ML20138F169

Transcript of 851023 Telcon W/Tg Dignan,Rk Gad,Sa Treby, Az Roisman & B Garde in Washington,Dc Re Case 851018 Motion Concerning Issuance of Subpoenas & Scheduling of Prehearing Conference.Pp 24,068-24,079

ML20138F169
Person / Time
Site:	Comanche Peak
Issue date:	10/23/1985
From:	Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
To:
References
CON-#485-963 OL-2, NUDOCS 8510250201
Download: ML20138F169 (14)

Text

ORIGINAL O UlNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COlWMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO: 50-445-OL2 50-446-OL2 TEXAS UTILITIES GENERATING COMPANY, et al.

(Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2)

TELEPHONE CONFERENCE O

I.OCATION: WASHINGTON, D. C. PAGES: 24068 - 24079 DATE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1985 F\(

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CR24833.0 REE/cjg. 24068 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3

BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD

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In the Matter of:  :

5  :

TEXAS UTILITIES GENERATING COMPANY,-

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Docket No. 50-445-OL2 6 et al.  : 50-446-OL2 7

(Comanche Peak Steam' Electric  : i Station, Units 1 and 2)  :

l 8 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x 9 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

Suite 402 10 444 North Capitol Street ,

Washington, D. C. '

11 Wednesday, October 23, 1985

) 13 The telephone conference in the above-entitled matter 14 convened at 10:37 a.m.

15 BEFORE:

• 16 JUDGE PETER BLOCH, Chairman 17 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 18 JUDGE KENNETH A. McCOLLUM, Member l Atomic Safety and Licensing Board-19 20 21 22 23 24 m neponen,tae.

25 '

-- continued --

24069

'l APPEARANCES:

O 2 On behalf of Applicants:

3 THOMAS G. DIGNAN, JR., ESQ.

ROBERT K. GAD, III, ESQ.

4 Ropes & Gray 225 Franklin Street 5 Boston, Massachusetts 02110 6

On behalf of NRC Staff:

STUART A. TREBY, ESQ.

Office of the Executive Legal 8 Director United States Nuclear 9 Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555 10 gj On behalf of Citizens Association for Sound Energy:

12 ANTHONY Z. ROISMAN, ESQ.

N BILLIE GARDE, ESQ.

x 13 Trial Lawyers for Public Justice 2000 P Street, N.W. -

14 Suite 611 Washington, D. C. 20036 15 16 l

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1 24833.0 24070 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 JUDGE BLOCH: This is Peter Bloch, chair of the 3 licensing board for the Texas Utilities Electric Company,

4 et al., case involving the Comanche Peak Steam Electric 1 5 Station, Docket No. 50-446, OL-2. And I am also chairman

! 6 of the companion case in this same docket.

7 The purpose of this conference call is to 8 discuss a motion filed by CASE on October 18, relating to 9 the. issuance of subpoenas. It is the understanding of the

! 10 board that the first order of business will be a discussion 11 of an agreement reached between Applicants, excuse me, 12 between the Staff and CASE prior to the commencement of

(

13 this call.  ;

i 14 The secondary purpose of the call is to schedule (

15 a prehearing conference.

16 I would like the parties to identify themselves f

17 for the record. First for the Applicant.

i l 18 MR. DIGNAN: This is Thomas Dignan, Jr. from the ,

4 19 firm of Ropes & Gray, 225 Franklin Street, Boston

{

j 20 Massachusetts 02110. With me is Mr. Robert Gad of the same 21 firm.

j 22 JUDGE BLOCH: I understand there are other 23 attorneys on the line for Applicants. I take it, ,

24 Mr. Dignan, you are representing the firm in this call?

() 25 MR. DIGNAN: Yes, I will.

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i 1 JUDGE BLOCH: The Company, rather.

2 MR. DIGNAN: Yes, I will.

3 JUDGE BLOCH: For CASE.

4 MR. ROISMAN: This is Mr. Roisman, Anthony 2.

5 Roisman, with Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, Suite 611, 6 2000 P Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. 20036. And with 7 me is Ms. Billie Garde, G-a-r-d-e.

8 JUDGE BLOCH: For the Staff?

9 MR. TREBY: My name is Stuart Treby, T-r-e-b-y.

10 With me is Lawrence Chandler, C-h-a-n-d-1-e-r, and Richard

! 11 Bachmann, B-a-c-h-m-a-n-n.

12 JUDGE BLOCH: And with the chairman this morning O

i 13 is Judge McCollum, Kenneth McCollum.

14 Who is it who wishes to present the agreement E 15 reached by between the Staff and CASE 7 Mr. Treby has the 1

! 16 full text, so why doesn't he do it?

l 17 MR. TREBY It is true I do have the full text.

j 18 I don't know if it is necessary to read the whole text. If 1 1

19 the board wishes, we can do that.

