the table's addressed it pretty good and I think there 18 might be more that they could add.
19 So it seems to me that there could be some alignment now 20 along the GL program among the agreement states, and consensus maybe.
21 Am I right on that? Does it seem to be true about some changes?
22 And I guess let me go a little bit further on that. So the 23 participation in the IMPEP, okay, and you've got the management review 24 board together. So would you look at, do you think the participation from 25 the states needs to be increased, and if you do, I think they should have 26 greater involvement.
53 1 Can you give me a little bit more detail about the changes?
2 You know, you started referring to some of that just a few minutes ago.
3 Can you go a little bit more with that? Tell me some more.
4 MR. MCKINLEY: Sure. So as the agreement state 5 program has grown, Commissioner Burns pointed out that Kentucky was the 6 first agreement state 50, what 6 years ago? So at that time, of course, it 7 was the one agreement state. Now there's 37, soon to be 39 and maybe 8 certainly more after that as trends would go out into the future.
9 So I think the sort of the kernel of the idea here is that as 10 the agreement states become more and more responsible for larger 11 percentages of the materials that are out there and have more inspectors 12 doing more inspections, doing more license actions, there's a lot more timely 13 and current knowledge on what's going on in the materials world.
14 And yet our place in the system of establishing regulations, 15 setting priorities, being involved in policy decision making hasn't changed all 16 that much. And I think that might be a place to start just sort of, you know, 17 align agreement states in a more proactive way in terms of implementing, or 18 creating and then implementing policy.
19 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right.
20 MR. MCKINLEY: As a broad answer, but that's the 21 general idea.
22 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: You're starting to get there, 23 yes. Yes, ma'am?
24 MS. OPILA: Just one quick thing. I think as 25 co-regulators, perhaps we shouldn't have to petition the NRC for a change in 26 rulemaking. You know, we should be able to be with the NRC in
54 1 determining what changes are being made to the rules and not be just 2 another stakeholder that, you know, has to petition for a change.
3 Additionally, when we had the pleasure of meeting with 4 Commissioner Ostendorff when he was on the Commission and he spoke, I 5 spoke to him about the idea that when the Commission is looking at our 6 comments on rules, perhaps we should get a little bit of deference instead of 7 just being another stakeholder.
8 We should get a little bit of deference on our comments 9 because as co-regulators and having the experience that Matt talks about, 10 you know, maybe our comments should be looked at with a little more 11 weight.
12 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Anybody else? And I got a 13 minute and a half here. The module program, I wanted to ask you about 14 that. Your training programs?
15 MR. ALLARD: Yes.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: David, are there any 17 technical training areas for the radioactive material under the agreement that 18 are not addressed by the NRC?
19 MR. ALLARD: I wouldn't say. I think it's quite a 20 comprehensive program, and in fact it's been expanding. I think the NRC 21 courses are great, they start with the sort of basic health physics and get into 22 the fundamentals and advanced, and they have laboratory sessions down in 23 Chattanooga.
24 I think the trend towards online training is very good. I 25 think that's, we need to keep that going.
26 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So you get feedback,
55 1 obviously, right?
2 MR. ALLARD: Some of them are graded. Some are 3 pass/fails, but I get all the grades. Yes, we all get all the grades.
4 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So how do you measure the 5 effectiveness of the --
6 MR. ALLARD: Well, if it's a licensing person, the 7 supervisor overseeing the licensing, material licensing. If they're out doing 8 inspection, the supervisor, they have to do accompaniments and the quality 9 and the --
10 (Simultaneous speaking.)
11 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Is there any kind of testing?
12 MR. ALLARD: Sorry?
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Is there any kind of testing 14 at the end of the --
15 MR. ALLARD: Well, at least in Pennsylvania we have a 16 qualification journal. So you know, they have to do all these courses and 17 then the supervisor for oversight -- and then of course the NRC comes in 18 then with the IMPEP and there will be accompaniments with the NRC.
19 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Great. And I guess my last 20 thing. This picture, you're not in this picture, which I'm trying.
21 MR. ALLARD: Tom Geruskiy was one of my, he was the 22 first chair of the CRCPD. And Ruth told the story at the meeting that 23 apparently Tom didn't go to some meeting and he got appointed as chair of 24 CRCPD. And then he got elected.
