ML20138K893
| ML20138K893 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/22/1985 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8510310064 | |
| Download: ML20138K893 (90) | |
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(, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the matter of: ,
3 COMMISSION MEETING $
i Discussion of Fitness .Q for Duty 'J -
3 Q (Public Meeting) 'l u
Docket No. -
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Location: Washington, D. C.
Date: Tuesday, October 22, 1985 Pages: 1 - 76
-l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES Court Reporters t 1625 I St., N.W.
Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 8510310064 851022 (202) 293-3950 PDR 10CFR PT9.7 PDR
o N 1 D I SCLA I M ER 2
3 4
5 6 This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the
] 7 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on Tuesday, s (%tnh2r 22, 1985 in the Commission's office at 1717 H itreet, 9 N.W., Washington, D.C. The meeting was open to public 10 attendance and observation. This transcript has not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain 12 inaccuracies.
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes.. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed. Expressions of cpinion in this transcript 3
17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No 10 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in 19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commissien may 21 authorize.
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1
.e 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ,
l 3 *** I 4 DISCUSSION OF FITNESS FOR DUTY 5 ***
6 PUBLIC MEETING 7 ***
8 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9 Room 1130 11 1717 H Street, Northwest 11 Washington, D.C.
12 13 Tuesday, October 22, 1985
- f. 4 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 16 notice, at 10:15 o' clock, a.m., the Honorable NUNZIO 17 J. PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
l 18 19 COMMISSIGNERS PRESENT:
20 NUNZIO J. PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission 21 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 22 JAMES X. ASSELSTINE, Member of the Commission 23 FREDERICK M. BERMTMAL, Member of t he Commi s s i on 24 LANDO W. ZECH, JR., Member of the Commission 25
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.o 1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISS20N TABLE:
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3 S. CHILK, SECY f
I I 4 H. PLAINE, OGC I
5 M. MALSCH, OGC 6 G. CUNNINGHAM, ELD i
' 7 W. DIRCKS, EDO i
8 R. VOLLMER, NRR 9 J. PARTLOW j 10 11 AUDIENCE SPEAKERS: None.
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.o 1 P ROC EED I NG S 2 [10: 15 a.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Good morning, ladies and 4 gentlemen. Would you please come to order.
5 Commissioner Asselstine has been delayed for a 6 moment, but he will be here shortly. He suggests that we 7 start without him.
8 Today we have with us members of the NRC Staff to 9 discuss fitness for duty. I mid-1984, the Staff proposed a 10 final fitness for duty rule; however, in October of 1984, the 11 Commission agreed to a two-year deferral of the final rule in 12 order to allov NUMARC to move forward with initiatives in 13 establishing comprehensive fitness for duty programs.
14 Subsequently, the Staff prepared, and NUMARC agreed 15 to, a final policy statement which the Commission has not yet 16 issued. The proposed fitness for duty policy indicates that 17 the Staff will evaluate the effectiveness of industry 18 initiatives. However, the Staff indicates in SECY-85-21B that 19 the policy does not adequately address, for regulatory 20 purposes, the subjects of enforceability and adequacy of 21 monitoring.
22 In this regard, the Staff recommends that NUMARC 23 periodically brief the Commission on the status of this 24 program.
25 The purpose of today's meeting is for the Commission
4 1 to obtain the information nocessary to docido on issuonco of 2 the proposed fitness for duty policy, or to decide if some 3 other course of action is to be taken, such as rulemaking.
4 At the end of the meeting, I would like to discuss, 5 based on what is presented today, the sense of the Commission 6 regarding this question. ,
7 I am told that Regions IV and V are listening in on 8 the telephone, but it is not clearly to me whether they can 9 comment.
10 MR. CHILK: It is not a two-way conversation.,
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: It is not a two-way 12 conversation.
13 Do any of my fellow Commissioners have any additional 14 opening remarks?
15 COMMISSIONER ZECH: no.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: No.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Then let me turn the meeting i
19 over to Mr. Dircks.
20 MR. DIRCKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
21 What I thought we would do is review the chronology 22 of how we got to where we are today, and then briefly cover 23 the content of that policy statement, and then go on to the 24 two issues that you raised.
25 CS11de.)
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1 The first slido is ossentially going back to August 2 1982 and where the proposed rule was published for comment, 3 and then in August 1983, the Staff proposed a final rule. At 4 that point, what we were envisioning was a broad, 5 non-prescriptive rule. Essentially what we were going to say 6 was that the Licensees had an obligation to have a program to i
7 prohibit the use of drugs or to keep drugs offsite and 8 essentially have a drug-free environment.
9 We are going to propose guidance, but at the same 10 time we recognize that the industry had a guidance program 11 developed, so our rule was essentially going to say that if 12 they complied with the EEI guidance, they would essentially 13 comply with our rule, and we would enforce against that 14 guidance.
! 15 CSlide.2 16 Then on the second slide, we go over those points 17 you just mentioned, the December '83 Commission guidance that 18 gave us additional information on applicability of the r u l '. ,
19 and that is on the escorted and unescorted personnel, the 20 vital area concept, and it should be applicable to NRC and 21 other government employees.
22 And then in March of '84 in SECY-83-339A, we complied 23 with the Commission's directione.
24 [ Slide.)
25 The third slide, then, essentially brought us to
e .
6 1 July 1984, where the Commission approved the publication of 2 the fitness for duty rule, subject to that we were to prepare l
3 a generic letter with a description of how we were going to 4 determine compliance, and we also were told to explore with 5 INPO and NUMARC their willingness to develop detailed program 6 elements and acceptance criteria, and that would be in lieu of 7 the NRC prescriptive guidance.
8 So we carried out again the Commission's 9 instructions, and in August of 1984, in meetings with the 10 Staff, NUMARC agreed to develop the guidance, provided that 11 NRC would not promulgate a rule.
12 [S11de.1 13 The fourth slide then takes us up to October '84 and 14 the industry then, in its briefing to the Commission proposed 15 a two-year deferral of the publication of a rule in order to 16 allow us to evaluate the industry performance in this area.
17 Then on October 24, 1984, the Commission directed l
18 the Staff to write a policy statement authorizing the industry 19 -- that is, the INPO/NUMARC agents of the industry in this 20 regard -- to go forward for two years with initiatives on 21 fitness for duty and training and accreditation programs.
22 That was a combined concept at that point.
23 And than we were to develop and coordinate a policy 24 statement development with INPO and NUMARC.
25 And then in November and December of last year, we
7 1 did work with NUMARC, and we did develop a policy statement.
2 LSlide.1 3 Slide 5, then, essentially brings us almost to where 4 we are today. In January 1985, we did submit to the Commission 5 the proposed policy statement on fitness for duty, and that is 6 SECY-85-21. .
7 In June of 1985, the Commission was informed that 8 the Staff has holding further discussions with NUMARC in view 9 of some drug-related problems that were uncovered at one or 10 two Licensee facilities, and we were then going to have 11 further suggestions for improvement in the EEI guidance.
12 In August of '85, after considering some of our 13 comments, accepting some of our comments, the EEI guide was 14 published. And then in August of '85, we submitted to the 15 Commission 85-21B, which gave you additional information on 16 the status of the EEI guide.
17 CS11de.)
18 On Slide 6, what we have done here is essentially to 19 summarize the industry fitness for duty program. NUMARC has 20 essentially carried out what they committed to do. Every 21 nuolear utility is now committed to a program, and the basic 22 programs were established in February of 1985.
23 The EEI guidance, which has been attached to the 24 papers we sent you, published in '85, provides that industry l 25 guidance. They have also strengthened the INPO evaluation l
8 1 criteria for use during plant and corporate evaluations, and 2 they have committed to carry out such evaluations every 3 fifteen months, and they also have committed to carry out 4 periodic industry workshops.
5 ESlide.1 6 The EEI guide itself, on Slide 7, it has to be 7 stressed that the information there is not mandatory or 8 prescriptive. They may have other methods developed which 9 would be equally effective.
10 They have the guide's key elements, essentially ten 11 key elements, and they provide the guidance under those key 12 elements, and they give examples. I won't go through the key 13 elements there. They are listed'there.
14 I think it's important to take a look at the 15 disciplinary provisions of the EEI guide, and they have been 16 strengthened, and we cover'that on Slide 8.
17 [ Slide.]
18 Immediate discharge is a result of any illegal use, 19 sale, or possession of narcotics, drugs, or controlled 20 substances on site. It's quite explicit in that regard.
21 Illegal sale of drugs also results in immediate discharge.
22 The gray area comes on offsite use of drugs. Such 23 use may result in discharge. There are's few utilities that 24 have practiced this concept of discharge for offsite use.
25 Some have not.
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9 1 For those employees who are involved in offsito use 2 of drugs, the EEI guide provides that they will be immediately 3 removed from a job assignment, from the employee's job 4 assignment, and tested for the presence of drugs. They may be 5 returned to duty only when the company receives p r o f e s ;s i on a l 6 assurance that their presence on the job does not present a 7 safety hazard. And then they will have periodic testing of 8 that employee to assure job retention.
9 I think these were points we came out with after the 10 one or two incidents that we brought to the Commission's 11 attention, and I think we were very explicit that we wanted 12 this provision in there, that an employee, if detected or if 13 admitting offsite usage, would have to go into some sort of a 14 mandatory program, and that employee would have to be subjected 15 to periodic testing.
16 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: What form would this 17 professional assurance take? I mean, is that a medical test 18 that shows no trace of drugs?
19 MR. DIRCKS: Probably a medical test combined with 20 some evidence of having gone through some sort of 21 rehabilitation program.
22 And as I said, this varies from utility to utility.
23 At least one utt!!ty, I know, is very hard line on this I 24 issue. Offsite illegal drug use results in discharge.
25 [ Slide.1
10 1 The policy statement, and I will cover that on Slido 2 9 --
3 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Let me ask you, do you run 4 into any individual rights problems?
5 MR. DIRCKS: Yes. There is that concern, and it is 6 evident in my meetings with people from th* industry. There 7 is concern that the preemptory action could interfere with an 8 individual's rights, or they are gravely concerned that they 9 would be challenged in some sort of legal action in that 10 regard.
11 Let me ask Guy Cunningham to expand on that notion.
12 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Well, there really isn't a clearcut 13 answer at this point in time. The law is very much developing.
14 I noticed just recently a case reported in New 15 Jersey where jockeys at a race track were required to undergo 16 random drug screening. Two jockeys a day were picked out.
17 And the court upheld that against a challenge by the jockeys 18 on the ground that their occupation involved public health and 19 safety, which I thought was kind of a strange concept of 20 public health and safety --
21 [ Laughter.]
22 MR. CUNNINGHAM: But if you take that language and 23 apply it to our context, you know, there is some suggestion 24 that these kinds of employees can be made to submit to testing 25 that is perhaps more onerous than you might impose on
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.m i supermarket employees.
2 But there are other cases that suggest that there is 3 i n v a s i oi'. of individual rights here, so there are a lot of 4 balancing considerations and so forth.
5 So as Bill pointed out, the industry is concerned, 6 but I don't think there is a definitive statement of the law 7 to be made at this time.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But depending on the job, their 9 rights may not extend to the right to operate a nuclear 10 reactor when they're using drugs. I mean, they may have a 11 right to use drugs, but that doesn't give them the right to 12 operate a nuclear reactor.
13 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Oh, quite clearly. I thought the 14 question was whether the employers have the right to impose 15 testing requirements and so forth.
16 There is no question that an employee under the 17 influence has no right at all to operate or even be on the 18 premises of a nuclear reactor.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay.
