ML19276E732
| ML19276E732 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/07/1979 |
| From: | Etherington H, Lawroski S, Okrent D Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T, NUDOCS 7903200521 | |
| Download: ML19276E732 (72) | |
Text
NRC PUBLIC DUCUMENT ROO.'I NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS
'N l
IN THE MATTER OF:
SUBCOMMITTEE CN REACTOR SAFETY RESEARCH
(
.s Place -
Washington, D.
C.
Date -
Wednesday, 7 March 1979 Pages 1-72 T.enen :
(002)347-3700 s
ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.
~
Offic:al Reporten 4.14 North Cc;:itei Street Wesnington. D.C. 20001 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE. DAILY 70032005 %
a
1 I
PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE 2
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S 3
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 4
Wednesday, 7 March 1979 5
O The contents of this stenographic t:ranscript of the 7
proceedings of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 8
Commission's Advisory Ccmmittee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS),
9 as. reported herein, is an uncorrected record of the discussions 10 recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
Il Ne member of the ACRS Staff and no participant at this 12 meeting accepts any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies
(
13 of.. statement or data contained in this transcript.
14 15 16 17 l
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 W. a,on x
25
2 i
CR28 71 i
JRB:jrbi l
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
i 2l I
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS i
4 l
I i
l l
5j I
6 !
SUBCOMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFETY RESEARCH j
l 71 l
l 8
Room 1046, Tenth Floor 1717 H Street, Northwest 9'
Washington, D.
C.
10 '
Wednesday, 7 March 1979 t
i l
12 The ACRS Subcommittee on Reactor Safety Research 13 met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m.,
DR. DAVID OKRENT, t
14 Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
15 MEMBERS PRESENT:
16 MR. EAROLD ETHERINGTON, DR. STEPHEN LAWROSKI, 17 '
DR. CHESTER P.
SIESS, DR. MILTON PLESSET, MR. JEREMIAH RAY, 18 DR.
D.
W. MOELLER.
19 1 i
20 !
i 22 l 23 1 24 Aa was ReorMrs. rm.
25
jrb2 3
l l
1 P _R O_ _C _E _E _D _I N _G _S i
i 2l DR. OKRENT:
The meeting will now come to order.
3 This is a meeting of the Advisory Committee on I
4 Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee on Reactor Safety Research.
l 5,
I am David Okrent, the Subcommittee Chairman.
6l:
The other ACRS members present today on my left, i
7j are Mr. Etherington, Dr. Lawroski, Dr. Siess, Mr. Ray, Mr.
l l
8 Bender and Dr. Moeller.
9 The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the approac.hes i
10,
that ACRS might use in preparing the 1979 Report to Congress I
Il !
on NRC Safety Research and in particular how the ACRS might 12 decide on priority of research projects.
(
13 This meeting is'being conducted in accordance with 14 the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the 15 ;
Government in the Sunshine Act.
I 16 I Thomas G. McCreless is the Designated Federal 17 j Employee for the meeting.
.I 18 '
The rules for participation in today's meeting have 19 been announced as part of the notice of this meeting previously 1
20 published in the Federal Recister on Tuesday, February 29, 1979'.
21 l A transcript of the meeting is being kept and will be:
i 22.
made available as stated in the Federal Recister notice.
23 j It is requested that each speaker first identify himself and l
24 speak with suf fleient clarity and volume so that he can be ac, nei n.conm. anc.
25 readily heard.
i
.e
jrb3 l
l 4
i i
t i
I 1l We have received no written statements from the l
I I
i 2l members of the public.
3' We have received no requests to make oral statements 4'
during this meeting from members of the public.
i l
i Si For the benefit of the subcommittee members, let i
6[
me note that you should have been handed a packet of informa-7l tion with a yellow cover (indicating) which was prepared l
l 8'
by John Austin in connection with things related to possible l
9l ways of assigning priorities.
I 10 ;
There should also be a single page with some thoughts I
Il for what we might discuss during the meeting today, which is i
12 '
subject to any kind of revision you wish.
l 13 And then there is a memorandum from Fraley dated i
14 February 28, 19 79 concerning proposed revisions for timing 15 and scope of the ACRS Annual Report to Congress on the RSR 16 '
Program.
17 !
Now, one other bit of information:
18 Messrs. Levine and Budnit: are here from the Reactor l
19 '
Safety Research office of the NRC.
I am advised that they can 20 be available until three o' clock; so that we shoud arrange i
21 ;
the schedule of the day that we can take advantage af their 22l presence.
I suppose we could wait until 2:58 and give them 23 I' two minutes.
24 (Laughter.)
Ace
- eral Recorters, Inc.
25 -
With that, let me open the floor to see what the i
I 1
jrb4 5
l I
wishes of the subcommittee are.
2l (No response.)
i 3'
Scmeone, either Tom or John, mentioned that Ray 4
Fraley could provide some discussion on this proposed revision 5-to timing and scope -- if we want to hear that now, if we 6
thought that would be helpful for what we are going to do the l
7l rest of the afternoon?
8 MR. BENDER:
I think it would be useful for somebody !
l 9!
to tell us what is proposed.
10 !
DR. OKRENT:
Can we get Ray down here?
11,
Oh, I didn't see you, Ray.
12 l
MR. FRALEY:
The memo that was sent to you dated 13 February 28 about proposed revisions to die timing and scope i
I#
of the issue cf the report has an alternate (c) proposed for 15 the process of preparing a report.
16 And this is in addition to the previous attachments 17 which were previously attached to my memo dated 2/6/79.
18 Now, this alternate was based primarily on 19 discussions that the committee had with the Commissioners last I
a 0 'i l
month; and suggests basically that we have already provided i
2Ifi the Congress our '78 report, and it would be useful if we could 22 hlI get a response from Mr. Levine by, say, about April, about il 23 ]
what he intends to do about the 7'RS recommendarions.
24 ]'
Now, that happened last year, and I think that was Ace
'eral Rooorters. Inc.
2'C -
useful.
I haven't discussed this with Saul at all, but it was
- l
,1
jrb5 6
I i
I suggested upstairs, i
i 2l Perhaps he will care to comment on that.
I 3
I thought by April that would give him enough time 4,
to consider the ACRS recommendations seriously, and come back I
1 5!
with some sort of response.
6i By July, of course, Mr. Levine will have his i
i' 7'
budget to the Commissioners, and by then the committee should i
8!
have decided that if it is. happy, or if it is
. unhappy with I
9!
his resolution of the committee 's earlier comments, and they l
10 ;
too could submit some comments to the Commissioners saying, II I we think Saul should have increased here a little bit
- gee, l
12 l more, and decreased there-- or whatever.
13 The Commissions and OMB Would eventually submit 14 their budget to the Administration by January 1980, and I had I 15 i originally proposed that the ACRS Report to Congress would 16 go over in January.
17 And during the period when the Commission is reviewing i
18 the budget and negotiating with OMB and what-have-you, of course, i
19 scmebody would have to keep the committee informed of the 20 various ups and downs that were happening to the budget.
21 And I assume Saul could arrange to do that, so that i
22 '
our -- you know, the annual report to Congress could go out i
23 l about the end of the year.
24 Now, since I sent this to you gentlemen I have av wei n.comes, inc.
25 l " talked to Dr. Myers over on the House Committee; and he rias
jrb6 7
I
\\
i I
said that he likes the idea of the revised scope, namely, i
2l that you would be addressing the forthcoming budget year, 3'
FY 81; but he would still like to get his report by the end i
4 of the vear.
i 5{
(Laughter.)
6 Because it is useful to them in planning for 7l their budget hearings, some or which have already happened.
I i
8' So he says that if we want to submit some earlier comments j
i 9
or suggestions to the Commissioners, that's perfectly all i
10 '
right; he thinks that 's a good idea.
11 And the revised scope is acceptable, but he would i
I 12 like the report out by the end of 19 79.
13 And I have been in touch with the Senate staffers i
I 14 on this.
I have no gotten anything back yet from them.
15,
Maybe it would be useful to give Saul a copy of i
16 this and see if he has any comments, because I haven't really 17 l discussed it with him, and he is involved.
I 18 i (Handing document to Mr. Levine.)
l 19 DR. OKRENT:
One question I had, looking at this, 20 Ray:
21 !
What is in the July 19 79 period, you indicated i
22 l ACRS might submit a repcrt to the NRC concerning the proposed 23 implementation of ACRS recommendations?
24lt MR. FRALEY:
Yes.
- 2ci, Metat Reoorters, Inc.
25 DR. OKRENT:
Now, if I understand correctly -- well, i'
le
jrb7 8
l l
I ll some of the Commissioners were. interested if it would be this I 2!
as related to the next budget; is this what you mean?
i 3,
MR. FRALEY:
Yes.
i 4
It would have to do with how these reccmmendations l
l S I would be factored into the 81 or future budgets.
l 6
DR. OKRENT:
Thank you.
I i
7l MR. PLESSET:
Is there any possibility from Dr.
l l
8' Myers we might have a shorter report?
I would presume --
l 9{
MR. FRALEY:
Well, as you knew he did make some I
10 '
other comments, independent of this, regarding the report, Il per se.
12 And I think you were involved or at least yo u heard 13 those comments.
l Id But he was still having problems with -- and I think 15 ;
some of the Congressmen who were at the hearings were having 1
16 l prcblems -- with understanding some of the committee's 17 l comments.
I 18 l They are not technical people, and I am afraid some-i 19 -
times we use a little bit of jargon, and when we talk about 20 things like the high probability contributors versus the 21 [
low prcbability contributors -- sometimes they don' t really 22 understand what, really, we are asking for.
23 ]
( Laughter. )
24 So he again urges that we write in language ncn-Acr - w.i s.oonm. inc.
25 ;
technical people can understand, and give some indication
jrb8 9
l l
i 1
to the degree we want this changed, rather than say, reevaluate 2l the. objectives of the program, they would like some guidance 3
as to whether you would like them to scve lef t or right or 4
up or dcwn in that reevaluation.
i 5,
MR. EENDER:
The point I was going to make was i
6!
to make this advanced review f or them, we almost have to i
I 7 j be looking a lot farther ahead than we have previously.
l 8!
It seems like we ought to campaign for reviewing i
I 9:
a two-year program instead of a one-year program; then we
}
10 '
would see something that had some continuity to it.
I i
11 !
What is the practicality of doing that?
l I
12 MR. LEVINE:
First of all, let me say I appreciate 13 having the ACRS in reviewing our program and giving us your 14,
helpful comments.
I say this very seriously.
It is a lot of I
15 '
work for us, but it is to our benefit to get the advice of 16 this group.
I 17 '
DR. OKRENT:
It sounds like Lesson-1 from Management 18 SchocL ; but that's okay.
l 19 (Laughter. )
20 i MR. LEVINE :
I never went to that school, i
21 l (Laughter.)
l 22,
I have been to the schol of hard knocks, however.
I 23 l
( Laughter.)
24 DR. SIESS:
You've got them right here.
Aa "twal Reorms, lm 25 (Laughter.)
i t
jrb9 10, i
i 1
MR. LEVINE:
What you did in December was review 2
our program in '78 that was formulated in the spring of '76; 3
what you are going to do now is try to review in the spring of I
4
' 79 our '81 budget whila it is being formulated.
i I
l 5!
Well, we are still interacting with our of:1ces in 6!
NRC, and with our internal budget review; and it is going to i
7l be a very difficult process.
I 8I I am sure many of you have the feeling that some 9
i parts of our program you reviewed last year weren' t very well-l 10 l defined.
You will find that it will be very much less well-II !
defined now.
i 12)
There is some real question in my mind about the 13 feasibility of doing this in any rational way.
