ML20059F012
| ML20059F012 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/26/1993 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| FRN-59FR6792, REF-10CFR9.7 AE62-1-031, AE62-1-31, AE62-1-XX, NUDOCS 9311040083 | |
| Download: ML20059F012 (120) | |
Text
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SION
=
( @l BRIEFING ON PROPOSED STANDARDS FOR GASEOUS DIFFUSION FACILITIES LOCatiOD ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND j
i i
h3I6l OCTOBER 26, 1993 l
l PageS:
92 PAGES i
I NEALR.GROSSANDC0.,INC.
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBEES 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C.
20005 (202) 234-4433 9311040083 931026 PDR 10CFR PT9.7 PDR
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on O
October 26, 1993, in the Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland.
The needing was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CPR 9.103, it is i
not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding 'as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, o
except as the Commission may authorize.
l l
e e
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLE 72. REGULATORY COMMISSION BRIEFING ON PROPOSED STANDARDS FOR GASEOUS DIFFUSION FACILITIES PUBLIC MEETING Nuclear Regulatory Commission One White Flint North Rockville, Maryland Tuesday, October 26, 1993 The Commission met in open
- session, pursuant to
- notice, at 2:00 p.m.,
Ivan
- Selin, j
Chairman, presiding.
l COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
IVAN SELIN, Chairman of the Commission KENNETH C.
ROGERS, Commissioner FORREST J. REMICK, Commissioner E.
GAIL de PLANQUE, Commissioner NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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2 STAFF SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
S AMUEL J. CHILK, Secretary TRIP ROTHSCHILD, Deputy Assistant General Counsel JAMES TAYLOR, Executive Director for Operations ROBERT BERNERO, Director, NMSS o
BILL MORRIS, Director, Division of Reg. Applications, RES CHARLES
- NILSEN, Radiation Protection and Health Effects Branch, RES e
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S-2 2:00 p.m.
3 CHAIRMAN-SELIN:
Good afternoon, ladies
)
4 and gentlemen.
5 One of the most interesting but P
6 challenging jobs that we've had in quite awhile is to 7
prepare to eventually take ~ over this curious 8
responsibility of certifying the health and safety at t
9 the gaseous diffusion plants of the United States 10 Enrichment Corporation.
In many ways this was 11 unprecedented.
It's a technical area in which'the 12 Commission has not worked in the past.
Certification i
13 is a process that is not terribly well defined.
It's i
14 nothing that we've done quite before.
15 So, we've had to break some new ground and 16 feel our way a bit as we've gotten into this question.
17 We seem to have done all right up until now in the~
7 18 turnover, but the key challenge is the development:and 19 propagation of standards, certification standards, 20 really health and safety standards for these plants 21 which are due in October of next year.
22 So, this morning we are prepared to'-
23 receive an executive summary from the staff on the 24 proposed standards, and I use that phrase advisedly.
-]
25 We received really quite an interesting and apparently
)
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well thought out-book, which. was more than we were 2
able to go through at such short notice.
So, we'll
.t 3
today have an executive summary of what's in the 4
standards and then later on this year.we'll have a 5
thorough review.at the Commission level of the 6
proposed standards.
7 These plants which enrich uranium by a 8
gaseous diffusion process were previously operated by 9
a contractor for the Department of Energy. The Energy 10 Policy Act of 1992 amended the Atomic Energy Act of
(
11 1954 to establish a new government corporation, the 12 aforementioned United States Enrichment Corporation, 13 for the purpose of conducting a uranium enrichment 14 enterprise.
It provided that NRC is to issue 15 standards to govern the gaseous diffusion uranium 16 enrichment activities within two years after the law j
17 was passed, or October of this year.
i 18 We have before us for consideration SECY-19 93-285 which contains the proposed notice of 20 rulemaking for new Part 76 called Certification of
)
21 Gaseous Diffusion Plants and also has options for-i 22 procedures for the certification process.
As I 23.
mentioned, we'll go through this today in order for 24 the Commission to give initial response to the people 25 drafting the standards and we'll receive a fuller H
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5 1
1 discussion in some detail in December, after we've had 2
a time to consider the proposed regulation and the 3
procedural options in depth.
4 Commissioners, do you --
5 Mr. Taylor and Mr. Bernero, the floor is 6
yours.
We expect sort of an overview of what the 7
issues are that you've had to go through and the 8
issues that are before the Commission for guidance.
9 Thank you.
l 10 MR. TAYLOR:
Good afternoon.
With me at 11 the table are Bob Bernero from NMSS and Billy Morris 12 and Chuck Nilsen from the Office of Research.
13 The proposed rulemaking package that you 14 have is the product of the Office of Research, with 15 assistance from the Program Of fice NMSS. As you know, 16 Mr. Chairman, it's a rather extensive package. If you 17 drop'it, we hope you have hard toe shoes on because 18 it 's a rather thick package of information on this 19 subject.
20 We hope today that to the degree that the 21 Commission has been able to look at this, you may give 22 us information which would provide the, basis of a 23 second meeting, which we will schedule.
I.would note 24 that we would like to do that as soon as it's possible 25 with the Commission.
So, if the Commission agrees and
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with the Commission comments, we can proceed into 2
publishing of the proposed rule in order to meet our 3
deadline next year.
4 With those thoughts, I'll turn to Billy 5
Morris of the Of fice of Research who will initiate the 6
presentation.
7 MR. MORRIS:
Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
8 I'm going to begin by talking about some 9
of the thinking that led to our strategy and approach 10 in developing these certification standards.
Chuck 11 Nilsen will then discuss in more detail the technical 12 aspects of the standards and Trip Rothschild will 13 discuss the procedural aspects.
14 (Slide)
At the beginning of the year --
15 looking on page 1 of the handout, viewgraph number 1, 16 at the beginning of the year when we began the effort 17 to develop certification standards, there were two 18 factors that were significant in defining the approach 19 or strategy we followed.
First, there were no DOE 20 regulations comparable to the NRC regulations that we 21 could turn to and adapt for use of certification 22 standards.
DOE requirements,. safety requirements, 23 were contained in a number of orders, but these orders 24 also contain commercial requirements and there was no 25 document to provide a coherent overview tying these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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1 orders together 'and establishing the basic safety l
2 objectives of the standards in a way that we felt we 3
could draw upon.
4 So, we turned' to the existing NRC 5
regulations to look to find those regulations that 6
would be applicable to facilities such as the gaseous i
7 diffusion plants.
We had experience in fuel cycle 8
facilities under Part 70.
It involved the u9e of 9
uranium and I knew something about the toxicity and 10 radiological consequences of releases of uranium.
We 1
11 had experience ydh the criticality issues, ma':erials 12 control.and accounting issues before.
We had dealt i
13 with the licensing of the LES facility also.
14 So, as we turned to the NRC regulations, 15 we also recognized a second factor which was that the 16 gaseous diffusion plants had been designed and i
17 constructed rany years ago.
We felt that we should i
18 focus our attention on the operational safety aspects 1
19 of our regulations that would be applicable to these
.]
20
- plants, not to considerations-of
. design and 4
21 certification.
So, that was another factor that 1
22 weighed heavily'in our strategy and approach, t
23 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Can-you just 24 clarify for me,'within the set of DOE orders were-25 there not the appropriate operational safety aspects NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE (SLAND AVENUE, N W.
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in those or was it that there was just this gap 4
2 around --
3 MR. MORRIS:
We're not questioning the i
4 appropriateness.
It was just that it was very I
5 difficult for us to delve through there and extract.
I 6
There were 80 dif ferent orders they finally referenced 7
in the docunent and I was going to refer to later, and 8
I think tha. it would have been a tough job for us to 9
go and try to extract that information and pull it 10 together in a way that we could be confident we had 11 understood all the safety context.
12 It turns out, as I'll mention later on, 13 DOE has now done that.
They did it later and at the 14 time frame I'm talking about was back when Chuck 15 Nilsen started the process of writing out what the 16 standards should be.
DOE has now developed the 17 transition document that will guide their oversight 18 and they pulled all these together in one document.
19 So.
I was not questioning the 20 appropriateness or the degree 'of safety that was being 21 obtained, but just that it was a dif ficult job for us 22 to undertake.
23 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: So this was just 24 a better way to approach the task, is what you're 25 saying?
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1 MR. MORRIS:
We felt -- we just-didn't 2-know how to go about digging in there and being sure 3
that we were getting the proper context of all those 4
orders separating properly the commercial and the j
5 safety parts.
So, we felt that we would take a 6
different approach and strategy.
7 Essentially, the strategy we took was to, e
8 as I
- say, try to lay out the applicable NRC-9 regulations that we felt would be, appropriate.
We 10 were fortunate that we had a number of meetings with 11 DOE-during the early part of the year.
Chuck Nilsen 12 had occasion to visit the gaseous diffusion plants in 13 Oak Ridge a number of times to his career and had a 14 good understanding of what those facilities were like i
15 that enabled him to understand how to make this
]
16 applicability exercise work.
q 17 But we felt that we had to go beyond this i
18 and so we wanted to review a number of documents to 19 assess the reasonableness of our regulations. We knew e
20 having started with the NRC regulations and in 21 developing these standards that there was a question 22 in our. minds about whether we would be creating a 23 compliance problem, whether these would be reasonable 24 to implement or not.
l 25 So, our approach then was.to prepare draft NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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versions of the standards and do reality ~ checks 2
against the various sources of information we had 3
available or anticipated having available.
Those 4
documents that we checked against included, as I said, 5
DOE's regulatory transition document which came in in a
6 July.
By this time we had a draft standard available 7
to test against.
And the U.S. Enrichment Corporation 8
also submitted proposed standards about the same time 9
frame and we used that also as a testing ground.
10 (Slide)
But we went beyond this, if 11 you'll look to viewgraph number 2,
and we requested 12 DOE's views on our basic approach, that is of applying 13 NRC regulations to these plants.
We asked for their 14 opinion on alternative approaches to quality assurance 15 and we asked for their opinion on requirements for 16 accident analysis and specifically we asked about 17 certain basic objectives that we would envision using 18 in the evaluation of these plants, a chemical toxicity 19 goal or objective and a dose goal or objective.
We o
20 laid that out to DOE in a letter that Mr. Bernero 21 signed out, I believe it was June, and DOE replied in
+
22 July.
23 So, our approach then involved using those 24 documents, the DOE reply, the DOE transition document, 25 the USEC's proposed rules and in comparing what we had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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prepared to that.
That was the basis for the 2
standards that we developed and sent forward to you in 3
Just an example of one DOE comment that 4
we used in assessing and making changes to the 5
document was their concern that these safety 6
objectives, the 10 milligrams and the 25 rem that we 7
were considering at the time were inappropriate e
8 because they were essentially siting our design 9
standards that had been developed even after these 10 plants had been designed and constructed, the gaseous 11 diffusion plants and that they wouldn't be 12 appropriate.
Because of that concern, which we 13 understand, we have modified the approach taken in the 14 standards that you received and we essentially do not 15 include those numerical objectives or goals in the 16 body of the standards themselves, but have indicated 17 that they would be operational goals for use of 18 assessing the plant vis-h-vis in a range of reasonable 7
19 postulated accidents that needed to be examined.
20 COMMISSIONER REMICK: % hat's the origin or 21 basis of 25 rem?
That stuck out in my mind too.
22 MR.
MORRIS:
It indeed has been 23 incorporated in our regulations in ' the past as a 24 siting criteria, but it was used in the context of 25 postulating the source term.
It postulated a non-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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mechanistic instantaneous release into the
-1
)
2 containment.
We've made it clear in what we've 3
written in the standards that we do not envision this 4
kind of an approach.
What we're talking about is 5
analyzing the operations.
6 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Where?
It's not in 7
Part 100.
4 i
8 MR. BERNERO:
The 25 rem for whole body?
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
1 10 MR. BERNERO:
)
1 11
- thyroid, i
12 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
Yes.
I'm
-j 13 sorry, yes.
14 MR. MORRIS:
And we envision this to be a 15 TED, a total effective dose equivalent so you don't 16 need the extra component.
17 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I understand.
Did 18 you give any thought to whether it should be risk-19 based rather than just so deterministic?
\\
20 MR. MORRIS:
You mean something like a 21 safety goal number?
