ML20031A016
| ML20031A016 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 09/15/1981 |
| From: | Swanson D, Swartz L NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE LEGAL DIRECTOR (OELD) |
| To: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20031A017 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8109180287 | |
| Download: ML20031A016 (12) | |
Text
--_
4 o STAFF 09/15/,81 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA s
NUCLEAR REG'JLATORY COMMISSION g
g BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD e<
~
(*
V
[--f c$f
/?'
In the Matter of
)
,7
////
j'i f.g ( /,
METROPOLITAN EDIS0N COMPANY, ET AL.
Docket No. 50-289
)
(Restart)
(Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, )
Unit 1)
)
NRC STAFF RESPONSE TO BOARD ORDER RELATIVE TO VIEWS ON THE INVESTIGATION OF CHEATING I.
INTRODUCTION On August 20, 1981, the Licensing Board in this proceeding issued an " Order Relative to the Subrcission of Views on the Investigation of Cheating" (Order).
In its Order, the Licensing Board asked the parties with an interest in management issues to advise it of their views as to what further action, if any, should be taken in the TMI-1 restart proceeding with respect to the cheating incident.1/ Order at 2-3.
The Board further requested that the Staff respond to specific questions regarding its investigation into cheating on the NRC examination.
In response to the Order, the Licensee filed " Licensee's Response to Board Order Relative to the Submission of Views on the Investigation of Cheating, Dated August 20, 1981," dated September 8,1981.
In that 1_/
On September 8, 1981, the Board issued a Memorandem and Order in gol which it granted a Staff request that its responsa date to the g
August 20, 1981 Order be extended until September 15, 1981.
8109180287 810915 lj
\\
DR ADOCK 05000
response, the Licensee stated that it had initiated its own internal investigation, which disclosed an incident involving the Licensee-administered Category T makeup exam.
Similarities in responses to two l
questions on the examination could not be explained by the Licensee to be the likely result of anything but cheating.
As a result, the Licensee did not interpose an objection to the reopening of the hearing on management issues.
Other parties who had participated on the management issues in this proceeding similarly did not oppose a reopening of the hearing.
Subsequently, the Board did issue a Memorandum and Order, dated September 14, 1981, in which it reopened the hearing to consider the impact of the cheating incidents on the issue of operator testing and licensing.
Notwithstanding the above order of the Roard, the Staff submits its response to the Board's August 20,1981 Order.
The Staff also addresses the new information provided by the Licensee and comments on the scope of the reopened proceeding.
II.
DISCUSSION A.
Reopening of the Proceeding The Staff, on the basie of on its investigations into the cheating incident involving the NRC examination and its analysis of the implica-tions of the incident on the issues in this proceeding, concluded that no further investigation into that ancident was necessary.
The more recently disclosed incident of possible cheating on the Licensee-administered Category T makeup exam, on the other hand, does relate to the issue of the Licensee's-management competence and the adequacy of the testing of
7 4
3-operators as to their knowledge of the TMI-2 accident.2/ As yet, unanswered questions surrounding the circumstances in which the makeup Category T exams were administered, the procedures to be utilized during the reexamination by the Licensee on this matter, as well as other lines of inquiry into which OIE is currently pursuing, indicate that further inquiry into these matters is appropriate.
In light of the Board's decision in its September 14,1981 Memorandum and Order to reopen the hearing, the Staff does not need to discuss the considerations involved in deciding wnether the record should have been reopened.
Rather, the Staff now turns to specific questions raised by the Board in its Order.
B.
Response to Specific Board Concerns Re. NRC Examination The Board has posed specific questions relating to the adequacy of the investigations conducted by the NRC and on other actions taken by the NRC Staff. Order at 3, 4.
However, as indicated above, the Staff is currently inquiring further into the management capability and operator candidate cheating issues.
The results of those inquiries could potentially cause OIE to modify its responses to the Board's questions.
Accordingly, the responses set forth below represent the views of the Staff as of the close of the OIE investigation.
These questions are addressed seriatim.
1.
May The Cheating Matter Se Closed On The Bases of Termination of Emoloyment and Retesting?
l As discussed in the IE Report and in the Thompson Memorandum to Novak of August 28,1981 (Thompson Memorandum) there was no evidence that cheating by other examinees had occurred during the NRC examination.
(Thompson Memorandum at 1, 2; IE Report at 1).
During the IE investigation, 2/
See Licensee's Response, supra.
j
=
the inspectors looked for evidence of other cheating.