20 MR. DIRCKS: Well, the policy statement -- and I 21 just want to hit some highlights on that, and that's on Slide 22 9 -- it does recognize the industry progress, and I think we 23 all have to give a good deal of credit to the industry taking 24 action in this regard. They have unified themselves, and I 25 think they have produced an important initiative. I think
12 1 that's an important point to rocognizo.
2 It does not that the NRC is deferring rulemaking.
3 We have not ruled out rulemaking, but we do look toward the 4 industry to produce some results in this area and to assure us 5 that they are taking this matter very much -- in a very strong 6 and serious vein.
7 It does recognize that the NRC is responsible for 8 evaluating the Licensees' efforts in this fitness for duty 9 program, and it does indicate that we will b considering the 10 need for further action during this two-year period. So it 11 doesn't just punch their ticket each two years and say that we 12 won't be back. I think we will be monitoring their efforts.
13 I think it n o t e's , as a result of our efforts this 14 past summer, the development of modifications to the EEI guide 15 and what we regard as the improvement in the INPO performance 16 objectives and criteria. -
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What do you mean by "a modified 18 EEI guide?" You mean the one that was issued?
19 MR. DIRCKS: Yes. It was modified.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: As revised August 1985.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay.
23 COMMISSIONER AFSELSTINE: But, Bill, even with those 24 modifications, isn't it correct that the guidance is much more 25 specific in terms of the kinds of things that you discussed on I
13 1 a previous slide -- that is, the consequences, what you do if 2 you find that you have individuals that are unfit for duty, as 3 opposed to the detailed programs elements to ensure that you 4 find those people, so that there's still a tremendous amount 5 of discretion, and indeed diversity, with!n the industry in 6 terms of the specifics of their program on how they go about 7 determining that the people who are at the job are indeed fit 8 to carry out their responsibilities. ,
9 MR. DIRCKS: That's right. It gives general 10 guidance, and they expect the utilities to develop specific 11 program criteria.and measures; yes, that's true.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So that indeed they can 13 either pick and choose among the criteria that are spelled 14 out in the EEI guide, or indeed develop their own that are 15 totally different, 16 MR. DIRCKS: Yes, that's true. That's true, and I 17 think that's a concern.
18 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I'd like to elaborate on that a 19 little bit. As far as I understood, their modifications have 20 really toughened up their standards.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Yes. They have toughened them up.
22 They have moved in that direction to provide --
23 COMMISSIONER ZECH: And is there not a commitment -
24 that we're looking for from industry on the part of all 25 utilities to comply with those toughened up standards? Isn't
14 1 that right, rather than pick and choose? I don't understand 2 that.
3 MR. DIRCKS: Well, again, this is general guidance.
4 It puts the burden also on the individual utilities to develop 5 specific programs to --
l 6 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But if they comply with the EEI 7 guidance as it's been modified, wouldn't that be a commitment 8 on their part to adhere to the standards that the EEI 9 guidelines mention and talk to very specifically?
10 MR. DIRCKS: It would be a commitment, but I think 11 again you'd have to look at the individual. For example, I 12 mentioned, some of the utilities have moved very strongly into 13 specifics of how to deal with offsite usage. Georgia Power 14 ,
Company has taken that.
15 Other utilities have not tested the waters that 16 strongly. In other words, they'll be in general complianca 17 with the EEI --
18 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But don't the EEI guidelines 19 spell out offsite, for example, usage, and doesn't it say 20 specifically what is intended, and if a company, a utility, 21 commits to those guidelines, would we not be satisfied with 22 the guidelines that you've brought forth to us?
23 MR. DIRCES: Well, I think we'd have to be satisfied 24 with the individual utility's program.
25 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Are we not satisfied with the 3
2 MR. DIRCKS: The EEI guidelines, I think, we're 3 basically in agreement with.
4 COMMISSIONER ZECH: So if the commit to that, it 5 would seem to me that they've committed to the guidelines that 6 we think are satisfactory.
7 MR. DIRCKS: We had a few other suggestions for 8 improvement in the EEI guidelines and the INPO program, which 9 they didn't pick up exactly as we mentioned it. But I think 10 it's an improving proDram, and we want to keep on top of it.
11 COMMISSIONER ZECH: It's a tougher program than 12 they presented originally.
13 MR. DIRCKS: Much tougher and much better, and I 14 think we have to recognize that they have made real strong 15 efforts in this area.
16 MR. PARTLOW: The Chairman of the Steering Committee 17 on NUMARC wrote to the EDO in July and he said this: "Each 18 utility has accepted the responsibility to review and upgrade 19 as necessary its fitness for duty programs to ensure that 20 nuclear plant personnel are fit for duty, based on the revised 21 EEI guide and the upgraded INPO plan and corporate criteria.
22 So that could be taken as a commitment that they will meet the 23 criteria as laid out in the guide.
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I think if I could just 25 interject, I think it should be understood that for me, at i
16 1 least, the issue is not the adequacy of the EEI guidelines. 2 2 think the industry has done a good job. I think the EEI 3 guidelines are very good.
4 There may be a substantive issue with respect to 5 what programs should be required for detection, and that might
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6 be a separate thing that we need to look at. The question is 7 not what the industry has done; the question is whether we are 8 able to carry out our responsibilities at the NRC, and that's 9 the reason for the question I have raised about the whole 10 fitness for duty policy statement.
11 I notice, for example, in the policy statement, we 12 say good things, and I think justifiably, about the EEI 13 program. For example, with respect to our role, we say that 14 we intend to evaluate utility implementation. Fine. We'll 15 monitor the effectiveness and progress of Licensees in 16 administering fitness for duty programs. That's fine.
I 17 But then we get down to the part about enforcement.
18 It says, "The Commission will exercise discretion in selecting l
19 appropriate enforcement action for violations involving l
20 inadequacies in fitness for duty programs in light of the 21 industry initiatives in this area."
22 I find no basis whatsoever in any broad guideline or l
23 statement of poltcy or snywhere else that we can carry out any 1
24 enforcement action. And it seems to me, that's where the 25 problem lies, and I think the industry, frankly, has
17 1 misunderstood our slowness to move on this issue.
2 It's our problem right now; it's not the industry's 3 problem. I think the industry has done a good Jcb. We just 4 haven't figured out how we're going to do our job. That's the 5 issue here.
6 MR. DIRCKS; Well, even added to that, I think if we 7 developed guidance documents behind the rule, I don't think we 8 could improve very much on what the industry has developed. I 9 think the guidance is good.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL; I agree.
11 MR. DIRCKS: Now we are going to come to the 12 enforcement issue.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, just before we do 14 that, I agree, Fred, with your comments about what the heart 15 of the problem is on the fitness for duty polley statement, 16 but I don't want to gloss over the EEI guide question either.
17 I guess the concern I have, the question I have, is, 18 when you look at the industry guidance documents that have 19 been issued, is it clear that what you have is a body of 20 instructions that basically say not only, "Here's what you do 21 if you find an individual who is unfit for duty, who has been 22 involved in onsite use or possession or sale or offsite use or 23 possession or sale of narcotics," but also that says, "These 24 are the critical elements that you need to have an effective i
l 25 program in order to be able to identify those individuals who
( - _ - . _ . . . - . . - . .-. . . . _ _ . .
18 1 are not fit to carry out there job at the site. Here are the 2 kinds of elements that you have to have in a program in order 3 to be effective."
4 And my question is, do the guides really do that in 5 sufficient detail, so that utilities really understand what 6 they have to have in their programs? And does whoever is 7 going to be doing the checking, whether it's the industry 8 through INPO or us or some combination of the two, have a 9 clear understanding of what standards are going to be used to 10 measure the adequacy of the program?
11 I think that's also a significant issue, because 12 what we're doing in large measure, however we come out on the 13 policy statement and a general rule, is relying upon the 14 industry to have developed those kinds of standards, so that 15 the individual utilities will know quite clearly what it is 16 they need to have an effective program.
17 I'd be interested in your views on whether the EEI 18 guides really spell out those elements, spell out the criteria, 19 the standards, the key elements that a good fitness for duty 20 has to have in order to work.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I think both questions are 22 important., As a matter of fact, in 21B the Staff points out 23 that monitoring -- and I think your question is related to 24 monitoring -- is one of the areas where the issue has not been 25 adequately addressed. And then, of course, with monitoring, l
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19 o-1 we also have a question of enforcement.
2 I would be interested in your comments on both. I 3 think we all are.
4 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I'll let Jim --
5 MR. PARTLOW: In preparing the Staff comments on the 6 industry guide when it was supplied to us in June, some of the 7 suggestions that went back to EEI were along these lines, and 8 I think maybe speak to whether or not we felt they had a 9 complete program.
10 We suggested that the guide should be more specific 11 on the use of testing. The guide says, "Here are several 12 situations in which you might want to consider 13 testing: pre-employment screening in the presence of 14 allegations," that kind of thing, but it doesn't say,."You 15 should test in this case and in that case."
16 In fact, some of our Staff believes that a complete 17 program might include testing of people following any 18 operational event in which there was human failure, to 19 determine whether or not that human failure was associated 20 with the use of drugs.
21 Other Staff comments were along these lines, that a 22 punitive, disciplinary program won't work, and perhaps the 23 guide needs other el emen t s that speak to such things as 24 voluntary referral programs, in which it's clear -- so that an 25 employee knows that we can turn himself in if he has a problem,
20 1 but not feel that doing that is going to result in his getting 2 fired, that he will have a chance to maintain an association 3 with the company, perhaps not as an operator or a maintenance 4 technician, but will have a chance to get himself fixed.
5 I think those were two of the main areas that we 6 suggested. We suggested additional key program elements in 7 the areas of the establishment of procedures, the keeping of a 8 minimal set of records, and internal audits so that management 9 knows, based upon their own audits, whether or not there 10 program is working. And those areas were not picked up in the 11 guide as key program elements, although they do refer to those 12 things and note they would be good to accomplish.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What does FAA and the Railway 14 Association do with regard to monitoring, so far as drugs are 15 concerned?
16 MR. DIRCKS: I think they are just developing 17 that I don't think they've issued their regulations on 18 that. I think they've decided they're going to issue a formal 19 federal regulation in this area, and I don't think we've seen 20 the details.
21 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I have a little more information 22 here. The Railway Adninistration has just published a final 23 rule, August 1, 1995, which requires testing after an 24 accident. In other words, the premise for testing is that 25 there is a reason to believe that human error, due to drug or
21 1 substance abuse, was involved, and they require tosting after 2 an accident.
3 The FAA is considering a proposal which would 4 require any of the covered crew members to submit to drug 5 testing upon the request of a law enforcement officer, again 6 based on a belief that there has been substance or drug abuse.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Not after an accident, I 8 guess.
9 MR. CUNNINGHAM: No. But if the security guards at 10 the airport see the pilot about to board, and he is --
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Weaving.
12 MR. CUNNINGHAM: -- weaving down the aisle.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But even on a railway accident, 14 that doesn't prevent the accident. It only gives you.a clue 15 as to whether drugs were involved in the accident.
16 MR. CUNNINGHAM: That's right. But the Railway 17 Administration did not go so far, nor has FAA, to impose 18 routine screening.
19 MR. DIRCKS: But I think that's the one area that I 20 think would vary from utility to utility on the routine 21 screening thing.
22 I might mention the testing after an accident, where 23 we might have made a comment when the EEI program -- that does 24 not preclude us from taking that sort of action unilaterally 25 within our incident investigation.