20 JUDGE BLOCH: Are you going to be filing it 21 shortly?

22 MR. TREBY: Yes. I will be filing it hopefully 23 within the hour after the call is completed.

24 JUDGE BLOCH: Maybe you could very briefly just O 25 touch the key poines eer the record.

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1 1 MR. TREBY: The key points are that CASE agrees j 2 to withdraw its pending request for subpoenas; secondly, i

3 that the informal meeting with the Staff, which had been j 4 scheduled for October 21 and 22, has been rescheduled to be 1

l 5 held November 19 and 20. The Staff agrees to produce the 6 documents requested in the subpoenas as soon as reasonably l 7 practicable, and to the extent that the documents requested I 8 are produced in response to the outstanding FOIA request,  !

9 such production will fulfill the obligations by the Staff.

10 Fourth, the Staff will not issue any final 11 approval of the Applicants CPRT program plan until CASE has

{ 12 conducted its November 19 and 20, 1985 meeting and has had 13 a reasonable opportunity to forward its comments on the 14 issues and specified action plant and that the meeting, 15 this informal meeting that is going to be held on November 16 19 and 20, will be a Joint Docket 1 and 2 meeting and no

. 17 other similar meetings will be sought by CASE as to the 18 issues discussed at the meeting with those Staff persons.

l 19 CASE's Washington representative will be asking the l

l 20 questions for both dockets.

l 21 Finally, the arrangements for this meeting do 4

! 22 not in any way preclude either the Staff or CASE from 23 asserting their separate positions about other issues now

! 24 pending before the board.

() 25 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.

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24833.0 24073 l 1 I would like to announce that prior to the

2 prehearing conference we probably will have in this case, 3 the board plans to issue an order, probably early next week,

4 which would cover some of the pending motions, including

5 The motion to reconsider our misrepresentation memorandum; 6 the motion to reconsider the management analysis company

. 7 report discovery letter; CASE's renewed motion on 8 preserving evidence; the offer of proof which CASE has made 9 concerning lack of independence of the response team; the

! 10 request that the board asked Applicants to supply certain I

l 11 documents; and a notion to compel filed by CASE on July 3rd.

l 12 Also the reconsideration of welding issues, reconsideration

( 13 of AWS, ASME issues.

14 It depends on board agreement, but it is likely l

! r 15 that we will be issuing an order early next week. It seems

, 16 to me that despite the fact that the board will be acting i 17 on those things, there still will be issues for prehearing l 18 conference. Is there anyone who disagrees with that view?

19 MR. DIGNAN: Your Honor, this is Tom Dignan in 20 Boston. I had not realized that we were going to discuss 21 today a prehearing conference. I have somewhat of a 1

22 problem in discussing it simply because I have not checked l 23 around on our side of the table as to availability.

24 Secondly, it was my understanding from the

() 25 original order that came down, that the extent -- the only ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

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'E 1 prehearing conference that was out to be talked about was 2 the one mentioned in the conference call of the 18th which

! 3 was the call in which the board issued a request for a j 4 dissertation on a statement concerning the two dockets, and a

j 5 in addition, asked for views on the need for a prehearing i

j 6 conference to deal with discovery natters. F i

) 7 JUDGE BLOCH: That is correct.

) 8 In the course of the discussion about that, '

i l 9 though, there seems to be an agreement among the parties

. 10 that there would be a need for a conference. The only 11 question is what it would be about.

12 MR. DIGNAN: I guess my -- what I am suggesting i

13 is that the degree to which you need a conference,

! 14 especially with respect to the matters that were $

i

15 specifically involved in that October 18 conference call, 1

16 as I understood the call, it would be better for the board 17 to take the filings that are due on the 28th, as I -- under 18 the extension which CASE sought that was granted for all.

19 parties, and at that time consider the question of the need

. 20 for a prehearing.

l 21 JUDGE BLOCH: The purpose of it Would not be the s

22 prehearing on that question. It would be on outstanding

23 discovery requests.

24 MR. DIGNAN: That is what I am saying, as to

() 25 whether there is a need for one af ter the board reviews the i

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t 24833.0 24075 1 filings on the 28th.

2 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay. In what way, Mr. Dignan, do i

. 3 you see the response to the those questions?

f 4 MR. DIGNAN: Because it would be the view of the

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5 applicant that assuming the board -- without telegraphing 6 the punches too much, simply because I haven't got it in 7 final form -- but I think the basic position the Applicants 8 are going to be taking on that piece of paper is that

9 assuming the board adheres to certain principles that the 10 Applicant argues for, there is no need to have a prehearing i

11 conference on discovery issues. On the other hand, if the

! 12 board wants further oral argument or if the board decides

,i 13 that those principles are not applicable in this case, then

14 there may need to be a prehearing conference of some nature.

15 I respectfully suggest that the board may want

! 16 to review those filings before coming to a final conclusion I

j 17 as to whether they wanted a discovery prehearing conference.

I 18 JUDGE BLOCH: Is CASE prepared to respond on 1

19 that question?

i l- 20 MR. ROISMAN: Yes, Mr. Chairman. This.is

- 21 Mr. Roisman. At the conference call that we had in which

} 22 the schedule for filing a response to the board 's questions 23 was set, the parties, including the Applicant, agreed that 24 we needed a prehearing conference. I don't think, although

(

I) 25 Mr. Dignan was not personally a party to that phone call, i

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1 that Applicant can really now renege on that. But on top 2 of that, it seems to me that, again, without telegraphing 3 my punches, that Mr. Dignan is going to file another piece 4 of paper in which the Applicant, once again, argues some 5 variation of the theme that Docket 2 is mooted, that 6 everything that happened before the CPRT is irrelevant.