(Thompson tiemorandum at 1). A comprehensive review of the other R0 and SR0 examinations administered in April,1981 revealed no evidence of additional irregularities involving any other individual taking the test.
The inspectors also examined the mock examinations administered before the NRC examinations and found similarities in the answers furnished by the two persons implicated in the cheating incident but not in those prepared by the other examinees.
(IE Report at 1).
Further, tne two original suspects were interviewed as were eleven other examinees and certain other Licensee employees.
(Thompson Memorandum at 1).
None of this investigative effort provided substantiated evidence that any of the other individuals taking the imC examination had acted improperly.
(Thompson tiemorandum at 1; IE Report at 1, 2).
In addition, as indicated in a letter from H. R. Denton, NRC, *n H. Dieckamp, GPU, dated August 17, 1981 (BN-81-178, dated August 17, 1981), the Staff will retest all of the operators who passed the April NRC examination.
Although the investigations did not disclose other l
cheating, the Staff believes that by retesting, the capabilities of those individuals to operate TV.I-1 safely will be assured.
Crocker Memorandum at 3.3_/ In this regard, the incident indicates that there 3/
With respect to the retesting of the operators required by the Staff, the Licensee, in a letter to the Licensing Board dated August 20, 1981, suggested that this decision can be viewed as imposing a new restart requirement which it would be entitled to litigate.
In the Staff's view, however, the retesting is not a new requirement but rather is part of the Staff's responsibility, pursuant to the Commission's August 9, 1979 Order, to administer complete examinations to all licensed personnel at TMI-1.
CLI-79-8, 10 NRC 141, 144 (Short-term Order Item 1(e)). The Licensee has already had the opportunity to litigate the propriety of the re-licensing examinations at the TMI-1 restart hearing. Thus, the retesting required by the Staff is not a new requirement.
I
should have been stricter monitoring of the conduct of the examination.
The attached Memorandum from S. Hanauer to T. Novak, dated August 31, 1981, states that the written reexamination of operator license candidates will be administered by the NRC with controls more strict than existed during the previo'Js examination.
Specifically. the reexamination will include 100Y, proctoring by the NRC, adequate scacing between examinees, and other administrative controls to assure the integrity of the examinations. These controls during the reexamination should insure the integrity of the NRC examination process that was implicitly assumed in testimony during the hearing and in thg Board's subsequent findings.
(See e.g., PID at Paragraphs 182, 187, 195 and 204-207).
In sum, the two investigations conducted by the StaffM revealed no substantiated involvement in this incident or in any other type of impro-priety regarding the operator license examination by management personnel, other than the two individuals implicated in the chuting, and revealed no other evidence of dishonesty on the part of any of the other operators who took the NRC administered license examination.
In the absence of evidence of canagement complicity, and in the absence of 4]
The NRC Office of Inspector and Auditor (01A) issued a report on l
July 31, 1981 entitled " Alleged Cheating on Operator Examinations l
for Restart of Three liile Island Unit 1."
On August 11, 1981, the l
Office of Inspection and Enforcement (0IE) filed its " Investigation t
of Alleged Cheating on Operator Licensing Examinations." Both of these dccuments were served on the Board and the parties.
l t
substantiated evidence of cheating by other operators,E OIE determined that it had sufficient evidence to discontinue its investintion into the matter of cheating on NRC license examinations.
2.
Why Can the Staff Conclude That There was No Involvement In Cheating On NRC Examinations By Any Gther Licensee Employee, Manager, or Consultant?
As noted above, the investigations conducted by the NRC revealed no compliciQ in the incident involving the NRC examinations or additional improprieties by any other Licensee employees, including managers and consultants.O (IE Report at 1). This conclusion is based upon interviews
~~5/
In a similar vein, the Licensee removed from all licensed responsi-bility a third individual who had handed in as his own work an examination response to an internal training exercise which another individual had prepared.
0IE Report of Investigation (Board Notification 81-17C) at 7, 8.
(Enclosure 1 to that Report, which contains the Licznsee file material regarding the investigation of the incident involving this third individual, was deleted from the version of the Report which was publicly distributed because of privacy considerations and the belief of OIE that this matter was unrelated to the cheating investigation for which the report was prepared.)
6/
The Board requested '.,pecific support for the Staff's implicit conclusion that there is no involvement or culpability (by misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance) in cheating on the NRC operator examinations, or in any prior NRC or Lic1nsee operator examinations, exercises or the like, by any other Licensee employee, manager or consultant." Order at 3.
