ML19210E136
| ML19210E136 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/19/1979 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 7911300160 | |
| Download: ML19210E136 (18) | |
Text
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a PY NUCLE AR REGUL ATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
PUBLIC MEETING DISCUSSION OF CITIZEN'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE (RECOMMENDATION OF PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON TMI)
Place - Washington, D. C.
Date - Monday, 19 November 1979 Pages 1-17 Telephone:
(202)347 3700 143d!45 ACE -FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.
Offcut Reporters 444 North Capitol Street 7 9113 0 0 / bO Washington D.C.20001 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE. DAILY PTT.7
- R8358 DISCLADIER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United St5tes in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on MONDAY.
19 Nov-7q Commissions's offices at 1717 H-Street, N. W., Washington, D.C.
The.
This transcript meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational As provided by 10 CFR 9 103, it is not part of the formal purposes.
or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or add'ressed to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
O e
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.8358
'H:fr UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l
j NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
3 PUBLIC MEETING 4
DISCUSSION OF CITIZEN'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE 5
(RECOMMENDATION OF PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON TMI) 6 7
Room 1130 8
1717 H Street, N. W.
Washington, D. C.
9 Monday, 19 November 1979 10 11 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 3:55 p.m.
12 l BEFORE:
VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner, Presiding 13 1
f4 RICHARD T. KENNEDY, Commissioner 15 PETER A. BRADFORD, Commissioner 16 JOHN F. AHEARNE, Commissioner 17 PRESENT:
18 Messrs. Bickwit, Chilk, and Hanrahan.
19 20 21 22 23
/436:?47 24 sco-Feceral Reporters, Iric.
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PR0CEEDINGS 2
(3:55 p.m.)
3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Could we have the 4
Secre tary here or a member of the Secretariat, pl ea se ?
5 (Pause.)
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
And the General Counsel.
7 (Pause.)
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
The subject is listed as a 9
discussion of the Citizens' Aovisory Committee.
I t wa s 10 recommended to us by Commissioner Bradford, and I suggest
.11 that you elaborate on your memorandum.
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I don't have a lot to 13 elaborate on.
I think that what I suggested was that if 14 there was sufficient in te re s t, we could get together and 15 make sure that we had a f ew points -- a common understanding 16 on a f ew points, and then ask OPE and OGC to look into the
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17 best ways of achieving.
Wha t I had in mind was a relatively 18 small group that would advise on general issues and the kind 19 of thing tha t the Advisory Committee on Reactor Saf eguards 20 is willing to look into.
It is a group that I would think 21 should have a diversity of vin 1 points.
They might disagree 22 among themselves to a certain extent on directions from the 23 NRC.
It would be a f orum I think in which diff erent groups 24 would have an interest in our proceeding, (a) could talk to 25 each other and (b) could also talk to us.
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The no tion I had is tha t it might meet something 2
on the order of four or six times a year and nearly a half 3
to a third of those meetings, we would meet jointly with 4
them.
They, I would think, would want to set their own 5
agenda, and we would want to pose specific i ssues for their 6
a ttention.
7 I would a ssume tha t the would have a balance of 8
issues that they wanted to take up with us and that we 9
wanted them to --
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
If you were to, in a 11 charter, put down what the purpose of this is, what would 12 t ha t purpose be?
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What is the question to 14 which they are the answer?
15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
How does the NRC k.eep 16 itself in reasonably close continuing touch with groups that 17 have a continuing interest in the way it operates?
I have 18 felt for some time, for example, that we don't keep in any 19 very regular contact, other than what we read them saying 20 about us in the newspapers, either with the intervenor 21 community or with industry.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
The purpose of the group 23 then would be to, in a more formal or institutionalized way, 24 establish a link with groups?
25 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Wi th perspectives, i43d!49
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COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
With identified groups?
2 COMMISSIONER BR ADFORD:
I would rather say 3
perspec tive s.
It is not necessarily a link to the AIF on 4
one hand or the Union of Concerned Scientists on the other.
5 It would be a way perhaps of achie'.ng some consensus among 6
groups like that, on the diff erent perspectives that they 7
hold on activitie s of ours, and at the same time just 8
putting ourselves through the dis cipline of being in touch 9
with the criticisms anc concerns of people who are 10 reasonably well informed about what we do but who don't 11 normally get a chance to exchange views with us or we with 12 them.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Would the charter of this 14 group be for them to bring their views, or would it be for 1
15 them to review what the agency is doing and bring their 16 views?