22 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Taking what?
l 2 MR. DIRCKS: We could very easily impose that l l
l 3 requirement as part of our accident evaluation concept, and I 4 think that has been a suggestion made, and I think it is being 5 seriously considered.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Don't define " accidents" so I
7 narrow that we get into semantics. If it's significant, it's 8 defined by the NRC, then --
9 MR. DIRCKS: Yes. Wherever we determine that 10 something has happened, we can require that, and I think that 11 was -- that's being considered as part of our modification of 12 our incident investigation team concept.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Bill, I do agree with you 14 that the area where it appears to me that there is the widest 15 variation is in the area of pre-employment and routine 16 employment screening and testing for employees, and I would be 17 interested to know what the guide says.
18 Is it specific in terms of what kind of program you 19 really ought to have to have an effective program in terms of i
20 pre-employment screening and then testing, periodac testing of l
21 current employees, because it seems to me, that goes to the 22 heart of, do you have a program that is going to be able to 23 identify people who aren't fit te carry out their jobs, l 24 particularly before you see that kind of problem manifested in 25 some serious operating event.
23 l 1 MR. FARTLOW: I would not call it specific. It 2 starts out with typical situations in which chemical testing 3 is used, which fall into three general categories.
4 From a NUMARC meeting several months ago, I
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5 understand that -- I believe some fifteen utilities do have a 6 program of testing on a random or systematic basis. But this 7 guide does not -- you would not have to have such a program in 8 order to meet the provisions of this guide, I would think.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I don't want to be critical 10 or belittle the effort that the industry has made. I think 11 it's been a good effort. But it also seems to me that there 12 still may be some room for improvement in terms of identifying 13 with some degree of specificity those key elements that you 14 want to have in a program for it to work, to have assurance 15 that this program is going to be a reliable indicator of 16 whether people who come to work every day are capable of doing 17 their job, particularly those who have access to vital areas of 18 the plant and have important safety responsibilities.
19 And I guess I wouldn't close the door on saying that 20 there is some further opportunities and indeed perhaps need 21 for refinement and detail in terms of defining those elements 22 of the program that the industry is going to be using.
23 CCMMISSIONER ROBERTS: But isn't that covered in the 24 previous slide, NRC to monitor the effectiveness of Licensee l
25 programs through INPO program reviews and cccasional NRC
24 1 programmatic inspections?
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But if you don't have 3 general agreement on the key elements that a program ought to 4 have, I think it's going to be somewhat difficult for us or 5 for INPO or for a combination of the two to be able to go out 6 and decide whether you have effective programs or not, unless 7 you know what it is -- what key elements the programs have to 8 have. It seems t o me it's going to be kind of tough to say, 9 "Well, you've got a good program," or you don't.
10 If it's a situation where you can go through this 11 guide and pull out the things that you want to use and other 12 things that you don't, and there's not an agreement between us 13 and the industry, or indeed within the industry itself, as to 14 what the key elements are for an effective program, I don't 15 see how anybody can go out and determine whether the individual 16 plant program is good or not.
17 MR. DIRCKS; Well, I think you have hit an important 18 point, and within that point is the concept of this periodic 19 testing. I don't think there is any more sensitive issue 20 that's involved here, and that's the one where I know there 21 has been great concern about the invasion of privacy and the 22 rights of individuals.
23 I think we have not -- we have razzed the issue. We 24 have not come down and indicated that we were insisting on 25 putting it in there. We can certainly take this matter up
l ..
25 1 again with the industry group and say that we think that that 2 should be part of the program. I think that's something we'd l
3 have to go back to them on, and if we, as an agency, agree l l
4 that that's something we want to take a stand on.
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I have to say that I would 6 like to keep our end of the bargain here, and I think the 7 industry has responded quickly, probably more quickly than we 8 could have responded in developing guidelines, and as I 9 understand it, it has not been an entirely easy process to 10 arrive at the document that they have come up with.
11 There may be some deficiencies. My problem is with 12 the deficiencies in what we've said. And I don't care to go 13 through a litany here, but if you look at the policy statement 14 that we issued on training and qualification, you find a 15 detailed description that -- description as opposed to 16 prescription, 7 should say -- it doesn't tell the industry 17 exactly how to do it, but gives them a broad idea of what we 18 expect, down to the level of saying that we consider the 19 following five elements as essential to acceptable training 20 programs, systematic analysis of the jobs to be performed, 21 learning objectives derived from the analysis, and training 22 design and implementation, and it goes on and on with fairly 23 broad cri t eri a , expressing what the sense of the Cometssion is 24 on what we expect.
25 And then you go look at this policy on fitness for i
(
26 1 duty to deal with the issue of drugs, and there is nothing, 2 absolutely nothing there. We don't even so much as say that 3 the Commission considers the use or possession of illegal or 4 prohibited substances onsite to be unacceptable. We don't 5 even say that. We don't say anything.
6 If I may say so, I think Commissioner Zech has 7 indicated for himself some criteria that he thinks he ought to 8 apply. I entirely agree, but why don't we put them in the 9 policy statement? That's the problem I have.
10 I think that I'm willing to go with the industry and 11 recognize what they've done and give some leeway here on 12 implementation, and we do have to consider the enforcement 13 question. But aside from all of that, I don't see anything in i
14 this policy statement. It's no policy at all 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I think that's going a 16 little far. I do agree, though, that some of the improvements 17 --
18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Where is the --
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Excuse me. I was going to say, 20 some of the improvements you aggest are good, but I wouldn't 21 demean the whole policy statement.
22 COMMIS9 TONER BERNTHAL: Joe, where is a single 23 criterton in the policy statement. We have not told them i
l 24 anything about what we expect, other than to reference the EEI 25 program, and that's very good. But we have not said in any
~
I l . . . _ _
27 1 way what we expect --
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That's why I brought up the 3 question of monitoring and enforcement 4 Incidentally, as was pointed out before, they do 5 identify typical situations in which chemical testing is used, 6 which fall into three general categories, and then they have a 7 checklist on page 43, and one item is, "Have provisions been 8 established for performing reliable chemical testing when 9 appropriate."
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Fred, I like your comments, 11 that what the policy statement could be used for is to sharpen 12 up some discussion of what it is'that we're looking for, both 13 in terms of the broad policy objectives for these programs and 14 some key elements in terms of what ought to be present in these 15 programs for us to think they're effective.
16 I suspect that the best way to develop those may 17 well be to further the dialogue with the industry to see if we 18 can reach some agreement on what those elements ought to be.
19 I think in many respects they are in a good position, maybe 20 even in the best position, to say what those key elements 21 ought to be to ensure an effective program, but using a policy 22 statement to sharpen that up,'and to provide at least the 23 broad kind of guidanse that we did in the training area may 24 well be a useful way to improve the document.
l 25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I think we ought to ask l
l
28 1 the Staff what their ideas aro, because you did bring up the 2 question of monitoring and enforceability, and your suggestions 3 on how that might be incorporated in the policy statement, if 4 you feel it can be incorporated in a policy statement, would be 5 worthwhile.
6 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I'm not quite sure about the 7 enforceability aspect of it, but --
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, at least the monitoring, 1
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That's another problem.
10 MR. DIRCKS: We can certainly improve the up-front 11 part of it by stating the objectives, that the NRC has certain 12 objectives in mind. We can certainly go back to the rule that 13 we proposed some time ago and tick off the statement of 14 intentions there. We have that in that proposed rule that we 15 submitted about two years ago, so we can pick that up.
16 COMMISSIONER ZECH: If I may add, you know, it seems 17 to me that, as Commissioner Bernthal stated, I did have some i
18 additional views to the policy statement which I submitted, 19 which essentially, as far as I was concerned, toughened up the
- 20 policy, or that was the intent.
21 We really should have a good, tough drug policy.
22 Now whether industry does it or we do it or whatever, but the 23 result is, we don't want to have people operating our nuclear 24 plants on drugs.
j 25 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: I don't think that's in
[
29 1 dispute.
2 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, we simply can't tolerate 3 that, so what we're trying to do is get results, and it seems 4 to me that -- you know, one year has gone by since we gave the 5 industry two years to come up with this. But I agree with 6 most of the comments of my colleagues. We simply must be 7 satisfied that the program is tough enough, and it is what we 8 want, and it will be executed.
9 I think that the industry has made a real concerted 10 effort to put such a program in place. As we all know and as 11 you pointed out earlier, in February of this year, each 12 utility does indeed have a drug program in place.
13 Now the EEI guidelines have been reworked, and the 14 Staff has worked with them, and I think we have made progress.
15 If progress hasn't been satisfactory to the point that we've 16 been specific enough, then we should work towards that end.
17 And so I would think that we have made progress. We 18 should recognize, I think, that first of all our country does 19 have a drug problem. If you don't think we have a drug 20 problem in our country, we're missing the whole point. So 21 we're trying to make our plants safe, and we're trying to come 22 up with a drug policy that will do just t h a t .-
23 I think we have made progress, but I would submit 24 that perhaps we should review the policy and maybe satisfy 25 ourselves in a more specific area, because I really think l
l n, . .. - -, ,- , , .
30 1 we're all pretty much talking the same thing. We want a good.
2 tough policy. We appreciate the industry's efforts. We have 3 made a commitment to give them two years to put it in place, 4 and I think that we have made progress.
5 But I would ask the Staff, Mr. Chairman, to perhaps 6 take some of our comments here and see if they could come 7 back to us with perhaps a policy that they can negotiate with 8 NUMARC and the utilities that will be more in line with what 9 we're saying here today.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me accept your comment, 11 except that I'd like to add one other thing.
12 You said that we don't want people to operate the 13 plants, and I agree with that, if they're under drugs, but I 14 think we also have the problem that we don't want them to be 15 involved in important construction activities also if they're 16 under drugs.
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH: If I had my way, I wouldn't want 18 them on the site, period.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. I know we're together.
l l
20 I just want to make sure that that got out.
21 Let me make a suggestion. I think the Staff has l
l 22 three more slides. I was going to suggest that we walk 23 through them, and then make whatever additional comments you 24 might have, and then I think we're --
25 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Joe, before we get into the
31 ,
1 enforcement issue, which is a can of worms in itself, I want 2 to say that I agree with Lando's comments.
3 My concern -- and I believe in fairness -- it's the l
4 industry's concern right now -- is that we haven't done 5 anything here yet, and there are a lot of people waiting for 6 us to say what we're going to say in a policy statement, and i l
l 7 I'm prepared to say that. In fact, the broad elements of what 8 we want to say can't be more than half a day's work for 9 somebody to draft up, it seems to me. They are not in 10 dispute. Everybody understands what we're after here, it 11 seems to me. I would be surprised if we wouldn't have 12 unanimous agreement on the broad elements of some policy for 13 this Commission, among the five of us.
14 I would like to see that out and out quickly, 15 perhaps within a week, and I don't see any reason why we can't 16 do that.
17 MR. DIRCYS: I don't either, Fred, but I think the 18 industry shouldn't be holding its breath that long. We came 19 in with a proposed rule in August of 1982, and I think we were 20 ready to move then. It was the industry that said, " Hold up, 21 give us a chance here."
22 I think the elements of a drug program was contained 27 in that August 1982 rufe. I think we can go back to that 24 August 1982 rule and pull out the objectives and the statement 25 of concern and the broad elements you are looking for and i
1
32 1 certainly go back to the industry and say we want them in that i
I l
2 policy statement.
l 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I think it's good to do that, 1
)
4 but is that sufficient? I still come back to this question of 5 monitoring. Can we put any teeth in the policy statement with 6 regard to at least monitoring? And we'll come back to 7 enforcement.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Joe, it may be possible, 9 you know, to almost do it as three stages. I'm sympathetic 10 with Fred's point that this has been holding fire for a long 11 time, and maybe if we can reach agreement on what we want, 12 both on the enforceability question, which we haven't gotten 13 to, and also on the broad guidance question and get something 14 done fairly soon.