=
i 22 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
Did you think l
23 about whether it should be consistent with a
i 24 Commission safety goal policy?
l 4
25 MR. MORRIS:
I don't recall that being an j
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issue that we gave a lot of' consideration to, no. = We 2
felt that what we wanted to set up was some way to 3
have a measure of effectiveness of'the operational 4
limiting conditions.
The limiting conditions for J
5 operations are the basic safety ret:uirements that the.
6 energy corporation would develop similar to technical i
7 specifications.
These analyses using these goals, d
8 these objectives, would be the way that you would_go 9
about assessing the safety of the plant against these i
10 deterministic, admittedly deterministic criteria._
11 We felt, and I guess if we had given much 12 consideration to the idea of a probabilistic approach 13 or a risk approach, I think it would be difficult in 1
J 14 my mind to put numerical -- have confidence in the l
15 analysis that you might perform establishing the 16 frequencies of events for these kinds of-facilities.
17 You know, we have a number of years of experience with 18 the operation of facilities without any events that 19 would be considered, I think, similar to the large 5
20 scale accidents that we think of when we analyze 21 reactors.
For probabilistic risk assessments there 22 haven't been any events like that.
We would have to 23 synthesize these numerical estimates of the facilities 24 from data that would be rather difficult to obtain.
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in the reactor area too, but you have the advantage of 2
30 some years experience, right?
3 MR. MORRIS:
But we do not have the safety -
4 goals in the regulations even now for the reactors.
5 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
That's right.
6 MR. BERNERO:
Bill, if I could interject 7
for a moment, one of the interesting things here is 8
you have three gaseous diffusion plants generally 9
similar, two still to operate, but all put together 10 you're only in the 10 2 range.
You've got a little 11 over 100 years of operating experience.
So, you have 12 a certain level of confidence that mishaps to date 13 have 1x10 2 or something like that revealed frequency.
14 But very serious events just haven't occurred.
But 15 you don't have that much operating-experience to rule 16 them out.
Remember TMI was 432 reactor years in the 17 U.S.
18 This accident criterion or. set of criteria 19 really isn't going to be all that significant.
It's 9
20 in the statement of considerations --
21 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Significance from 22 the standpoint of whether they could meet it was not' 23 a concern.
I was just wondering from the standpoint 24 of coherence.
25 MR.
BERNERO:
Yes.
It's a gauge of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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serious of f-site consequence, a threshold of off-site 2
consequence.
We have the experience-and we have the 3
safety analysis that's been done to date where there 4
are some events that can exceed this and there are 5
other mishaps or failures within the plant that can't 6
even remotely approach it.
It's just a convenient 7
gauge to say, "This is a serious release.
This is a 8
serious event."
9 But for the most part, I expect our 10 operational safety review is going to focus on the 11 already done safety analyses, like this seismic r
12 analysis at Paducah.
They've gone far, far beyond' 13 what you would be doing setting an accident limit as 14 a basis of judgment.
You're looking at the seismic 15 enhancement program and so forth.
16 So, I really don't think this is going to R
17 be all that crucial a point.
It's just a useful index 18 and it's fairly close to the Part 100 25 rem whole 19 body.
20 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
I'm hoping' i
21 when we move Part 100 dose limits to Part 50 and then 22 eventually look at that, in that case we'll also look
.j 23 at it from the standpoint could those be addressed 24 from a risk perspective rather than --
25 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
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COMMISSIONER REMICK:
It's something that 2
we did many, many years ago and I don't know if it's 3
possible, but I'm hoping that we will look at these 4
things over time.
5 MR. BERNERO:
This wouldn't preclude that 6
because this is not in the standard.
It's background.
7 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Is there a PRA for i
8 accidents?
9 MR. BERNERO:
Not that we know of.
10 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
So you can't 11 associate a risk with -- put the 2b rem in a kind of 12 risk-based -- yes.
13 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Mr. Morris, you're to be 14 congratulated on cutting to the quick more rapidly 15 than almost any briefing that we have had.
Would you 16 continue, please?
17 MR.
MORRIS:
- Well, that was just to 18 indicate the way that we have been thinking in terms 19 of using the DOE information and bringing forward what 20 we have.
21 Before turning over to Chuck Nilsen, I 6
22 just want to mention a couple of points.
Based on our 23 review of these documents, we believe that the 24 standards will provide a sound basis for regulation, 25 safe regulation, and we don't know of any problem that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 234 4433
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the U.S.
Enrichment Corporation would' have with 2
meeting these standards at this time. - However, we do 3
stand ready'to respond to the public comment process, 4
to any comments and recommendations that would suggest 5
ways that we could improve the standards.
6 We specifically included in the draft 7
Federal Register notice invitations for comments on e
8 whether some or all of the requirements proposed by 9
the U.S.
Enrichment Corporation or among DOE's 10 oversight requirements might be applicable and 11 preferable in lieu of the standards that we've 12 proposed.
13 With that, I would turn to Chuck to go 14 into the details --
15 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
- Well, I should just 16 observe that this approach sounds very reasonable.
17 It's not the one we had in mind when we were talking
[
18 originally.
We had hoped that somehow a coherent 19 picture could be made out of the existing orders, et 20 cetera, so that we could merely be in the position of l
e 21 responding to the existent corpus of regulations 22
- saying, "It seems reasonable.
It doesn't seem 23 reasonable."
And the orders are even. worse than you 24 portray them because they're not specific to the 25 Enrichnent Corporation.
These orders generally cover NEAL R. GROSS l
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all DOE facilities and the relevance to any particular 2
facility is pretty remote.
3 So, you made a statement or a claim, let 4
me put it that way, that even though we have a much 5
cleaner approach here than was originally foreseen 6
writing a
new set of standards instead of just 7
abstracting an existing set, I believe I heard you say 8
that the corporation should not have a lot of trouble 9
meeting these standards from a procedural point _of 10 view.
In other words --
11 MR. MORRIS:
We don't know of anything 12 that would preclude --
13 CHAIRMAN SELIN: By that I understand that 14 if they have trouble meeting them there Will be a 15 health and safety reason for meeting them, not just 16 the fact that we've taken a different form for our 17 standards from the orders, et cetera, under which i
18 they're operating.
19 MR. MORRIS:
Yes.
20 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
21 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
What type of doses 6
22 did DOE use in their accident analyses in the past?
23 MR. MORRIS:
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to various accidents.
2 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I E:ee.
3 MR.
MORRIS:
Those include some very 4
conservative assumptions in the accident analysis too.
5 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
But they didn't 6
conpare it with a particular threshold or anything?
7 MR. MORRIS:
I don't recall having seen 8
that.
9 Chuck?
10 MR. NILSEN:
(Slide)
If you go to slide 11 number 3, it sets out what we currently have put into 12 our standards.
We bave included the procedural 13 requirements, generally applicable NRC health and 14 safety safeguard requirements and then we've included 15 some specific requirements.
16 (Slide)
Slide number 4 is just a quick 17 overview of the procedural
- aspects, initial 18 certification denial and annual certification.
Trip 19 will go over this later in detail on slides 11 through 20 22.
I just wanted to bring it out here that these are i
21 the aspects of the certification procedure.
22 (Slide)
Slide number 5.
23 As indicated, we did start with Part 70 24 and there are many parts of 70 that are general enough 25 that we just went in and made the nodifications that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIDERS 1323 RHODr. ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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= sq 20 1
were required to get into this certification process, 2
the
- purpose, scope, definitions to follow what 3
procedures we really know.
4 Bullet number 2,
emergency planning, we 5
used the emergency planning of Part 70, which is the 6
four major fuel cycle facilities.
We modified it a 7
little bit to include what the gaseous diffusion 8
plants currently do.
They do go beyond what we 9
currently do in Part 70 for fuel cycle facilities and 10 we didn't feel it was appropriate just because we were 11 going to take over responsibility to back off on what 12 they were currently doing with respect to emergency 13 preparedness.
14 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
So they should not 15 need to change their emergency preparedness to meet 16
-what's proposed?
17 MR. NILSEN:
That's right.
We are not 18 backing off -- we have gone beyond Part 70 and 19 incorporating what they have currently done in their 20 practices at their facility.
21 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Before you turn the page, 22 don't read anything into this question in terms of a 23 predisposition, but looking at the health and safety 24 risks at these facilities compared to, say, the large 25 fuel facilities, do they justify having resident j
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inspectors'there?
2 MR. BERNERO:
Yes, I think they do, but 3
our minds are still open as to how many.
You may 4
recall in the initial discussions, especially when we 5
were considering the prospect of taking over July 1st, 6
'93, we even had numbers as high as four or five 7
resident inspectors per site.
But the mind's open.
8 We're looking at this and the internal operational 9
safety as against off-site risk does seem to warrant 10 it.
11 MR. NILSEN:
That takes care of the third 12 bullet on page S.
13 (Slide) Going to slide number 6, again we 14 get into the requirements in the application.
First l
15 of all, the safety analysis report, get into the 16 assessment of accidents.
Here we're looking at the 17 assessment of accidents which are reasonable 18 postulated accidents.
We don't want to get into the i
19 area of accidents that a normal person wouldn't 3
20 consider.
So, in this area we're looking at the --
21 and as defined we say a reasonable spectrum of 22 postulated accidents for these facilities.
DOE has --
23 well, the plants have been evaluated on this basis and l
24 we're just looking for that as part of the basis for 25 the staf f to go in and use these numerical objectives j
i l
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I (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433 l
s
, s.-
e y%g.gpyyg,gg, pq p yppy,;,pc,,,yg.g.,. g
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22 1
that we have included in the statement of 2
considerations on the regulation themselves for 3
assessing the level of protection for public health 4
and safety.
5 COMMISSIONER REMICK: What are you talking 6
about, tornadoes?
7 MR.
NILSEN:
We include natural 8
phenomenon.
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
And they have 10 analyzed them and --
11 MR. NILSEN:
They have analyzed them.
We 12 have not specified the natural phenomena frequencies 13 or anything else.
We have said we want an analysis of 14 the effects of natural phenomena, what they have i
15 analyzed their facilities for.
We're looking mainly I
16 at where they are now.
We're not putting any 1
17 additional criteria on, "Tell us where you're at and 18 what you've designed your facilities for."
19 (Slide)
Number 7.
c 20 We go into the quality assurance area. In 21 our question earlier we asked about quality assurance 22 and if we wanted to be specific with respect to 23 exactly telling them what we wanted or be more general 24 under the aspects of Part 50, Appendix B.
We chose to r
j 25 reference Appendix B to Part 50, specifying that they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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23 1
should be applied 'in a graded manner specific with the 2
significance of health and safety, recognizing we're 3
not going back to design or anything like this, we're 4
stopping with the aspect of where they operationally l
5 are now.
We're not going back and look at the design 6
of the facility and our people, in looking at the QA, 7
will look at it on the basis of how it meets the e
i 8
objectives of Part 50.
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
So, operational QA i
10 future modifications --
11 MR. NILSEN:
Right.
12 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
-- apply Part 50 or 13 all the reg. guides and NUREGs and things that are the 14 thing that people have trouble with that are the paper 15 trail, an excessive paper trail.
16 MR. MORRIS : Maybe I could mention what --
17 we have learned that there are documents that DOE, in 18 their
- letter, came back and recommended.
For 19 instance, I believe a quality assurance document that 9
20 they follow. When you look at the oversight document, 21 they have a set of orders related to quality assurance 22 there.
23 I think my model had been, and Bob might i
24 want to reflect on this too, is that what will happen 25 will be using these overarching performance objectives t
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24 1
They would develop their 2
own, however they felt they should develop, a program.
3 So, what we really say is develop a program, tell us 4
what your program is that meets these general 5
objectives.
So they could use in the reference in QA 6
1 and QA 2 any number of documents.
In fact, I 7
believe in QA 1
is mentioned in the oversight 8
document.
9 MR. NILSEN:
I would see no problem with 10 them coming in with that kind of a proposal or 11 submittal.
12 MR. BERNERO: Yes. They have suggested to 13 go with the DOE order system QA program which at first 14 blush appears to us to be, if
- anything, more 15 restrictive.
We're looking at that and we think that 16 would serve the purpose.