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY Es this ano.ther group to 18 audit our perf ormance, in a sense?
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
That, in a way, is the 20 question.
What I am a little puzzled by is the way in which 21 Peter described it just recently there.
I thought it was a 22 way for us to get a better understanding of what these other 23 perspectives are, not so much an audit -- that is, a review 24 internally of wha t we are doing, buy a perspective on what 25 we are doing.
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COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Perspective on what?
I have 2
a little difficulty in trying to pin down what it is they 3
are going to give a perspective on.
Is it the way we do 4
what we do, or is it what we do, or is it more 5
philosophically in a broad sense what our relationship to 6
the whole question is or ought to be?
7 COMMI SSIONER. BR ADFORD :
Half of it, roughly, would 8
seem to me to be propositions that we might want to pose to 9
them that we would be interested.in having their thoughts 10 on.
I am sure that any of us could suggest such a list --
11 licensing reform, intervenor funding, what have you, 12 standardization.
Those are all the types of topics that one 13 might put before a group like that.
The other half, I 14 think, given that we would chose these people because they 15 are people -- would be on issues that they feel inclined to 16 take up.
17 Let me stre ss that this was a tentative idea that 18 I put in the.nemo, and it may turn out by the time it gets 19 run through the Advisory Committee Act which OGC would have 20 to take a look on and h6ve the more de. tailed view of OPE, it 21 may turn out it is a bad or unworkable idea.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
It is certainly a workable 23 idea to have groups that bring in outside perspectivas.
24 There are Consumer Advisory Groups to a number of 25 organizations.
I don't think that is an unworkable system.
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I am just trying to understand.
For example, the ACRS has 2
go t a body of sta ff who, when they are reviewing an i ssue, 3
dig into that internally to our staff.
What are they doing?
4 How are they doing it?
And then they come up with a report.
5 Is that what you had in mind?
6 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
No.
I sJ ppo se tha t a 7
certain minimum amount of staff assistance would be 8
necessary, but I really wouldn' t think of this group having 9
a separate staf f of the size of the ACRS or anything like 10 the ACRS Fellowship Program.
It really is, as I have 11 conceived of it, much more a sort of process of alerting us 12 to issues that -- or ways of proceeding that this group 13 f ound troublesome on the one hand and f orcing us 14 semiannually or whatever to sit down and think these things 15 through a lit.tle bit, and on the other hand, giving us a 16 place to ref er particular problems that have reached the 17 point where we want to pu t them out in rulemaking form, 18 where they may not lend themselves to rulemaking.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
The part I am having 20 difficulty understanding, when you say we are ref erring 21 problems to them, because tha t really does sound like they 22 have a staff and revi.ew things.
23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
No, no t a problem having 24 to do with the functioning of the emergency core cooling 25
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COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Wha t about the f unctioning 2
of the emergency plans?
3 COMMISSIONER BR ADFORD:
I guess, if the questions 4
were emergency plans, it would be more like is the way the 5
Commission is going about dea. ling with the emergency 6
planning a question well designed to bring in the views that 7
we ought to have?
Is it going to lead to a sensible result 8
and not --
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Would you see this group 10 consisting of individuals who would come to mee tings or JI presentations to us, representing the knowledge they 12 individually have or their organizations have?
Or would it 13 be a group who as a group come up with a conclusion?
14 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I would prefer the 15 latter.
I think realistically what you get (inaudible) to 16 completely abandon whatever perspectives they develop.
17 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I would think, given the IS wide range of perspectives, views, po si tion J, opinions on a 19 lot of our areas of interest, if you do form this kind of a 20 group to truly be representative of that spectrum, then I 21 don't think there is any po ssibility of achieving some kind 22 of consensus on very many of the interesting issues that 23 would be valuable to get that spectrum perspective.
24 COMMISSIONER BR ADFORD:
I think that's right.
But 25 on the other hand and to the extent that there is some 143(,253
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consensus, it would be interesting to smoke that out.
The 2
impulse is more to the Kemeny Commission recommendation that 3
we be restruc tured and given a single administrator plus 4
oversight commi ttees.
5 I am not a f an of that, and this is not a 6
recommendation for an oversight committee.