15 It seems to me, perhaps what we could do is do 16 something to address enforceability, which we'll get to; 17 second, put something more into the policy statement in terms 18 of objectives, including things like, "Here's what we would 19 like to see in terms of the broad objectives for a monitoring 20 and testing program. We think you have to have one. It has 21 to have, you know, the following broad characteristics."
22 Then third, let the Staff work with the industry in 23 spelling out the detstir, perhaps, of what's necessary to I
24 really meet those broader performance objectives as a separate 25 matter in terms of further refinements on the EEI guide.
,- - - - - - , -- p ,,
33 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But you wouldn't hold up the 2 policy --
3 COMMISSICNER ASSELSTINE: Not hold up the policy 4 statement, but try and get agreement to do that fairly soon.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I can see a way clear for two 6 of them. I don't know yet what to do about enforceability, 7 but I have no problem, .and I doubt if any Commissioner has any 8 real problem with that approach.
' 9 COMMISSICNER ASSELSTINE: Okay. And also just one 10 more comment, and that is, I don't think anything that we say 11 today should be viewed in any way as a criticism of the Staff 12 or the policy statement that they've developed or the papers 13 they have submitted. I think the Staff did exactly what the 14 Commission told them today a year or so ago, and I think what 15 we're seeing is sort of an evolution in our own thinking about 16 the issue. We've spent a lot more time and focused on it.
/ ',
se 17 We've looked a little bit more at the effort, and I don't 18 think it should be read as a criticism of what you did in the 19 policy statement. I think this is just an evolving thought 20 process on all our parts.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I think you are getting to the 22 point where you have to agree to the policy statement, and you 23 are reading it very closely, and you want to improve it. So I 24 think we have got easily -- we can come back in a very short 25 time with suggestions on how to get into that policy statement I
34 1 the Commission's objectives.
The second part of the problem, though, is to go j 2
i 1
3 back to the industry and open up the negotiations on the 4 policy statement one more time.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, I don't understand 6 that part of it.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes. My feeling, as I expressed 8 just a moment ago -- and -I think Fred is trying to say the same 9 thing -- is that if we state our general objectives and put in 10 there that we do want to see a monitoring program as part of 11 their meeting their objectives, I don't think that would be 12 overly prescriptive, and I think we could go out in short order 13 with that.
14 Now I'm leaving open the question of enforceability, 15 though, which we've got to discuss.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Spelling out the details 17 of what an effective monitoring program would have in it, I 18 think you're right. That's something that we're going to need 19 to sit down with the industry and discuss.
20 But having at least the broad elements, I would 21 agree --
22 MR. DIRCKS: Oh, the broad eleuents, we can develop.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Those can be put into the 24 policy statement without the need for a lot more discussion.
25 MR. DIRCKS: But every time you go back -- and I'm l
1 l
l l
35 1 just talking shout the mechanics -- when you develop somothing, 2 it's not going back to a single individual in the utility. You 3 go back to their Executive Committee that has to represent the 4 views of the members of that group. It takes time.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But saying that you need, 6 broadly speaking, that there shall be a program of monitoring 7 for fitness for duty, if I can put it that way, as far as I'm 8 concerned, is a non-negotiable item, and I don't need to go 9 any further than that at this point. And I guess I do believe 10 it is lawful, if it's in the public health and safety 11 interest. To subject jockeys to that kind of requirement, I 12 should think that it would be lawful to require something like 13 that for a nuclear power plant.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Or baseball players.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Or baseball players; 16 that's right, that's right.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Incidentally, when you say 18 there shall be a monitoring program, are you speaking about 19 the utilities shall have a monitoring programs?
g 20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes.
21 MR. PARTLOW: And you mean chemical testing as 22 opposed to behavioral observation?
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes.
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes, that's right.
25 MR. DIRCKS: Chemical testing, right. We will
36 1 develop it. We certainly have the ammunition around to go and 2 develop it, and we'll get back to you, and then after you give 3 your sign-off, we'll go back to the NUMARC people and say, 4 "This is what we want." Okay?
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. Well, why don't we 7 continue through your slides and get to enforcement?
8 [ Slide]
MR. DIRCKS: This is Slide 10. Three simple bullets, 9
which will probably take us some time to go through. The 10 11 policy statement does not expand our existing enforcement 12 authority. It is a statement of purpose for future intent.
13 We don't have any requirements for fitness-for-duty programs 14 that can be enforced. We don't have a regulation.
15 The third one is any enforcement action for use of 16 drugs would require the showing of an actual potential safety 17 problem, and then if we can make that connection, then we 18 impose our concern by order. I think we have outlined that in 19 the joint memorandum from the ELD and OGC. I signed it but it 20 was worked out by the OGC. So I think the two legal offices 21 have generally agreed on this approach.
22 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But is there any question about 23 the fact that the people on drugs -- for example, in the 24 control room -- aren't causing a potential safety problem?
25 MR. DIRCKS: I think when you move from the control i
37 1 room to the maintenance department to the ?SC and so on -- you 2 still have to make the case.
3 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I'm sure you have to make the 4 case, but maintenance, the person maintaining a piece of 5 equipment involved in a nuclear plant that is on drugs, you 6 know, it seems to me that he is a safety problem himself and 7 there should not be any question about whether anybody involved 8 in testing or maintenance or operating. Anybody in a vital 9 area on drugs is a potential safety problem.
10 MR. DIRCKS: Well, if someone has used it off site 11 and admitted it two weeks ago, can we make the case at that 12 particular time, two weeks later, that he is a --
13 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Of course what we are assuming 14 is that the utility is not doing anything about it because 15 they said they were going to discharge the person or they were 16 going to take action themselves.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I was going to make a 18 suggestion. One way we could enforceability if we don't want 19 to have a rule -- I think this is one way, and Guy, you will 20 have to tell me whether I am right or not -- we could say that 21 we want the utility to have an enforcement program consistent 22 with the EEI guidelines and that they shall report the fact 23 that they have such an enforcement poltcy every str months or 24 a year.
25 MR. CUNNINGHAM: But do do that, you need a rule, 4
38 l .
1 and that really goes back --
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: No, I'm saying any policy, you 3 shall have an enforcement and you should tell us that you have 4 the enforcement or how your enforcement program is going, 5 let's say once a year. Now, if they tell it to us and it is 6 false, we have that avenue, and now if we are finding it is 7 inadequate, then we have to go back to the utility and get
~
8 them to improve their enforceabi1ity.
9 MR. CUNNINGHAM: But the basic point is you can't 10 impose any requirement, whether it is a reporting requirement, 11 as you are suggesting, or a more substantive requirement, 12 except by rulemaking. You cannot do it in a policy statement.
13 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, wait a minute. Public 14 health and safety is involved. We have all the authority wo 15 need, as far as I am concerned, to shut the plant down or do 16 whatever we have to do. Isn't that true?
17 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes, but that's not the point I was 18 trying to make.
19 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, that is the point I am 20 making. ;
?t MR. CUNNINGHAM: But I am trying to address the 22 Chairman's point that he wants an annual report but he doesn't 23 want to impose it by rule.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I was thinking maybe you i 1
25 could ask for it in a policy statement. I
39 1 MR. CUNNINGHAM: You can ask for it, but then you l l
2 cannot cite him for violation of any requirement if they don't 3 give it to you.
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That's right, It's not a 5 requirement.
C CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But I thought if we write 7 50.54(f) letters, aren't those requirements? They are not 8 rules, are they?
9 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Well, 50.54(f) is a rule, and it 10 says we can ask for certain information and you must provide 11 it.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. And I am saying that we 13 are asking for that information and you must provide it.
14 MR. DIRCKS: We write every year an annual 50.54(f) 15 letter?
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: If that is all I have left of 17 my proposal, 18 CLaughter.3 19 I am trying to broaden our horizon and thinking.
t 20 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I'm not saying you can't do what 21 you want. I'm just saying you should do it by rule. You 22 could have a one-sentence rule that says you should make an 23 annual certification --
24 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But if the company fires the 25 individual, according to the guidelines if we discussed I
40 1 earlier, if he discharges the individual, what elso do wo 2 want?
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That's it We just want to 4 make sure that they have an enforcement policy consistent with 5 the --
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But the problem is, I 7 think, the opposite situation. If one of our people finds 8 someone in the control room or a maintenance person who is 9 under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and they look and 10 they say, well, look, this company just didn't have an 11 effective program, it wasn't working, they weren't carrying it 12 out either because the program itself was flawed or it wasn't
. 13 being implemented right or people were ignoring it, then the
{
14 question is: do we have a basis for doing something about 15 that absent that operator or that maintenance person actually 16 being involved in some safety-related event?
17 If the guy is sitting there, he didn't press the l 18 wrong buttons, he didn't do something, but he was under the j 19 influence, I think the question is -- I think all of us would 20 agree that we would want in that instance some basis to take 21 enforcement action in that situation.
22 MR. DIRCKS: I think you are going to get the ,
23 individual, no question you are going to get the individual 24 out of the control room.
25 COMMISSIONER ZECH: In my view, we have that i
41 1 authority.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But I think what our legal 3 officers are caying is that there is not a clear basis for i
l 4 enforcement action in that situation unless we have something 5 like a very broad, general rule, even a one-sentence rule, or 6 I suppose we could do it by order or license condition, 7 something of that kind, although the rule seems to make the 8 most sense.
9 I guess my question is, if we don't have that 10 authority, don't we want that basis for authority and wouldn't 11 a very simple rule give us that basis and at the same time 12 preserve this approach that we have been trying to develop 13 with the industry where they spell out the details of the 14 program?
15 COMMISSIONER ZECH: In my view, we have the authority 16 already. I don't think we need any rule.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But I think that is the 18 problem, that we don't.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, let me make a suggestion.
20 At least in a policy statement we should say that we expect 21 each utility to develop or to maintain an enforcement program t
22 in accordance with the EEI guidelines, and then if we feel that 13 we have to have something in addition, such as a rule, I think 24 we ought to go and develop that.
25 MR. DIRCKS: Well, you are edging back very slowly m -e- - - - +
--y ,- y * - - - - - - - . .
s' 42 1 to the proposal of August 1982 where we said each utility 2 should have a drug program, and if you adhere to the EEI 3 program, you have satisfied our regulation.
4 COMMISSIONER BERMTHAL: Yes, but then we decided we 5 were not going to do it in the training and qualifications 6 arena, and I think the reason we are having so much trouble 7 with this whole business is that we are trying to break new 8 ground. I hope everybody here understands that. The 9 Commission is trying to back away from cookbook regulations so 10 that there is some element of creativity in the way that some 11 of these regulatory policies are carried out.
12 The reason in training and qualifications that we 13 reached an agreement, I guess, with the utility group is that 14 we agreed to back off from the idea of endorsing INPO's 15 program, for example. 'W e were informed that that is the kiss 16 of death because then INFO becomes an agent of the NRC, and I 17 can understand that. And I think the same thing may be said 18 for explicitly endorsing the EEI program in our -- whether 19 it's a rule or in a policy statement. Then the EEI becomes an 20 agent of the NRC. That is not the right way to go either.
21 There is a fine line to be trod, it seems to me, by 22 defining, whether by rule or by policy statement, the broad 23 outlines of what we expeet. Now, how we enforce that i s, an 24 issue that we still haven't dealt with.