The Staft, in its investigation, reviewed the A)ril NRC license examinations and the mock examinations given by the Licensee two weeks prior to the NRC examination.
It also examined the 1980 requalification examinations taken by the two suspects.
Based on its review of these examinations and the interviews with employees, the Staff concluded that there wa:, no substantiated evidence of improprieties involving Licensee
- employees other than the two operators whose employment with the Licensee has been terminated.
The Staff made no implicit or explicit conclusions regarding any prior NRC examinations or any other Licensee examinations.
It made no effort to look into past cractices at TMI.
(Thompson Memorandum at 2).
conducted with management personnel including Robert C. Arnold and Henry D.
Hukill.
Both Mr. Arnold and Mr. Hukill stated that they were not aware of any alleged impropri.eties concerning the April NRC license examinations prior to meeting with the NRC inspectors in July, 1981 and expressed a willingness to cooperate fully with the NRC investigation.
(IE Report at 7).
Nelson Brown, supervisor of licensed operator training, was also interviewed.
He took both the R0 and the SRO cxaminations and stated that to his knowledge there were no indications of cheating in either the mock or NRC-administered examinations.
(IE Report at 19).
Based on these interviews dnd those held with other examinees, the Staff found no reason to believe that any member of Licensee's management was involved in the improprieties regarding the NRC's April license examination or the mock examination.
(1E Report at 1).
3.
Was The IE Report Conclusion Based On A Narrow Enforcement Dacision?
In addition to requesting the above support 3r the Staff's position on the completeness of the OIE investigation, the Board asked the Staff to explain a certain statement contained in the IE Report. Order at 3-4.
In its Order, the Board seeks an explanation of the IE Report's conclusion that "because enough information had been gathered so that '... an enforcement decision could be made,... no additional investigative effort was warranted,' and accordingly the investigation was closed."
I d_.
The Board is concerned that the IE investigation may have been terminated prematurely.
Order at 4.
As explained in the Thenpsor Memorandum, the phrase quoted by the Bcard was inserted to alert th'. reader that there were some additional
.ompiling a corplete record of the leads to cover for the purpt as s investigation into the NP'
..ination incidents.
Those leads, which would have been pursued if ccafessions had not been obtained from the two suspects, were interviews with NRC proctors and the individual, under contract to NRC, who graded the examinations ana noted the similarities in the responses of the two suspects.2/
(Thompson Memorandum at 2.h The Staff, however, did not abandon its efforts to fully investigate the cheating incident when it had enough information to undertake enforce-ment actic s against the two suspects.
(Thompson Memorandum at 2).
- Rather, it included in its investigation an inquiry into whether there was any evidence of involvement by other operators or management in NRC examination improprieties.
IE Report at 1.
Based on its review of the other examina-tion: and on its interviews with management and other Licensee employees, the Staff found no supported evidence that cheating, other than that discovered, had occurred or that individuals other than the two suspects had been involved in NRC examination cheat!ng.
Thus, the Staff terminated its investigation.
(Thompson Memorandum at 2; IE Report at 1, 2).
4.
Direction To Staff To Secure Documents The Board in its Orde;- directtd the Staff to " assure itself that it has possession of the originals of all pertinent Licensee documents and Z/
OIA did interview the NRC proctors.
See OIA Report, interviews of unidentified Operator Licensing Branch personnel.
e files...." Order at 4.
Included in the Board's list of pertinent documents were "the mock Licensee examination and answer papers, a:M any records of the grading of them by 1.fconse:."
Id.
In its investigation of the cheating incident, thc Staff collected the originals or copies of documents it believea to be relevant to its investigation and its subsequent report.
These documents are and will continue to be in t!.e Staff's possession.
Further, the Staff has directed all employees who were involved in the investigation to assure that none of the documents are destroyed.
A list of documents currently held by the St 3" is included i7 a Memorande.1 for T. M. Novak from D. Thompson, dated August 28, 1981 and in a Mamorandum for T. M. Novak from S. H. Hanauer, dated August 31,1981.8/
As noted in tho:e Memoranda, the Staff has in its possession the original examinations and answers for the NRC reactor operator (RO) and senior reactor operator (SR0) tests, the investigators' notes, and ehnto-copies of the results of the mock examinations given by the Licensee.
There are other documents, however, which the Staff does not possess but which the Board believes are perttuent.