Wha t I am trying 7
to get at is some of the benefits to be had f rom a 8
systematic outside review of what we do, but in the contex.t 9
of a collegial agency which therefore gives you some of the 10 diversity of views that the Kemeny Commission was seeking to
.11 institutionalize through the oversight committee.
12 I am trying to a pdy their recogmmendation to this 13 s tru c tu r e.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Would you see them 15 basically just meeting, you safd, quarterly and discussing 16 various subjects, more or less on the basis of -- well, 17 coming to some view as a result of that day's discu ssion?
18 Or would you see them going off and getting briefing and 19 studying the subject and then reporting back -- in a sense, 20 doing a f air piece of work?
21 COMMISSI')NER BRADFORD:
One of the things that I 22 really hadn't thought through was the extent to which they 23 can get briefings and that sort of thing.
Obviou sly, it 24 becomes unwieldy if it is a group that meets monthly, and 25 the staff has to brief them on top of briefing the 3, on 1436254
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top of briefing us, on top of testifying before the Congress 2
on a particular topic.
The system really can't stand that, 3
and if that is what is required to make the pro po sal 4
eff ective, then I think probably it is not worth an extra 5
- layer, o
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think there still are two 7
separate kinds of advisory committees.
There is one tha t it 8
really is appropriate for the number of briefings.
That is 9
basically recognizing that there is outside expert knowledge 10 or outside different perspectives, and you want to bring
.11 that perspective and knowledge in and then have them review 12 o r Vick's word, " audit" in os tail wha t are we doing, and 13 then provide their comments on that.
14 I think that was much closer to what the Kemeny 15 Commission's Advisory Commi ttee i ssue is.
There is another 16 type which is very much like the consumer advisory groups 17 t ha t I know the Energy Department had set up in a number of 18 places in which you bring in the people to get their 19 perspective, and the primary thing you are trying to do is 20 accomplish a close link to what the outside world or the 21 aff ected people think of what you are doing.
22 MR. HANRAHAN:
I think that is an important point, 23 Jo hn.
I think you have to think of it in terms of who you 24 are trying to reach and what are you trying to get at.
You 25 have an ACRS which advise s on specific technical things and, 143(3 ?SS
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therefore, is made up of people with those specific 2
technical capabilities.
The General Advisory Committee to 3
the AEC were scientistis to guide the Atomic Energy 4
Commission and so on with its programs.
5 They are all mechanisms f or -- I will say the 6
intervening community or the industrial community -- to get 7
its views to the Commi ssion.
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
We have not met with the 9
intervening community as such during the time I have been 10 here.
.11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I don't think we have met 12 with the utilities.
13 COMMISSIONER 3RADFORD:
We had one meeting bef ore 14 your time with an AIF group on licensing reform.
I t i s tha t 15 rare.
le MR. HANRAHAN:
They htve. mechanisms either through 17 the courts or by writing letters.
18 COMMISSIONER 3RADFORD:
I am up with the more 19 regular mechanisms.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
How would you propose that 21 we proc eed?
Is there some thing that we can ask Len?
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
The difficulty at the 23 moment is, I don't think it is clear enough.
I would prefer 24 to ask Peter to structure the -- I am in f avor of ge tting 25 advisory groups.
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COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I was going to suggest 2
just our finding out just wha t our f r eedom is in having an 3
advisory group of one kino or another.
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
We know we have freedom of 5
one kind.
If we go to the Congress and ask f or legislation, 6
they can set up anything.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
But what freedom do we 3
have now, and under what restrictions would an advisory V
group operate?
That may af fect your interest in a 10 pro position of this sort.
11 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Le.t me suggest sort of a 12 charge (inaudible).
First of all, I think I would be 13 interested in knowing what we can do, short of legisla tion, 14 as a first cu t, and if that isn't enough, we can think about 15 s.eeking legislation.
16 On the other side of the question, I guess I would 17 like to have a review of some of the diff erent adivsory 18 committee setups that do exist in the government.
Now I am 19 le ss interested in the Consumer Advisory Committae concept, 20 although there may be no way around that, the reason being 21 it seems to me that if we set up something labeled 22 Intervenor Advisory Commi ttee, then we have to set up 23 some thing labeled --
24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Consumer just turns out to 25 be the name that is used to say the people directly aff ected I A3$ '!S7
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who don't ordinarily have the chance to have their views 2
expressed.