I am not sure i
Id I that I can compete or can exist in a situation where not only i
15 other offices in the BRG but also ACRS on a short-time scale, i
I0 of a month or two.
17 !
DR. SIESS:
You'll factor us in on next year's 18 lI budget?
l I9 I MR. LEVINE:
Like I say, I welcome your advice at 20 l any time; but it is going to be a very dif ficult problem, and i
21 i you will find it difficult, also.
22 h I think there is a vast improvement between your i
23 l first report and the last report in terms of its coherence i
24 I to us; but it 's going to be a problem.
w~ me secomn. ine.
25-DR. SIESS:
After hearing what Ray said, and what l
i
jrbl0 t
l 11 l i
I Saul said, and some things I have been thinking about, I i
2l have to agree:
I think it's an extremely difficult job.
3, It's nice to be loved, but too much affection is I
i 4 j too much.
j c!
i
- l Congress has asked for the report; the Commissioners ;
6 I said they'd like to have our advice on the budget; and 7l Saul has said he'd like to have our advice.
Now, that's 8ll really three levels of people, all three of which probably 9l have to be addressed in different language for it to be i
10 !
unders tandable.
I II '
Also you would like to have it at a different time i
12 !
scale.
I3 I just do not see hcw we can satisfy them all.
i Id l To try to satisfy them all, and do a lousy job, is not what 15 we want to do.
I 16 If we can satisfy them all with a single document, 17 we can provide safety research letters for Saul -- we've done i
18 that when we've had time to do it; we can do it with the 19 !
report to Congress; and as we've done it now, I guess we could i
20 review the budget in the light of previous reports and trends 21 l that we have seen.
i 22 l But I do not see how we can incorporate it all into 23 '
one document and try to do it all with the same group of 24 people, the same organizations.
Ace *9eral Reoorters, Inc.
"5 MR. SUDNITZ:
I have in front of me alternate (c).
jrbll 12 l
t I
It is not completely clear where all the sWocommittee meetings are held, not only where, but when, during which time all 2
3 subcommittee meetings are held to provide that.
4l MR. LEVINE:
Are you going to be reviewing a budget i
1 1
5 that is still being formulated?
6 MR. 3UDUIT":
I've only been here since August, but i
I 7 ;l I've noticed something very funny about how the Office or l
I 8
Research runs.
I 9
(Laughter.)
10 You have spurts of activity durino which you do 11 nothing else but something else.
For the last month all we' ve -
12 been doing is asking or answering questions from Congress.
We 13 got 214 in the mail yesterday.
Our office has a third of them.
I i
s Id We had 100 the previous week.
I i
15 l I got here in August; and August, September and 16 '
part of October the whole of our office was spending half of its I7 i time, it seemed anysay, preparing to come down and talk to you l
I8 l people.
I I9 !
By the way, it's a tremendous exercise for the 20 '
office.
It may sound like No. 1 from the Book on Management, i
21 !
but the fact is, we learned a lot from it, and it's very i
e 22 valuab le.
23 Eut everybody tells me the worst of all these phases 24 is the budget process in which we are formulating and interacting ac.4.emi c. corms. inc.
25 with other offices and working on the budget, and our Budget 0
1 It
jrbl2
' l
{
13 i
I lj Review Group is interacting with questions, and the guys are I
2{
going back and scratching their headscand trying to come up wiNh 3;
a consensus in a given area.
4:
So you might argue that the last thing we need is to!
I i
i i
5 have a meeting with you guys at the same time -- just from l
9 i
6 the point of view that nothing else will happen.
l 7f The other side of it is, it might be the best thing l 8j that could be, because it is precisely that interaction while 9l you are doing it that has the most impcct and value.
l 10 I don' t know how to put those together, but I think II it is worth your knowing that when you are looking into RES 12 !
about half die place doesn' t do much else but prepare for 13 interacting with you.
We do it because it is important, but 14 we can' t do three fire drills in the same month.
15 j DR. LAWROSKI:
Has anyone gotten information as to i
16 l how we can do some of this?
Really, one some of it the meetings l
17 !
might have to be closed.
Our meetings have had to be open, 18
_ ith certain small exceptions.
And much of the information w
19 l that we are talking about here is a closely-guarded secret 20 l until Jsometime very late in the year.
21 l DR. OKRENT:
This question was raised at the meeting i
22 of the Commissioners, and what I recall of the discussion then i,
23 )lwas it was thought that if the documents that are given to l
I44 us are presented as preliminary, and recognize these are not ac. m.,e n. con.,. ine.
25 the final thing, and so forth; that that-would be all right.
jrbl3 14 l
I And I have the assumption it was expected meetings i
2l would be open and they could be held.
3 Again, I think tharis a small problem.
I 4
I think there is another problem -- I don' t regard i
5 that as an impediment.
t 6i MR. BUTMITZ:
In any event that information is l
7l closed in the final sense until the President's session in I
8l January; after that it is too late and you are starting on l
i 9
another cycle.
So at any time you get it that would be of any' i
i 10 '
use to Budget, you will have that problem.
II Maybe that's another point to make:
the earlier in I2 the cycle you get the information, the less sensitive it is, 13 because it's all preliminary.
The later it is, in'. terms of I4 having CMB interaction, then it dces become sensitive.
15 DR. OKRENT:
Well, I guess there is the possibility 16 that we could try to f olicw alternat (c) this year, and see 17 l what happens; and we might decide we could not provide 18 l any useful advice by July or August to the Commissioners; or I
19 that we had to make it rather limited, and not as broad as we 20 '
would like, or something.
21 l MR. LEVINE:
In fact, our contractors prcbably will 22 not be able to be involved because there are contractors who 23 l are only involved peripherally in our budget plans; they 24 submit some documents.
Ace Neral Reoorters. Inc.
25 You will not get the kind of information, in-dep th e
6 l
b
jrbl4 15 I
i i
li review, you have been getting at your sd committee meetings l
2j by the procedure you followed this past year -
3; You will be involved in a budget-planning exercise, i
i 4'
not a program-review exercise.
5 MR. BENDER:
I think it's impractical to go through 6;
the kind of review the ccmmittee did last year.
I 7
MR. LEVINE:
The character of the review will change..
8 MR. BENDER:
It would be possible, I think, to have i
9l a more general kind of discussion.
10 MR. LEVINE:
Yes.
II l MR. BENDER:
Especially if the planning encompassed 12 more than a year every year.
I still find that dif ficult, to I3 review a program tha t is about to start.
14 MR. LEVINE:
We have two years detailed planning in 15 our budget, so we have two years in less detailed planning i
16 l for fur ther years.
I 17 l MR. BENDER:
My point is, it may not be very good i
18 '
for this year, but for subsequent years it may work out.
39 MR. LEVINE:
I will get your comments, which we 20 value in budget planning; I will not get your in-depth review 21 !
of the program I have been getting, which I regard as my own 22 l p ro blem.
l 23 DR. OKRENT:
Well, that is still part of alternate 24 (c), because the ACRS is obligated by law to provide a report Ace-Neral Aeoorters, Inc.
25 to the Congress.
l
jrbl5 16 I
I I
l l
II MR. LEVINE:
We will be interacting with you all I
l 2l year long; that's fine.
3 DR. OKRENT:
Well, let's see.
Since we have rcughly 4
another 35 minutes of availmaility of Messrs. Levine and j
4 5!
Budnitz, maybe we ought to try to focus the discussion on things I
6 that might rela te to our interaction to them, either f or 1
7 what I will call the "short review" or "early review", or the i
8l
" late review" or "end of the year" review -- however you want 9!
to think of i t; 10 ;
Let me start with a kind of question that could i
11 l i
l in principdL ap ply to either the early review or the end of the 12 i year repor t 13 li Since the committee is thinking of trying to trea t I
l#
the question of priority here, and since inevitably when you 15 i
are making b udget recommendations for next year, you are i
16 l making judgments on priorities; what kind of information I
17 is it feasible for the ACRS to get from you with regard to what I8 you think the priorities are, and why?
i 19 '
MR. aEVINE:
Well, our budget process is by 20 l zero-based budgeting units.
It is divided into about 14 21 or so decision units at two or three levels each; and these ll 22l are priori tized as far as our budget process.
ll 23 So we will give you tha t informa t.on.
Sbw, that 24 does not give it to you individual-proj ect-by-individual-Acs 8 acetal Reoorters, Inc.
"5 project; b ut it gives you perhaps 30 or 40 priority packages
- i
jrbl6 17 I
I for our whole package in order of priority.
I i
2l DR. OKRENT:
Dade Moeller?
i i
3?
DR. M1 LER:
In this regard, I think, though, it 1
i 4l would be wise for Saul.to share with us scme of the work they ;
I S'
are apcarentiv doing.
It has been brought to my attention i
6 through our reviews of the LER's, you are doing quite a bit l
7:
of technical analyses now, which you, I believe, believe --
l l
i 8
and certainly it appears to me the result of these studies 9!
will be very important in terms of selecting which problems 10 should have higher priority.
II MR. LEVINE:
Well, that will af fect some of them, 12 j but not a large number.
I i
I3 I It will not affect the priority of the major dollar I4 l
elements in our programs.
15 DR. MOELLER:
This would be more fine-tuning?
l Id ;
MR. LEVINE:
Yes.
I7,
DR. MOELLER:
I see.
I 18 i That, then, is scmething, too, in terms of i
I9 perhaps this is something this committee needs to discuss at 20 a separate time.
2I But in our review of the LER's, of course, one of i
w1 "i
the items we are icoking at is what are the implications for a I
23 :
given class or category of LER's in terms of research need?
24 At some point we are going to have to interface ac, mer i n.corters. inc.
25 whau we are doing in that subcommittee with the review yo a are
jrb17 18 i
l I
I responsible for.
l l
2 DR. OKRENT:
In pre paring these priorities, co uld 3
you reasonably describe the ca tegories, the terms used, however l
4l; you want to?
I I
5!
MR. LEVINE :
You c1n think of them almost as the I
i 6
branches we have.
Well, not quite that way.
There ara i
i 7
Systems Engineering, in Light Water Reactors; the Systems I
i 8 I Engineering, LOFT, Primary System Integrity Codes; Site i
9l Engineering, and Technology, -- as a bunch of examples.
l 10 And each of these is presented on either two or ll three levels for budget:
one, less than last year; one at 12 last year; and one above last year's level.
Some encompass 13 even a four th level, an even higher level.
s i
i i
14 l And we present what work would be involved in each 15 of those packages.
But it does nct go "down to the project-by-16 pro ject level.
It's gets a good overview of the program.
17 DR. OKRENT:
That is interesting to know.
18 So each of these categories l9 '
MR. LEVINE:
Units.
i 20 DR. OKRENT:
-- units.
21 l You have an least three --
22 l MR. LEVINE:
Sometimes only two.
The average is 23 ] three.
's ag 'I
' i DR. OKRENT:
Two, three, four work plans, general ac.e.a r. neoorters. inc. l
^5 work plans, in effect; this is what you prepcs e. And what you
'i ha d
a
jrbia 19 !
l I
I ll, l
would not do if you have the minimum -
l 1
2 MR. LEVINE:
Yes.
l 3
DR. OKRENT:
-- by sub traction.
I 4i So we can assume that that: kind of information --
i 1
5; would that be available in April?
I 6
( Laughter. )
7 MR. LEVINE:
Probably May.
8 DR. OKRENT:
Not until May.
j I
9 "May" means what?
The firs t or the thirtieth?
10 MR. LEVINP.
Scmetime in May.