What we don't want to do is 17 lock in some unnecessary restriction here, you know, 18 that might come from that general order.
19 MR.
MORRIS:
The second bullet.
The 20 standards that we've written cover all enrichments, 21 recognizing that the Portsmouth facility at one time 22 did produce high enriched uranium and parts of that 23 facility are still contaminated with high-enriched 24 uranium.
So, we have incorporated all of the current 25 requirements, but again they are to be applied NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 234 4433 v.
u__..
s.
y y
l 25 i
1 commensurate with the operations.
Obviously, the 2
Paducah plant has never' produced anything greater than 3
two percent.
So, they wouldn't have to worry about 4
their restrictions of higher enriched materials.
And 5
in doing this we have used our own regulation, 6
existing regulations.
7 Bullet number three.
We have included in 8
f 8
the standards an aspect of requesting funding 9
considerations for the final deposition of the i
10 depleted uranium. In a statement of considerations we 2
11 have included the comment that we are asking 12 specifically for public comment in this area, not 13 recognizing fully in our conversations with OGC where 14 the NRC comes down in our responsibility for the 15 depleted uranium.
That point is specifically made in 16 the statement of considerations.
17 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE: I 'm sorry. What 18 was your conclusion on that, on the responsibility?
19 MR. BERNERO:
I wonder if I could speak to 20 it.
The issue is principally the depleted uranium 21 tails and let us set aside whether or not to call them 22 waste because that's a
separate argument.
But 23 certainly they're a residue of operation.
24 The act that sets up this lease 25 arrangement and everything gives clearly the
~
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assignment of decommissioning responsibility to DOE 2
and from the very beginning we have been looking at 3
USEC as a licensee or potential similarity to a 1
4 licensee and said that they should have assurance to 5
deal with these residues of operation.
The rule as j
6 structured says set aside a certain amount of funds 7
and you have the responsibility, USEC have the i
e 8
responsibility to pay for the disposition of those 9
residues generated while you had the keys. Presumably I
10 those funds would go to DOE later.
l i
11
- However, by the statement of j
12 considerations, if you read the passage that discusses j
i 13 it, certainly it could be deemed part of 14 decommissioning.
There is a bridging lease agreement 15 whereby DOE says, "Here's how much you have to pay us 16 and here's what we do and this is what we provide and 17 this is what you provide." Certainly USEC and DOE can 18 reach some agreement to deal with the matter 19 separately from what a pure licensee would have to do.
20 So, the story is open.
21 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Let me try this a little 22 bit differently. Okay? We have a situation where the 23 government is clearly responsible for decommissioning 24 this site.
However, what has to be contributed by the 25 cert. fee, or whatever we want to call it, USEC, is as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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27.
1 much going to be set by contract between them and the p
2 government as anything else.
So, we don't really. know 3
what we require.
What we require is that there be 4
some provision, some enforcement provision for.
5 decommissioning the site when it's all done and o
6 whether that form is an escrow amount that USEC will 7
have to contribute to DOE or not depends on things 8
that we may not know yet,- namely the contractual 9
relationship between DOE and USEC.
But what we don't 10 want to do is be in a situation 20 years from now, 30-11 years from now, 10 years from now where DOE says,-
12 "We're only responsible for the status quo ante.
It's 13 up to USEC," and nobody has forced USEC to put aside 14 the funds to cover these arrangements.
15 So, any of a number of arrangements will 16 satisfy us, but the combination of DOE and USEC has to 17 come forward and say, "Here is an arrangement that's 18 satisfactory to both of us which will cover 19 decommissioning."
Now, is that right?
e 20 MR. BERNERO:
Yes, that's exactly what we e
21 did.
22 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Trip is squirming around 23 here.
So, let me see what he has to say.
24 MR. BERNERO:
The rule is structured the 25 same way we operate with a proposed licensee.
In NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
28 1
other words, that funding assurance for disposition of 2
the residues is one acceptable way to do it.
If DOE 3
and USEC come out in joint comment, so to speak, on 4
the proposed rule to say, "No, here is a contractual 5
arrangement to provide the assurance of disposition,"
e 6
so that everyone knows that there is not going to be 7
orphan material at the end of the lease, that's the 8
whole purpose.
We want to avoid orphan material that 9
was unplanned for.
10 So, this material generated during the 11 period of the lease either has to have some sort of 12 reasonable assured funding set aside for it or some 13 contractual arrangement whereby the government will 14 accept that responsibility.
15 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Mr. Rothschild?
16 MR.
ROTHSCHILD:
I'm going to talk a 17 little bit about the statutory scheme a little bit.
18 The statutory scheme sets aside a fund under the act 19 to pay for the decommissioning, where the corporation 20 puts some money and Congress throws some money and the 21 utilities throw some money into a fund.
When this 22 legislation was being negotiated we had several 23 meetings with the Executive Branch as well as the Hill 24 talk about this and say, "Well, there's really not an 25 explicit provision in the legislation that says NRC's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE IStAND AVENUE, N W.
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~
[
1 decommissioning regs are to apply or that what are we 2
supposed to do if we don't like'the funding amounts of 3
the scheme and think we want to impose additional 4
requirements on them."
5 I think we've tried to get Congress to e
6 deal with the issue, to either recognize we had some P
7 role in there or to say, "This 'is the exclusive scheme 8
and NRC keep your hands out of the area."
Congress 9
didn't either. They re.mained silent and really didn't 10 address an NRC role.
I think by failing to provide 11 for NRC regulations applying and setting up this 12 decommissioning fund there doesn't seem to be any 13 contemplation that NRC could go beyond this.
It 14 almost leaves an implication with you when you road 15 the thing that decommissioning is really not NRC's i
16 concern at all, that that's going to become - DOE 's.
17 problem and the corporation's problems when-the 18 facilities are no longer operating.
-]
f 19 I think the staff has done a good job in 20 this Federal Recister notice of saying, "We're not w
21 quite sure whether under those circumstances we should 22 be setting decommissioning requirements and requiring 1
23 those kinds of assurances."
That may really be a j
24 matter between DOE and the corporation and maybe 25 that's what Congress contemplated. I think what we've NEAL R. GROSS i
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left is a pioposed rule that gives us flexibility, 2
that we can go look at comments on the issue and then 3
when we make a final rule decision, at that point we 4
can make a
decision exact.'y what we want our 5
jurisdiction to be in that particular area.
But I e
6 think it's best right now to leave the issue open and 7
let's see where the public comments come in on the 8
question.
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
10 MR. NILSEN:
I thank my colleagues for 11 bailing me out.
12 (Slide)
If you look at slide number 8, we 13 have identified several regulations as being 14 applicable, Part 19, 20, 21.
Twenty-six says it 15 applies to any materials where they may have the types 16 of materials that are covered with respect to the
)
17 titness-for-duty programs.
18 COMMISSIONER REMICK: What impact, if any, 19 is Part 26 on them?
I assume they have some kind of 20 fitness-for-duty program now.
Is it consistent with
?.
26 or not?
w 22 MR. NILSEN:
They have some fitness-for-23 duty program.
Twenty-six would only kick in if they 24 had the -- what do you call it, the proper amount.
1 25 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
Yes.
Actually, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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act forbids the corporation from making high enriched 2
It's solely for the purpose of low enriched 3
uranium production.
One can speculate about the 4
possibilities.
Not only the HEU that's in the 5
process, but for instance the much discussed Russian e
6 HEU could be brought back and blended in some way, t
7 There's a great effort on the part of the 8
corporation to avoid being a category 1 facility with 9
all the bells-and whistles that go with it.
This 10 applicability of Part 26 fitness-for-duty is 11 conditional.
It's only if they get into the category 12 1 standing.
So, they're not required for LEU.
13 MR.
NILSEN:
(Slide)
_ Slide ' number 9 14 identifies the additional standards which are used.
15 A lot of these are mainly associated with the physical 16 protection, material control and accountability.
We 17 didn't want to go in and repeat everything, so a lot 18 of these are referenced in our standards.
19 COMMISSIONER REMICK: What's the impact of 20 Part 73 on their. current security plans?
21 MR. MORRIS:
I believe it was mentioned in 22 the letter that we sent to DOE.
From what I recall, 23 they came back and said they didn't know of any reason 24 that that would be a hardship.
I'd have to check to 25 make sure that was referenced in the' letter, that they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVEN'i, N W.
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32 1
did mention it.
2 MR. NILSEN: As a matter of fact, the USEC 3
draft document actually spells out that they will mest j
4 Part 73.
5 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
The reason I e
6 ask is it's, in my mind, quite prescriptive and I 7
didn't know if it would be inconsistent.
I assume 8
they have an adequate security plan.
But you're I
9 saying it's apparently no big deal.
10 MR. BERNERO:
I think you're aware of the 11 correspondence we've had with DOE about the CRD data, 32 protection of the data, protection of the material and 13 the division of responsibility with DOE.
That is 14 affected here too.
We have reached an agreement, a 15 tentative agreement on that.
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
I think you 17 introduced another question I had. Apparently they're 18 going to continue to issue security clearances?
19 MR. NILSEN:
Yes.
20 COMMISSIONER REMICK: And I recently heard 21 from a DOE person that they spend no more than three 22 FTE on that effort.
Why is the reason that we can't 23 absorb that activity?
It's not clear to me.
24 MR.
TAYLOR:
We looked at that very 25 carefully.
In fact, we estimated the FTE is higher.
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1 I didn't hear that three FTE.
There's some ongoing 2
litigation because of denied clearances which would 3
require OGC help.
We looked at that package and this 4
was a
matter of discussion between us and the 5
department and they agreed.
We were not planning on o
6 taking that responsibility.
7 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
No, I understand.
'I 8
But what I recently heard --
9
'MR.
TAYLOR:
And the resolution was they i
10 agreed to keep it.
11 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
They don't know how many 12 they have because they have a set of people who do 13 that among other tasks.
1 1
14 MR. TAYLOR:
It is melded in with their i
15 other programs.
l 16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
So, they have to make an 1
17 estimate among their contract operations.
18 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
This came from'the 19 Acting Assistant Secretary.
Acting Director, excuse 1
20 me.
i 21 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
The Division of Security 22 sent out a -- we'll call it a questionnaire to DOE as
-23 part of this process and they gave us a very' detailed 24 statement of how many hours on all the various aspects j
i I
25 of the security thing and how many people they did, R
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and we'll be glad to provide that to you.
2 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
- Yes, I'd 3
appreciate that.
4 MR. BERNERO:
Y.a s.
Commissioner Remick, 5
on page 4 of the Commission paper on the subject of 6
resources, we addressed this division of 7
responsibility and the parts that we were absorbing 8
and would cover by reprogramming.
It's a few FTE.
9 But it's not that part.
It's not that part.
10 MR. NILSEN:
(Slide)
Slide number 10.
11 The first bullet speaks to the fact that 12 we have included an amendment to Part 51 with respect 13 to a categorical exclusion for the certification of 14 these facilities.
15 Bullet number 2, we have included a 50.59 16 type change which is a change that the facility --
17 that they will be able to make without prior 18 Commission authorization based on the criteria that 19 we've established, no new unreviewed safety items _or 4
20 unreviewed safety items, no increase in health and 21 safety, no increase in the impact on the health and 22 safety of the public.
23 Number 3 bullet, DOE and USEC both asked 24 for a backfit consideration. We have not included the 25 backfit consideration.
We don't have backfit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIDERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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considerations in our fuel cycle and we believe that 2
at this time it's premature to try to indicate _or put 3
down what a backfit consideration would be.
In any 4
amendments or actions that we take, we always are 5
required to provide the -- do an analysis, cost impact 6
anyway.
So, we feel at this time backfit analysis is 7
not -- a backfit rulemaking is not required.
8 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I thought we were 9
giving some consideration to a backfit rule for fuel, 10 major material licensees.
I thought that was one of 11 the strong recommendations from the -- not regulatory 12 review group.
What do I want to say?
The --
13 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Impact group.
3 14 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
15 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Impact study.
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
- Yes, the impact 17 survey.
18 MR. BERNERO:
. Regulatory impact survey.
19 Well, that's still under consideration.
But to focus e
20 on tLe enrichment plants, our whole approach is 21 cemething of a - backfit rule.