25 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you.
26 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: All right, well thank you all for
56 1 your presentations. Before I flog the general license and IMPEP topics, I'm 2 sorry, I would try to resist but everyone has their own take on things. I did 3 have a couple of quick questions.
4 Mr. Allard, I'm just, this is a matter of curiosity for me. I of 5 course meet with the Health Physics Society routinely and I've seen some of 6 the statistics on the declining enrollments and the awarding of degrees, and I 7 know even the US Congress has taken measures to try to reinforce maybe 8 having a vibrancy around that very essential professional skill set.
9 Do states have any equivalent opportunities? I know 10 state budgets are tight, but are there state programs you're aware of that if 11 students matriculate in a certain profession and go into state service they 12 can get some maybe tuition forgiveness at state schools and stuff. Does 13 that exist in the US at all?
14 MR. ALLARD: That's a great idea. I know that, in fact 15 one of my attorneys is actually getting that on the environmental side.
16 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Okay.
17 MR. ALLARD: He did some --
18 (Simultaneous speaking.)
19 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Oh, yes, for law school tuition.
20 MR. ALLARD: Yes, yes.
21 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: And we have NRC attorneys that 22 benefit from something similar at the federal level.
23 MR. ALLARD: That is a great idea and a great construct.
24 And we have in Pennsylvania just created a new position where we able to 25 get recent grads with no experience out of Bloomsburg for example. They 26 have a small bachelor's program up there. So now I'm getting Bloomsburg
57 1 students coming right into my program without any experience. But I like 2 that idea.
3 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Just a thought and inquiry and 4 where narrowly targeted it could perhaps help states carry out their 5 regulatory function. So maybe a case could be made to legislators.
6 Anyway, I'm not lobbying which I actually shouldn't be doing anyway.
7 MR. ALLARD: That's right.
8 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: And then, Ms. Beckley, I did want 9 to just touch on you talked about maybe some general questions about our 10 ongoing decommissioning on the, I'm sorry, our ongoing rulemaking in the 11 decommissioning area.
12 I think, and if I'm wrong I know a very helpful NRC staff 13 person will approach you afterwards. I think we try to keep our public 14 website updated about the status of where that stands. And I don't want to 15 bury you on a big page on all our rulemakings, but I think we've got some 16 highlight on that because it is a very high visibility rulemaking.
17 And then of course as a general matter, until that 18 rulemaking is completed, we will continue to approach matters for the 19 decommissioning sites under our current regulations which are not always a 20 perfect fit for the process which is why we're undertaking the rulemaking 21 itself.
22 But that could potentially be a source of information for 23 you, so I just, I wanted to point that out. So on generally licensed devices, I 24 do appreciate that the presenter made the comment, and I think I wrote this 25 down exactly, GL devices are inherently safe.
26 And now you did go on to caveat that that's not if they're
58 1 misused or mishandled or other such things, but this is a little bit of the 2 tension for state regulators and federal regulators.
3 In our case we have the Atomic Energy Act, and we have 4 of course now both the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory 5 Commission have some origins in that Atomic Energy Act.
6 But that Act, if we view it as expressing the will of the 7 Congress which is the voice of the people in the US, has said that we need 8 to enable the beneficial uses of nuclear material.
9 So the tension is always, you know, the safest thing is 10 always the thing that you could take all the sources and take them out of 11 commerce and use and everything else and lock them up in the Fort Knox of 12 sources or dispose of them and then you wouldn't have any risk presented to 13 that.
14 I know that when we deal with our colleagues at the 15 Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, as they 16 look at diminishing the overall threat profile in the country for the potential 17 malevolent uses of sources by our adversaries or bad actors, their view 18 would be the more and more of them we can get out of beneficial use, the 19 better.
20 So this is the tension that gets created is that we have to 21 provide for efficient processes to keep the American public safe, but at the 22 same time we need to in some way have a system that permits the use of 23 these materials.
24 And as we go back and forth on generally licensed 25 devices, I think at heart that's some of what makes it such an interesting 26 topic and so complicated for all of us.
59 1 And in the IMPEP, let me also, and this is perilous for me 2 because I have very scholarly colleagues on either side of me that are 3 attorneys and I am not one.