11 MR. B UDNITZ :
They come in at different times, i
12 !
Of course, and the rest of the program you can go I3 through the same way, the Safeguards, Waste Management, Id Reac tor Environmental Saf ety; we have 14.
15 l Then the continuation of the present program, which i
16 is more or less the one from which the others are done, it i
17 isn't just a continuation; it would be -- we make changes each I3 year, increas e, decrease various projects or subelements.
I9 But you try to plant that.
That's what we call 20 the base case.
Then the opposed and belows are done by what 21 you would delete, or what you would like to do if you had more 32 '
resources.
23 MR. LEVINE:
If you get involved in this and go 24 through it, we go through - we go into the Eudget Review Group A+s.eerm neoorms. inc..
25 with some recommendaticns.
Then when we go to the Commission i
jrbl9 20 l
l l
I and in scme years they increase it, and in some years-they l
cut it.
And we go to CMS, which inevitably cuts it.
2 3
And you will have to go dirough those pains with us.
4
( Laughter. )
l l
5!
DR. CKRENT:
Let me ask a couple more que3tions l
i 6:
along this line to see what kind of informatio n will develop l
7l as part of whatyou are doing:
8i With regard to these questions of what you would do l
9 if you have more, what would you do if you had les s -- you 1
i 10 also have some kind of statement as to why?
Or is that in the II back-up people's head?
Ie !
dl MR. BUDNITL Yes.
I 13 I DR. OKRENT:
That would be written down, also.
l 4
I4 MR. LEVINE :
Again, I want to emphasize again and l
15 !
ag ain, that it is going to b e in much less detail than you 16 see in August, September and October, when you are reviewing 17 our actual that year's progran; it is going to be fuzzy, very 18 l fu :y on the edges.
I9 l DR. OKRENT:
Now, you are still faced at some point i
20 !
with a decision, then, of h ow to allocate among the 14 units, 21 f because in factyou might say if I had more mcney for 22 W1ste Management, this is what I would do; but in the end you 23 ll might get the same total amount of money, and yet you might 24 '
think it's better to spend more money on Waste Management and 4a seum nwo,wn. ix.
]C-i less on Research to Improve Reactor Safety, i
i i
jrb20 21 l
1 I
I I!
MR. BUDNITZ:
There is enough iteration in our l
2lT I
l interaction with the Budget Group and the Cocmission and 3
OMB so that we don' t of ten get caught badly on that.
4l MR. LEVINE:
It turns out whenever we've been caught,;
i 5l it wo rks quite well:
we are able to cut in orcer of priority. l 6
DR. OKRENT:
Let me make my question clearer:
7 This year you have got certain programs going on in i
I 8!
each of the 14 areas.
Now, next year, if you were to increase
~
i 9;
all o f these, you would do certain things; or if you were to I
10 '
decrease by a ce rtain amount.
II But suppose what you end up with is a certain amount j
12 l of money, it may be the sane amount as this year or a little 13 more or a little less; there is a decision that one has to Id make:
i 15 '!
Should I keep them all going at the same level, 16 beca use I have the same money as last year?
17 Or, this year, is one of thzm more important?
18 MR. E VINE:
That is just what we do in setting the 19 !
priorities.
20 !
DR. OKRENT:
Tell us a little more a bout how 6is is 21 writ ten down.
22 l MR. LEVINE:
I'll give ycu an example:
Il
..e "j
In pas t years Waste Management was one of our lower
,4 I
' ;I priority items ; this past year it was up among the first 30 Ace caceret Reporters. Inc.,
'S percent, the top level of Waste Management was in the first 30 a
- iln
jrb21 22 I
I I
i I
1 pa rcent.
2,l We felt we wo uld get support en tha t, that there would f
3 I be increasingly clear definition of where the program was I
4 going; and we had just about finished our work, our initial 5j modeling steps at Sandia on the transport of the radLoactive i
6j frcm a low-level, high-level waste repository, to define what i
7 !
work needed to be done to make that model more credible.
8 And we felt that this would be coming along in ' 80, i
9) and we increased our ' 80 budget dra stically; in f act we doubled 10 our Waste Management budget, from '79 to
'80, and then increased 11 the priority.
12 MR. BUDNITS :
To give you an example of how daat 13 worked:
i 14 ;
Suppose we went in and asked for a certain number of i
15 million dollars increased Waste Management, and asked for i
i 16 '
a modes t or no increase at all in Reactor Environmental --
17 which, by the way, bo th of which are run -- let's suppo se both 18 are run out of the same sa fety division -- just suppose.
19 And let's suppose the Commission came back and said 20 1 no, no, no, no ; we'll give you that money but we want more 21 Reactor Environmental and lest Waste Management than you asked 22 l for.
23 )
Vell, we wculd come back and say, we understand what 1
24 i you said, but that isn' t what we were after, and tell them why; ac.
mer.i neoorters. iric. i 1
25 and they will give it back, or maybe not.
jcb22 23 l
l l
1 So it is my understanding there is a lo t of 2l iteration ; and the interative process ends up -- not only dces i i
6 3
the total but the pieces end up not too far or: trem the kind i
4 of priorities we would like.
l 5!
MR. LEVINE :
Let me ask you a question:
1 l
6 In the framework of September through December, 7
would yo u be reviewing your '81 program or '79 program?
This i
8; says
'81.
9 Now, remember in
'78, this December, you completed 10 review of a program which happened in the previous calandar 11 year; it was half fiscal 77 and half fiscal 78 budget, i.e.,
12 a program.
13 Do you intend to really review the '81 program?.
I 14 There is no '81 program, they are just plans in October, 15 l November, December.
l 16 '
We would be completing the firs t half o f our '80 17 'I pr ograms.
18 DR. OKRENT:
I don't know what the autbor intended 19 by using the term.
t 20 :
MR. LEVINE:
I wo uld suggest it would be tha t year's,
21 calendar year's program, as oppo sed to the '31 budget.
22 [
I think you wfL1 have done all that can usefully be i
23 ll done on the '91 budget by July.
l 24 DR. OKKENT:
I was going to guess it will inevitably a
ac..s.eerst a.corrers. inc.
25 end up a mixture, because we 'll review what's been done, because
jrb23 24,
1 I
l that is of interest, the program of that year.
You will want l j
l l
2j to know what you expect to be doing the next year, which we 3l have asked about; and you will have just recently looked at 4j what is supposed to be going on the following year, which is I
5!
again indicative of a sLLghtly longer-range stretch.
I 6 !
So, I think that is the way it will be.
7!
I agree wi th regard to what has been done, we c an i
8 only review what has been done.
i 9)
Other:.q uestions or areas you would li ke new to l
10 address with Mr. Levine and Budnitz?
II DR. MG LLE R:
It seems to me, looking at the differe nt 12 levels we have to respond to, and the different budgets at 13 different times in the year, and if I understand what would 14 be helpful to the research staff, it would seem to me that for i
IS '
some of these responses a three or four-page letter might be 16 adequate, as contras ted to our complete report.
17 Is that not a fair assumption?
18,j MR. LEVINE:
It is a fair one.
I l9 {
I am not sure exactly what the Commission has in
- 0 mind.
I am not sure they focused on exa: tly what they want you 21 ;
to give to them.
/
22 What they get out of the i rternal process is a pa ckage 23 l t.out that thick (indi:ating).
y' I w) uld think if you had that same package you could Ace-Federal Reuorters. Irte.
- R tell them in simple terms what you thought of the package.
jrb24 25 l
I ilj I don ' t know clearly what they want.
2 DR. MOELLER:
Well, as you have poinced out to us,
3 the more advanced the budget or the farth er into the future I
i 4
that you are planning, the less meat there is en the bone.
j i
5 And our annual report now of course goes into
{
I 6
considerable detail, I me an, down to levels and sublevels, i
7' commenting on things.
8 And it would seem to me some of these earlier reports j
i i
9 that are needed earlier in the year might be of broader scope.,
10 MR. LEVINE :
I would think that - well, cer tainly II they muld ha ve to be.
12 l DR. MOELLER:
Yes.
13 MR. LEVINE :
And it might even have to be.
14 I think it is impor tmt for te committee to recognize 15 ;
the distinction -- which it did recognize praviously -- between i
16 i the diff ere nt kirds of programs we have.
17 Some programs are multi-year in scope, planning, and 18 execution.
For example, if you are talking about the f uture i
I9 LOFT, it doe sn' t ma tter too much whether you have next year 's 20 i o r ' 81's budget in, unless dua Ccemission is going to cut it 21 ;
or double it; because the kind of thing you will be discussing 22 '
are or a different character than talking about our problem I
22 h in Reactor Environmental work, where the projects we will carry 24 out in ' 81 haven 't been formulated yet, because they' ve kind of AcsJmeral Reoorters, Inc.,
25 ccme up during the year.
!q
jrb25 26 i
If I know you recognize.the difference in character.
i 2j I think it is fair to say probably for major sections of our i
t 3,
program, a revie w at any time during the cycle would be I
1:
roughly comparable in its value.
LCFT might be an example of ;
l i
5l that.
For others, really, they are very much a part of the i
I 6;
future.
We don't know any more than you do what we would l
l 7
do.
8; In scme areas we have projections of budgets that I
9{
depend upon previous experience, where we know during the 10 '
ye ar, well, or a requirement, say, in the Environmental area i
that are not defined at all.
We know they will be a half 11 j 12 l million or a million more of work coming in, because it has 13 been happening every year.
I
(
14 There is no real definition; so it goes from clear 15 understanding to a very incomplete understanding.
i I
I 16 -
M R.
BUDNITZ:
Another point:
I think you did note 17 in your report that over the next several years we are going 18 to have a shif ting emphasis in the water reactor safety area, 19 i and increasing fractions of the budget addressing parts -
20 !
of operating reactors, things that come along.
Operating 21 reactors turn them up.
That's not true of reactors under d
22 ll design; that will change the character of our water program, li i
i 23 too, a kind that won' t be as easily reviewed.
24 If we are going to try to plan a schedule to adhere Ac. s.mai a. corms. inc. j 25 to for the next five years -- and I hope you are not going
27 jrb26 l
I l
i I
l I
to change the schedule every year, you ought to consider that l
2l that character is going to change over that time period, l
3 maybe substantially.
I i
4 DR. OKRENT:
John, do you have any points you want 5l to make?
l 0{
MR. AUSTIN:
I think one of the things the sub-l 7l committee might be interested in is how to articulate i
8!
priorities.
I 9
In the package passed out there is criteria for 10 review by the research criterion panel formed by Saul Levine i
I 11 ]. and Steve Hanauer, the Chairman, and a number of the other I
12 '
office Directors who ass.'.sted.
i I
13 i
They tried in 19 76 to articulate some criteria, and t
Id my reading is, they weren't really able to say, here are the 15 ;
precise things that we think we have to de on a top priority, i
16 'l here is the next level; bur, rather, they identified some i
17 1 l
considerations that would go into formulating the budget.
i 18 MR. LEVINE:
It has changed.
19 Our ZBB budget, the thing I described for setting 20 !
priorities, i
21 MR. AUSTIN:
My understanding is, is it's basically 22 'j judgment now.
You say level-1 is what we would do - period.
I 23 And any decision you would make as to level-2, here is what 24 '
we would do; not so much saying, this one has this impact on ac.- %.e. neoon m.inc.
'S risk or would have this payof f.
jrb27 28 1
I It seems to me it is a j udgment. call t
2; MR. LEVINE:
It's what Louia says it should be.
3 MR. AUSTIN:
And I think --
4 DR. SIESS: Does level-1 ever say zero for a 5!
particular area?
6 i What's your lowest level?