We're saying that 22 presumably the operational safety of these facilities 23 yesterday and today is going to be held to more or 24 less the same standard when we take over regulatory 25 jurisdiction.
But there isn't even a' logical basis NEAL R. GROSS COUAT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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for a backfit rule here.
What would you define the 2
status quo ante?
The regulatory process is this 3
melange of orders and contracts and we just don't have 4
the regulatory history or experience to be able to 5
say, "Okay, this is the level of adequate protection 6
and previous rulings and previous acceptances, and 7
then anything beyond this has to be justified."
We 8
just don't have that.
9 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I think if I was in 10 their situation I'd want to be sure that the staff 11 wouldn't come along with all kinds of ideas of things, 12 improvements that should be made and there'd be some 13 kind of a criteria for doing that like 50.109 provides 14 in the reactor area.
It seems like, to me, a logical 15
-- I don't follow your argument.
It's not possible to 16 have something like that.
We just don't have the 17 history.
18 MR. BERNERO:
A regulatory analysis for a 19 rulemaking, properly done, goes a long way to do the 20 same thing.
21 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
No, I'm talking 22 about the future.
Five years down the road the staff 23 comes up with an idea, "We think you should make this j
i 24 modification to the facility.
We think it's a good 25 idea,"
and there's no provision for determining i
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'l I
whether it's needed for adequate protection, whether 2
.it's a cost beneficial backfit or.what.
I guess I
]
3 don't'quite see the --
4 MR. TAYLOR:
We don't have a license to j
5 amend as we may in a current existing facility.
We j
O 6
don't actually issue a license.
7 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Ah, that's a' good 8
point.
9 MR. TAYLOR:
There's a big difference.
]
10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I don't see a
11 paralle).
I get your point.
It seems to me that 12 there's no basis on which -- there's no baseline on 13 which to do the backfit analysis.
14 MR. BERNERO: But I think the Commissioner 15 is suggesting that perhaps after we certify the first 16 time, the second time and the third time there could 17 be some historic basis then.
My. focus is on the 18 first acceptances.
19 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
No, I
wasn't
.s 20 thinking for the rulemaking, no.
But I agree.
I-21 guess there is not a license.
2.2 MR; TAYLOR:
If we you know, it's' 23 speculative to say that we would find something like 24 this that would cause us to hold up certification.
It 25 would certainly be a very big issue and public matter j
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38 1
if it were something like that which would be in front 2
of the Commission and all of us at that time.
So, I'm 3
sure we'd analyze it.
But there is not a license to 4
amend, which is what we traditionally have done in the 5
current fuel facilities.
~
6 CCMMISSIONER REMICK: Any legal comment on 7
appropriateness of a backfit provision?
8 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
I think that's a policy 9
decision for the Commission.
Obviously there's a lot 10 of merit in the staff argument because we have so 11 little experience with these facilities.
It's very
~
12 hard at this point even the first or second year to 13 say we really want to make it more difficult for us to 14 change things.
I think you want to have enough 15 experience where you can feel confident before you 16 even impose such a requirement.
That's really a 17 policy call for the Commission.
18 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Didn't we have a 19 backfit rule for reactors long before we had much 9
20 experience?
I'm not thinking about the provisions, 21 the improvements in 50.109 in the '80s, but 50.109 22 goes back pretty far.
23 MR.
ROTHSCHILD:
I can't answer that 24 question for you.
25 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Okay.
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39-1 MR. NILSEN:
We'll turn it over te Trip 2
now.
He'll go through 11 through 22 on --
3 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I hope that that 4
will be addressed in the public comments.
5 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Let's not get off-this 6
quite so fast.
I just want to make sure I understand 7
the arguments.
8 Mr.
Bernero is saying that if you're 9
comparing the first application of our proposed rule 10 to the status quo ante, the concept of a backfit is 11 too badly defined.
So, what we're saying is you're 12 asking the Commission to look at a set of standards 13 and say, "This is our regulation for the first time we 14 tried to certify."
Although you've done a lot of 15 analyses to indicate that they shouldn't really have 16 trouble meeting these regulations, you're not prepared 17 to make a strict statement that says we haven't in 18 some place made more rigorous regulation than what 19 they've had before.
It's too hard even to figure out t
20 what that is, let alone have to justify it with the 21 strict cost benefit analysis.
22 That's what you're saying, isn't it, Mr.
23
.Bernero?.
24 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
'I 25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
Then the question i
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40 l
1 comes, well, what about the second, third or fourth 2
application?
I believe it's Commissioner Remick's 3
major point that the second time we apply, the third 4
time, what's to keep us from just sort of tightening 5
the screws five percent each time we apply the rules.
6 Is it not reasonable to say, once we get these rules 7
down, there might be even a transition period that 8
goes beyond one certification? So, to the point where 9
the regulatory history is under NRC, not under DOE, 10 that there be a threshold that has to be passed before 11 a change in rules, implementation, et cetera, be made.
12 I
don't think you've addressed that 13 question, have you?
14 MR.
BERNERO:
- Well, I
did it only 15 partially.
Let me put it this way.
In the present
.)
16 stage where we're formulating our standards, our 17 rules, and we're looking at what they have done and I
l 18 what they have and what their requirements are, we're l
19 in a period of safety discovery.
We're discovering j
20 what did you require and how did you comply with it?
1 21 What is there?
That period of safety discovery will.
22 actually continue after we take regulatory 23 jurisdiction.
I don't think we're going to be 24 brilliant on the first day and know everything there 25 is to know about these plants.
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1 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
The first day.is October
-l 2
1st, 1994, October 1st, 1995.
3 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
And I think in the 4
second certification or the third there may indeed be 5
a potential to discover -- come to think of it, the 6
seismic restraints on the pipes at Paducah are really 7
not operationally safe, even for a --
i 8
COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I'd say -it's a
)
9 question of adequate protection in that case.
10 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
Yes.
11 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Yes.
Then it 12 would pass.
13 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
That it would pass.
14 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
It would pass 15 with a backfit.
16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
The problem I have with 17 this discussion, and even though I prolonged it I 18 don't want to prolong it much further, is the question 19 is backfit with respect to what?
The backfit with 20 respect to the current situation, the DOE situation, 21 that's sort of irrelevant.
We're going to pass a-. set 22 of. rules and it's a perfectly reasonable question for 23 the Commission to ask, "How does this compare with t
24 today's situation?" It's perfectly reasonable for the 25 staff to say, "We're not exactly sure.
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comfortable."
We've done some analyses and we will 2
look at these rules, I assume, on their own merits and 3
.say they're reasonable or they're not reasonable.
4 The second possible answer is between, 5
say, the first and the third certification when we're 6
still finding out what's really there, where one might 7
argue that the first one is the baseline or one might 8
argue it takes a couple of cycles to get through.
t 9
Then the third possibility is thereafter. I certainly 10 think saying a backfit rule for thereafter is not 11 called for might be cavalier. A backfit rule compared 12 to the 1993 operations, in my opinion, is able ill-13 defined because we don't know exactly what they're 14 doing.
We don't intend to make things much tougher 15 unless we have a good reason, but we might do so.
So, 16 in the discussions, in my opinion, it would be very 17 good in the actual published rule to concentrate on --
18 to not just use the phrase "backfit rule," but backfit 19 compared to what.
That's a point that I think is 20 worthy in the future, not now.
21 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
I would just add that 22 using the example I cited of seismic restraints, the 23 safety analysis done by the Department of Energy is 24 itself a backfit consideration.
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Nobody is arguing that in NEAL R. GROSS CoORT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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the absence of a backfit' rule the staff is going to 1
2 run roughshod over DOE.
j
-l 3
MR. BERNERO:
But the rule as presently 4
drawn for many significant things, like -seismic 5
analysis, is basically saying do a hazard analysis or 6
a seismic risk analysis and I'll tell you if it looks i
7 good enough.
You know, to change it, I don't change 8
the rule, I change the acceptability of the analysis.
1 9
To evoke adequate protection --
10 CHAIRMAN SELIN: That's the first time you i
11 certify, right?
I mean you're talking about do this 12 analysis for the first certification.
13 MR.
BERNERO:
Well, yes, the analysis 14 exists.
In f act, it's spelled out in the appendix 15 here.
16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I think Commissioner 17 Remick's concern, I-know my concern would be that you 18 would go through the analysis a second time in 1996 19 and say, "Well, that was good enough for 1995, but on e-20 reflection maybe we should tighten it up and 21 require tougher standards."
22 MR. BERNERO:
That's exactly my concern 23 too.-
It may be justified.
24 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
If I look at it from I
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every year certify.
2 MR. BEPEERO:
Exactly.
3 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
And we could put a 4
lot of leverage --
5 MR.
BERNERO:
It's a
serious 6
responsibility.
7 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
And I can't worry.
8 I can understand how they would be concerned about 9
some kind of a criteria for determination of backfit 10 in the future.
I'm not talking about now.
11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, if I could 12 just say something on this.
The letter, the answer to 13 you on the July 19th letter, if I read it correctly, 14 on page 5 says, "In our judgment, the certification 15 process for the GPD should more nearly resemble a 16 backfitting process for an existing facility rather 17 than the licensing process for a facility not yet 18 completely designed or constructed.
That's the very 19 first certification, as far as I can read into that.
20 I can't buy that point of view at all.
I feel there 21 isn't any basis yet established.
22 Now, your concern, Commissioner Remick, of 23 once the thing's been certified a couple of times, 24 ratcheting up, there I would be concerned about that 25 too.
But this view that DOE expressed in their July NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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1 19th
' letter simply says the entire initial 2
certification process should be regarded as a backfit.
3 That, I can't buy.
4 MR. BERNERO:
Can't be complete.
5 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No.
6 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Let me take over from 7
here.
As you know, lawyers love to talk about 8
procedure.
So, I'd like to indulge you perhaps in a 9
little more detail than what staff has done on the 10 technical requirements so that you understand how this 11 process would work.
12 There are really two fundamental questions 13 that the Commission needs to think about.
One is what 14 form and when do you want public participation in the 15 certification process. The second question is when do 16 you want the Commission itself to get involved in the 17 certification decisions and process.
18 We're lucky in a certain extent with the-19 statute.
I think it's the'only statute we have that.
'l q
20 basically gives us unfettered discretion procedurally.
i 21 That gives'the Commission lots of opportunity to use i
22 their sound judgment and come up with a good solid-23 process without a lot of~ constraints.
The one dark-24 cloud that.we have hanging over us-though.is this 25 requirement that we certify annually.
We've got to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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develop a process so we end up with a speedy decision.
2 We've got to allow time both for the corporation to be r
3 able to file an application with the Commission and 4
we've got to allow some time for the staff to do a 5
meaningful review of the application and to get an 6
agency decision by the Commission itself.
7 (Slide)
The next slide really deals --
8 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Before you get off that, 9
when I read this document I really did an honest job 10 of trying to read it rather thoroughly beforehand.
I 11 was curious as to what filled up 400 pages and, in 12 fact, there's a lot of material there.
13 Is there anything in your opinion in the 14 statute or in good practice that requires us to do a 15 positive certification each year'as opposed to just 16 say, what's new since we certified last year, look at
=
17 the changes, say they do or don't add up to anything 18 significant and then maybe once in five years do a 19 true bottom-up recertification?
Would that be e
20 inconsistent with the statute?
21 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
I think that basically 22 could be done.
I think you're going to have to make 23 an initial positive finding.
And then I think in the 24 initial' reviews you're going to technically in a paper 25 you're going to have to make a positive finding, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 you can certainly direct the staff to look at the 2
changes, tell the applicant not to submit a whole new 3
application every year, but just update what portions 4
need to be updated and focus on the changes and if the 5
Commission is satisfied that the changes are 6
consistent with public health and safety in the
~
7 regulations, go ahead and issue the certificate for 8
the year.
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN: What about the next part?
10 Could we on our own say this process requires a review 11 of updates say every four years, but every fif th' year 12 we would want to look not just-at the --
13 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Do a more thorough and go 14 back to the baseline?
I think you've got discretion 15 to do that, if you wanted to do that kind of process, 16 as long as every year you submitted a report ' to 17 Congress saying that you were satisfied.it was 18 satisfying regulatory requirements.