4 But if I once again mention the Atomic Energy Act when 5 we sit back and reflect on the agreement state program and agreement 6 states and what are the origins there, I used to favor the term relinquishment 7 of regulatory responsibility because under the Act I view it that what the 8 federal body, now the NRC, has done is relinquish a responsibility to an 9 agreement state upon the signing of that agreement between the NRC chair 10 on behalf of this Commission that sits here and the governor of the state.
11 So it's kind of like I think of it as a temporary custody, and 12 we do have in the history of the program one state. And I won't name 13 states either because Mr. McKinley's been so, he's been so diplomatic about 14 that.
15 But there was one state that just decided that wasn't for 16 them and they turned it back over to the NRC, so we now regulate the 17 activities in that state. So what comes with that relinquishment is that the 18 people on this side of the table are still responsible to the American public 19 that once we relinquish that, the program that the agreement state puts in 20 place and its execution are providing a protection of public health and safety.
21 So that's what the IMPEP to me is about, you know, at 22 bottom. It's about the fact can I confidently state when I sit before a 23 Congressional oversight committee or anyone else that if what we're talking 24 about is an agreement state, you know, a regulatory system, I have to attest 25 to the adequacy, the sufficiency, its implementation.
26 And so I have served on this commission long enough that
60 1 we had a state that entered into probation which beyond monitoring and 2 heightened oversight is, you know, is very, very significant action.
3 And I can tell you while not an appeal process, there is 4 communication that goes on directly between the chairman of the NRC and 5 the governor of that state. They have verbal communication. They talk 6 about what's happening.
7 So I think that if we view the agreement as with the 8 governor on behalf of all elements of the state that have responsibility for the 9 public health and safety mission that's implicated, I think at bottom when 10 that's communicated that a state program is in distress, that is a 11 communication that goes to the executive of that state.
12 So I appreciate, I know one of the OAS representatives 13 said an appeals process would be very complicated to put in place. And so 14 I think for the reasons I'm describing, I think it would be -- the example about 15 getting behind on its inspections, I appreciated that very, very much because 16 first of all, examples are always really helpful to me.
17 And you could have gamed the system and that was the 18 admission and that was the terms used, and you could have made that 19 metric be something that in an IMPEP review did not, you know, rise to that 20 level.
21 What that gets to for me is are the IMPEP team members, 22 and then the MRB that really looks at the results of the review, are they 23 exercising a kind of an expert judgement and a reasonableness which I 24 think, you know, a lot of things we get twisted around because maybe what 25 we needed to do is not change the system and not change the metrics, but 26 we needed to have a kind of a reasonable approach to, you know, does this
61 1 give, should we give credit for this, does this action by an agreement state 2 kind of offset the severity of what might have occurred and should we take 3 that into account.
4 And I'm wondering if there's opportunity space just around 5 kind of flexibility for, you know, the MRB itself when they're looking at what 6 were the results of the IMPEP. But you know, what should we think about 7 them, how should we interpret the potential for problems that arose from the 8 types of things we saw, is it a very temporary backlog?
9 State personnel staffing can often be very small. If one, 10 you know, inspector was on maternity leave and one other had an abrupt 11 retirement or something like that, could we be, I won't say a little more 12 gracious but could we just be more reasonable about some of it.
13 And I'm wondering that rather than, you know, make 14 changes that are elaborate and highly proceduralized and documented, 15 maybe we just need to look at how we're going about assessing what we 16 find when we, you know, go accompany inspectors in the field and do things 17 like that.
18 I always like to start with the simplest opportunity for a 19 solution first before I get into something that's more complicated. And I 20 don't know if any of the OAS members would like to react to that.
21 I hope we're being reasonable and the states have people 22 on those IMPEP reviews. You review each other, and I think we have state 23 folks on the NRC region IMPEPs as well. Please, Mr. McKinley.
24 MR. MCKINLEY: I just wanted to say that I agree with 25 everything you just said. Not the whole thing but the part about the 26 flexibility. I think that was the point that I was getting at was that there is
62 1 flexibility and there has to be flexibility built into the system.