The Licensee, rather then the Staff, would have possession of the original mock examination results and any notes by the graders of thost exams since those examinations were not l
graded by the NRC. While the Staff has a serious questio.1 regarding the authority of the Licensing Board to direct the manner in which the Staff conducts its investigation (see, e.g., Carolina Power and light Co. (Shearor.
8/
Copies of the Thompson and the Hanauer Fkmoranda, as well as a second Memorandum from S. Hanauer to Novak, dated August 26, 1981, as updated by September 11 and 14,1981 memoranda, are attached.
Harris Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1-4), CLI-80-12,11 NRC 514 (1980)), and preserves its objectior in this matter, i' nevertheless, will, because of the importance of this issue, endeavor tv obtain the originals of the Licensee's mock exams and answers.
In the event that the Staff is unable to obtain these documents, it will so inform the Board.
C.
Status of Staff Position Regarding Possible Cheating on Category T Exams The Staff is currently periorming an independent review of the conduct of the Licensee-administered Category T makeup examination.
As a part of this inquiry, the Staff will also be attempting to determine whether the manner in which the Licensee proposes to administer its reexas.ination on this subject provides reasonable assurance that the reexamination will properly indicate the level of krowledge which the andidate operators-hd.T concerning the TMI-2 accident.
Upon completion of this review, the Staff will report to the Board and parties its conclusions regarding the impact, if any, of the Licensee's conduct of the examination on its management capability, as well as the adequacy of the Licensee's fc'.lowup to its discovery of the possibility of cheating on its exams. An interim Staff position regarding its assessment of the Licensee's submittal is set forth in the attached Memorandum from S. Hanauer to T. Novah dated September 11, 1981. Ilntil this inquiry is ccmpleted, the Staff is unable to provide a final conclu-sion as to the effect, if any, that the incident involving the Category T makeup exam has on the canagement capability issue, nor can it prr. vide more than a general suggestion as to the proper scope of the reopened hearing on this issue. A further discussion regarding the scope of the reopened hearing is set forth in the next part of this response.
D.
Suogestions On Scope of Reopened Hearing The Staff proposes that the Licensee pre m e written testimony on at least those issues that Licensee's counsel suggested in his Response to the Board Order da ed September 8,1981, at page 5.
In sum, those issues include the past administration of Licensee exams, the adequacy.of 3
Licensee's management response to the discovery of cheating on the NRC examination, and management plans for the administration of future tests.
The Staff would expect that su:h testimony regarding the second issue would include a discussio'n of how the Licensee prepa ed candidates for taking the NRC exam in terms of stressing honesty durinj the examination process.
The staf" would urge that such an inquiry in a reopened hearing should focus on Licer.see management and their involvement in the examination process, both in the past and in the future.97
--9/
Another potential issue for the reopened hearing is the manner in wnich the Staff administered its examinations.
In this regard, the Staff nates that the Board appears to assert jurisdiction over "the l
NRC pracess by which the operators would be tested and licensed...."
While the Commission's Orders may be properly interpreted as authccizing the Eoard to inquire into the quality of oparating personnel and ade-quacy of staffing and to question the qualifications of those taking the NRC cucination and the relevance of the results of those examina-tions, the Board may not dira+ the Staff in the conduct of the actual examination process.
Such jurisdiction has not been delegated to the Board under either the August 9,1979 or the March 6,1980 Orders and, under the Marble Hill decision the Board c1ay not exercise such juris-diction.
Public Service Co. of Indiana (Marble Hill !!uclear Generating Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAR-316, 3 NRC 167, 170 (1976); see also Carolina Power and Light Co. (Shearon Harris Nuclear Power P1Lnt.
Units 1-4), CLI-80-12, 11 NRC 514 (1980).
The preparation and admin-istration of the NRC licensing examinations are clearly the responsi-bility of the Staff.
See 10 CFR Part 55 (Operators' Licenses). The Corxaission has delegated to the Staff its responsibilities under Part 55.
NRC Manual Chaptcr NRC-0123, " Organization and Functions, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation," Section 0123-03, 0123-06 (Part II, H.2) (July 13, 1981).
. D The Staff will of course be prepared to discuss.further refinements of these general issues when the parties confer regarding the issues to be considered as a part of this proceeding.
Re,spectfJlly submitted, we j
Daniel T. Swanson Counsel for NRC Staff (D&OCP L bhk
.)
I
\\
Lucinda Low Swartz-Counsel for NRC Staff Dated at Pethesda, Maryland this 15th day of September, 1981.
[
's x
b l
i -
r.
w
- - ~
..w-w.
y
,y--r,,-----,
. -.