3 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
That is really what I am 4
af ter, axce pt when you call i t " consumer" --
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I wasn't. trying to use that 6
as a lacel, but rather the concept.
7 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
If bv " consumer", you mean 8
everybody from --
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
The basic concept is, it is 10 a mechanism f or those people who don't usually have a 11 mechanism to get their views expressed, and depending upon 12 the agency or the circumstance, that can be a very narrow 13 grouct it can be a very broad group.
It isn't specifically-14' individuals.
It can be industries, utilities, in tervenor 15 g roups.
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
As I understood what you 17 were saying, John, you we ren't suggesting modeling things.
18 You. were simply suggesting as an example of a way to do 19 this.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
That's right.
21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
What I suppose this sort 22 of minimal choice is, it is simply to schedule neetings 23 periodically between the Commission and r.epresentatives of 24 some of the segments without bothering with f orming it.
25 That might be one way of reaching out a little further and
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getting these views.
Beyond that, we get into a description 2
of people who are concerned with wha t we do.
They have 3
views that would be useful for us to hear periodically.
4 I am inclined toward a framework in which we would 5
pose some questions or some i ssue s to them, and beyond that, 6
they would set their own agenda.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Oces EPA have any kind of 8
a group like this?
9 COMMISSIONEW BRADFORD:
I don't know.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I would think in scouting 11 around the government, there are so many advisory groups.
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
The Advisory Committee Act 13 put a lot of them out of busine ss.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
They would want to 15 concentrate on agencies that are comparable to ours.
16 MR. HANRAHAN:
The difficulty is having broad 17 spectrum.
The people or members of ten f eel required to take 18 positions, rather than to deal with issues and solve 19 problems.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think you end up --- I 21 think the main thing is there has to be an examination here, 22 but I think you will find that you will end up with one or 23
'two c hoices.
You can go for brvad spectrum, in which case 24 the purpose is to present their views, or you can go for 25 more narrow sets of people, and then ask them to work on 143)
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problems.
Bu t I don't think you can take the broad s pec trum 2
and then ask them to work on problems because you won't get 3
there.
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COMMISSIONER SRAD?ORD:
In order to get any 2
furtner witn it myself, I would need to do what I am aoout 3
to suggesting, that OPE coes, which is to take a look at the 4
different forms that the aninal exists in in the Federal 5
Government and also a bit of a qualitative evaluation, talk 6
to the agencies and find out what their s trengths and 4
weaknesses are.
8 It certainly isn't an inconceivable thing that, at the end of. that proce ss, you could come bac.< and say that 10 for the NRC this doesn't make sense.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I think they are going to 12 have to look at just a few agencies.
13 MR. HANR AHAN:
Ob'tiously, regulatory agen:les.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
That have similar responsi' ilities to ours.
15 o
16 Lam?
17 MR. BICKWIT:
The cottom line of this is you don't 18 need legislation if you have got a purpose that you can sell 19 to the secre tariat and the GS A.
They don't have any 20 authority, explicit authority, to stop the f ormation of a 21 committee, but there has never been a committee that has
.22 been formed that they have said "No" to.
23 We can circulate the specific procedures.
I don't 24 think it is necessary to run through it.
25 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Having formed a committee i43[?61
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under the Advisory Committee Act, however, there are a 2
number of strictures that should ce observed.
What is the 3
import of tnose?
4 MR. BICKdIT:
When they meet, there are certain 5
openness res trictions.
There are reports to you.
They also 5
have to meet with some openness requirements.
This is the I
basic thrust of the requirements, that there be openne ss.
3 And there is also a requirement of balance with respect to 9
the c ommittee that, cepending on the purpose, you need to os 10 balanced to accomplish that purpose.
11 CO W4ISS IONER AHEARNE:
That is a link to the 12 purpo se because, for example, you can set up a coma.itt.e 13 wita a ve ry narrow purpose.
14 MR. BICKWIT:
Those who disagreed with that g/
15 purpo se.
16 COMMISS IONER GILINSKY:
I think it would ce 1e interesting to have a note on that, just what the members 13 would be suoject to, which are requirements, and a orief 19 note from you, Ed, on what you have. learned from scouting 23 around the various regulatory agencie s, other agencies.
Why 21 don't we take it up when we have received those?
22 Tnank you.
23 (Whereupon, at 4: 19 p.m.,
the meeting was 24 adjou rned. )
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