That's basically 19 your minimum requirement.
How you-get there, you've e
20 got a lot of discretion.
21 The statutory requirements are really 22 quite bare,. but I thought I'd like'to point out a R
23 couple of nuances as we go through.
24 One, we've got to establish certification 25 regulations.
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The second one, the corporation must apply 2
annually with the Commission and we must consult with 3
EPA as part of the process.
I'll discuss later what 4
the nature of that EPA consultation will be.
We also 5
must provide Congress with an annual report.
o 6
- Now, the annual report is interesting 7
because we've got to give them a status report on the 8
facilities.
It's got to include the determination, 9
whether they're in compliance with applicable 10 standards or if they're not whether we've approved a 11 compliance plan.
It's also got some interesting loose 12 words that say we've also got to advise them whether 13 they -- the report needs to contain, is a better way 14 of putting it, the discussion of whether they're in 15 compliance with all applicable laws.
Well, as you 16 know, under the statute NRC does not have plenary 17 authority over the facilities.
EPA will have 18 authority for the Clean Air Act, for RCRA, for Clean 19 Water Act, and I presume what this provision means is 20 that part of our report, when we get EPA comments, 21 that EPA will somehow tell us as part of their 22 submission whether they're in compliance with Clean i
23 Water Act and other laws, and then we'll attach that 24 to the back of our report.
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
So, if EPA is late, we ' re NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433 L
49 1
not in compliance with the law?
2 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Well, I think we will do 3
-- EPA, as part of this process, is apparently willing 4
to give us views in the same time as public comments 5
and we'll get to that in a minute.
We should have EPA e
6 views in plenty of time.
I think we're going-to do 7
the best we can.
Maybe we can -- if we get-in that 8
box we'll tell Congress we've done what we can and 9
they should -- further submissions will come in from 10 EPA.
We're going to obviously, as this process goes 11 along and we get closer to actual certification, we're 12 going to need to work out and fine tune some of these i
13 details with EPA.
But that statutory language there 14 on the nature of the report is a little bit broader 15 than our regulatory jurisdiction and I just wanted you 16 to be aware of that nuance.
17 One of the other little interesting 18 nuances is what does an annual report mean.
Does that 19 mean every 12 months or does that mean once a year?
i s
20 The way we would like to interpret the statute is 21 really once a calendar year, which basically means 22 let's say we finish a certification process one year 23 on October 30th.
The next year we wouldn't view that 24 as an October 30th deadline for our next report to 25 Congress, we'd view that as a December 31st deadline.
F NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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Obviously the later in the year we make the decision 2
the less time it gives us the next year to make a 3
decision.
So, we need to be careful there.
But I 4
-think we're going to try to use the flexibility that 5
seems to be inherent in the law to give us the maximum o
6 amount of time that we need in order to make a 7
meaningful certification decision.
8 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Can we specify the 9
third quarter or the fourth quarter of each calendar 10 year or something like that?
11 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Yes.
We're going to go 12 through when we get to the regs. and the schedule in 13 here and we'll try to get at some detail as far as a 14 projected schedule.
15 The corporation obviously cannot operate 16 the facilities without an affirmative NRC findings.
17 That means either we've got to issue a certificate or 18 we've got to approve a compliance plan.
The other 19 important requirements are certificates in lieu of a 20 license.
21 We've had bare minimum of a statutory 22 framework, for which we're thankful.
We now sat down 23 with OGC sat down with the staff to develop the 24 procedures and the procedures that you see were 25 largely developed by Grace Kim and Roger Davis in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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Office of the General Counsel did most of the 2
thinking.
3 One of the first questions we came up with 4
was do we want the two applications to'come in at the 5
same time for both facilities or do we want them-6 staggered?
Which is better from a staf f ' review 0
7 perspective?
And the NRC staff came back to OGC and 8
said, "We think they're better both to come in at the' 9
same time because a lot of the issues will be common 10 to the two f acilities and it's probably better for the 11 staff to grapple with the two together at the same 12 time."
13 My understanding is the staff has 14 informally discussed that with the corporation and 15 that approach is acceptable to the corporation as 16 well.
17 Working backwards, really when you look at I
18 the back end and you start moving the process forward, 19 you realize if there's any hope of. completing the 4
20 process a year you've got to have the application in 21 by April 15th and that is really pushing things.
22 That's calling for a late December Commission decision 23 if you have an April.15th starting date.
24 As the staf f has noted, the requirement is 25 that the initial regs be published by October for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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first application rather than --
2 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Excuse me.
Are you 3
assuming that the Commission itself has to vote on 4
this when you're saying you've got to have it by April 5
15th?
e 6
MR. ROTHSCHILD: We've got a process along 7
those lines and that's something we'll talk about in 8
a minute. We're talking about a Commissioners' review 9
process, not necessarily a vote, but we've got a 10 process where the staff would make the initial 11 decision and people could appeal that to the 12 Commission and the final effective decision would be 13 the one by the Commission itself.
But I'll walk you 14 through that in a minute if you can bear with me a 15 second.
16 The first rules are due out by the end of 17 October, like October 23rd,
'94.
I think it would 18 actually be helpful if we got the regulations out a 19 little bit earlier than that because I think the
-g 20 initial plan is for the first application we would 21 have the corporation file the application six months 22 after the' rule was promulgated.
So, for example, we 23 could get this rule out in August.
We could maybe get 24 the corporation's application in February, which would 25 be nice and would give us a little more time the' first NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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year because I think everyone envisions that the first 2
year will be the most difficult and challenging year 3
for review process and therefore I'd urge the 4
Commission to get the proposed rule out in the street 5
as soon as we can so that maybe we can get this rule 6
into effect a little bit earlier than the statutory 7
mandated date.
8 The application that the corporation will 9
file must include a compliance plan if they are aware 10 of areas that they are not in compliance with with NRC 11 regulations.
We are not requiring under these 12 proposed regulations any kind of NEPA submissions, as 13 you know, for the standard application.
We've got-a 14 categorical exclusion which Chuck talked about a few 15 minutes ago.
- However, if the licensee is not in 16 compliance with the regulations and knows it, it would 17 be required as part of its compliance plan to submit 18 some information that we.could use in an environmental 19 assessment and we would then look and see what the 20 particular deviation is and determine whether we 21 needed to promulgate an environmental assessment.
If 22 they're talking about not meeting some kind of j
23 radiological requirements, you may very well need to 1
24 do an environmental assessment.
If it's a procedural 25 requirement that they're not in or a reporting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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requirement they're not in compliance with, you may 2
very well decide that no further environmental 3
document needs to be promulgated by the NRC.
But we 4
did leave open the question of whether environmental 5
assessments would be required if the licensee is not 6
in compliance with all NRC requirements.
7 Once staf f got the application, they would 8
not do a predocketing review like they do on power 9
reactor applications, apparently, to make sure it was 10 complete and everything.
Because of the time frames, 11 the game plan would be to take what the corporation 12 has and immediately publish a Federal Reaister notice 13 saying we have received an application, and solicit 14 written public comments from members of the public.
15 As I
mentioned
- earlier, there's no statutory 16 requirement for any public participation, but we think 17 this makes sense and would enhance our information 18 base in which to make a decision and would enhance the 19 credibility of the Commission's decision.
20 The regulation does not itself prescribe 21 how long the comment period would be.
The staff t
22 expectation at this point, it would probably be a 30 23 day public comment period because of the tight time 24 constraints required in making the regulatory 25 decision.
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At the same time that we-went out for 2
public comments we would solicit EPA's views.
Staff 3
has' talked to EPA about this informally and'apparently 4
at this point EPA staff is prepared to give NRC views 5
within the 30 day time frame that the members of the 6
public would have.
EPA and the NRC staff are talking 7
about a regular program of consultations between the 8
two agencies where they would have periodic meetings 9
on a regular basis.
EPA does have some jurisdiction 10 over the facilities. They're aware of what's going on 11 at the facilities and by having this regular dialogue 12 throughout the year it's anticipated that EPA may not 13 have too much to say when it comes-down to actually 14 giving us formal comments as part of this comment 15 period.
16 As far as public meetings on the 17 application of the rule itself, it leaves that as a 18 matter of discretion of the Director of NMSS whether 19 we would have public meetings each year.
The c
20 statement of considerations accompanying' the rule says z
21 for the year we are going to have public meetings.
22 We're going to go have public meetings at each of the~
23 two sites and thereaf ter it would be a matter of 24 staff's discretion.
As a result of the first year's 25 experience under NRC regulations there are lots of-1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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questions, there's a lot of public interest, there's 2
a lot of Intters coming in and everything else,.the 3
staff may very well in future years want to go out and 4
have future meetings at the site and we'll just 5
proceed on a case by case basis and maximize our.
6 flexibility there, but guaranteeing the meeting the 7
first year.
8 The decision that would be made would be 9
based on information contained in the record.
So, 10 staff may have lots of meetings with the corporation, 11 with members of the public and everything else.
If 12 information at these meetings the staf f relies upon in 13 making decisions is needed, it will be put into the 14 public docket so that we will be part of the official 15 record of the agency.
The contemplation is the entire 16 record would be public except for any portions that 17 would be proprietary information or classified 18 national security information should that need to be i
19 part of the record.
20 The game plan under the proposed regs is i
21 the NMSS director would render a written decision 22 within six months after receipt of the application, 23 which means if you talk about an April 15th 24 application date you're talking about an October 15th 25 NMSS decision.
Certainly with respect to the first NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 F4HODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W-(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 2000$
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57 1
decision the staff contemplates consulting with the 2
Commission first before they issue any kind of 3
decision.
Personally I could envision at least one 4
Commission meeting before staff wrote anything where 5
they'd want to sit down and brief the Commission and 6
talk about their experiences and what they were 7
inclined to include to see what kind of input they 8
wanted to receive from the Commission, at least for 9
the first certification.
10 I think the degree of staff consultation 11 with the Commission in future years I think-will in 12 large part depend on level of Commission interest and 13 what the experiences have been with the operation of 14 the facilities.
15 If, as part of the review of the 16 application, staf f determines that the corporation is 17 not in compliance with some NRC reg, they would be 18 given an opportunity to rectify that efficiency or to 19 submit a compliance plan with the NRC.
If, in the
-4 20 middle of the process, the corporation does submit a 21 compliance plan to the NRC, we have not provided for 22 any kind of mandatory public participation.
I think 23 what would happen then we would deal with that on a 24 case by case basis.
One, we would have to go to EPA 25 and get their views on any compliance plan and that's NEAL R.' GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRtBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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in the regs.
But other than the EPA consultation, 2
depending on what the issues and how early in the 3
process it is, you may or may not want to put another 4
Federal Reaiste_t notice asking for any public_
5 comments.
You may want to hold public meetings.
6 I think a lot is going to depend on what 7
the deviation is, how late in the process it is, 8
what's the significance of the deviation and I think 9
we just want to mandate total flexibility in that 10 regard as far as what kind of procedures we would use 11 on any kind of late filed compliance plan that arise 12 from a staff review of the application.
13 After the staff makes the decision, we 14 would publish the decision in the Federal Reaister.
15 During this whole process, we would not impose ex 16 parte or separation of function rules, which means the 17 corporation, members of the public and the NRC staff l
18 would be able to talk with anyone without any kind of 19 legal constraints.
Now, as part of staff's open 20 meeting policy, meetings with the corporation are 21 going to be open to the public unless portions involve 22 classified information or proprietary data, but it 23 will give the corporation the opportunity or anyone 24 else to talk to the Commission or staff as they need 25 appropriate and it will give the Commission unfettered NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 access to the staff to talk about any issues of i
2 concern to the Commission.
3 The only concern will be is if there's 4
factual information or other information that you're 5
going to rely upon in making a decision, we're going 6
to have to make sure those communications are made 7
public so it's part of the record of the proceeding.
8 I assume also as part of the consultation 9
process -- I focused on EPA, but OSHA does have some 10 jurisdiction over the facilities and although it's not 11 provided for in the regulations, the staff's intent 12 would be to definitely consult with OSHA as part'of 13 the process.
I think we're also going to want to'be i
14 talking to the state and local governments that are 15 involved as well and make sure that their views are 16 heard as part of the process.