2 The metrics are totally objective but there's always a story 3 behind the metrics, and that's where the flexibility comes in. And the NRC 4 staff, the IMPEP team members whether they're NRC or state members, are 5 directed to be flexible.
6 And then the MRB needs flexibility to evaluate the whole 7 picture. Not just the metrics, not just the situation but look at it in a broader 8 context and I think that's exactly right, and I think the ask is to continue to 9 work toward ensuring that there's greater consistency with that flexibility.
10 As you said, you know, maybe you had a good reason for 11 getting behind and the MRB needs to, you know, give you some credit for 12 that and not just throw the book at you.
13 But if you're going to do that with one then, you know, two 14 years later when the same situation arises with a different state and a 15 different MRB, it would be good to at least acknowledge that there was a 16 very similar situation two years ago and this is how we handled it, and if 17 we're going to do it differently, this is why.
18 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Yes, and I agree with you that 19 there needs to be because the composition of these groups is varying 20 depending on the review. And I actually think that's one of the strengths 21 because a lot of state officials then have an opportunity to serve on 22 somebody else's IMPEP review.
23 But we need to have a replicability then and know that the 24 kind of results from one MRB are going to be equivalent to another review 25 that was done four years later.
26 And I think to Commissioner Caputo's point about maybe
63 1 looking at what is the harm, what is the potential harm caused by a 2 deficiency, what are the corrective actions already underway, and what is the 3 general timeframe within which the situation will be cured I think are 4 reasonable factors for the MRB and others to be able to take into account as 5 they look.
6 Indeed, a circumstance may exist, a metric may be 7 imperiled or violated. But this holistic look at it I think is as she put it, a 8 more accurate reflection of any potential jeopardy to public health and safety 9 that exists over the period of time.
10 And I'm over my time, and I will now recognize 11 Commissioner Baran.
12 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks. Well, I want to 13 thank you all for being here and for the work you do and the work of the 14 states who wanted to stand at the table this morning. You really are our 15 partner regulators and we can't succeed in our health and safety mission 16 without you. So, thank you for what you're doing.
17 Jen, I really appreciated the point you were making about 18 the states being interested in being involved earlier in the process on 19 rulemaking, trying to figure out, you know, at the stage of initiating a 20 rulemaking. It doesn't make sense, what kind of priorities should it have.
21 And so I want to ask you all about one of these today 22 which is something we have pending before the Commission now which is a 23 rulemaking plan related to financial assurance for the disposal of Cat 1 and 24 Cat 2 byproduct material sealed sources.
25 And I would like to get your thoughts on that. Under 26 NRC's current regulations, many Cat 1 and 2 sealed sources are not
64 1 required to provide financial assurance for decommissioning. That means 2 no decommissioning funding plan, and no financial instrument in place to 3 cover the eventual transportation and disposal costs.
4 And this is basically because the current regulatory 5 threshold for the financial assurance requirements to kick in is very high.
6 So for example, as you all know, one of the most commonly used 7 radionuclides in large sealed sources is cesium-137. Twenty-seven curies 8 of cesium-137 qualifies as a Cat 2 quantity which subjects the source to 9 physical security requirements and source tracking requirements.
10 But a licensee is not required to meet financial assurance 11 requirements unless it possesses 100,000 curies of cesium-137, 27 versus 12 100,000. Similarly 8.1 curies of cobalt-60 qualifies as a Cat 2 quantity, but 13 financial assurance requirements don't kick in until licensee possesses 14 10,000 curies of cobalt-60.
15 When I look at that, that doesn't really make sense to me, 16 but I want to hear from all of you about what you think about that. Is there a 17 good rationale for such a high threshold for financial assurance requirements 18 to kick in?
19 (Off microphone comments.)
20 PARTICIPANT: This is a big issue.
21 MR. THOMPSON: I'm attempting to tackle this. CRCPD 22 has been working with the disuse source working group and trying to put 23 together the new suggestive state regulations Part S which is financial 24 assurance regulations.
25 The primary goal of those regulations is to increase the 26 amount of the decommissioning funding plan and the amount of money that
65 1 they would have to put up for possessing the current activity levels.