7l MR. LEVINE:
The lowest level is like 10 percent I
8d below last year's.
t 9
DR. SIESS:
It's not zero-based, it's 90-percent-10 '
based?
I i
II (Laughter.)
12 l I mean, when you are setting up priorities, it's l
13 zero-based budget; you said it was zero, and you start adding?
Id MR. LEVINE:
There are practical limits.
These I3 $
are guidalines OMB put out.
I 16 DR. SIESS:
Still you assign priorities essentially 17 l by areas?
18 l There is nothi.ng that says you cut 10-percent and this l
I9l whole area would go out?
l 20 !
MR. LEVINE:
The lowest limit, level-1, is supposed 21 to be that level below which, if you went, you would make it 22 l zero.
That is, it's the minimum level you think it is worth 23 llproceeding with; less than that and you would zero it.
24 DR. OKRENT:
But you wouldn' t be proceeding at all ac.sm.can amonm. inc.
c if you didn' t have the money.
When you say it is a minimal l
jb28 29 I
I i
l level but worth proceeding, if you cut 10-percent, you might 1
i 2
decide that area should be cut below that?
l 3
MR. LEVINE:
Cut to zero; yes.
I 4'
You know, that's very hard to arrive at.
l l
i 5
DR. SIESS:
We are not going to get awful excited 6l about priorities in a range of 10-percent, plus-or-minus '
7l percent, that allocation is a fine-tuning for this group.
i i
i 8
MR. AUSTIN: Mr. Chairman, in this yellow package 9
there is an excerpt from NASH-ll46.
10 Better yet, I'll pull out NASH-ll46.
I II l It is the document, Water Reactor Safety Program 12 !
Plan, back in 19 70.
And in it they had some priorities, 13,
Priority-A, this is applied to very urgent key problem areas, i
I i
I4 l the exclusion of which would clearly have great impact, either l
15 l directly or indirectly on a major critical aspect of reactor 16 safety.
B, it goes on,. say, demonstrably of prime importance!
17 l or of prime interest, due to the potential ef fect.
18 {
C would be generally potentially high in interest; I9 and D, which is that which you might drop.
20 DR. SIESS:
This is the next to the last phase?
2I Y MR. AUSTIN:
Yes.
22 '
I thought the sebcommittee might want to address i
23 j whether it would try to develop something similar to this 24 in resconse.
ac s.c.,w a oomes. ene. {
25 DR. SIES S :
I'm sorry, it's the las t phase.
i l
.l:.,
30 I
i jrb29 j
1 MR. LEVINE:
I thought it was a great system; they i
4 i
2 didn't do any research under it.
3 (Laughter) 4 DR. OKRENT:
Yes?
5<
DR. SIESS:
As ACR5 cn one occasion did go through 6,
that and assign its priorities -- didn't we?
7l DR. CKRENT:
Yes.
t 8i DR. SIE SS:
The experience, I am afraid, will not i
9:
help us.
i 10 MR. LEVINE:
I think what John is searching for is i
11 l some better way than the way we do now to set priorities.
12 '
What he is seeking is something like a value-impact assessment.
13 f e want to do that, to take time to develop this 14 methodology to a significant point; and we had it inserted in i
15 l our improved safety research program, and we had difficulty 16 '
wi th that, although it was a report which you approved.
17 j But some work has to be done to do this.
And one i
18 I doesn' t know how to do this, as a matter of fact; so it's i
i 19 a very difficult problem to do this quantitatively; extremely i
20 :
difficult.
It-suffers frem all the ills that exist in doing 21 i any quantitative risk assessment or any safety decision-22 making, they are going to be principally based en judgment.
23 J If they didn' t have to be based can judgment, it would I
241 be a simple report to follow.
So the ccccept of value-impact 2c..s.c.,
neoomn. inc. l 25 l analysis is very important and very good, something to be l,
rb30 l
31 i
i i
i I
developed in the future -- in a year or two -- but, don't i
i 2',
get trapped into thinking that this is going to be something l
3-that saves or is the light that is going to shed light on t
everything and make it vary simple, that you won' t have to f
5 think about how to set priorities.
i I
6 DR. SIESS:
There 's nothing wrong with j udgment.
7!
We do a lot of things based on judgment.
i O
MR. LEVINE :
Of course we do.
9 i DR. SIESS:
If I said, now, suppose your research I
budget is going to be cut $10 million next year, ins tead af i
11 1 increased $10 million, Nhat would you cut out?
12 If I were to ask you that one question, I would get 13 one answer.
If I asked Tom that ' question, I' d ge t ano ther.
't If I asked somebody from the Probabilistic Assessment staff, 15 llI' d get another.
If I asked Harold Senton, I would probably 16 !
get ancther.
And I'd probably get a f ew dif ferent cpinions 17 1 i
from around the ACRS table.
i I8 Thaf s the only thing wrong wi th judgment.
19 MR. LEVINE:
I agree exactly with what you are saying, 20 i but when you have a ZBB package of decision units and priorities, l
21 i
you have an agency review -- the agency's judgment.
22 l DR. SICSS:
I think the increments are too small 23 to ge t a valid priority cut of it.
24 MR. LEVINE:
I am not arguing with the need for a Ac.J o rai neoorre,s. inc.
2"5 value-impact analy sis.
We propose this as part of our improved i
- l
rb31 32 l
i I
l I
I!
safa ty resear ch program.
We met with you several times.
i I
2 It's in our program and we have to develop the methodology; 3'
but I tell you:
it is not simple.
i DR. SIES S:
If you were cut back 10 percent or 5
j whatever it is, would you really cut back every program in l
6; the budget?
i 7l MR. LEVINE:
No.
O{
DR. SIESS:
That's what your budget says.
9 MR. BUDNITZ:
But that is for the purposes of an 10 i
exercise.
I 11 t DR. SIESS :
Yes.
12 l MR. BUDNITZ:
Everybody knows that.
I3 MR. LEVINE:
We are given a bogey at the beginning I# '
of the year by 0538. which is far above ze[o; and it is ~
~
IS generally above the 10-percent cut.
Generally, it repeats I
16 last year's numbers somewhat.
I 17 1 j
DR. CKRENT:
With regard to value-impact methodology, 18 seems to me there are at least two dif ferent aspects of It 19 '
this:
20 One is, could it be useful for NRR to try to use 21 this in assessing priorities for the overall research program, 22 no t in terms ncw, of j ust what it should do with regard --
l 23 1.I MR. LEVINE:
I think it's the reactor research 1
24 j program, not NRR.
.2c wer : neoorms. inc.
25 '
DR. OKRENT:
I'm sorry.
i It
33 jro32 l
I I
I MR. LEVINE:
Well same people think NRR is -
l 2!
(Laughter.)
3 DR. CKRENT:
I apologize.
l i.
4; 91ould RES look at what it's doing and whether it l
5 thinks that it's putting its money, all its money, where it 's i
6; likely to get the mos t payof f over the short and the long 7
term?
8; I tiink myself the answer is yes ; I think this is t
9 rec ognized.
i 10,
There's a separate question:
if you have what used l
II !
to be $1-- L/ 2 million and now it's maybe S 800,000 should you i
12 '
spend a quarter or a third of it on some kind of value-impact I3
(
me thodology, when that's all you have for research to improve 14 reactor safety systems?
15 1
You are now ask ng a different question.
16 MR. LEVINE:
I understand the difference.
I7 DR. OKRENT:
You want to keep the two separated.
18 It seems to me RES -- if I have the right alphabet 19 I should be looking at its overall program -- do n' t call it part 20 '
of your program to improve ra actor safety; it's part of ycur 21 !
program to improve your own program.
22 l MR. LEVINE :
Well, you know, I think that based on l
23 b cur j udgment with the 11.8 million we have for this year and 24 next ye ar, I think we could carry out those three projects 1
A, w.ree n.cormi. inc.
25 -
with that money.
d
jrb33 34 l,
I i
1 I!
Now, maybe we'll need a little more, so we'll let I
i 2l it slip another yea; or something like tha t.
l 3
But we did -- we have had two exercises on value-i 4
impact analysis; one was done by Hanauer, in which he tried 5!
to determine each piece of data, the value of each piece or i
6 data -- I mean, from each or our programs - - in te rms o f 7l the risk it would apply in WASH-L400.
i al You can't even find it in NASH-1400.
i I
i 9
And that says:
stop the program, because WASE-1400 i
i i
10 makes certain assumptions about the adequacy of design.
1 II !
Now, tr e _~ LL st realis tic application I saw of I2 that impact assessment, although not quantitative, but i
13 '
judgmental values, was in this improved safety research report Id we wrote.
15 And I think there it was easier to do because they i
i 16 l were new things that could be evaluated against old things; l
17 l and there were only a few o f them.
There were not in large IS '
largers, a s 400 projects or 500 projects.
I9 To evaluate 500 projects on a value-impact statement 20 1 is a very big proposition.
We are going to work on it one 21 l way or ano ther -- okay?
Whether it's to improve safety or 22 I health, we are going to work on it.
I 23 !l 3 ut, e've got to s tart and what you want to call it, 24 I don't care.
ACB Eederal R000rtert. Inc.
25 I wouldn' t lock for it this year to help you solve
frb34 35 i
!I!
your priorities.
I look for it next year, and maybe not next i
2 ye ar; the year af ter we'll be beginning on it.
,1 DR. OKRENT:
On the one hand I saw the value-impact i
me thodology applied to the s taf f list of outstanding items, I
5 or whatever is the current word --
6 MR. LEVINE:
Mos tly impact; not much value.
7 DR. Q{ RENT:
My judgments were made and they were 8
rather hard judgments.
B y "hard, " I me an ye s, spend money 9
here; and, no, spend no money here.
i l
10 i MR. LEVINE:
And that was easy, because most of the 11 things didn't make any difference; most of them had no 12 impact on risk.
Many of the 133 items developed in the new 13
(
standard review plan didn 't aff ect risk, either.
I4 D R.
OKRENT:
Well, let me finish, if I can, the 15 thought:
16 It seemed to me that there was a willingness to take I7 the bull by the horns and come up with a list of prL orities I8 for these ; and even if they end up not all being right, it 19 1 was useful to do it, because at least it provided somebody i
ao i a basis for disagreeing or looking or d2 inking.
I 21 1
.But it is not at all clear to me that some of this 22 l couldn't be done judgmentally within the framework of the safety 23 ll research program.
il 24 "
?
Again, it's likely no t to be perfect; but it might Ac..
.i m.oort.ri, inc.
be usef ul, if you don' t take it as the gospel, i
l l
jrh35 36 1
I DR. SIESS:
Did I understand you to say that what i
2 !
you did in developing the list in NUREG 0438, that you called l
i ei a value-impact assessment?
I 4^
That didn't cost you a half million to develop.
5 MR. LEVINE:
Tha t was not a quantita tive --
6 DR. SIESS:
I thought you did an excellent job.
7 I thought you cameup with fise areas that the ACRS agreed 8
with.
9 3 y defini tion, that's an excellent job.
10 1
( Laughter. )
II hid you star ted a f airly good list.
And that list 12 of 20 or 25 you had to begin wi th was culled by something less 13 than a value-impact assessment from a much larger list people I#
could think of.
15 MR. LEVINE:
If you w ant that kind of asses sment, 16 we can do something like that.
17 DR. SIESS :
Well, what was wrong with that?
I8 I thought it was excellent.
MR. LEVINE:
Well, I'll tell you:
20 There 's no thing wrong with it, you know; there's 21 nothing wrong with it at all. I liked it j ust as much as you 22 did.
l 23l It was easier because you sort of looked at five i
2d specific areas; and the others really fell away very quickly, 4c.s.r.in. corms,inc.jl 25 il the o ther 11.