But we sort-of crafted 17 these regulations to maximize our flexibility.
18 (Slide)
Now I want to turn to slide 16 is 19 where I'm at now.
I've got a mistake on the slide I 20 want to rectify.
The slide itself is correct, but 21 what was handed out as part of the package is
[
22 incorrec'.
23 The slide says, within 30 days after 24 publication of decision, the corporation or members of 25 the public may file a petition seeking Commission NEAL R. GROSS i
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review.
That should be 15 days, not 30 days.
2 Basically we decided that before anyone 3
has.an opportunity to go to court on the matter we 4
should establish a process that gives the agency a 5
chance to rectify any mistakes it made in its decision a
6 or if anyone comes up with any new information or 7
anything we failed to consider to fully address the 8
matter.
9 What we've provided for in the process 10 then is that members of the public or the corporation 11 could file a petition for review with the Commission.
12 The corporation, for example, could find that they 13 were dissatisfied with one of the conditions we 14 imposed upon them and wanted to challenge it and asked 15 us to reconsider.
The Commission will receive such 16 petitions. We would allow other interested persons to 17 respond to the petition within ten days.
18 One of the interesting questions that we 19 had to deal with was, "Well, who are you going to 20 allow to appeal the decision since you really don't 21 have a formal licensing process or romething else and 22 you really don't have parties?"
What this proposed 23 rule suggests is that anyone who submitted written 24 comments or anyone who actually spoke at one of the 25 public meetings would, in effect, have standing to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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61 1
able to petition the Commission to reconsider or to 2
modify the Director's decision.
3 Unless the Commission granted the petition 4
or otherwise acted within a 60 day time period, the 5
Director's initial decision would become final agency 6
act!on and it would become effective then at that 7
point.
This is unlike the power reactor licensing 8
process where usually the initial decision after a 9
Commission review becomes immediately effective during 10 administrative appeals.
We decided in this process 11 that it was best because of the short time frame and 12 the Commission involving to let's not have anything 13 effective or not let anyone go into court until the 14 Commission had finished its review of the matter.
If 15 you add the 60 days onto the October 15th thing, we 16 end up in the end of December and hope you'll all be 17 here right after Christmas to make a decision.
10 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
It only takes three to 19 make a quorum.
20 MR.
ROTHSCHILD:
We've given the 21 Commission a lot of latitude as far as the procedures 22 that it wants to use in its review of the petitions.
23 We are going to allow the Commission by order to do 24 whatever it wants to do.
Basically we'd use normal 25 process.
If you want written views of the parties in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TAANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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some particular ratio, you could do so.
If you wanted t
f 2
to have oral arguments you could request oral argument 3
by participants.
.If you even wanted to refer some 4
factual issue to a licensing board for some long-term l
5 resolution of a factual issue, you'd have the capacity 6
to do that.
7 After the Commission issues the 8
certificate, the corporation will have the capacity to 9
ask the Commission to amend the certificate. 'We will l
10 have a 50.59 process that the staff has alluded to 11 earlier that will allow them to make minor changes 12 without prior NRC review.
But if they want major 13 changes they're going to need to come to the NRC.
14 We've again used our statutory flexibility to maximize 15 our procedural flexibility.
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Trip, excuse me.
17 I'm having a little bit of problem with amending the 18 certificate versus -- I'm a little bit lost here.
1 19 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
If I'm using the word 1
20
" license," I shouldn't be.
I'm talking amending the 1
21 certificate.
.j 22 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
That's where I'm
)
23 having the problem.
What's the certificate' going to
-]
24 be?
25 MR.
ROTHSCHILD:
Well, we've issued a NEAL R. GROSS 1
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63 y
1 decision, in effect, and we've said in effect, "You're
]
2 okay to operate," based on the application that they 3
submitted and the terms and conditions there, plus 4
whatever other conditions the Commission imposed as
]
1 5
part of its review process.
Now, I assume as -- once 6
the Commission has made its decision, you've really.
7 got to document that the corporation knows it has to 8
comply with.
It's got the agency regulations and it's 9
got the terms and conditions that it's set forth in 10 its application.
If they want to make a dramatic 11 change in its operating procedures or other kinds of 12 items, they're having problems, operational problems 13 with a facility that require some amendments, they're 14 going to have the opportunity to come - in in this 15 process and say, "We came in to you and told you we 16 were going to do this, but we're not able to do that 17 for some reason and we need your approval because this 18 is fairly significant to make some changes."
This 19 will give the Commission an opportunity to look at the 20 situation afresh.
l 21 What we're intending to do procedurally 22 here is to leave it in the Director of HMSS to make a 1
23 discretionary decision as far as what kind of a
24 procedures that we want to use.
If it's minor 1
1 25 amendments to the certificate, then there's probably NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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4
N 64 j
l 1
not going to be any reason to go out and solicit l
2 public comments or to hold any kind of public 3
meetings.
But if they're real major changes that 4
they're talking about to the facility, the Director of 5
NMSS may want to invite written comments.
You may 6
want to have public meetings and we'll just proceed on 7
a case by case basis, depending on what the situation 8
is.
9 The corporation, since it's got an annual 10 submission requirement, may try to hold off on a lot 11 of requirements until the next application process 12 rather than submitting mid-term modifications.
I 13 think this is an area where we're going to have to get 14 some experience again as well.
It's very hard for us 15 to reflect how this is going to actually work in the 16 real world at this point.
17 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
I guess their 18 certificate is going to be far more substantial than 19 I envision.
I thought the certificate was that they 20 met the requirements and so forth, any conditions.
21 But when you talk about 50.59, I thought you were 22 applying that to a certificate.
I can see they might 23 want to make modifications to the facility, but I 24 assume all that facility is not going to be defined 25 annually in the certificate.
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65 1
following that.
2 MR. BERNERO:
Actually, remember the USEC 3
provides or submits an application.
1 4
COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Right.
5 MR.
BERNERO:
That 's. what they.. would 6
amend.
7 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Right.
Okay.
8 MR.
BERNERO:
They would say in some 9
particular I have to amend this application.
The 10 certificate reflects on that and approves it or 11 doesn't approve it.
1 12 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
You basically have two 13 documents.
You have one which is the moral equivalent 14 of a license and the other which is a finding.
If I 15 understand correctly, everything that we've been 16 talking about pretty much has been this application 17 which is effectively a license.
It's a once and for i
18 all document.
It can be amended but in the absence of 19 amendment it doesn't have to be resubmitted each year.
20 That should be called an application.
21 COMMISSIONER REMICK: That I can envision.
22 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
And that can be changed 23 by 50.59 type procedures, which I assume will be 73.59 24 procedures.
25 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
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CHAIRMAN SELIN:
The second is that 2
there's a finding which I guess is the certificate.
3 It's not exactly the language that Mr. Rothschild has 4
been using, but one would hnca an application.
This 5
application would be permanent except as amended.
It I
6 could be amended through a 50.59 type procedure and 7
then there would be an annual certificate that the 8
Director of NMSS 'would submit which would be a 9
certification of compliance with this application.
10 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Yes.
11 MR. BERNERO:
It is common practice in 12 material licensing that the application commitments 13 are adopted verbatim into the license and the license 14 says, "And you must do as you said in so and so part 15 of the application."
16 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Will we have 17 anything -- after the application is reviewed, will we 18 have any kind of a document that is not a license but 19 equivalent to a license?
20 MR. BERNERO:
Fir ding, yes.
We will have 21 a safety and safeguards evaluation, a finding, you 22 know, that's the basis of the finding.
23 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Other than the 24 certificate.
The certification is --
25 MR. BERNERO:
Well, certification is the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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i formal act of publishing a finding and reporting to 2
the Congress.
3 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
You're going to have-two 4
documents.
You're going to have an application as 5
amended by the review process and when it's all done--
6 I mean it's not clear from this discussion whether 7
NMSS will issue the license or whether NMSS will go 8
back to USEC and say, "If you want a finding you will 9
have to amend the application."
But however you go 10 through that process, at the end of this point there 11 will be a document, an agreed document, between USEC 12 and NMSS which will serve as what in the rest of our.
13 world is a license.
Let's call it an approved 14 application.
That's the thing that's going to be 15 amended in 50.59 type --
16 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Your finding is actually 17 your approval of that document.
i 18 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
No, no, no,
no, no, 19 because that application is not an annual process,.I 20 don't think.
Is it?
21 MR.
ROTHSCHILD:
- Well, they will be 22 submitting an application every year and they may be 23 updating it under the process that we're talking 24 about.
But you'll have a piece of paper-that you 25 will --
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CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I think that there's 2
requirement for a little further thinking this out.
3 There should be a document, and allow me to call it a 4
license because for all intents and purposes -- which 5
is a permanent document.
9 6
MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Sure.
7 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
They submit it once.
8 They put in an application for something that I'll 9
call a licensee.
I'm sure you'll find another word to 10 comply with the statute.
You would review, ' the 11 Commission might get involved, there will be some back 12 and forth between USEC and the NRC.
There might even 13 be comment on that.
At the end of this first cycle 14 there will be an approved permanent document.
When I 15 say permanent, it's not unchangeable, but it doesn't 16 arbitrarily --
17 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
It's a basis.
18 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
It's a basis.
Each year 19 USEC will come in with a document that presumably will 20 do two things.
One, it will request changes in this 21 basis and, two, it will be their assessment of whether 22 they comply with this document or.not.
23 As I've read the annual application, it 24 doesn't seem to me that they're going to have to file 25 for a license each year, but rather they're going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i
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come in.with a
self-assessment based on what's.
)
2 happened to say, "We believe we still comply with this 3
basis."
Not an annual license but an annual i
4 assessment or evaluation which is the basis for your 5
analysis and review.
Is that wrong? Is that what you 6
expect?
7 MR. BERNERO:
I think what they're really 8
saying is, "And now for this year we request 9
certification."
10 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Right.
11 MR.
BERNERO:
-And the basis of 12 certification is the same as last year except in these 13 two or three particulars.
14 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Yes.
See, I think we 15 have a serious problem in thinking out what these 16 documents are.
My own suggestion'is you go back to a 17 licensing process and then change the words to be 18 appropriate.
I mean there is a license application 19 consistent with the rules.
You process that 20 application. The first year we have to do two things.
21 We have to process the application and find compliance 22 with the application simultaneously.
Then each year 23 thereafter there will be amendments which might come 24 in once or they might come in through the year.
You 25 have to decide that, but there will be an application NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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70-1 or a self-assessment from the USEC saying, "We think 2
you should
- find, you should certify, you should 3
certify that we are in compliance with this basis for 4
the following reasons," and then you make a finding on 5
that.
6 So, the first year what we have to do is-7 really quite different from thereafter.
We have to 8
establish the basis and find that they comply with the 9
basis and thereafter we just have to plan it.
That 10 may be wrong.
One should be very suspicious of off-11 the-cuff findings, but like Commissioner Remick I've 12 been very uncomfortable with the language and I think-13.
it's because of this confusion between the assessment, 14 a process, and the basis, substance, a noun, a thing.
15 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, without adding-16 to the confusion,.I hope, I think the real problem 17 crept in here in your presentation when you introduced 18 the word " certificate."
Up.until that' point'we.were 19 talking about certification.
Certification is a 20 process, certificate is a piece of paper and it may be 21 a different kind of piece of paper from other pieces 22 of paper, such as the application, or it might not.
23 I think that's where the real -- you know, it hit me 24 that the problem really arose because all of a sudden 25 we started talking about a certificate.
Well, what's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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a certificate?
Certification is something we're 1:
2 "
bligated to do by law.
That's a process.
We have to 3
issue something but not-necessarily issue a,
4 certificate.
We issue a certification.
5 So, I think there is the question how many 6
pieces of paper represent the annual culmination of 7
our efforts and I
think that really has to be 8
clarified.
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I think there's'a basis 10 and I think there's a finding and the amendments are 11 to the basis, not to the finding.
Somebody could 12 contest the finding, and I think you ought to go back 13
-- I won't say to square zero.
There's been a lot.of 14 illuminating work.
You ought to go back and start out 15 with there's a basis which has to be kept up to date 16 in some document, but the document only changes when 17 it's changed and then there's a finding which is done 18 on an annual basis which has to be issued each year 19 and give them names, talk about which of the processes 20 have to do with updating the basis and which of-the 21 documents have to do with contesting the --
22 MR.
ROTHSCHILD:
Yes.