2 I don't know that they're, I'm not for sure that they're going 3 to change the activity levels. And I believe that this is correct, that this 4 particular set of rulemaking, or suggested rulemaking, is before the board for 5 consideration now, and it's possible that this could be put out to the states a 6 year or less depending upon how many comments and things, just like 7 everybody else.
8 COMMISSIONER BARAN: This is what we were talking 9 about, compatibility, earlier.
10 MR. THOMPSON: Right.
11 COMMISSIONER BARAN: This is compatibility C, so the 12 states could go --
13 MR. THOMPSON: Could go more, yes.
14 COMMISSIONER BARAN: -- and have something 15 stronger than what NRC has.
16 MR. THOMPSON: Yes, but we will at least match. We're 17 looking for an increase over what NRC proposes in their current regulations.
18 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay.
19 MR. THOMPSON: That's what the change is primarily 20 about. It has really nothing to do with the activity per se.
21 MR. ALLARD: So, yes, I think I'm on. So the SSR Part S 22 is out there. I think it was floated last fall. There were some comments. I 23 don't think it was out for a formal review, but SSR Part S is, we expect, I 24 think shortly in front of the board for review and voting. And that would be a 25 model state. These are our model state regulations.
26 I will say because of the Compatibility C, there are states
66 1 that are out there that have more restrictive, I think Texas, Illinois. We're 2 looking very hard at it in Pennsylvania.
3 We've got some poster child cases of abandoned sources 4 even before we became an agreement state up in Quehanna, licensee 5 abandoned 100,000 curie cobalt-60 pool radiator and it was, like, $70,000 6 and it cost, I think, EPA, like, a couple million to pick it up and dispose of it.
7 There's all sorts of examples out there, a 400 curie cesium 8 source, a couple hundred thousand dollars just to transfer it down for 9 storage ta Southwest Research.
10 COMMISSIONER BARAN: So we're seeing, this isn't a 11 theoretical issues, we're seeing real examples where --
12 MR. ALLARD: Oh yes, yes.
13 COMMISSIONER BARAN: -- because there isn't a 14 financial instrument that would provide for decommissioning and there isn't a 15 decommissioning plan, we're seeing cases where you have abandoned 16 sources, sources just stored indefinitely because there's no money to do 17 anything with them. Is that something that's happening outside of 18 Pennsylvania? There are other cases of that in other states that folks are 19 seeing?
20 MS. OPILA: So I serve on the low level waste forum 21 disuse sources working group. And I think that this is a very interesting 22 topic. And yes, there are these huge examples, as Dave has said.
23 But there are also a lot of regulatory programs out there 24 that are making sure that these sources are being secured and safely 25 stored. And so I'm not sure first how you define what a disuse source is. I 26 don't know.
67 1 And then I think it could be a slippery slope to end up 2 forcing licensees, you know, as the Chairman talked about, like, our jobs are 3 to foster the use of radioactive materials and are you going to force 4 universities to get rid of their materials when they are storing them safely and 5 securely. And so --
6 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Well, that's not what's being 7 proposed in the rulemaking plan --
8 (Simultaneous speaking.)
9 MS. OPILA: Right, right. I'm sorry. I digress. Yes, 10 financial assurance for Category 1 and 2, the OAS is supportive of that. But 11 I think one thing you're going to have to think about, the Commission is 12 going to have to think about is in order to accomplish what is being proposed 13 or contemplated, you might have to take away that compatibility C 14 designation.
15 And we would not be in support of that. We would like to 16 see the states be able to retain flexibility in this area.
17 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Why would you see it as a 18 potential change in compatibility?
19 MS. OPILA: I think the thinking behind those that are very 20 passionate about this issue is that we do, we need to have a more 21 consistent framework on financial assurance for Cat 1 and 2 sources. And 22 in order to do that, you would have to change the compatibility.
23 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. And among the states 24 that OAS has their position that it sounds like they think it makes sense to 25 proceed with a rule to extend financial assurance requirements to Cat 1, Cat 26 2 byproduct material sealed sources that are tracked in NSTS.
68 1 Is that pretty much a widely shared view among the 2 states? Is that controversial among the states or is there widespread 3 agreement that that would be something that makes sense?
4 MR. THOMPSON: Well, I think it's fairly well shared that 5 most every state that I'm aware of is interested in increasing that amount, 6 increasing the financial amount.