, 25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But we do rely on ASME for 1
.~
43 1 codes. We do rely on ANS for codes. INPO in sort of 2 different. It is different from even the EEI 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, that is a 4 thought. Maybe we can rely on EEI. I'm not sure.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, my concern, I think, 6 has been that this situation seems to be a little different 7 than the training situation. The training situation, I think 8 when we talked about enforceability, the sense that I had, and 9 I think it's true, is that there is always some enforcement 10 hook to use in the training area. You can always find those 11 training flaws manifested i~n poor maintenance or poor 12 operations practices or other areas where we have a regulatory 13 control or vehicle.
14 So that in the training area it seems to me.we 15 preserved our ability to enforce. This area is different, it 16 seems to me, because absent the involvement of the individual 17 in some problem area, whether it is that they actually do j
18 something wrong in maintenance, do something wrong in 19 operations, if you just find individuals that are not fit for 20 duty or the program is broken down, it doesn't seem that we 21 have that ability to take enforcement action.
22 I guess that is why I would be inclined to say 23 something that a very simple rule for an order that gives us 24 that enforcement cability, a policy statement that says these 25 are the key elements that we want to see in these programs,
s~
44 1 and then work with the industry to flesh out the details of 2 how to satisfy those elements seems like a more reasonable 3 approach.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I would take tha+ in two 5 steps. I would not hesitate to put in the policy statement 6 that we expect each utility to maintain an enforcement program 7 consistent with the EEI guidelines as part of our policy, so 8 that we can get the policy statement out and then get a 9 " simple rule" written that says we will require an enforcement l 10 program and we will monitor it, or whatever our legal people 11 and our technical people feel is appropriate.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, you referred to ASME 13 standards. Fair enough. And I'm not sure it is the same 14 because they apply to a broad industry and they are' rather 15 mechanical and technical kind of standards. I am still 16 troubled by the thought of a trade group, really the lobbying 17 arm, among other things, of the utility industry -- for us to 18 endorse a guide book that they have come up with I am just not 19 convinced is good for either one of us.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But you may not have to do 21 that, Fred. If you have a simple rule that says every utility 22 has to have a fitness for duty program that assures that the 23 people who come to work at that plant are fit to carry out f 24 their job, that is all the rule says, then you have a policy 25 statement that says we expect people to be free from the i
- - , - , - ~ ,
, , , - , , --,-----r. ~ - - , , . - - - - ,
.~
45 1 influence of alcohol and drugs on site and otherwise able and 2 physically capable of carrying out their jobs.
3 That these are the kinds of broad elements that have 4 to be in that program: you haev to have a testing and 5 monitoring and screening program to identify people who aren't 6 fit to do their job; you have to have some means for taking 7 action against those individuals where you find that they are 8 not fit to do their job because of one of these problems.
9 That is not explicitly endorsing or codifying the 10 EEI program, but at the same time, we can recognize that what 11 the industry has done basically, with perhaps a few little 12 modifications here and there, provides the key elements of 13 what would satisfy both the rule and the policy objectives 14 that we have, 15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I don't necessarily disagree 16 with what you have just said, but I thought the Chairman was 17 saying something rather different.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: No. I was saying that I would 19 not put the EEI reference in the rule, but I see no problem 20 with putting it in the policy statement We talk about 21 NUMARC, and NUMARC is an industry group. There is nothing I
22 wrong with the EEI. They came up with it, and we say, hey, 23 that is good thinking, we think if yee comply with that, you
. 24 are in.
25 COMMISSION 8R ROBERTS: A small point EEI, in the
46 l
.- l 1 way I read this, this is for all olectric gonorating 2 capability. This 14 not just nuclear. Now, there is an 3 ongoing argument in EEI among their members that they spend 4 too damn much time dealing with just the nuclear issuer This 5 is not directed only -- I mean this has obviously been the 6 driving force, but this is not only for nuclear plants, the 7 way I read it.
8 MR. PARTLOW: Yes, that is correct.
9 MR. DIRCKS: Just to refresh your memory, the August 10 1982 proposed rule, 50.54, proposed conditions of licenses.
11 Each licensee with an operating license issued under 12 50.21 or 50.22 shall establish, document and implement adequate 13 written procedures designed to ensure that while on duty, the 14 licensee and its contractor personnel, with escorted access to 15 protected areas, are not; one, under the influence of alcohol; 16 two, using any drugs that affect their faculties in any way
! 17 contrary to safety; or three, otherwise unfit for duty because 18 of mental or temporary physical impairments that could affect i
19 their performance in any way contrary to safety.
20 Two, each licensee shall maintain the written l
21 records of these procedures for the life of the plant.
22 That was the rule that was proposed back in August 23 of 1982, and it seems to be something that you are talking i
24 about.
25 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But the trouble with the rule is
47 1 we agreed with the industry a year ago that we would refrain 2 from a rule for two years. We have been down the road for one 3 year now. It seems to me if you really think about it, even 4 though we haven't, you know, come to grips with the policy 5 statement, the industry has been rather energetic in the past 6 year. They have got a fitness-for-duty policy in place at 7 every plant in the country now. It may not be a perfect 8 policy, but it is better than what we had a year ago.
9 We have made a lot of progress in this area. It 10 seems to me that we have some kind of an obligation to continue 11 the process of dialogue and to see -- what we want is results.
12 We want to have a drug free environment at our nuclear 13 plants. That is what we are aiming for. I kind of think we 14 have gotten a little closer to that, in the past year, anyway, 15 and it seems to me we should continue the effort that we 16 discussed earlier to try to get out something that will allow 1
17 the industry to discipline themselves. That is what we are 18 really asking them to do.
l 19 MR. DIRCKS: That is how we started off I think we 20 agree. But I detect some unrest among the Commissioners, that 21 they want something in a firmer tone that would --
22 COMMISSIONER ZECH: ! Just want results. Results is 23 what I'm talking about.
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: But not rulemaking. We made 25 that decision once.
48 1 MR. DIRCKS: I'm not arguing for it. 7'm just 2 saying that every time you talk about something now today, you 3 are approaching that rulemaking aspect.
4 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, maybe we should ask if we 5 should have a revote or not.
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I have to say for myself 7 that the more I think about it, the more I look at some of the 8 incidents that we have seen over the past year or so at some 9 of the plants, and the more I look at the differences between 10 cur enforement authority in the training area as opposed to 11 this area, I guess I am just not comfortable without having an 12 effective base for enforcement.
13 I don't think that the Commission can tolerate the 14 situation that I described, that is, a situation where, for 15 one reason or another, we find people at the sites that aren't 16 fit for duty, that are under the influence of narcotics or 17 alcohol that aren't capable of doing their job. They are 18 there because either the utility didn't have an effective l
- 19 program or people weren't following the program, and for us to 20 be in the position of saying there is nothing that we can do 21 about that, there is no direct enforcement action that we can 22 take --
23 COMMISSIONER ZECH: There tr plenty we can do about 24 that.
25 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I have to distinguish in the
.s j 49 1 context of enforcement action whether you are talking about 2 civil penalty or whether you are talking about an order, which 3 requires corrective action Certainly we can make the health 4 and safety case if, in fact, the situation ou have described 5 obtains, and we can issue an order to correct it. That is 6 enforcement action, and we have that power. But we can't 7 issue a penalty.
8 MR. DIRCKS: But I think you have to make a 9 distinction between the individual. I think there is no 10 question in our minds if our resident inspector found anyone 11 under the influence of drug or alcohol, he could get them off 12 the site. Then the second question is how did he get on that 13 site and why did you allow a licensee with a defective program 14 to continue with impunity? I think that is the issue you 15 face.
16 Now, we can issue an order, but the order would have a 17 to go back and say you don't have an effective program and you 16 will have an effective program by order, and then we pick up 19 what do we mean by an effective program. We could probably go 20 back and take the elements of the procedures or whatever they 21 are, the EE! things, and say adhere to that, you are undet 22 order.
23 COMMISSIONER ZECH: It is my view that we have the 24 authority to protect the public health and safety, and if a l
l 25 plant doesn't want to take care of that individual who is
50 1 involved in drugs or is intoxicated on duty, well, wo shut 2 them down.
3 MR. DIRCKS: My own view is I don't think any 4 utility out there would want anyone under the influence of 5 drugs or alcohol on their site.
6 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I don't think so either, but if 7 they wouldn't do something about it, I think we have all the 8 authority we need to shut them down because they cannot j 9 protect the public health and safety.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Lando makes a good point We 11 did make an agreement, we did reach an agreement with NUMARC 12 that we were going to defer rulemaking action at least for two 1
13 years to give them a chance. They have come up with revised 14 guidelines and they have gotten commitments from each of the 15 utilities to implement a program.
16 I think if we improved our policy statement by 17 setting forth the objectives, by talking about the need for i
18 monitoring or that we expect them to monitor and we expect 19 them to have and to follow an enforcement program, that that 20 at least would be consistent with our agreement.
21 Now, during the next year we may have cases, and we 22 probably will, based on experience, where we may have to take 23 some action if the uttitty hasn't, but we could gain experience 24 as to whether or not the enforcement programs put forth by the 25 utility are working. Then if at the end of the year we don't
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51 1 see satisfactory -- or even during the courso of tho year if wo 2 feel that the progress isn't satisfactory, we can go back to 3 rulemaking, but I think we ought to at least notify them that 4 that is what we are going to do.
5 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I agree with that.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, I must say over the past 7 months I have come to have strong feelings about people 8 operate or even construct these plants that are under the 9 influence of drugs or alcohol because I have said a number of 10 times that I certainly wouldn't want to get on a plane where 11 there was no program to assure that the pilot isn't drunk or 12 under the influence of alcohol, or even the navigator or any 13 of the crew, or that it was constructed by people under the 14 influence of alchol or drugs, 15 So I am very sympathetic to an enforcement program, 16 but I think we made an agreement that the industry is working 17 diligently to achieve, and I think in our policy statement we 18 shouldn't be bashful about saying we expect each utility to 19 now comply by having an enforcement program in accordance with 20 the EE! guidelines and that we require chemical testing where 21 we feel that chemical testing should be required, and what the 22 objectives are.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I guess ! Just -- those 24 kinds of statements in a policy statement I don't think 25 require snything, and I think unless we have some basis for an
52 1 enforcement --
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Oh, I didnt say it's 3 enforceable. I'm admitting it's not enforceable. But we were 4 trying to give the industry a chance to do self monitoring and 5 self policing, and if we made that agreement, we should try to ,
6 give it a chance. It seems to be making progress.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Except that there is 8 nothign that even now requires a screening program. All the 9 effort and all the work that have gone into the EEI guidelines 10 -- and there is nothing even in there now that says that a 11 utility program has to have a screening program or a monitoring 12 program.
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL; Are you talking about the 14 policy statement?
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No, the present situation.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: The EEI doesn't require it. It 17 has a lot of detail about the kind of chemical testing that 18 should be used when --
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE. Right, that might be used.
20 MR. DIRCKS: Some have adopted screening programs 21 and some have not adopted them. We can give you or send down 22 to you those that have and those that I. - v e not to give you an 23 idea of how prevalent this is in the industry.
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I wouldn't mind seeing that 25 list. I have a feeling that once we keep our end of the
53 1 bargain here, that will chango I think part of the problem 2 now is that we have not gotten out our policy statement, and 3 frankly, I would just as soon walk before I try and run on 4 this thing, and I think that by the end of the month, we 5 should get out a policy statement with the broad outlines of 6 what we expect here.
7 The enforcement issue is one that I don't think we 8 are going to solve here today. I tend to agree with Lando.
l 9 We have got the authority to do what needs to be done here. I 10 have no objection, frankly, to putting into the policy 11 statement a requirement that we expect to be informed 12 period'cally or once a year on utilities' progress in these 13 areas, and if we have some small group of utilities that see 14 fit not to let us know what is going on, we can write a 15 50.54(f) letter, as far as I am concerned. We have ways to do 16 our job.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: With the publicity that they 18 rre not going along, that will be motivating.