The term 23
" certificate of compliance" actually comes out of the 24 statute.
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
- Well, but we're not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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1 amending the certificate, we're amending the basis.
2 I think certificate amendments is wrong'.
3 COMMISSIONER de PIANQUE:
Yes.
4 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
- Yes, I
think 5
certificate is --
6 COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
It leads you 7
down the wrong trail.
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes, that started 9
it.
10 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
To me the certificate 11 would be the finding.
The annual finding would be I
12 expressed in a certificate of compliance. But there's 13 also a basis which is a license-like --
14 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
We'll look at that.
15 (Slide)
The next slide is slide 19 which 16 deals with the enforcement process.
We will have the 17 full authority to revoke, suspend or modify the basis, i
18 for lack of a better word that we've got agreement on, 19 throughout the process.
And if we choose to do so, 20 what we intend to do is give the corporation the 21 opportunity to respond to writing to any proposed 22 enforcement action.
We're not giving them any right 23 to an adjudicatory hearing or anything else at this 24 point.
In an appropriate case if the Commission wants 25 to give the corporation greater procedural rights, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 Commission under these regulations would have the 2
authority.to do so.
3 With respect to civil penalties under this 4
statutory
- scheme, they're-available only
~for 5
violations of Section 206 of the Energy Reorganization 6
Act which relates to reporting of defects and 7
regulatory violations.
As the Commission may recall, 8
in the legislative proposals that it has before 9
Congress right now, it would expand our authority in 10 this area and give us full civil penalty authority 11 over the corporation.
12 Should we decide to impose the civil 13 penalty, this wou'ld be for violation of Section 206 of 14 the Energy Reorganization Act, we would give them a 15 formal adjudicatory hearing before a licensing board.
16 This is the only place in the entire ' set. of 17
. regulations where we're talking about formal 18 adjudicatory hearings. We're also allowing members of 19 the public to request enforcement action through the 20 equivalent of a 2.206 process here.
21 At the last Commission meeting on June 22 1st, Commissioner Remick in particular was interested 23 in other procedural options that the Commission might 24 follow in addition to the one that the staff was 25 proposing so the Commirnion would have a full range of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W-(202) 2344 433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433
74 1
options to choose from. Those options are spelled out 1
2 in some details'in attachment to the paper and the j
3 next two
- slides, 21 and 2 2, - go through those 4
procedural options.
Let me just highlight them a 5
little bit.
6 (Slide)
The first one is one I don't 7
commend to you and that's basically no public 8
participation.
It says the statute doesn't require 9
any, let's not give any.
As I said earlier, I don't 10 think this serves the Commission very well.
We need 11 public information and we need credibility to our 12 decisions.
So, I think too much has been said on-13 Option 1 already.
14 With respect to Option 2, it changes the 15 process slightly.
It says because of the importance 16 of the decision, the Commission should make-the 17 initial decision rather than the staff.
Have staff 18 come up to the Commission with a
paper and a
19 recommendation for the Commission and have the 20 Commission make the decision.
One downside of this, 21 it may slow down the process a little bit because it 22 means a major staf f paper that's going to take a lot 23 of coordination to get the thing through the staff and 24 to the Commission.
25 There's a little suboption here and that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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h 75-1 to say the first certification is particularly 2_
significant and maybe for the first certification have 3
the Commission do it rather than the staff and 4
thereafter have the staff make the initial decision.
t 5
That's something the Commission is just going to have 6
to decide, what role you'd like to play in this 7
process and when.
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Under that option, 9
Trip, would + hat necessarily introduce any ex parte 10 relationship with the staff?
11 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
No, it would not.
12 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
It would not.
13 MR. ROTHSCHILD: And under that particular 14 option, in order to give us some flexibility,!what we 15 would do is allow parties to file petitions for 16 reconsideration with the Commission so if the 17 Commission made any mistakes or anything else, we 18 would be able to rectify them or if they had any new 19 information we wanted to rely upon, we could change 20 the decision before the parties went to court.
So, we 21 would provide for a reconsideration process there, 22 although that's not mandatory and the commission could 23 establish a process where it was the final decision
.)
24 without mandating any kind of process for 25 reconsideration.
Parties could always come in on NEAL R. GROSS
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their own and ask the Commission to reconsider, but it 2
wouldn't be as a matter of right as it would be under 3
that particular option.
4 (Slide)
Another option which I don't 5
commend to you is have HMSS and the staff issue'a 6
proposed decision rather than an initial decision.
7 They would get pretty far along in the review process.
8 They would then issue a proposed decision and you 9
could then go out for public comment on a proposed 10 staff decision.
Rather than commenting just on the 11 application, the public could then comment on an 12 actual staff view of the application.
13 I think because of this one year -- this 14 time frame to make decisions, I'm not so-sure this is 15 realistic.
It's going to take the staff a
16 considerable amount of time, particularly in the first 17 application, to reach a decision and then to open up 18 the public comment period very late in the process may 19 unduly complicate the scheduling considerations.
20 The fourth option is to say that in the 21 case where the Commission chose to deny a certificate 22 give the corporation a right to go get a hearing 23 before a licensing board.
It.could be an informal 24 hearing --
25 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Say this again.
In the NEAL R. GROSS
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1 case that.--
2 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
The Commission chose to 3
deny the application --
4 CHAIRMAN SELIN: Do you mean literally the 5
Commission or do you just mean the agency?
-s 6
MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Literally.
It could be 7-the Commission or the staff.
8 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
9 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
You could have a process 10 where you say staff issues an initial decision and if 11 the initial decision is we don't like the application 12 and we've asked you to submit a compliance plan and,.
13 A,
you didn't submit a compliance plan or we reviewed 14 the compliance plan and we don't like the compliance 15 plan either and we're just at an impasse with you, at 16 that point rather than referring the matter up to the 17 Commission, you could refer the matter to.a licensing 18 board and the Commission could obviously review any 19 licensing board decision that came out of that 4
.j S
20 process.
21 I've got some concerns again because of 22 the one year time process of trying to put a licensing I
23 board hearing into any part of this process, but it is 24 an option that's available to the Commission.
25
.The fifth option would be instead of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE (SLAND AVENUE. N W.
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having written comments have some kind of public 2
hearing early in the process, something that would be 3
more than a public meeting, some kind of board, some 4
kind of tribunal.
Once again because of time 5
constraints, that's not an approach that I would e
6 commend to you, but the staff and OGC both felt it 7
would be appropriate to give the Commission a wide 8
range of options so you could think about when do you 9
want to get involved and how much public participation 10 do you want in what form.
11 With that I
think I'll conclude the 12 procedural portion.
13 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Trip, excuse me.
14 One question on four.
Couldn't the Commission -- the 15 Commission has that discretion anyhow.
In other 16 words, if something was appealed to them, they could 17 decide to give it to a licensing board.
18 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
That's one of the things 19 I mentioned earlier.
As part of your review process, t
20 if you had a petition for review, you could ask for 21 oral comments, you could ask for written comments or 22 you could send the matter to a board if you had a 23 factual dispute that you wanted a board to resolve.
24 We're really trying to maximize the flexibility in 25 these proposed regs.
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79 1
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
I believe that actually 2
there are two major options available that you haven't 3
talked about and they>re not six and seven.
They're 4
two points in which some options are available.
The 5
first has to do with interim ' operation.
In other 6
words, I think you've taken too literally the idea 7
that there has to be a final report each year to the 8
Congress and the absence of that report by implication 9
that the plants have to close down.
I think you ought 10 to take a look at a procedure which has a set of.
11 default conditions.
12 In other words, the agency looks towards 13 an annual report but the annual report may be don't 14 have enough information to tell you what's new since 15 last year.
We've done our homework but there's a i
16 significant public dispute or there's a compliance
.i 17 plan that we're not happy with, et cetera, and look at
]
18 a set of default procedures so that we don't have to 19 necessarily close all of the loops each 12 months.
20 That's too tight a schedule.
It's an unreasonable 21 requirement.
22 So, one option would be to have an annual 23 cycle which if things go smoothly leads to a full'y
)
24 updated report each year.
Whethar that report is an 25 exception. report or from a base report is a detail to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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80 1
the point, but it'does allow what-amounts to a set of 2
default conditions and an interim operation, that we 3
get a serious challenge, a serious petition, go to the 4
Congress and say, "We've exercised our professional 5
judgment.
We do not believe that the burden of proof a
6 for immediately closing down the plant has been 7
breached, but there are questions.
So, we're going to 8
give you an interim report or a provisional report at 9
this point, but the finding is that we can't give you 10 a final finding, so we'll still rely on the finding 11 for 12 months until this is resolved."
12 so, you could have a set of procedures 13 that don't require all of these hearings going to the 14 Commission, public information resolve and compliance 15 plans necessarily in a year.
I think that that idea L
16 of getting all that said on the air is being too tough 17 on ourselves and at least I'd like -- personally I 18 would like you to investigate an annual cycle, but r
19 which allows for what happens if the hearings aren't 20 finished, what happens if we have found them not to be 21 in compliance, we haven't settled on a compliance 22 plan.
It's got a set of questions that could go 23 beyond the year.
We would still make an annual 24 report, but there'd be some defaults as to what would 25 happen.
That's one area in which I think at least I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W, (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C. 20005 (202) 234 4433
81 i
.1 would appreciate an option, an alternative' approach 2
that has ~ an annual report but not necessarily.an 1
3 annual finding.
j j
4 The second area in which I personally 5
would like to see some options, I do not like' the idea 6
personally of so much flexibility.
I think we should 7
spell out a process in advance that basically says we 8
will report every year on October 15th.
We will do 9
these things.
We will normally allow public meeting 10 or public hearing or comments that we have a standard 11 procedure.
We have some reasons for not carrying it 12 out in certain cases.
In other words, I wouldn't 13 completely tie our hands, but I personally would like j
14 an option that is more predicted and that is more
^
15 predictable that says, "Here's the way we would do 16 this."
If coupled with some defaults and interim 17 operations, then I think that might become feasible.
18 I'm reading what you're saying to be that 19 we need all this flexibility because on the one hand 20 we have enormous flexibility.
On the other hand we 21 have a guillotine that comes down every 12 months and 22 chops.
If we can arrange for that guillotine to hang 23 in midair, then I think we.can afford to give a more t
24 predictable regulatory environment where we have laid 4
'25 out what we will do in those cases.
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I have a third point I'd like to make.
I 2
would like you to look at what the legal. problems 3
would be if we just flat out called this thing a 4
license, because that's what it is, and said that in 5
the first year we will issue a
license and a
a 6
certificate of compliance with that license and 7
thereafter we will annually issue a certificate or 8
compliance or non-compliance with an approved 9
compliance plan. Then we have a lot of history of how 10 we handle licenses.
Licenses are handled by the 11 director.
They come to us and we may decide that 12 license means 2.206, it means separation.
It may turn i
13 out that there's enough machinery that goes with 14 formally calling this a license that the General 6
15 Counsel would advise against our adopting it, but I 16 personally would like to see an option that keeps this-17 as close to a license as possible and as close to our 18 licensing procedure as possible because, in effect, 19 the staff continuously finds that a licensee is either 20 in compliance with his license or has to close down.
21 So, it's not really such a burden to do 22 that on a continuing basis as long as we think out 23 that we have a two step process.
24 My fourth observation is that the first 25 year we really do have a two step process and it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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83 1
qualitatively different from thereafter.
We need to 2
get an application, which I'll call a license, which 3
you may later on say we shouldn't have called it a 4
license and it has to be approved.
Then we have.to 5
find that the licensee is complying with that license.
6 That's an awful lot to do in the first year and you 7
may decide that that's too much to do, that we should 8
have a fall back position to function --
9 MR. TAYLOR:
We'll do that.
We'll do 10 that, sir.
11 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
But the only two points 12 I really would like to make is one is sort of an 13 observation, one is personal.
The observation is I 14 hope you are reading too literally the requirement for 15 an annual report of compliance.
I think your 16 procedures are consistent with that as something that 17 absolutely must be done finally, et cetera, and that 18 really tics our hands.