7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Yes, okay. And have there 8 been discussions, have you all looked at, you know, what about Cat 3 9 sealed sources? Is that something that we should be looking at?
10 MR. THOMPSON: That makes people cringe.
11 COMMISSIONER BARAN: That makes people cringe.
12 So talk a little bit about that. There's less agreement on that aspect. Or 13 maybe no agreement.
14 MR. THOMPSON: There's less agreement on that, but 15 there's also very much concern that when you start trying to capture all the 16 Cat 3s, just how much of an economic or resource impact it has on the state 17 --
18 COMMISSIONER BARAN: I see.
19 MR. THOMPSON: -- trying to verify do they have a 20 decommissioning funding plan. Are they properly, have the right financial 21 instrument to maintain an adequate program of that type? That's the real 22 concern is, you know, I don't know that anybody's really demonstrated to us 23 that there's a need for the Cat 3 to be included in those with the Cat 1s and 24 Cat 2s necessarily.
25 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay.
26 MR. ALLARD: I might add that it's often that we have
69 1 these gauges are abandoned. You know, if the business goes out with 2 these road, industrial nuclear gauges. But they're usually at the level of 3 source and usefulness that often you can get them transferred to somebody 4 else for use so the cost of disposal isn't there.
5 So I don't think we've seen as much of a problem with the 6 Cat 3s, though I think, again, before we became an agreement state we did 7 have a case out in Pittsburgh where somebody had aggregated a bunch of 8 GL gauges and such. But I think that was an outlier, quite honestly.
9 COMMISSIONER BARAN: So as the Commission is 10 looking at this question, the rulemaking plan, you know, that we have in front 11 of us, if we're kind of getting your input here at this early stage of initiating, 12 what I'm hearing is your recommendation is proceed with a rule for Cat 1 13 and Cat 2 on financial assurance. Okay.
14 Now CRCPD administers the NSA source collection of 15 threat reduction program, right, and that's basically --
16 MR. ALLARD: Yes, yes.
17 (Simultaneous speaking.)
18 COMMISSIONER BARAN: -- one of these programs 19 maybe that Jen was eluding to that scatter, that disposes of unused sources.
20 And I think it's good that there's that program and it's doing that work.
21 I guess kind of as I'm concluding with my time here and I'm 22 thinking about this, the question it raises for me as someone from NRC is 23 what does that say about our regulatory requirements? If you need a 24 taxpayer funded program to go and get all of these unused sources so that 25 they're not abandoned, what does that say about our regulatory 26 requirements and whether they're providing a sufficient incentive to
70 1 licensees to manage that themselves and decommission.
2 MR. ALLARD: I think that's probably the history. It's the 3 history of all these, you know, sources that are out there and they get 4 abandoned. And I think, for the short term anyways, we're going to be living 5 with that and having to deal with -- and having the NRC and DOE both fund 6 the disposal of these sources until we really get our arms around it.
7 MR. THOMPSON: And part of the scatter program, the 8 licensee has to pay a certain percentage. So it's not 100 percent funded by 9 the government. There is some financial responsibility on part of the 10 licensee. It's not 100 percent, but there again, they are partially 11 responsible.
12 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Very well, thank you 13 for your thoughts on that. I appreciate that.
14 CHAIRMAN SVINICKI: Well, thank you all again. It's 15 been a really interesting Q&A, and to hear my colleagues questions and 16 really taking more the form of a dialogue. I appreciate that very much that 17 we can have some kind of sharing of views back and forth.
18 You know, there is this old, I don't know if it's Greek or 19 Roman mythology or folklore but there's this tale that if your cares and 20 concerns could take physical form and you got together with a bunch of 21 friends or peers and you all put yours out on the table and you could see 22 everybody else's, you would happily take your own back.
23 So I think that when we meet with our state regulatory 24 friends and colleagues, we say you know, you have your basket of 25 challenges and we have ours, and I think we all leave here very contented 26 with our lot in life. So appreciate that very much.
71 1 And with that, our meeting will be adjourned, but I think 2 that we are taking a group photo, so I would ask our presenters not to move 3 too far. Thank you all.
4 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 5 at 11:56 a.m.)
6