! 19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But right now we are part of 20 the problem, and we ought to get our policy statement out and l
21 then I think you will see things develop further that I trust 22 and hope will be positive.
23 1 do have one question on the legal issue here. Jim i
24 has referred to the enforceability or somebody here at the r .
l 25 table referred to the enforceability of the training and
54 1 qualification requiremonts os sot forth in our policy 2 statement. I was under the impression, or maybe the 3 misimpression that there was some enforceability that attached 4 to that.
5 My question, I guess, Guy, is whether that 6 enforceability, if it exists, derives from that addition to 7 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and whether, therefore, that is 8 unique or whether there is no enforceability, or where do we 9 stand with respect to that particular document, and why should 10 it be so different, if it is at all, from our current policy 11 statement proposals?
12 MR. CUNNINGHAM: The difference, as I understand i t, 13 and Jim Lieberman can elaborate, is that there are certain 14 underlying training requirements remaining in Part 50 and Part 15 55 that aren't covered by the policy statement, so we still
- 16 could enforce those requirements. But in the fitness for duty 17 area, we have no underlying Part 50 requirements to enforce.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Also license conditions as 19 well, aren't there, or commitments?
20 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Probably.
21 MR. DIRCXS: You are talking about operators now, 22 operating. But you know, the accreditation program is a very 23 broad program. It covers accreditation of trakning for many 24 categories of employees. We don't have enforcement programs i
25 in there for maintenance, !&C and so on down the line, and
- , , - - - - - - -,,m -
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55 1 health physics.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But those vehicles for 3 enforcement of training deficiencies are absent in the fitness 4 for duty area.
5 MR. DIRCKS: That's right.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: So the authority of the 7 Commission, then, cannot be construed in any way to derive 8 from that statutory language that we provide regulations or 9 regulatory guidance?
t 10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, suppose somebody 12 doesn't comply with our regulatory guidance?
13 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I'm not sure I'm following the 14 question.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, statutory direction, 16 I think, in 306, Fred, was a direction to the Commission to 17 promulgate either regulations or regulatory guidance. I don't 18 think that that direction gives us any independent basis for 19 enforcement action. What you have to look at are the things 20 that Guy described, whtoh are the existing provisions of Part 21 50 and commitments that have been made pursuant to the license, 22 including commitments made in the app 1tcation to have training 23 programs in specified areas. That is what gives us the basis 24 for enforcement, not Section 306, which was a direction to the 25 Commission to do something.
l
56 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Sposking of doing somothing, 2 let me make a proposal and see if we at least can get agreement 3 on this much: that we ask the staff to revise the policy 4 statement to include the objectives such as they had developed 5 before to indicate that we expect each utility to develop a 6 chemical testing program or a screening program, and that we 7 expect each utility to maintain an enforcement program 8 consistert with the EEI guidelines and see if we can't get the 9 policy statement out soon.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I'm not even sure, Joe, that 11 you couldn't -- I don't want to quibble over language, but for 12 example, one could just say that ~ the Commission expects 13 nuclear power plants to be operated in a drug-free environment.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, that is part of the 15 objectives.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And expects licensees to be 17 able to show it.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I was trying to admit to the 19 objectives, which we have discussed but we haven't seen, but 20 . ne i t i c a l l y point out that we expect them to have a screening 21 and chemical testing program, and that we expect them to 22 maintain an enforcement program consistent with the EEI 23 guidelines. I think that captures many of the thtngs that 24 were said this morning.
25 1 am not trying to say what words should be used in a
l I
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57 l
1 writing that.
l 2 Now, with regard to enforcement, I agree with your 3 statement that we are not going to settle it this morning, and 4 we may want to ask the Staff to have more dialogue with NUMARC 5 with regard to what is so bad about the general rule that we 6 were going to put out before.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: You know, we have all said 8 that we are serious about this, that we want to avoid, to the 9 extent that we possibly can, drug and alcohol problems at the 10 plants. If we are in agreement on those broad elements that i
11 you just described, Joe, why not say that is what you have to I .
12 do? I mean --
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, that takes a rule, and i
i 14 the only thing that is making me hesitate is we agreed not to 15 make a rule for two years. But I was suggesting that Staff go 16 back and, with this background, say but what do you find so 17 objectionable about such a rule when you have now developed 18 all these fine guidelines?
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I have to say that when we 20 agree with that, I was focusing, and I think all of us were, a 21 whole lot more on the training area than anything else.
22 Training was the big item, the big issue at the time, and the 23 discussion about enforcement and enforceability really focused 24 on the training area, where we have a handle for enforcement 25 if we find problems.
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58 1 MR. DIRCKS: Well, limited, though, to thoso 2 operators, now. You are not getting into the general --
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, I think there is 4 stronger authority in the case of operators, but in the past, 5 we have actually taken enforcement action for training 6 violations in other areas as well, so I think there are some 7 opportunities there, as well.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Jim, suppose we ask the Staff 9 to talk to NUMARC some more about enforceability and what is 10 so bad about waht we had proposed in 1982, and have the Staff 11 come back with some comments, suggestions or an approach on 12 enforceability, not closing enforceability, but I'm trying to 13 see if we can't get out with a policy statement and treat 14 enforceability as a separate matter but put in the policy 15 statement that we expect them to maintain an enforceability 16 program.
17 MR. DIRCKS: Before we close out, though, I do want 18 to make another point. In summary -- we could put the summary 19 chart on there.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Oh, yes. We never gave you a 21 chance to go all the way through.
22 CS11de.1 23 MR. DINCES: We do agree that a basic program te in 24 place out there in the utilities, and it moved very fast and 25 we are very pleased that it is moving fast. There is a
59
. )
l 1 commitment, there is guidance, there is oversight. You may 1
2 quibble with some of the details, and we might, too, but at !
j 3 least things are happening which were not happening a year ago 4 or two years ago. Things are moving.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: When you say that the 6 basic program is in place, does that mean you are confident 7 that at every plant there is a fitness for duty program, that 8 it is an effective program and that it is being carried out 9 properly? i 10 MR. DIRCKS: No. We can't say that because, one, it 11 probably varies from plant to plant. Secondly, we are not 12 inspecting the details of this thing from top to bottom to 13 assure that even with some of the problems you have identified 14 -- we are not in there going through a detailed inspection to 15 assure that they are even following the EEI program. We are 16 not going to do that.
17 I think you had that understanding also, that we 18 would not grab the criteria that the industry developed and 19 use it as an inspection tool to enforce against that. So we 20 are not doing that. So we cannot give you that assurance, but l
21 we assume that that was an understanding we had with you when 22 you said to develop the policy statement and don't go with a 23 rule. We just assumed that you were taking that as part af i 24 the understanding.
25 Go we are not going to give you that assurance, but I
60 l i
i that is not to say the inspection force is not on the lookout i 1
2 for obvious violations out there, and if we spot them, we will 3 take immediate and effective action. But we are not going in 4 to see whether or not a utility is in broad basic compliance 5 with the EEI program.
6 One, we are not doing it. And two, we, as you know, 7 were not getting -- on another level, we are not getting 8 access to all the detailed program evaluations from INPO. I 9 mean the plant-specific data. We are not getting that in the 10 detail that we would want, the backup data, the inspection 11 reprots, their evaluation reports. We are not getting that.
12 So that is another t o p 'i o for another meeting, I am 13 sure.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But is INPO monitoring this 15 program?
16 MR. DIRCKS: Every 15 months they go back and do 17 another evaluation.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: On this program?
19 MR. DIRCXS: Yes.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, it is part of their 21 -- it's not on this program only. It's part of their broad --
22 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, we could do that too, if 23 we wanted to.
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Bill, what happens if a 25 resident inspector looks at a program and he feels that this
61 1 is just not an offoetivo program at his plant. Ho doesn't 2 find drunk people in the control room, or he doesn't see 3 people under the influence of drugs out there, but when he 4 looks at it, he seen no screening going on, there is no 5 observation, people just coming and going, and while they have 6 the program on paper, there are either flaws in the program or 7 it is not being properly implemented?
8 What are our enforcement options in that instance?
9 What can we do about it? What can we do about that situation, 10 other than call INPO and say, hey, you know, we really don't 11 think this is very good?
12 MR. DIRCKS: We are not going to cite them against 13 [ failure to implement the INPO program.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Because there is no 15 requirement. There is nothing to cite them against?
16 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, why do we have to cite 17 them? Why don't we just tell them what we think, that they I
18 'l ire not doing the job and we expect them to conform?
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: To what? That's the 20 problem. To what?
' To the EEI program.
< 21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: To our policy statement.
23 ,
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTIME: And they say the EE1 l 24 Program doesn't require that we have to have a screening 25 program or a nonitoring program, and while you have written a i
I l
-. . . ~ . - - , . _ . . - __ _ .
i 62 1 nice policy statomont, that policy statomont isn't a I
2 requirement; we are not required to do anything. That is the 3 answer.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, if this industry expects 5 to keep themselves in self-regulation, that's exactly the kind 6 of confrontation that would fead to our immediately revoking our agreement, because if we get utilities that say, "Oh, 7
8 yeah, you've got a beautiful policy statement, but we're not 9 bound by it," that undercuts the whole concept of 10 self-regulation, and I think that most rules develop out of 11 adverse reactions like that.
12 MR. DIRCKS: We're talking about hypothetical cases
. 13 now. My view is, I don't think the utilities, from their own 14 standpoint, would -- but you have to go back, I think, to 15 those meetings you had with-NUMARC. They don't want us to 16 take their criteria, their program, and tell our inspectors to 17 go off and inspect against it. That was an understanding.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That was INPO.
?
i l 19 MR. DIRCKS. That was INPO; that was NUMARC. They t
20 don't want us taking the criteria they have developed and l
l l 21 using that as a regulatory tool I mean, that was the point I l
l 22 got out of those meetings.
l 23' CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I don't remember that. I 24 remember that with INPO, but I don't remember that with 25 NUMARC.
. 63 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That's definitely true.
2 That clearly was strongly stated by both.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, if the two of you agree, 4 I must be wrong.
5 MR. DIRCKS: I'm sure that we're not mistaken. I've 6 had enough -- .
7 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, there are things we can 8 do. The Resident Inspector is not paralyzed. He can do lots 9 of things to check on their fitness for duty program, and I 10 would hope he would, and the Regional people, too, and your 11 people. We're not paralyzed. There are lots of things we can 12 do. And if we are not doing them, well, you know, we have the 7 13 authority, we have the responsibility to do those kinds of 14 things.
15 MR. DIRCKS: There's no question in my mind that 16 when an inspector finds a major -- if it comes to his attention 17 that there are drug problems on that site, he will take 18 action.
19 Your concern, I think, is, if there is an agreement 20 here that the utilities will comply with these basic INPO 21 guidelines or NUMARC guidelines, is there an effective 22 mechanism, from our standpoint, to assure that they are doing 23 so. And we don't have a regular program to do so.
24 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, you don't need regulations
, 25 for everything. You can't regulate excellence. You can't
64 I regulate competence. You can't regulate attitude. You can't 2 regulate resolve. You can't regulate commitment 3 You know, that's what we're talking about.
4 MR. PARTLOW: I might mention that those are the 5 kinds of things, although it's not enforcement, that's the 6 essence of SALP program, Systematic Assessment of Licensee 7 Performance.
8 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Sure. And those are the things 9 that we expect the company to be involved in.