I hope that the statute can be 19 read differently.
Yes, we can report each year, but 20 some of the work that we report can still be in.
21 progress.
22 My own personal opinion is I personally 23 prefer a more predictable even though it gives us less 24 flexibility standard set of procedures.
Maybe we 25 don't want them by 1994.
Maybe that's too soon to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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work them out, but I would like to see something that 2
is more predictable.
This is a kind of set of 3
facilities that are not all that dangerous and they're 4
not all that hard to understand and we should be able 5
to run them -- I mean to regulate them within the 6
limits of the law closer to the way we do fuel cycle 7
facilities.
8 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Let me make a comment, if 9
I could.
10 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Please.
11 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
On your first suggestion 12 about flexibility of not meeting the annual 13 requirement, in the proposed rule, the portion I 14 didn't talk about, we talked about using what we call 15 a term embodied in the Administrative Procedure Act 16 called the timely renewal doctrine.
The proposed 17 regulations provide that we would utilize that 18 doctrine so in case we couldn't maPe a decision the 19 continuing certificate would continue to remain in
.20 effect until we were able to make a decision.
I think 21 it's an open legal question the way the statute is 22 written whether we have the flexibility under the 23 congressional language to use the timely renewal 24 document to extend beyond a year period.
It's.one of 25 the specific questions in the statement of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N Ws (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 2344433
85 I
considerations that we specifically asked for comments 2-on.as whether people read the statute as giving.us 3
that flexibility.
4 So, we were hoping to be able to. utilize 5
it as well.
6 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
-But this is a lot less 7
than renewal.
We're just talking about timeliness of 8
a finding that they're in compliance, not that the 9
license has expired and they're running, in effect, 10 without a license until the license is --
11 MR. ROTHSCHILD: You do have a requirement 12 here. They're not to operate without a certificate or 13 a compliance plan approved.
The question is whether 14 we can use this timely renewal doctrine or'something 15 equivalent to it to stretch that period out.
I think 16 it's an issue well worth getting public comment on and 17 I think it's something the Commission 'is going to have 18 to do a lot of thinking about on the issue of the 19 final rule, i
~
20 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
And I'm personally much 1
21 more interested in options at that level than down in-22 whether. it's a
permanent, it's an immediately.
')
23 effective or provisional -- clearly those have to be 24
. settled also.
But I-think those framework issues have I
25 to be settled and then a lot of the others will fall i
NEAL R. GROSS 1
COURT REPOATERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005
.(202) 234 4433
'86 1
in place.
)
2 Commissioner Rogers?
3 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No.
4 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Commissioner Remick?
5 COMMISSIONER REMICK:
Going back to your j
t 6
comment, Trip, the timely renewal then would mean that 7
last year's certification would continue until the new u
one was made.
Is that --
9 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Yes, sir.
10 COMMISSIO.TER REMICK:
-- the purpose of 11 the timely renewal provision?
12 MR. ROTHSCHILD:
Yes.
Yes, sir.
13 You know, the other comment I want to make 14 about flexibility, and I certainly did emphasize 15 flexibility and I hope I didn't over emphasize it, I 16 think the regular process that we're talking about 17 would be we'd get the application, we have a 30 day 18 comment period presumably.
We may or may not have a 19 public meeting.
We have a staff decision, we have a-20 process where people come and have an opportunity to 21 petition the Commission and ask + 'aem to modify the 22 staff decision if need back.
We do have some 23 regularity to the process.
24 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
One of the points that I i
25 reacted to is the Congress should know that on a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C, 20005 (202) 234-4433 i
87 1
certain date they will see a finding from us, not 2
where that can be within two moons from one year to 3
another.
If we have the flexibility of what goes into 4
that finding, then we can afford to say, "On' October i
i 5
15th each year or October 23rd you'll have a finding."
~
o 6
But if the real process in which we're reporting.is 7
continuing, that finding may have some open~ points.
j 8
Rather than giving us an extra six weeks the first 9
time through, I'd like a regular calendar, although 10 some vagueness about exactly what's required of us at II a particular thing.
12 I'm sorry.
Commissioner Remick?
13 COMMISSIONER REMICK: No, I was just going
.)
14 to say I agree very much with the Chairman's concept i
i 15 of having we're going to' have an application, l
'I I
16 something that indicates that we accept or not, and I i
17 prefer a license too if we can use that term, that we 18 have some kind of a document and then we have this i
19 annual certification of whether people are meeting the 20 requirements specified in that document, rather than l
21 talking about amending a certificate and so forth. To 3
i 22 me it seems like a more logical approach.
We talk' 23 about something like a license and then we have some 24 kind of an annual certification process which contains 25 our findings.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234 4433
88 1
It appeals to me just because it's more
)
2 consistent with what we're used to.
3 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
The amendment process
-l 4
could be continuous.
There's no rear.,on we would have 5
to wait until October 15th to process an amendment to 6
this license along the way.
7 Commissioner de Planque?
'J 8
COMMISSIONER de PLANQUE:
Yes, I would 9
agree with most of the comments that have already been 10 nade.
I would just add one more word of caution on 11 looking at terminology.
I think we've gotten 12 ourselves into some problems in the past'with some of 13 the terminology we've chosen.
The one that comes to 14' mind is the terminology we use with' agreement states 15 on withholding a finding of adequacy.
So, I would 16 encourage you from word go to be extremely careful 17 about the words we do choose for each part of the 18 process and each document.
19 CHAIRMAN SELIN:. The last comment I'd like 20 is sort of pulling back a little bit from what you 21 said.
That which we pass as a rule,. in other words' 22 that which we must' comply with, obviously we would 23 like to keep quite a bit of flexibility in that.
But i
24 it would be desirable in a statement of considerations 25_
or what have you to say that the Commission expects NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHCDE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 2344433
'C
89 1
absent something extraordinary that this is the 2
' process that we would follow so that there would be an 3
expectation of a highly predictable process, but 4
flexibility in extremis to do something different.
5 We don't need to completely tie ourselves 6
out of the flexibility, but I personally do not think 7
we should have a situation where we're basically 8
telling the public, "We'll figure it out as we go 9
along."
10 I think you guys have done a terrific job.
11 This is something from scratch.
In the standards 12 you've achieved something that I didn't think could be 13 achieved, which is a reasonably compact and internally 14 consistent from the start set of paragraphs in the 15 standards to describe the process rather thaa just 16 referring to something which is like a CLB and saying i
17 whatever it is you've got to keep doing that.
I think 18 that's outstanding.
'l 19 I
think your comments have really 20 illuminated some fundamental questions in what the 21 process is.
Obviously my preference is we keep as 3
-22 close to the way w 2 normally do business as we can and j
1 23 still be consistent with the will of the Congress and 24 the resources that are available to-us.
25 Mr. Taylor?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT HEPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(M) 234433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 y
4 90 1
MR. TAYLORi Mr.. Chairman, I'd propose 2
that in addition to what we've received from the-3 Commission today that if the Commission has further 4
time to look at the details of some of the technical 5
and other governing parts of the rule we would 6
appreciate a comment back from the Commission.
What 7
I would propose we do is take what we have today, 8
particularly with regard to the procedural aspects, 9
and other comments and work on that subject and then 10 come back to the. Commission as soon as possible.
l 11 I would like to move the process so we can
.t 12 get out with the proposed rule.
So, we will set up 4
13 then.
If we can get additional feedback as 14 appropriate from the Commission, we'll schedule an 15 additional briefing with another proposed --
l t
16 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Yes.
This leads to I
17 another question.
Does it make sense to float the 18 part of the document that has to do with the standards I
and the rules while we work out a second document on 20 the procedures, the dynamic part of the process, or
]
21 would you rather --
22 MR. TAY. LOR:
We would like to do, if we 23 could do that --
24 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Because there are going t
25 to be all the health physicists in the world are going R
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS f
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W, (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 -
(202) 234-4433 t
91 1
to have comments on one set that really don't depend 2
.on hearing rights and reporting schedules.
So, maybe 3
it makes sense to split them'into two packages.
4 MR. BERNERO:
Separate the technical and 5
the procedural rule.
- i 6
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
You might think it's a i
7 terrible idea and I only offer it as a possibility.
8 MR. TAYLOR:
Let us look at that,-sir.
{
9 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
But clearly --
10 MR. BERNERO:
We'd like to look at it. My.
11 concern would be to really have two proposed rules, 12 the second one being the critical path.
13 CHAIRMAN SELIN:
No, you would only have i
14 one proposed rule, but you might -- that's really up 15 to you.
All I'n saying is you ought-to consider the 16 option of moving forward with the technical side while
- )
l 17 the procedural are-worked out.
If you decide.that
]
18 that's just too messy or you can't really comment -.-
i 19
-my thinking was you could comment on the technical 20 without knowing the procedural,.although you clearly l
- 1 21 couldn't comment on the procedural without knowing the l
22 technical.
l 23 MR. BERNERO:
That's certainly true.
i
.24
.MR.
TAYLOR:
We'll do that, sir.
Thank 25 you.
NEAL R. GROSS l
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 2344433 -
~
92 1
CHAIRMAN SELIN:
Okay.
Commissioners, 2
anything else?
3 Thank you very much.
Thank you.
4 (Whereupon, at 3:47 p.m.,
the above-5 entitled matter was concluded.)
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 i
22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS 4
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005 (202) 234 4433 i
w
CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
i TITLE OF MEETING: BRIEFING ON PROPOSED STANDARDS FOR GASEOUS DIFFUSION FACILITIES PLACE OF MEETING: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 3
DATE OF MEETING:
OCTOBER 26, 1993 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and,that'the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events, t
/1)A x
AAnn/ K J
(
Reporter's name:
Peter Lynch P
h en 9
NEAL R. GROSS covat anomas Amo tuAnscansas 1333 RMODE ISLAND AVINUE, N.W.
I (202) 334 4435 wAsMeeg10N. D.C. 20005 (202) 232 6 '
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REGULATION OF GASE0US DIFFUSION ENRICHMENT PLANTS f** "%,
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RULEMAKING STRATEGY USE APPLICABLE NRC REGULATIONS AS
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FOCUS ON~ OPERATIONAL' SAFETY
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ENRICHMENT CORPORATION'S SUBMITTAL, AND THE GASEOUS DIFFUSION-PLANT'S SAFETY ANALYSIS REPORTS L
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-ASSURANCE REQUIREMENTS A REQUIREMENT FOR AN-ANALYSIS.OF-ACCIDENTS-USING. SPECIFIC SAFETY OBJECTIVES (10 MILLIGRAM-INTAKE OF URANIUM;_ 25EREM-TOTAL EFFECTIVE:
DOSE EQUIVALENT) 2-
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.x DRAFT CERTIFICATION STANDARDS i
THE CERTIFICATION STANDARDS COVER THREE e
MAIN AREAS.
PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS GENERALLY APPLICABLE ~NRC HEALTH-AND SAFETY / SAFEGUARDS REQUIREMENTS SPECIFIC SAFETY AND SAFEGUARDS REQUIREMENTS I
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INITIAL CERTIFICATION PROCESS DENIAL PROCEDURE
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THE EMERGENCY PLANNING REQUIREMENTS e
L UPGRADED FROM PART 70 REQUIREMENTS TO I
INCORPORATE. EXISTING DOE SITE PROCEDURES.
INSPECTIONS SECTION INCLUDES PROVISION o
FOR' RESIDENT INSPECTORS.
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1 STANDARDS (CONT'D)
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS e
SAFETY ANALYSIS REPORT IS REQUIRED WITH APPLICATION.
ASSESSMENT-OF' ACCIDENTS TO. INCLUDE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL EVENTS-INCLUDING NATURAL PHENOMENA NUMERICAL OPERATIONAL SAFETY I
OBJECTIVES ARE INCLUDED IN THE STATEMENT OF CONSIDERATIONS-6 m
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QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAM TO MEET
-APPLICABLE'. CRITERIA OF PART 50, APPENDIX B.
MATERIAL CONTROL AND ACCOUNTABILITY /
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' WASTE-MANAGEMENT. PROGRAM TO REQUIRE l FUNDING CONSIDERATIONS'FOR ULTIMATE DISPOSITION OF DEPLETED. URANIUM AND
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