There was a wide divergence, that is, between l
I j
l l
jrb36 37 I
the first 5 and the last 11.
i 2
It was sort of the same in the generic items, there 3'
was a wide divergence between the ones we picked and the ones l
I 4-we left o ut.
It was ve ry ea sy to do.
4 5
Now, many of the areas in our research program --
6' f or ins tance -- h> w well can you inspect the integri t/ of the i
7 primary coolant system?
And I don' t know how to put a high,
8 low or medium on that, except to say it's important, you know; '
9 we all know that's important.
10 '
But I can 't relate that to some quantified idea II o f what risk is.
Whereas, in the NUREG04 38, in the improved 12 safety program, we had a very close idea of what the I
13
(
quantification might be.
14 DR. SIESS.
Well, we 've been talking, and you mentio ned 15 you used one, two and three in your budget, I guess -- I i
16 notice that Steve Hanauer's review of the lead question, he 17 only had two priori ties.
He had higi prioriy, which as, do 18 it; and any thing else, don't do it.
19 l I think it's easier ta get a yes-no type of situation 20 j and if we come up wi th enough yesses, we simply go to Congress 21 and say, look, all of these are important, and let's go al 22 l them.
23 MR. LEVINE:
I also have to say there are a lot of 24 peo ple who don' t think this way; and you can ' t depend o n Ace
'ersi Reconen, Inc.
25 l people coming to think that way ove rnight.
i i
i i
jrb37 1
38 l
1 i
I I
I l
Il DR. SIESS:
I'm only worried abo ut 14.
2 MR. U VINE:
I have 100 researen engineers who dcn't 3
think this way ; I have 10 who do - and that is the problem.
4 DR. SIESS:
Another question:
i 5l Going back to your budget, you prioritize -- I hate 6!
that word' -- within an area.
Do you think it's possible i
7l or easier to assign prio rities f rom area-to-area?
I 8
MR. LEVINE:
Eb do.
i 9,
DR. SIESS:
How do you do that within your budget i
10 '
framework?
I don ' t see it.
II MR. LEVINE:
Nell, System Engineering ~ has some 12 priority, Code Development has ano ther priori y ; it is in our i I3
' decision as ZBB, dua decision packages.
You have that package for last year's budget, listed in order.
14 15 DR. SIESS:
I'm just trying to recall it.
16 MR. BUDNITZ:
Well --
I7 l MR. LEVINE :
It says, decision unit, package number I8 l one is priority two --
l DR. SIESS:
- Okay, i
20 '
MR. BUDNITZ:
The general order, you know, you can 21 l always switch to items 8 and 9 out of a lis t of 15, without i
22 h of fendi.ng anybody.
I 23!l MR. LEVINE:
If I may interrupt we are already 2# '
five minutes la te for our appointment.
Acr
- erst R4CorTers, IDC.
25 DR. OKRENT:
Thank you very much, il l
.I
,1
jrb38 i
39 l
i l
l 1
11 And let us t1ke a break f or ten minutes.
2i (Recess.)
3 DR. OKRENT:
Well, I think we should reconvene the i
4 meeting.
5' Perhaps we should get back to the question of 6I do we think that the ACRS should perform what I characterized 7
t as an "early review," or what you might characterize as a 8I i
" July-August review," a review with the Commissioners when they 9l review the budget?
t 10 '
i Because if the committee decides they are not going 11 to do that, we don't have to try to organize to do it.
Now, what. do the members of the subcommittee think in regard to that?
i 14 DR. MOELLER:
To respond again, I believe a letter, 15 l like a letter from the Chairman of the ACRS to the Commissioners 16 at that time could accomplish the task.
17 The subject matter would not be reviewed in depth 18 at that point by every committee member, but certainly I would 19 :
think the subcommittee chairmen in concert with his subcommittee members could draft something suitable which would take it through the committee, and be forwarded.
'2 'j MR. PLESSET:
I am inclined to agree with Dade.
i 23!!
I think we don't need to make as big a production 24 out of it as we do the report to Congress.
That is a big A
enne neoorms inc.
25 report, a big effort.
jrb39 40 l I
l 1
i i
I!
I think that as far as making a report to the i
2I Commissioners, it could be rather informal.
It needn't be in 3
great length.
I think they just want some input, some sugges-i 4
I tions, some reactions; and this should not be too hard to do 4
5l in a reasonable time scale.
6li I think it can be done without a lot of ceremony.
I 7l Is that what you are implying, Dade?
8!
DR. MOELLER:
Yes.
9 MR. ETHERINGTON:
I was just going to agree.
I don't t
10 '
j think we should undertake any major report.
i 11 j I think the idea of a letter report is just right i
12 l for the job.
l I3 l MR. BENDER:
I support the same idea.
I Id.!
I would amplify it to the point of suggesting we 15 could include a little discussions of it in one of the meetings.
16 with the Commissioners that we have, in order to provide some i
I7 !
additio nal flavor for quantity.
18 I have got the impression that some of the 19 !
Commissioners would like to interact a little bit.
That would i
20 l give us an opportunity to do that.
2I !
DR. OKRENT:
The comments have been rather uniform, 2 I l
then, toward trying to do this on a scaled-down basis in the 23' form of a letter to the Commissioners, which I think would be
'4 easv to do in'the long run.
A:
we seconen. inc. l 25 'l In any event, to try to do it -- and, again, it is
<0
41 jrv40 l
I l
t Ii my thinking that one might have a meeting with the Commissione:js, l
2i which is, of course, a way of putting it somewhat less in i
3 writing, and giving them a chance to explore some areas.
i i
4' Well, if that is the consensus, then, a next question I
i 5,
is:
I 6 !
Is there a recommended procedure by which the 7'
ACRS should do this?
8!
Should we employ, for example, a set of working I
I 9
groups and have them meet to try to do a section?
10 ;
Should we have some smaller number of working li l groups?
l 12 !
I have no preconceived notions.
13 MR. PLESSET:
I would say to use the existing i
14 structure would be the simplest, while it might involve more 15 people than necessary; in most cases it boils down to one 16 l person in each group really preparing a draft.
I 17 1 MR. ETHERINGTON :
The chairman writes the draft; 18 other people comment and review.
I 19 !
That would be shorter than what we have been doing.
I 20 MR. RAY:
In support of this, if you organize that 21 l way for the preliminary report, if I could call it that, to the 22l Commission, would it follow right through to your final reporr?
I 23 j Then you are only organized once.
I 24 DR. OKRENT:
If we do it that way ncw, how would we A
e.,e a. corms. inc.
25 approach it as a question of priorities between different
jrb41 42 i
I i
i Il areas?
d 2
I am not saying we shouldn't do it that way; I am 3
asking how?
4 DR. MOELLER:
That was going to be my comment:
i 5
I would not think a leter along about July would 6
include an equal amount of discussion of every item.
There 1
7 might be some we would not even mention in that letter.
i 8j It would seem to me we would highlight the important, 9'
things.
10 l MR. RAY:
Would you say highlighting an item would i
II l imply a high priority relatively speaking?
l 12 MR. BENDER:
It seems to me getting something like a
I3 !
that from the subcommittee chairmen would be useful; but 1
I Id I think after that, somebody would have to do what Chet 15 l tried to do when he prepared some kind of highlight statement --
16 just take it and consolidate it, a..d lay it out on the table.
i I7 l MR. PLESSET:
I agree.
I think it is a lot I8 l easier to have something in hand.
It would be a lot faster.
I I9 l MR. BENDER:
I may be going into the mechanics more 20 than I should.
21 '
There is a tendency when a subcommittee is set up 22 ]
to get a certain amount of editorial interest in the content i
23h of what they have written; some times that becomes hard to i
24.!
resolve.
Acr 1eral Reoorters, Inc..
25 j All I am suggesting is, let them put something on
.io
.6
jrg42 43 l
l t
I I
I paper; but then we ought to designate somebody to consolidate i 2l it, rather than have to work each item separately.
3 DR. OKRENT:
Well, would we ask each subcommittee 4
to come in with its writings, in effect, in a similar way 5'
that we heard described by -- start off with the idea of i
6, zero-based budgeting, and -- is that okay in this area?
t 7l It should be zero next year, or, if not, what is i
8 !
the minimum that should be done, or however?
i 9,
In other words, within each area the subcommittee i
10 is supposed to address the question of how much it thinks is 11 f the minimum that should be done, or what should be done with i
i 12 i ample money; what do you envisage each group would be i
l 13 recommending for the full committee to recommend?
(
14 MR. ETHERINGTON:
I would think ultimately you would' 15 want to get the different subcommittee chairmen together l
16 I and probably the members of the subcommittee -- and this is l'7 almost a full committee; so it might be approached on some i
18 ;
regular committee meeting, to resolve the relative priorities 19 ;
among different topics -- if that is your problem?
t 20 DR. OKRENT:
Well, I think we somehow need to 21 !
look at the relative priorities among different research 22 ]
units, or whatever they are called.
'l
~
23 MR. ETHERINGTON:
I was suggesting that might be a
.I 24 full committee job, plus it would avoid committing almost a AC' iff al Rooorters. Inc.
25 whole committee meeting to this draf t.
I wasn't thinking of i
i
jrb43 44
)
I i
1 I!
a whole committee meeting.
I was thinking of a morr.ing or I
2 an afternoon.
3 MR. PLESSET:
Maybe a day?
4 MR. ETHERINGTON:
A day, a day -- in the spirit of i
i 5
compromise.
.l 6
(La ughter. )
7 i DR. SIESS:
It seems to me that at some point in the I
i 8
process we ought to be able to schedule something for a 9
full committee meeting.
10,
DR. MCELLER:
Say that again?
I didn't understand.
II 1
DR. SIESS:
I think at some point in time, whether 12 ige s June, July -- whatever -- we ought to be able to devote 13 k some time in each full committee meeting to this report.
l I#
As Harold says, all the chairmen constitute 5l practically the committee; Ray, and Mathis, Ebersole -- who i
I 16 '
else is not a chairman?
Lawroski.
17 MR. PLESSET:
Ha was chairman of the chairmen last 18 I year.
I 19 (Laughter.)
20 DR. LAWROSKI:
Is this Waste Management?
2I
( Laughter.)
22 '
DR. MOELLER:
Thank you, Steve.
23 l DR. OKRENT:
See how reluctant Dade is to discuss 24.lithe teoic.
~
A.
def ai ReOOffff1. Inc,
]~C !
(Laughter. )
1 1
jrb44 45 i
I I
MR. RAY:
On this question of priorities, I hate 2l to suggest this, remembering what happened to us back when 3
we were trying to sell management a construction program --
i 4:
you indicated a tolerance for less than you were asking for, 5:
and you got the lesser of the two.
6l I wonder if the question of priority might not be 7l handled by each of the subcommittees, with preparations 8!
indicating those items in the program f or which they are 9
responsible for comments, which should be fully funded.
That IO means top priority, and those others that might be tolerated I
11 '
by some work but not necessarily the whole program -- indicate 12 ;
50 percent, 75 percent funding might be acceptable?
13 Would this be leading with our chin and inviting l
Id the Commissioners saying, we are not going to give you 100 i
15 percent for any of those for which you indicate a level of 16 Importance such that you could live with a progran that was I7 ;
less than full budget?
i 18 l Would that be a feasible way to present priorities?
I9 DR. OKRENT:
At the moment, as far as I am 20 concerned, all proposals should be looked at as possible ways 21 i of going at it.