10 MR. DIRCKS: But if you say that the utility is in 11 agreement that every twelve months they will monitor or screen 12 their employees, and they will h' ave the following elements in 13 that screening program and the following categories of 14 employees will be screened, we're not going to go into those 15 records to assure ourselves that that screening program is 16 taking place. That's the part of the program that we're not 17 going to do.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But that's the heart of l
19 the problem.
l 20 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But if we want to, we can, is my 1
21 point. I l
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, it's a little like saying I 1
23 there is a speed limit of 55 miles an hour, and the policeman, 24 if he catches you going over it, he has got you, and you pay 25 the penalty, i
l h
69 1
But then we could also say, "But you know it would 2 be desirable if every trucking company would have a program to 3 indoctrinate their people about going 55 miles an hour," and 4 you say, "Well, that's what we cannot enforce."
5 We still have the capability to go and enforce the 6 truck driver who is exceeding the speed limit.
7 MR. DIRCKS: If you spot him speeding. But you are 8 not going to have a roadblock set up to make sure that all the 9 brakes have been checked and all the steering wheels have been 10 oiled.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, in many states, they have 12 that. You have got to do it every six months or every year.
13 MR. DIRCKS: You are moving very rapidly into a 14 detailed implementation.
15 [ Laughter.3 16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, let me make my suggestion 17 again, that we ask the Staff to revise the policy statement as 18 promptly as they can to include the broad objectives, to 19 include the expectation that each utility will develop a 20 monitoring or screening program, and each utility is expected 21 to maintain an enforcement program consistent with the EEI 22 guidelines 23 And then also ask them, as a sepa ra t e ma t t er, to 24 continue dialogue with NUMARC on rules, specifically the 25 suggested rule you have, and see if this is really all that
66 1 objectionable. What I'm saying is, como back to us, then, 2 with regard to enforcement, 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Joe, I simply -- I know that 4 you like to think we're finished, but I simply don't agree 5 with the last part of that I'm going to keep faith with an 6 agreement we made with these people --
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: So am I.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: And I think the sort of 9 going back and saying that, "Well, why is a rule so bad," at 10 this stage, is just not the right thing to do. I think that 11 we have a clear thing that we can do. We can get out a policy 12 statement that means what we mean to say and that says what wo 13 mean to say, and I think we can do that within a week to ten 14 days.
15 One of the things that everybody is complaining 16 about in this business, and rightfully so, is stability, and 17 if we already, at this point, say that, "Well, we've had 18 second thoughts. Would it really be so bad if we issued a 19 regulation or a rule on this," I'm just not going to support 20 that.
21 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I agree with that.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, if you don't want to go 23 back and continue d i a-l o g u e , --
24 MR. DIRCKS: We've given them our word that we'd 25 give them two years --
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67 1 CHAfRMAN PALLADfNO. Oh, but incidentally, I was not 2 talking about coming immediately back and proposing a rule, 3 but to discuss the general question of enforceability with 4 them.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: You see, the problem will be 6 that right now --
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Incidentally, my whole premise 8 in opening this was to say, "We do have this agreement," and I 9 was trying to honor it That's why I said that I'm going to 10 hold off and not push for a rule, because I think we made that 11 agreement, and I think we have a program that is and can be 12 effective and is being effective.
13 MR. DIRCKS: It's effective. I believe it's 14 effective. I think what you're looking for is to assure 15 yourself that you have a program that the NRC is monitoring 16 very closely and assuring that it's implemented.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, let's try this thing.
18 I mean, the problem will be, if we start inquiring about why 19 would a rule be so bad after all, the same thing is going to 20 happen that is happening right now, because we don't have our 21 policy statement out. And right now, some of these utilities 22 are sitting there saying to themselves and to INPO and to 23 NUMARC, "We aren't going te de anything untti these guys get 24 something done at the NRC."
25 Well, let's get our part of the bargain finished
68 9
/
1 here, and get a policy statement out, and then maybe things j 2 are going to start moving and working the way we would like to 3 see them. We can always reconsider, but I am not going to go 4 back right now and start saying, "Well, but maybe we'll do a 5 rule after all," because then they'll just wait until we 6 decide whether we're going to do a rule.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I will accept your statement as
, 8 seconding my proposal, the first part of it.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL; I agree with it, the first 10 part of your proposal, yes.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And I gather there are others 12 that don't want the further dialogue on enforcement for 13 awhile. At least let's go on with the policy statement.
14 MR. DIRCKS: Could I --
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I hate to cut off dialogue, 16 though, between the Staff and NUMARC, and I don't think that 17 will cut it off.
18 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I've got two other issues here 19 for you before you leave.
20 This applies only to nuclear power reactors. You 21 have got two other concepts here or issues.
22 Should we expand this to the fuel cycle end of the 23 industry? And two, there is the issue of construction. New l
24 they have guidelines in here for construction, but they don't 25 really have any teeth to enforce it on the construction end of
69 1 it.
2 Now I think those are two gaps that you might want 3 to direct us to go back and come in with something.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes. ,
1 1
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Construction is where we've 1 6 been having most of the allegations.
7 MR. DIRCKS: You see, this moves from the utility 8 operator, which can enforce its programs, down to contractors 9 and subcontractors and so on down the line.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADIllO: Well, we did use the word 11 " contractors" in here.
12 MR. DIRCKS: Well, we 'think you have a problem here, 13 and we'd like to go back --
14 MR. PARTLOW: The guidelines seem to speak to the 15 whole industry, including construction sites. INPO oversight 16 consists of its using its evaluations at operating plants and 17 its evaluations at corporate headquarters. Both of those get 18 a fitness for duty look.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: There is no review of 20 contractors.
21 MR. PARTLOW: But the INPO construction evaluation 22 program is phasing out. It's almost over. And so there is no 23 specific proposal in place to go to Plant Vogtle onsite . .s d 24 look at the fitness for duty program. But that was never 25 contemplated in our original rule. Our rule was operating
70 1 plants.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Let me ask a related question 3 here. This is my last question, and I think I'm not the only 4 one to raise it.
5 There was some talk at one point of INPO doing an 6 accreditation of these fitness for duty programs. Has that 7 idea completely disappeared, or what's happened?
8 MR. PARTLOW: Yes, to the best of my knowledge, it 9 -- I don't know how far it ever got. In the Staff Paper, 10 SECY-85-21B that proposed withdrawing the fitness for duty ,
11 rule, the words were used that "thus INPO would be accrediting 12 fitness for duty programs," and that was the wrong choice of 13 words.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Did you say 21B or 21A7 15 MR. PARTLOW: Oh, 21A. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.
16 COMMISSIONZR BERNTHAL: Does anyone know why they 17 have chosen not to pursue that?
18 MR. DIRCK?: I don't know.
19 COMMISSIONER ZECH: My understanding of accreditation 20 programs, it strictly applies to a training program that's in 21 place. In other words, you start with a job task analysis, you 22 see what the individual has to do and what material he has to 23 know, how he has to perform. It's a rather involved sequence 24 of logic you put together to find out exactly what kind of 25 training is needed.
l l
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71 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, chango the namo then, 2 and call it something else.
3 COMMISSIONER ZECH: So you accredit that kind of a 4 program. But honestly, to accredit the fitness for duty is 5 not ordinarily, at least in my experience, how you apply 6 accreditation.
7 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Use a different word, then, 8 Lando.
9 COMMISSIONER ZECH: There may be a validation or 10 something like that.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Whatever the word, 12 validation, certification, it doesn't matter to me what we 13 call it. But the concept seems not to have advanced, and I'm 14 just wondering what happened.
15 MR. DIRCKS: Now they will be meeting with you next 16 week, November 4th. They are on the agenda, and fitness for 17 duty is one of the items you will want to take up with them.
18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Okay. Well maybe we will 19 ask.
20 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Okay.
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Joe, before we break up, I 22 should just make it clear that I fundamentally disagree with 23 the approach that the Commission is on. I think that we de 24 need a basis for enforceability. I don't think it makes any 25 sense at all to stick with an existing commitment that we made l
72 1 a year or so ago, b4 sed at least in my view on a very faulty 2 assumption of our ability to do something, and I think this 3 approach is wrong, and I will have fairly extensive for the 4 policy statement on at 5 I think the Commission is abrogating its regulatory 6 responsibility. There are responsibilities and roles here 7 that the industry can carry out and that we have to carry out 8 as well But this goes way to far. And to think that you are 9 going to accomplish much of anything with a policy statement 10 that is totally unenforceable is wishful thinking. And I 11 think what you're going to see are some serious fitness for 12 duty problems in the next year or two or longer, without a 13 basis for our being able to take enforcement action. I think 14 it's a big mistake.
15 COMMISSIONER ZECH: We're not abrogating our 16 responsibilities, that's for sure. No, I don't agree with you 17 at all.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: The policy statement does not 19 preclude any other action on enforceability.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But the Commission has 21 agreed that it is not even willing to reopen with INPO this 22 question of having a basis for enforcement.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I'm going to bring it up when 24 we talk to them.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay. Well, I thought the
73 1 sense was that you weren't even interested in discussing the 2 issue.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I gather there were three 4 that said that they didn't want to direct the Staff to do 5 that, and so we won't direct the Staff to do it. They take 6 initiatives on their own sometimes. But I certainly intend to 7 bring it up when NUMARC comes here.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I think we have the authority 9 to do what needs to be done. I agree with Commissioner Zech on 10 that. I frankly think that what we ended up getting in this 11 thing was two extremes. We started out with a rule that, I 12 agree, wasn't particularly extreme, but we certainly went down 13 the path that we have always gone down, which is a modestly 14 prescriptive rule in this case, and then we suddenly bounced 15 over to a policy statement that was terribly thin gruel, in my 16 judgment. It didn't say much of anything. And I think there 17 is a median point somewhere that makes clear to the industry 18 what we want to do.
19 I think we have sufficient capability to enforce 20 whLt we need to do. We can write the 50.54(f) letter, if we j
(
- 21 wish, requiring the utilities to inform us of the actions they 22 have taken. And it seems to me that the objective here is 23 where ww end up in a year or two, and, Jim, it ww start 24 tomorrow to promulgate a rule, I can almost assure you that l
25 any fitness for duty problems that we are going to have three 1
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74 1
months from now, we would have anyway, and it has nothing to 2 do with promulgating a rule within the next year or two. It's l
3 a slow process around here, and thus far, I have seen no 4 evidence that rulemaking, per se, would have expedited that 5 process at all.
6 Now if the time comes when it looks like utilities 7 are dragging their feet and, in fact, that's where the 8 difficulty lies, then I'm perfectly willing to , concur in what 9 your views are at this time, but I don't think we've approached 10 that.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, first let me address 12 both of those points.
,- 13 As far as the rule goes, I don't agree with you at
\
14 all that the rule was prescriptive. It was a broad-based 15 rule.
16 Second, we could issue that rule tomorrow. The rule 17 has been issued for comment. It's a final package before us.
18 We could issue that rule tomorrow, and there wouldn't be any 19 delay in issuing that rule, and it was not a prescriptive 20 rule. The Commission could issue that rule tomorrow and have 21 a basis for enforceability in place, and at the same time, 22 still take full advantage of all the efforts that the industry 23 har made in def tning the gurdeltnes and in putting in place 24 their programs. The only difference would be, then we would 25 have a clear basis for enforceability in the event that we
75 1 found that there were instances in which people weron't doing 2 the job properly.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: We'll enforce if they aren't 4 doing the job.
S COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But there is nothing to 6 enforce against, and therefore there is no basis for 7 enforcement. All we can do is wait for something serious to 8 happen, and then we can do something.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: No. We can enforce against 10 people that are using drugs on sites.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: There is an element of 12 keeping good faith in these kinds of arrangements, and if 13 there were evidence that there has not been the kind of 14 progress that we expected -- I think everybody here agreed 15 that the industry has moved quickly, that there has been great 16 progress -- and right now,-to sit and hypothesize about 17 problems that may lie down the road gets you right back into 18 the kind of mode of thinking where we in Washin'gton here are 19 going to cover all bets for anything that might happen out 20 there, and I'm just not prepared to do that.
21 I think that things are going well. Let's try a 22 different path.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I'm not at all conytneed l
24 that things are going that well at every site, and I would !
25 just point to one thing, the fact that the industry program, l
76 1 after a year's worth of development, doesn't requiro any 2 screening or monitoring program of the existing employees, and 3 there are instances out there in which there are no screening 4 or monitoring programs of employees at the sites. How in the 5 world you can sit there and say that you can have an effective 6 fitness for duty program, if you don't have some method for 7 screening and testing your employees to decide whether they 8 are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, is beyond me.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: We haven't said anything 10 about it, and we're about to.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I would suggest that we 12 get this policy statement revised, get it back to the 13 Commission, and let's see if we can't act promptly on that. .
14 We do have an opportunity to discuss with NUMARC the 15 fitness for duty question when they come early next month, and 16 we can -- I intend to -- raise questions about the 17 enforceability aspects of this question.
18 Have we done as much as we can on this issue for 19 today?
20 Well, thank you, gentlemen, we appreciate your 21 input, and we will stand adjourned.
22 [Whereupon, at 11:55 o' clock, a.m., the Commission 23 meeting was ad}ourned.]
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% 1 CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER 2
3 4
5 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 6 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 7 matter of. COMMISSION MEETING 8
9 Name of Proceeding: Discussion of Fitness for Duty (Public Meeting) 10 11 Docket No.
/
12 Place: Washington, D. C.
13 Date: Tuesday, October 22, 1985 14 15 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 16 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission.
18 (Signature)
(TypedNameofReprter) /Su'za$e B. G ng 20 El 22 23 Ann Riley & Associates. Ltd.
24 l
25
i FITNESS FOR DUTY COMMISSION MEETING OCTOBER 22, 1985
~
I 6
FITNESS FOR DUTY CllRON0 LOGY o AUGUST 1982 -
PROPOSED RULE PUBLISilED FOR COMMENT.
o AUGUST 1983 -
STAFF PROPOSED FINAL RULE.
o A BROAD, NON-PRESCRIPTIVE RULE: LICENSEES WITH OL TO ESTABLISil AND IMPLEMENT WRITTEN PROCEDURES DESIGNED TO PROVIDE REASONABLE ASSURANCE THAT LICENSEE AND CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL WITH UNESCORTED ACCESS TO l PROTECTED AREAS ARE NOT UNDER INFLUENCE OF ALC0HOL OR DRUGS, OR OTilERWISE UNFIT FOR DUTY, l
i .
i CHRON0 LOGY (CONTINUED) o DECEMBER 1983 - COMMISSION DIRECTED TilAT RULE SHOULD APPLY T0:
ESCORTED AND UNESCORTED PERSONNEL VITAL AREAS VICE PROTECTED AREAS NRC AND 0THER GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES o MARCH 1984 -
STAFF PROVIDED ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON FINAL FITNESS FOR DUTY RULE (SECY-83-339A),
i MADE RULE APPLICABLE TO ALL PERSONNEL IN VITAL AREAS.
INCLUDED NRC/ GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL.
i 1
1
_ CURON 0 LOGY (CONTINUED) o JULY 1984 -
COMMISSION APPROVED PUBLICATION OF FINAL FITNESS FOR DUTY RULE, SUBJECT T0:
STAFF TO PREPARE GENERIC LETTER WITH DESCRIPTION OF HOW NRC WILL DETERMINE COMPLIANCE. i EXPLORE INP0/NUMARC WILLINGNESS TO DEVELOP DETAILEP I PROGRAM ELEMENTS AND ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA IN LIEU OF NRC PRESCRIPTIVE GUIDANLE.
O AUGUST 1984 - IN MEETINGS WITH STAFF, NUMARC AGREES WITH INDUSTRY ,
DEVELOPMENT OF GUIDANCE PROVIDED NRC DOES NOT PROMULGATE RULE.
i
4 CHRONOLOGY (CONTINUED) o OCTOBER 12, 1984 -
INDUSTRY (BRIEFING) PROPOSED TWO-YEAR DEFERRAL OF RULE TO EVALUATE INPUSTRY PERFORMANCE IN THE FITNESS FOR DUTY AREA.
o OCTOBER 24, 1984 -
COMMISSION DIRECTED STAFF TO WRITE POLICY STATEMENT AUTil0RIZING INDUSTRY (INP0 AND NUMARC) TO G0 FORWARD FOR TWO YEARS WITH INITIATIVES ON FITNESS FOR DUTY AND TRAINING
, ACCREDITATION PROGRAM. STAFF TO COORDINATE POLICY STATEMENT WITH INP0 AND NUMARC.
o NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 1984 -
NRC/NUMARC DEVELOPMENT OF PROPOSED POLICY STATEMENT.
)
i
l CHRONOLOGY (CONTINUED) 1 o JANUARY 1985 -
STAFF SUBMITS PROPOSED POLICY STATEMENT ON FITNESS FOR DUTY (SECY-85-21),
o JUNE 1985 -
COMMISSION INFORMED TilAT STAFF HOLDING FURTHER DISCUSSIONS WITH NUMARC IN VIEW 0F RECENT DRUG RELATED PROBLEMS.
DRAFT EEI GUIDE PROVIDED TO STAFF FOR COMf1ENT.
. o AUGUST 1985 -
EEI GUIDE PUBLISHED.
o AUGUST 1985 -
STAFF SUBMITS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON STATUS OF EEI GUIDE ON FITNESS FOR DUTY (SECY-85-21B).
1
SUMMARY
OF INDUSTRY FITNESS FOR DUTY PROGRAM o INDUSTRY REPORTS THAT:
EVERY NUCLEAR UTILITY COMMITTED TO PROGRAM. BASIC PROGRAMS ESTABLISHED IN FEBRUARY 1985.
"EEI GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE DRUG AND ALC0HOL/ FITNESS FOR DUTY POLICY DEVELOPMENT" (AUGUST 1985) PROVIDES INDUSTRY GUIDANCE.
STRENGTHENED INP0 EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR USE DURING PLANT AND CORPORATE EVALUATIONS. PLANT AND CORPORATE EVALUATIONS CONDUCTED ABOUT EVERY FIFTEEN MONTHS.
PERIODIC INDUSTRY WORKSHOPS TO BE HELD.
i l .
EEI GUIDE o INFORMATION NOT MANDATORY OR PRESCRIPTIVE. OTHER METHODS MAY BE EQUALLY EFFECTIVE. APPLICATION OF GUIDE'S KEY ELEMENTS SHOULD ASSIST UTILITIES IN ACllIEVING THE OBJECTIVE OF A DRUG-FREE WORK ENVIRONMENT. ,
o GUIDE CONTAINS TEN KEY PROGRAM ELEMENTS WITil GENERAL GUIDANCE PLUS EXAMPLES:
WRITTEN POLICY UNION BRIEFING TOP MANAGEMENT SUPPORT CONTRACTOR NOTIFICATION POLICY COMMUNICATION -
LAW ENFORCEMENT LIAISON 1
BEllAVIORAL OBS TRAINING -
CHEMICAL TESTING IMPLEMENTATION TRAINING -
EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS 3
1
- o. .
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i j DISCIPLINARY PROVISIONS OF EEI GUIDE f
- THE ILLEGAL USE, SALE OR POSSESSION OF NARCOTICS, DRUGS, OR CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ON SITE WILL RESULT IN DISCHARGE. THE ILLEGAL SALE OF DRUGS ,
i 0FF SITE WILL ALSO RESULT IN DISCHARGE, i -
ILLEGAL USE OF DRUGS OFF SITE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. SUCH USE MAY RESULT IN DISCHARGE. l EMPLOYEES IN DESIGNATED POSITIONS INVOLVED WITH DRUGS OFF SITE WILL '
BE IMMEDIATELY REMOVED FROM JOB ASSIGNMENT AND TESTED FOR PRESENCE
! 0F DRUGS. EMPLOYEE MAY BE RETURNED TO DUTY ONLY WHEN COMPANY RECEIVES i ;
- PROFESSIONAL ASSURANCE THAT PRESENCE ON Tile JOB DOES NOT PRESENT A l SAFETY llAZARD. RETENTION DEPENDS ON SUCCESSFULLY PASSING TESTS TO VERIFY ABSTENTION DURING A PROBATIONARY PERIOD.
l t I
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^
t i
PROPOSED POLICY STATEMENT t
i 0 RECOGNIZES INDUSTRY PROGRESS o NOTES NRC IS DEFERRING RULEMAKING, BUT INDUSTRY PROGRAMS MUST PRODUCE ,
RESULTS, l 0 NRC RESPONSIBLE FOR EVALUATING LICENSEES' EFFORTS IN FITNESS FOR DUTY i
AND CONSIDERING NEED FOR FURTHER ACTION DURING TWO YEAR PERIOD, o NOTES DEVELOPMENT OF MODIFIED EEI GUIDE AND INP0 PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES AND CRITERIA, i
o NRC TO MONITOR EFFECTIVENESS OF LICENSEE PROGRAMS THROUGH INP0 PROGRAM i REVIEWS AND ACCOMPANIMENTS, AND OCCASIONAL NRC PROGRAMMATIC INSPECTION, o COMMISSION WILL EXERCISE DISCRETION IN ENFORCEMENT.
i i
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.. . - _ - . _ . - =.
l , '.
ENFORCEMENT IN FITNESS FOR DUTY AREA o POLICY STAlEMENT DOES NOT EXPAND EXISTING ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY; IT l
IS MERELY A STATEMENT OF PURPOSE OR FUTURE INTENT, I
o NO EXISTING REQUIREMENTS FOR FITNESS FOR DUTY PROGRAMS THAT CAN BE ENFORCED.
i o ANY ENFORCEMENT ACTION FOR USE OF DRUGS WOULD REQUIRE SHOWING OF J
ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SAFETY PROBLEM; WOULD.BE USUALLY IMPOSED BY ORDER.
i
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SUMMARY
COMMITMENT, INDUSTRY STATEsS TilAT BASIC PROGRAM IS IN PLACE o
GUIDANCE, 0VERSIGilT.
1
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o EXCEPT FOR QUESTI0il 0F ENFORCEABILITY, PROGRAM APPEARS TO BE AT ~
LEAST EQUAL TO THAT ENVISIONED BY RULE.
NOT LIMITED TO VITAL AREAS NOT LIMITED TO OPERATING PLANTS o NRC WILL 11 AVE ACCESS TO PROGRAM INFORMATION, HOWEVER:
i l -
COMMISSION MAY DESIRE PERIODIC BRIEFINGS STAFF WILL NOT HAVE SPECIFIC INFORMATION ON STATUS OF PROGRAM AT ALL SITES 4
f f f G f th (k [hhhhhghth[(hghphphphphphphpl)(([phphphgh N 9/35 TRANSMITIAL TO: /N Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips m
ADVANCED CDPY 'IO: / / 'Ihe Public Ebcument Iban DATE: lO G9 Tr$
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Attached are copies of a Cbmnission meeting transcript (s) and related meeting dodtanent(s) . They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List -
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