7 It seems to me that that in and of itself is

8 worthy of a prehearing conference, since the board is well 9 aware that CASE strongly disagrees on both of those points.

10 JUDGE BLOCH: Frankly, if that were what the 11 response were, we would consider striking it. We have 12 already ruled on that. It is now before the appeal board.

13 If the appeal board agrees with Applicant, that might 14 prevail. But at the present tire, that view is just not 15 part of this case.

16 MR. DIGNAN: Judge Bloch, Mr. Roisman is wrong 17 as to the thrust of the piece of paper that is coming down 18 to you. I fully accept the ruling of the board. Indeed, I 19 don't think the issue of whether Docket 2 is moot is before 20 the appeal board either.

21 JUDGE BLOCH

That is correct.

22 MR. DIGNAN: So it is clearly not moot. What I 23 do respectfully suggest is af ter you have had a chance to 24 review our piece of paper, it may change your view as to, A,

() 25 whether you think a prehearing conference will be ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

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,24833.0 24077 1 0'g 1 profitable; and, B, as to what the subject matter at a 2 prehearing should be.

3 It is -- that is my only point here. I am not 4 trying to argue here for mootness or anything else, but if 5 our filing comes in, as I suspect it will, and it is not in 6 final f o rm ye t , I think it will create enough of a question 7 so that the board may wish to either have no prehearing, it 8 may wish to have a prehearing and schedule certain matters 9 for argument that perhaps it wouldn't schedule today, or it 10 may elect to go forward with a very detailed prehearing on 11 all the outstanding fights over discovery.

r-)

%s' 12 JUDGE BLOCH: What would you think of this, 13 Mr. Dignan: How would it harm us to schedule a prehearing 14 conference for the 12th or for the 7th, which are the two 15 dates most acceptable to the board, and cancel if the 16 filings seem to moot that?

17 MR. DIGNAN: I have no problem with that. As 18 I between the two, at this juncture, one of the problems I 19 have, frankly, your Honor, is I don't know the commitments 20 of Mr. Wooldridge and I can't reach him.

21 For myself, the 7th, at least as of now, I am 22 potentially involved in a bunch of depositions in another 23 license case.. The 12th would be clear on the Ropes Gray 24 side.

(O_/ 25 I don't know the availability of the other ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

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1 Applicants counsel, which is one of the problems I am 2 having responding to a date-setting.

3 JUDGE BLOCH: We could set it tentatively for 4 the 12th, subject to problems that might arise for the 5 Applicant.

6 MR. DIGNAN: All right. That would seem to 7 make --

8 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr. Roisman, is that a problem for 9 you?

10 MR. ROISMAN: The 12th is a problem, but so is 11 the 7th. The 13th, 14th, or 15th are all right. The 12 preceding week is not so good, more because of Ms. Garde 13 than myself. She is taking mid-semester exams.

14 JUDGE BLOCH: The major problem is that we could 15 -- I have problems. Let's go off the record for this 16 discussion.

17 (Discussion of f the record.)

18 JUDGE BLOCH: We had an off-the-record 19 discussion of the availability of the different parties, 20 and have decided tentatively to set November 12 as the date 21 for the prehearing conference. Although it poses certain 22 problems for the Staff, we consider that the principal 23 parties to this particular prehearing conference are 24 Applicants and CASE and it fits their needs. We are also

( 25 hopeful that having set the conference, the parties will be ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

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l j 1 able to resolve the issues so that the conference itself  ;

i 2 won't be necessary. f

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) 3 If there are just a few issues left, they can be 1

i 4 handled by telephone conference rather than conference in j 5 Dallas.

j 6 of f tile record again. l 1  ;

l 7 (Discussion off the record.)  !

8 JUDGE BLOCH: The parties accept the place as j 9 Dallas and the starting time as 8:30 a.m. ,

3 10 Is there any other necessary matter to be j 11 covered at this conference? There being none, the

{ 12 conference is adjourned.

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13 MR. DIGNAN: This doesn't have to be on the j

14 record.

(Discussion of f the record. )

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16 JUDGE BLOCH: All right. Anything else before 17 we go?

18 (Whereupon, at 11:05 a.m., the telephone f 19 conference was concluded.) f i

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! CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER i

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{ This is to certify that the attached proceedings before

! the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the i matter of:

1 i

s NAME OF PROCEEDING: TEXAS UTILITIES GENERATING COMPANY, 4

et al.

(Comanche Peak Steam Electric i Station, Units 1 and 2) ,

}

. l

) TELEPHONE CONFERENCE 1

1

! DOCKET NO.: 50-445-OL2, 50-446-OL2 l - .

t i PLACE: WASHINGTON, D. C.

!O DATE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1985

)

)

i j were held as herein appears, and that this is the original

)

! transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear I Regulatory Commission.

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1 (sigt) [4 (TYPED)

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REBECCA E. EYSTER l Official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

l Reporter's Affiliation 4

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