22 d In fact, what I think we should try to co is get 1
21 along as far as we can toward some mechanism by which we are i
all going to address the parts within existing work groups, Ac teral Aeoorters, Inc..l 2*5 initially trying to do it on a similar scale or however you
.l 1
jrb45 46 l
I I
i I
want to put it, 2f DR. SIESS:
When I start to think priorities, the 3'
only way I can get at it, I guess, is -- easily -- is to take, i
4; suppose the budget were cut 50 percent -- what would you do?
5 Back off to that, and try to work back up.
That's l
6' the only way I could see that we could force Research to think 1
7i about it.
I i
8, I don't know if we can do it in terms of dollars j
9!
as easily as they could or not.
i 10 MR. ETHERINGTON:
It's an interesting game they II play:
put in a budget expecting to be cut; and we don't know 1
12 j how disappointed they are when it is cut.
13
(
It may be cut to the original amount they wanted it 14 -
to b e.
I 13 DR. SIESS :
What they said is they cut everything 16 l down to one; it would be 10 percent off the budget, some thing 17 '
like that.
18 What would you do if it was cut in half?
Would 19 l you throw out all LOCA-ECCS, everything else?
Would you take 20 half out of LOCA-ECCS, or say, gee, we've got to do all or 21 '
nothing there?
l 22!l MR. ETHERINGTON:
It's certainly a good way to face
'i 23 I up to the relative priorities.
24 DR. SIESS:
Sue, if you say, cut $10 million, they'll Acr
'eral Reoorters, Inc. l 25 '
take little bitss off here and there, knock off a half-million
jrb46 47 l
l l
I dollar project in one place and a couple of others; and you I
2!
rcally wouldn't have done anything but take the rough edges 3
of f the priorities.
i 4
i The other approach I mentioned, it's a go-no-go.
I 5l It's either worth doing or not worth doing.
6.
That is not easy to do, I do not think,
i i
7l DR. OKRCNT:
I think the dif:erent principal reasons l
8 i for doing different areas of research -- the licensing people i
i9' have a f ocus which they have stated.
If I remember directly, l
10 it goes something like:
11 If we need it for some licensing action, so we can 12 l juc tify it, and it is no t - - we c an ' t.
I3 If tha t were the sole criterion, some thing s l#
would not pass.
They would be dropped out of the program.
IS On the other hand, there are some other areas of 16 l research tha t it has been suggested are done f or other reasons ;
i 17 !
and so they might pass some on other valid criterion, that I8 I says, yes, it should be done.
I 19 Now, when we ask our own working groups, the 20 s ubcommittees, wha ta ser they are called, to address the 21 question of priorities, do we want them to generate their t
'2 ;1' own criteria?
il 23 j Do we want to have at least a stab at having all of 24 1
them provide their bases against cer tain kinds of criteria?
4.
was neoonen. ine..l 5
Do we want them to supply a methodology?
jc)47 48 t
i I
1 Il DR. SIESS:
A couple of thoughts:
l 2 ;.
If we just look at the existing program and 3
prioritize it, we are really looking for things to throw out,
i 4
j low priority things that could be emitted.
Si B it somehow we have got to look at the high l
l 6
priorities, research that is not being done that they ought to i 7;
he doing.
i 8
There may be some.
I 9;
But.f we are looking a t reasons not to do research, 10 there are a numa er of different reasons; we could just say it II is not as important as something else.
12 :
We could say it is a poorly-conceived project; they 13 have not asked a good question, or things are not moving in I4 l the right direction.
Or it's being poorly axecuted; the i
15 ;
contractor is dragging his feet or just not doing a good i
16 j ob.
I7 l Or we can say it is a perfectly good project, b ut 18 there 's no reason for NRC to do i t They ought to get DCE I9 '
to do it, get the vendors to do it; something else.
20 That used to be a category in the water reactor 21 safe ty research program -- not for us to do.
22 ]
There might be some things they are doing -- I am fi 23 !l6sure there are some we could find -- they proposed to get into 24 steam generato r research.
We co uld put a warning in there, aa nu amomn. i=.1 oc :1
- ;j they should not duplicate what the industry is doirg.
4 l
jrb48 49 l
I i
1 We can ' t just look at that program unless we assume 1
2l they are doing everything that needs to be done.
We know that 3
is not true in one instance.
i 4
Are you going down your lis t of questions, Dave ?
l l
5l DR. O KRENT:
Sor t of.
6!
DR. SIESS:
I just wanted to know where you were.
7 DR. OKRCNT:
Well, I think while you were out before,.
I 8
there were comments to the ef fect that some kind of review i
9 on next year's budget should be done with the thought it was 10 likely b be a letter, s hor ter tan the current annual repor t; i
Il l that we m ight meet with the Commissioners to discuss it.
i 12 l uR. SE SS:
Did everybody get this (i ndh a ting 13 docume nt) ?
I 4
14 !
It s tar ts of f, this is a memorandum, this is in i
15 l response to your request of -January 25, 19 79, in which you I
16 '
ask for a comparison of the ACRS recommenda tions in the FY 17 i 80 research programs, includi rg items in the budget, and why 18 we did not include them.
i 19 Now, looking a t the FT 80 budget in relation to 20 what we said about projects to see whe ther it reflects 21 directions we indicated -- that's easy; that should give us i
22 ]
a partial start on it; looking at the FY 80 budget with a view ti 23 )
to priorities, there is a de novo apprcach, not in relation to d 4 the relatively crude one we gave before.
' i Ace arat Reoorters, Inc.
25 I I have not had a chance to look at this.
It says, I
t il i
1a
jrb49 l
50 I
Il comments on selected recommendations.
He found three to five i
2l items in our report to comment on.
So maybe we made more i
3 recommendations than I thought.
i 4
( Laughter. )
5 He says in the discussion below he selected only 6
those ACRS recommendations and findings which call for 7
significant modification in present program planc.
He has I
i 8,
35 of them; 34.
i 9
(Pause. )
10 '
DR. OKRENT:
Would you like more time to read this?
i II i Or should we go on with the discussion?
i 12 i What is your wish?
i I
13 l MR. BENDER:
Let's j ust go on.
14 DR. OKRENT:
Well, if I understand the consensus 15 so far, it is that:
l i
16 The working groups should address their areas with i
17 l regard to the Fraley report; and then they should prepare i
13 l some kind of summary or whatever, which gives their I
19 '
assessment of the proposed next year 's budget, their asses s-20 '
ment of the priorities, as identified by the NRC Staff ; and I
21 presumably tiereon, recor:=n ndations for changes in the 22 priorities, if any; and why.
'l 23 4-Is that the sense of the previous discussion?
24 (No response. )
As
.eral Reporters, Inc, '
25 And if that were to be done, and we put these together, 11
'l!.
jrb50 51 l
I because there is a need for relative priorities 2,
I assume the latest time for Nese to be available l
3, is af ter the June meeting, right after 4 June mee ting,
4 perhaps, so that somebody then -- I don' t know, it might well i
i S
be Che t, if he volunteers -- would maybe try to take these i
1 6 !
and fit them into a letter.
i 7l But also now somebody would have to come up with I
8 at least a trial balloon on intra-program priorities f or the 9
committee to look a t.
The committee cannot lock at nothing to and arrive at some thing.
II The committee has to lock at some thing.
i 12 '
XR. PLES SET:
They do it all the time.
13 (Laughter.)
14 DR. CKRENT:
I think the committee would have to 15,
look at scme thing and say, yes, we like this; or no, we don't.
I 16 l So presumably we would have to have even a small i
i 17 l group or whatever, or a group of the chairmen, or whatever, I
18 l try to provide for full committee consideration at the July 19 i meeting --
20 DR. SIES S :
You are talking about as arrangad by 21 h chapter areas, or what?
j 22 l DR. OKRENT:
Cr whatever that might be the basis ;
23 I after you get into this, you see how you will apprcach the a
l 24 ;i
- eging, 4e
- we smorms. : c.!
25 l But semebody will have to develop at least one or i
.I
jrb51 52 i
i i
I more possible approaches for the full committee to think i
2l about with regard to whatever you want to call overall 3
priorities.
CR. MOELLER:
I am not straight - - if we provide i
l 5:
paragraphs, or thoughts, by the June meeting, or by June for 6
the July meeting, are we to have had a subcommittee meeting?
7i or are we to -- is this cut to a e simply the best 8'
thinking of committee members?
9 DR. OKE NT:
We didn ' t say.
I will give you my 10 cwn feeling:
II !
I think unless you agree you can really dispense I2 with a sdoccmmittee meeting, I think you might plan to have I3 one on each topic.
l#
DR. MOELLER:
And what will we have that we are 15 commenting upon at that stage?
Do we know?
1 16 ll DR. OKRENT:
You will have the dr af t material 37 l from Levine; he said sometime in the merry month of May; but I8 he was not willing to say before the end of May.
19 '
DR. MCELLER:
That' s right.
20 OR. OKRENT:
That they would have pretty much the 21 package of informatia n that one could lock at.
22 ]
DR. SIESS:
I think there is a trick we could use 1e
-l 23 i to accelerate things a Little bit.
24 l I think most of us have copies of last year's Aa usi nworan. ine. j 25 l budget; if no t, I am sure we could get them.
i
.I 1
jrb52 I
53 i
i IIl DR. MC CRELESS:
We could get them.
!l a
4 h
DR. SISSS:
You could lock at th at.
You could 3
become familiar with the categories with the subdivisions; 4
you could see wlat the priorities were assigned by item, by
~
Sl system a ngineeridg~ code developme nt; you could become f amiliar '
i 6
with their decision level,
2, 3,
4, items, which I suspect i
7l don' t change markedly, i
i 3l I think you are going to find some areas where i
9; things 1coc very much the same as last fear.
I can't believe 10 every word in there is rewritten.
11 i
If ycu have a t and are pretty familiar with it,
12 by the time you got the FY 80 printout, I think you would have 13 l a good week or two's star t.
I i
I4 DR. MC CESLESS:
May I raise one point?
15 ]
I k now tha t the first year we wro te them, the report, 16 l tha t the ccmmittee organized its work effort along the lines 17 !
of the branches in IE S.
18 j Last year that was modified to some extent, I9 to be more on the functional.
20 If you are going to comment on the budget, it might 21 :
going to have to worry -
- 1 mean you are 22l DR. SE SS
The budget organization is closer ta 23 ;i l
our las t year's organiza tion than it was in '77.
I 2# h DR. MC CESLESS:
All right.
Ac weamorms.w.j 25 l 1
DR. SIESS:
I think you can find your itans; you mignt
jrb53 1
54 i i
i II not have the area with the priori tie s, item-by-item, -- when l
2l I ga t back home -- well, it won ' t be this month -- but first 3
chance I get, I will look at the budget with that in mind.
i 4
J3ut I don' t diink it will be too dif ficult, most of l
5l the areas will come out pretty clean.
(
i 6'
A person wfL1 be able to go through there and see 7l which ones are in his s ubco mmittee; or you, I,
and John can 8
mark one up.
9l MR. BENDER :
For the purpose of the Commissioners, i
10 it probably won' t be necessary to ham a hard position on the II !
budget.
I 12 I think if we can highlight questions th<.t determine,
13 wha t the priorities ought to be, thit might be more use ful 14 i
to them, than telling them the distribution ought to be a 15 ;
certain way.
I 16 '
When we make the report to Congress, I think we have i
17 l to have a hard position.
I 18 l I thi.nk some of the Commissioners would like to know i
l9 what our lists of questions are.
I am no t so sure we ought to 20 p ut that much emphasis on exactly lining up the distribution 21 h of funds.
