ML19340D102
| ML19340D102 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/20/1978 |
| From: | Stoiber C NRC OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC) |
| To: | Gilinsky V, Hendrie J, Kennedy R NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19340D094 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8012290081 | |
| Download: ML19340D102 (3) | |
Text
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MEMORANDUM FOR:
Chairman Hendrie Commissioner Gilinsky
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Commissioner Kennedy Commissioner Bradford
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Commissioner Ahearne FROM:
arlton R. Stoiber
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Assistant General Counsel 1:
SU3 JECT:
DISCUSSION WITR DINGELL STAFF ON SITING AND LICENSING LEGISLATION On Monday, December 18, I met with three members of Congress-man Dingell's staff (Dave Finnegan, Mike Ward and Chris Dunn) to discuss the NRC effort with respect to licensing legislation.
With me were Ed Fay (OCA), Rich Mallory and Peter Crane (OGC),
and Vicki Harding (Commissioner Ahearne's office).
The meeting was cordial and took place in a spirit of cooperation and
~onstructiveness.
The interest of the Dingell staffers was Loth in learning of the status of NRC's effort and in communi-cating areas of their primary concern and their needs in terms of timing.
- g The message most strongly communicated by the Dingell staff was that NRC should give siting and licensing issues a hard, fresh look rather than bringing to the Congress an insufficiently thought-out rehash of past proposals.
With regard to timing, the congressional aides noted that the last half of January and early February would be occupied with the Congress' Committee organization.
Then, the Committee's first order of business would be DOE and NRC authorization legislation.
Licensing legislation would be considered.only after these
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l proposals, with the possibility of other intervening items arising.- They would like to have the NRC's submission some-time in early March, but would also be prepared to deal with
Contact:
Peter G. Crane 634-3288 U
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The Commission 0 C " O EN a proposa1 submitted before May 1.
It was suggested that,
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if the NRC draft were to arrive significantly later than
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May 1, it might be difficult to secure congressional action
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Among the major specific issues which the Dingell staffers sj.1;i;-
wish to see addressed, and believe have been dealt with
- -;d inadequately in the past, are the following
(1)
How would existing licensing proceedings be handled
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if the process were legislatively reformed?
To what extent should there be a "grandfathering" of appli-catiens already in the pipeline?
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(2)
How can a sensible " standardization" policy be
=5 implemented; and does the Commission, strictly
- .a speaking, need legislation to accomplish this 5;
objective?
(3)
How will the NRC bill address the problem of
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interagency coordination?
(4)
How can NRC delegate responsibility to the states
.2 for decisions on siting and need for power while still performing its NEPA obligations?
The Dingell staffers expressed considerable skepticism about the desirability of-phssing legislation to confirm authority which NRC beliecms it already possesses.
They saw this as u sa s
introduci*ag potential instability, rather than helping to Er provide.E$ eater assurance of legal soundness.
They suggested 55 l
that thg Administration's siting and licensing bill (H.R.11704) l had made tche mistake of saying much more than was necessary l
(for example, redefining terms and adopting new statements of government policy), whereas prudence dictated altering only those provisions of current law that clearly needed changing.
They suggested also that the Commission give thought to the time that would be needed by state governments to achieve conformi.ty with any new legislation.
If states required
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years to conform their statutes to the new federal law, they l
questioned whether anything would be gained by such " improve-ments".
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Overall, the Dingell staffers appeared to be receptive to
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the idea of proceeding expeditiously with licensing reform
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1egislation, but wary of receiving a hasty or incomplete
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4 3-DEC : 0F4 The Commission product.
They approved of the approach of preparing an
" issues" paper in advance of drafting legislative language, and opined that one reason for the failure of earlier licensing proposals was that the debate focussed early on specific statutory language, not broad policy issues.
They suggested that the issues paper might be made available to the public and Congress for study and comment prior to the fermulation of draft legislative language.
I told them that I would relay this suggestion to the Commission for its consideration.
The Dingell staffers appeared to have a firm grasp of the numerous and interconnected issues involved in the drafting of a licensing bill.
The Commission can expect that what-ever formulations it arrives at will be closely scrutinited by Ccngressman Dingell and his staff.
They are anxious to be involved with the Commission's development of any pro-posal, and are particularly interested in assuring that any Ccamission proposal reflect NRC's assessments of the licens-ing process, rather than those of other federal agencies or outside interest groups.
Finally, with regard to Commissioner Kennedy's cuestion concerning the date upon which the Commission will receive OGC's " issue" memorandum, we expect to forward that paper by Wednesday, January 3,1979 cc:
K. Federsen, OPE C.
Kammerer, OCA L. Gossick, EDO H. Shapar, ELD SECY (2) i
.