22l That's just my own feeling.
l 23 DR. SICSS:
Are we thinking priorities or impor tance 24, o f projects?
Ac som nworari. =. {
'S. l' And there, would it help if we had the "use and need" 4
d
jrb54 55 I.
l i
I statements?
2 CR. GRENT :
I muld think so.
3 In sone cases I think t-y would.
I have seen a f
4h number of them.
They all make it look very important; but I
5 we are capable of agreeing or not agreeing.
j d
6 !
diink in one instance on tornado research there I
t 7'
was some argument where research thought it ought to be done, 8
and NRR didn' t ; and Research got a use and need statement 9
o tt of Standards ; they used it to write a standard.
j l
10 ;
We won' t always know where they got the use and l
II need sta tement.
I think you can tell from reading it.
12 Could we see if we could get those?
These are on 13 file.
I4 Would it be use ful, perhaps if we had the last l
15 ;
year's budget information, which gives the f ast prioritiec,
16 which are in effect the same.
17 That was the budget, now, but it won' t be the final i
18 i allocatio n.
I i
I9 If we had that for last year, then in fact the 20 subccmmittee members could look at this and they could 21
-- might even f orm tev e., 'iva opinions or whatever ?
il 22 "
(Indicr ; ; m-assent. )
i 23 i DR. SIES S :
Eighty percent of the things are not 2d !!
going to look any dif ferent this year.
!Ef al A900rteft, Inc. !
'~
2" MR. AUSTIN:
I just wanted 14 bring out a point:
i!
d
jrb55 56 lI t
P I'
I think wha t you would be interested in is more l
l 2
what went to CME, which has level-1, level-2, level-3 fi ndings 3,
it's only the Administration which is on zero-based t
4 budgeting philosophy.
Congress stayed on ele old philosophy l
1 5l o f, where,here is what we want -- period.
l i
6t The CMB submittal will be slightly out of date; i
7j it won' t contain what they did to NRC, but it 's still valid.
i I
8; DR. SIESS:
What I was thinking was get the same l
9 thing for last year that we ' ll ge t this year.
Tha t's the one 10 that has tie level-1, 2,
3, 4, decision, unit priority, so and 11 l so.
i 12 l MR. AUSTIN:
Yes.
1 13 UR. SIESS:
I t' s about yea-thick (indicating).
I4 Is what you are asking to be directed at the 15 subcommittee chairmnen only?
16 DR. CC RENT :
I am not sure what fou mean by that I7 question.
i 18 i DR. SIES S :
In terms of l ooking at these things I9 and establishing first-c ats a t priorities?
We ' ve got th:3e 20 '
people who aren't subcommi ttee chairmen.
I think they are 21 ii at large.
l.
22 >
DR. OKRENTt I have been assuming --
23 ]
DR. SLCSS:
Everybody?
24 DR. OK KE N'i. - - based on what was said earlier, the AC
.ef ti F4ecorters, Inc.
~5 feeling is going to be the working groups sho uld pursue their 1,
jrb56 57 l
I l
I own area.
i i
2!
Mt experience with tha t statement is the subecmmittee 3
chairman has to do it, or the members of the working group I
4 may do it.
i c
5 DR. SIES S :
I was trying to say, is there anybody I
i 6l cn the committee who's not on a working grcup right now?
I 7l You are not even on a working group, ara you?
I 8l MR. RAY:
No.
I 9 !
DR. SIESS:
We 'd better see if we can get Ray and 10 '
Mathis assigned to working groups.
I am sure Lawrcski's II on one.
I I2 DR. LAWROSKI:
I am cn several.
13 DR. MC CE LESS:
I do believe everyone is.
14 MR. RAY:
'The only group I recognize for the budget 15 is the research report.
i l-6l DR. SIESS:
So, those sdoccmmittees listed in the l
17 l subcommittee list?
i 18 (Chorus of "yes. ")
l 39 I can ' t tell by.this (indicating document) -- I'd 20 have to go through the whole thing.
21 ]
DR. LAWROSKI:
It 's in the back of that (indicating si 22 l document).
23 '
DR. SIESS:
He wasn't on any last year, i
2d '
DR. OKRENT:
I can fix that up.
Aa Wai Recorters, Inc.
25 ;
(Laughter.)
?J d
jrb57 58l i
l I
i 1l MR. RAY:
I've had an assignment since then.
2 DR. O KRENT:
Well --
3 DR. SIESS:
Y ou in Reactor Operations ; okay, you are on one of the working subecmmittees, then.
5l MR. RAY:
Yes.
6l DR. OKRENT:
Well, I assume we can get Jerry one or i
7j two more very quickly.
I i
8i I wish all our problens were that easy.
9 (Laughter.)
10 It seems to me like maybe we have discussed the i
11 l early report enough, with one or two things nailed down :
12 l Chet, did you say you were going to volunteer to l
13 '
try to prepare the draf t letter?
14 (Laughter) 15 DR. SIESS:
I tell you:
if I get enough input, i
l 16 l I:11 try to put it together; o the rwise, de novo, sui sponti, l
17 j or any other way.
I 18 l (Laughter.)
l9 i DR. CKRENT:
In order to help you get the kind of 20 material you want, from the various working groups, do you 21 think it pays --
22ll DR. SIESS:
This is the letter to the Commission i
23 I ccmmenting on the FY 80 budget?
l 24 DR. OKRENT:
Do you think it pays to have someone
- u. _ we 9.conm. inc. l 25 like you and John Austin' to present possible criteria i
n
jrb58 59 l
i I
or bases cy which working groups address the question of b
2l, priorities -- or course, reccgni Ing they have the freedom t
3!
to modify these if they find it appropriate?
i 4
What is your feeling on that regard?
i 5
DR. SIESS :
Well, this really is not going to be that formal a priority-type thing.
l 6
7 DR. OKRENT:
No, just so that when icu get this 8l information it is on some kind of related basis.
l i
i 9i DR. SIESS:
Yuh, I think we should try to think s rut I
10 '
it and see if we can come up with anytning that is not too l
II re strictive.
I2 DR. OKRENT:
Chet volunteers -- good.
k I3 (Laughter.)
14 I
DR. SIESS:
It simplifies my efforts in the end, IS but amplifies them in the process.
16 (Laughter.)
l I7' DR. OKRENT:
Are there other topics we should discuss.
18 with regard to how to organize for the early review, early l9 l budget review?
I 20 j D R.
LAWROSKI:
Is there anything that can be done 1
21 l to get the material that is necessary on a much quicker scale 1
22 than scheduled?
y 23 ;
Because we are talking at least with respect to the 24 material for the Commissioners, from a half-year to a few 4.
- me neoonm. inc.
25 -
weeks delay in getting it.
Usually we haven't been able to get:
i I
e
jrb59 60 l
l l
l l
l l
1l things until long af ter they came out.
l i
This cannot be permitted and still get the jcb l
2 3
- done, i
4 D R.
CKRENT:
We should have a chairman.-gram of some l
1 i
3' kind --
6l (Laughter. )
l l
1 7!
-- which goes to whoever is the right person, 8!
maybe Gossick -- pointing out the need for. timely receipt l
9I of information necessary.for us to do this review in the i
10 l time schedule we envisage.
I II !
Maybe John, Tom and Chet could prepare some kind I2 of. chairman-gram.
I3 DR. SIESS:
What's this about?
i I4 It did improve last ye ar.
If people know what they 15 l want, and ask for it, I guarantee you can get it.
Some of it 16 was just people not asking for the stuff, c not knowing it 17 was a vailable.
I 18 l We got budget stuff early last year.
I 19
DR. LAWROSKI:
I know the year before we didn' t.
I 20 i DR. SIESS:
I agree, the year before it was a mess.
~1 l La st year I had all the material I could deal with on the i
22h first-cut.
l 23 Af ter that we didn' t see too much, but we weren' t 24 that interested in it.
We were too f a; along with our comments'.
Act eral Aeoorters, Inc.
~
25 DR. LAWRCSKI:
He's going to have a bigger problem.
I o
jrb60
?
61
[
I Last ye ar he had more time to touch base with all 1
2 the pecple he has to touch base with.
l 1
3 DR. MC CRELESS:
You could use the chairman-grams i
and confirm the idea the committee was going to provide l
4 i,
5l to die Commissioners this inf ormation; and budget information 6l will have to be provided on a timely basis.
We e xpect it i
7l to be available in May so th e committee can provide their I
i 8i recommendations in July.
9 DR. LAWROSKI:
Yes.
10 MR. AUSTIN: It seems like you would want tha t II information which Research submits to the Budget Review; that 12 is the first real crack; and that should be in like May.
13 Then I think you would want to know what the BRG Id does to that budget; and BRG takes three weeks maybe to scrub I5 or do its thing.
i I
16 Then the ECO has another crack at that with each I7 office having opportunity to comment to EDO.
You would have I8 to make a decision at what p oint do you want to freeze this I9 I budget and generate some comments on it.
20 t This table Ray put together shews the Commissioners 21 have about two mo nths, the July and August period; maybe it's '
i 22 I really only six weeks, in which they are reviewing it.
23 l So, if you follow the budget from the time Research 2d s ubmits to BRG, it is easy to respond to each step that is Ac.
teral Reoorters, Inc, j 25 taken by BRG and EDO.
1 i
h
jrb61
}
I I
62 I!,
I think that is how you would want to reques t 2
information at each step.
3 DR. SIESS:
The schedule is, we get the budget in I
i 4l May, and we are going to try to talk about ic at the meeting i
i 5!
in June?
I 6!
DR. OKRENT:
I do not know that we have set on a l
7 fixed schedule.
I think we need to know when it is we think 8
the letter is going to be completed.
9 Is it the July meeting or the August?
i l
10 DR. SIES S:
When's the letter due to the Commission?
i II !
MR. AUSTIN: I think it would have to be approved I
i 12 '
by the full committee at the July meeting.
I3 MR. FRALEY:
I think the chairman in our last I4 discussion said he would really like it in June; but I think i
15 if you can get it out by mid-July, that is probably as good 16 !
as you can do.
I7!
I would like to remind the committee you were i
I8 l supposed to get back to the Commissioners and discuss this l
19 i with them one more time, bef ore it actually gets implemented.
20 l And that would be a good time to bring up some of these 21 points about the need f or being kept inf ormed promptly, or 22 0 getting complete information, et cetera.
ii 23 h You know, as it is developed; or we could of course 1
24 '
send something to Gossick in the meantime.
But I think the Ac aeral Recorwrs, Inc.
,c Commissioners expected one more round on this with them.
~-
- !-l
'li,
63 jrb62 1
l I
DR. SIESS:
The main objective here is to comment 2
to the Commis sion on the budget.
3 DR. OKRENT:
Right.
t DR. SIESS:
This does not necessarily require i
i 5l priorities; we can comment on budget items - too high, too 6
icw, give reasons therefor -- without relating it to priorities!
7 at all.
I Do we want at the same time to try and develop 8{
i 9
priorities which won't necessarily be listed in the letter?
10 DR. OKRENT:
Well, I'm not sure how you are. going 11 '
to say something is too high or too lcw unless it determines I2 some thing.
I3 l D 2.
SIESS:
I can visualize we dev31op a list of Id priorities and they will compare that with the budget, and say, 15 !
it's too high, too low in its relative position in the 0
priorit*/ lis t.
I7 But we have made comments in our last two research I8 reports about areas where more needs to be done, more effort, 17 1 or less effort; we have never re ally developed a lis t of i
20 '
priorities.
21 ;
Sure, we' ve got men tal priorities when we say that; i
22 but when we said to cut ECCS, for example, in a few years, i
i 23 we didn ' t really say what should repla e it, 1
y 'I We didn't say, cut it in five years, and it would Ac teral Recorters. inc.
25 then be of a lcwer priority than something else.
a d
jrb63 64,
I i
1 MR. BENDER:
We 'll be addressing a two-ye ar budget, 2l 1980-1981.
Isn't it ' 81 they are asking to give our assess-3 ment on?
I I
4 DR. SIESS :
It's the ' 81 budget we ' re talking about.
5l MR. BENDER:
Yuh.
I 6'
We'll be speculating on what they are going to 7l do on ' 80 and even more on what they are going to do in '81.
I i
8j So it is going to complicate our life somewhat.
l l
9 Let's think this thing through:
10 My belief is the best you can do is just give a 11 ;
general sense of what is important, as opposed to deve.'.oping 12 !
priorities at this stage.
(
13 l That's a point I tried to make earlier.
1 14 MR. AUSTIN:
In alternate (c) of Ray Fraley's 15 ;
memo, the way I read what the subcommittee seemed to be saying 16 is in July of '79 there would be a letter to the Commissioners i
II 17t regarding the FY 81 budget.
i 18 '
In September of 19 79, it says ACRS conducts overall I
19 '
review of, roposed NRC RSR progrsm, that tha t would be for 20 FY 80, the EY 80 prcgram, which would be approximately half-way-21 l through; and then in January or December 31, of ' 79, there ll 22 ll would be the annual report to Congress on e ssentially the a
'i 23 RSR program for FY 80.
24 There is a quick input to the Commission on what Ach, eral Reoorters, Inc..)
25 is being proposed at that time; that input comes in July cf i
I
jrb64 65 l
I i
I
' 79; but the report to Congress is on essentially what the j
2 research program is doing.
MR. BENDER:
The report to Congress clearly addresses 4l what is go ing on i n the ' 80 budge t.
I got the impression S
the Commissioners wanted to have something that looked at 6 !
'80 and '81.
7!
may have been wrong in my understanding of it, 7
t 8i but I thought that's what they were asking.
i 9l DR. SIESS:
I'm not sure Congress is all that i
10 interested in our report of what it is doing.
They said they i
11 !
I wanted the report as a basis of judging the budget.
12 If we are going to give the Commission advice whether.
33 !
the budget in a given area should be decreased, increased, or I
i I4 reasons therefor, in the sense of priorities; the same advice 13 l goes to the Congress.
It's the same budget.
I 16 l Congress will be considering the FY 31 budget in 17 I early '80; right2 i
18 l MR. FRALEY:
John, what I had intended here was 19 that tie report the Committee submits to the Commission in 20 July would basically address how Saul was going to impleme nt 21 the ccmmittee 's recomme niations in ' 81.
I 22 ]
New, he might implement sc=e of them in '80, you 23 ]l know, the high-priority items as he see s them, by going in i
24 i for supplementary funds.
Act tral Reoorters. Inc j 25 j But that would basically be the start of the review
- l l3 1
I
f jrb65 I
66 l
t i
I of the '81 budget.
i 2
And during the period from September through 3,
December -- well, we'll be looking at the ' 81 budget basically 4
i all the way through -- and comparing it with what was 5
accomplished in the '80 budget.
6 Ncw, there -- is a program being conducted officially 7l or not?
Does it have the kind of talent or not?
It would i
6 t
8f be based on what is happening in ' 80; but you will be addressing l
9l the budget f or '81.
i 10 '
MR. RAY:
Have the Commissioners approved the budget,
II for '80?
Is that past history?
12 MR. FRALEY:
Yes.
Congre ss is already having j
I3 l hearings on the '80 budget.
14 l MR. RAY:
I remember Gilinsky, something he asked i
15 i about guidance for considering the budget when they got it; 16 so, therefore, this letter will be f or '81.
l I7 DR. CKRENT:
My concern -
I8 ll MR. BENDER:
I am just trying to clarify the process.
I9 l The ' 81 budget has to be negotiated with CMB i
20,
about a year prior to submitting it to Congress.
Th at is 21 i when the Commissioners theoretically do their thing.
Co ngres s I
i 22 !!
gets another shot at it after CMB.
l 23 l That is what we are trying to address.
2#
D R.
CKRENT:
If I understand correctly, Chet asked Act
. eras Reoorters. Inc.
'S about July - August.
i'
jrb66 67
-l l
l i
i i
I The answer I heard is July, probably.
2 DR. SIESS:
That's what I've got down.
4 1
What we get back from Myers is Congress would like i
t 4l to have f airly specific recommendations about the research i
~
5' program.
6 !
And when they say " program," they nean " budget".
7j And I think if they got a report from us saying, i
8 funding in this area should be increased and decreased in another 9l area by eliminating work on such-and-such a subject - they 10 would be happy to get that, even if they didn' t have reasons.
I 11 !
They don' t understand the reasons we give them anyway.
I 12 l (Laughter.)
13 No, they don't.
I don' t think we would do it without l#
reasons; maybe we could agree on a cut without reasons.
We i
IS have to have reasons to explain to the Commission, explain 16 to the people who are interested in why.
I I7 But I think they would like that kind of a fairly i
I8 l specific thing.
19 Now, the difference between what we muld give 20,
Congress in December -- the 31st -- and what we would give 21 !
the Commission in July, is that we are commenting on two
- j entirely different budgets.
Not entirely different - we 23 'l are commenting in July cn probably the budget submittal to 94 AJeral Aeoorters, Inc. q the review committee -- although we might have gotten their A
25l 1
submission to tne Ccmmission by then.
We can update it.
ll
jrb67 t
68 1l What we are commenting on in Dacember, if we can j
i 4
2 keep on top of it, will be what goes to the Congress.
It 3
will have gone to OMB and be back.
4, Last year it was back from OMB by December 31st.
i 5'
MR. AUSTIN:
Ye s, mid-December.
l 6 !
DR. SIESS:
If we kapt right on top of it, lef t some,
7l blanks to be filled in, our recommendations could be firm 8'
and if they had cut something, we could make last-minute 9l changes.
I 10 l Ta me, the advice to Congress can be very similar i
11 !
to that to the Commission, but with a different basis in the i
12 ;
thing we are commenting on, in some respects; I don' t think 13 we are going to have to trim it down that f ar.
We are still i
14 ;
going to cover other things.
15 '
But I can visualize a system whereby a report to 16 i Congre ss is relatively brief, and the one that went to the
'l 17!
Commissioners maybe had a little more in it.
Time might not 18 ;
permit it to be much more.
19 !
And that the information we develop that constit tres 20 advice to the research. staf f, we either compile it in letters 21 ;
-- so Saul doesn't feel left out.
22 MR. BENDER:
There 's one note I would like to
- l 23j!
express:
i 24 1 If we precommit ourselves when we are making this Ace aerai s.oorters. inc. '
25 assessment, and the Commissioners think we have taken a l
n
69 j rb6 8 l
\\
l 1,
position, when we make the second review for Congress, which l
?
2l we will be doing, we will have to be pretty careful we don' t 3
find ourselves in con lict with previous commitments we 4!
have made.
i l
5 I think we have to be ccgnizant of that.
I i
i 6:
DR. 3IESS:
What do you mean by " commitment" -- that; 7l we changed our minds?
I i
8 !
MR. BENDER:
We changed our minds af ter the 9:
Commission has taken a hard position.
i 10 '
DR. SIESS:
We ' ie go t to watch that, surely.
I Il MR. BENDER:
We' ve got to be careful what we do.
i 12 1 DR. SIESS :
We recommend to the Commissioners I
13 a $10 million program be deleted, and they don' t delete it; i
14 than I think we'd darned well better recommend to the i
15 '
Congress a $10 million program be deleted unles s scme b ody 16,
has changed our ninds, in which case, we can tell them.
17 !
But we shouldn' t change our mind without good 18 reason.
I 19 The Commission is going to take tha t chance.
They 20 will not follow our advice?
then it will get to the Congress,
21 l MR. BENDER:
I think you can expect that.
I 22 D R. SIESS:
Then we might think what's different i.
1 23 h in our report to Congre ss than in our letter to the Commission, s
2d '1 except we are commenting on different budgets.
A6 3M34 ReOOftett, INC.
25 Suppose the Commissioners took all our advice?
!l a
t' i,
jrb69 70 l
I
~
li DR. OKRENT:
Well, maybe we will see better and i
2l rather easily what it is we would dc with regard to the 3
report to the Congress in July.
4 DR. SIESS:
Yes.
I Si DR. OKRENT:
Compared to now.
6 Maybe we don' t need to spend much more time at it 7i at this point, thinking about hcw we would organize for the 1
8 end of the year report.
9 What's your feeling?
10 1 DR. SIESS:
We will have had enough of a head-start I
11 !
last year we were n't into our thorough review until July i
12 or August.
13 Let me toss out one thought here:
14 Program means the chapters in the report to 15 ;
Congress.
Proje cts mean individual contracts, down to some l
16 l level.
In terms of the seismic stuff, I guess it doesn't fl 17 ;
mean Individual pro jec ts ; but Saul said something about 200
'l 18 projects.
l 19 !
I think we need to loo k at this s tuf f project-by-20 project, at least the first time we see the budget, last year's 21 ;
budget; look at it, prepare yourself for this year's budget.
22ll And 200 projects, S160 million, that's not small.
i
- I 23 ]
Some are going to be small, some large.
They will be s pelled 24 out -- they will not be spelled out by project in the budget.
g. ewai smornes. ix. '
25 Last year some subcommittees got that information ll
jrb70 71, i
i l
4 li from research, they came in and just gave us LL sts or
~~
9, 3
pro]ects.
3 I s uggest we request tha t.
4-MR. AUSTIN:
I think you can cnly get it for FY l
5 79 at this time.
t 6:
DR. SIISS:
That's all right.
7l We ought to be able to identify which ones are i
8 included in the FY 80 and ' 81 budget somehow.
Le t's see if i
l 9'
we can get those lists and correlate them with the 10 subccmmittee at program levels, and with budget items, i
II '
DR. OKRENT:
Yes.
12 '
I guess we should make up packets of 13 information for each member based on the working group he 14 is a memmer of, so clat he has whatever is use ful.
I i
15 DR. SIESS:
Each staff engineer assigned to a i
i 16 -
subcommittee can pull out appropriate information.
17,
DR. OKRENT:
Any other comments?
t 18 '
No response.)
19 Any other topics or comments?
,O ]:
(No response. )
l 2I ;
DR. OKRENT:
Well --
22 ;j DR. LAWROSKI:
When do we plan to have the next a
23 j meeting with the Commissioners?
and then the sub je ct can 24 I be caken up?
Aca. _ Aeral Recorrers, Inc, i 25l MR. FRALE'Z :
Probably April; April is getting
.?
jrb71 72 l
l I
f i
1 1i awfully full, but I think if we are going to start on this,
2l we 'd better get it resolved.
I would suggest April.
i l
4 DR. OKRENT:
We could schedule for April, unless l
i 5;
the committee chairmen decide it's not necessary to talk abcut,,
t 6!
but go ahead.
7 MR. FRALEY:
We could try to send up a piece of 8!
paper which describes wha t we plan to do.
l 9
You recall the Chairman said they wanted a 10 collegial discussion of diis matter.
11 i j
DR. OKRENT:
I see.
Okay.
All right..
Anything else for this meeting?
I 12 i
13 (No response.)
i I4 !
If not, I thank you all.
15 (Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m.,
the meeting was 16 adjourned. )
17 !
l 18 !
i 19 l 20 21 l
22 'q 23'i Act,-w:stal Recorters, Inc, j 25 1