ML20147C125
| ML20147C125 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/31/1997 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9702050347 | |
| Download: ML20147C125 (115) | |
Text
TRANSMITTAL T0:
Document Control Desk, 05C-12 ADVANCED COPY T0: _
Public Document Room, L Street DATE: ,7MM FROM: SECY, Operations Branch Attached is a copy of a public Commission meeting transcript and related meeting document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and placement in the Public Document Room. No other distribution is requested or required.
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Original transcript with attachments is filed in Correspondence & Recc.rds Branch.
9702050347 970131 PDR 10CFR PT9,7 PDR
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- - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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Title:
BRIEFING ON INTEGRATED MATERIALS i
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROGRAM -
i
- PUBLIC MEETING l Location
- Rockville, Maryland Date: Friday, January 31,1997 ,
Pages: 1 - 90 ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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3 DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on January 31, 1997 in the Commission's office at one l White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
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1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ***
4 BRIEFING ON INTEGRATED MATERIALS 5 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROGRAM E ***
7 PUBLIC MEETING 8 ***
9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Building One, Room 1F-16 11 One White Flint North 12 11555 Rockville Pike 13 Rockville, Maryland 14 15 Friday, January 31, 1997 16 17 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 18 notice, at 10:04 a.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, i
19 Chairman of the Commission, presiding. I I
20 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: l 21 SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission 22 KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission 23 GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission 24 NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission l
25 EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission l l
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. 1 3
1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
a 2
3 JOHN C. HOYLE, Secretary 4 KAREN D. CYR, General Counsel 5 HUGH THOMPSON, JR., Acting EDO, and Chair, 6 Management Review Board 7 DR. CARL PAPERIELLO, Director, NMSS a
8 DR. DONALD COOL, Director, Division of Industrial 9 and Medical Nuclear Safety, NMSS i
10 RICHARD BANGART, Director, OSP 11 KATHLEEN SCHNEIDER, Sr. Program Manager, OSP 1
12 BRUCE MALLET, Director, Division of Nuclear 13 Materials Safety, Region II f 14 ROLAND FLETCHER, Manager, Rad Health Program, j
15 Maryland Department of the Environment 16 JAMES McNEES, Director, Rad Materials Inspection, 17 Alabama State Department of Public Health 18 RICHARD RATLIFF, Chief, Bureau of Radiation 19 Control, Texas Department of Health 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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3 1 PROCEEDINGS t -
2 [10:04 a.m.]
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good morning, ladies and 3
i 4 gentlemen. Today the Staff and representatives from 5 agreement states will brief the Commission on the Integrated 6 Materials Performance Evaluation Program, or IMPEP.
7 IMPEP was initiated in part in response to 8 comments from Congress and the General Accounting Office 9 several years ago that criticized NRC's program to assure a 10 national uniform level of protection of public health and 11 safety in the nuclear materials area.
12 Since 1994 the Staff has initiated, piloted and 13 refined a program to evaluate agreement states and regional 14 materials programs in a common manner.
15 On June 27th of 1995 the Commission approved the 16 Staff's proposal to implement and expand IMPEP. The Staff 17 has gained considerable experience since then and the 18 purpose of today's briefing is to provide the Commission 19 with a status update.
20 I understand that this morning we will hear from 21 the two headquarters offices that implement IMPEP -- the 22 regional perspective and the agreement state perspective.
23 We appreciate the attendance of the agreement 24 state representatives and look forward to hearing your views 25 on IMPEP.
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4 1 We also look forward to hearing from the Staff, .
J 2 both from Headquarters and the regions.
3 Since 1995 agreement states have been represented 4 on the review teams and have provided a liaison to 5 Management Review Board meetings. I am interested in 6 hearing the Staff's experience in coordinating more closely 7 with and being evaluated by agreement state personnel.
8 In November the Staff documented the status of the IMPEP program in a paper, SECY 96-234, which is publicly J
9 10- available. I understand that copies of the Staff's and the ;
11 agreement states' viewgraphs are available at the entrances ;
12 to the meeting.
13 Unless there are any comments from the .
14 Commissioners, Mr. Thompson, please proceed.
15 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Chairman Jackson and 16 Com'.nissioners . i 17 I am pleased to be here this morning. In fact, t
18 actually we have four members of the Management Review Board ,
19 at the table here, so we might be having one of our meetings ,
20 right here today.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, we have been through some I i
22 of that.
l 23 MR. THOMPSON: It is a pleasure to be here and i
24 brief the Commission on the IMPEP program. l 25 As you know, we briefed the Commission in March of i
l l
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4 1 1995 and with the Commission's approval began the 2 implementation of the Integrated Materials Performance 3 Evaluation, IMPEP --
4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Has it been since March, 1995?
5 MR. THOMPSON: I believe, so and it's when the 6 briefing was but time flies when you are having fun.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Yes.
8 MR. THOMPSON: As Chair of the Management Review 9 Board, I believe that this program has proven effective both 10 in terms of evaluating the adequacy and compatibility of 11 material programs both in NRC and in the agreement states 12 during the past year and improving the technical and 13 programmatic exchange of information between NRC and the 14 agreement states.
15 I think this latter point is a very important 16 point because one of the things that I always found very 17 useful at the end of the meetings, I would ask the 18 participants both who participated in the review of the 19 agreement states what was their observations, lessons 20 learned, and even the NRC Staff's -- we would bring in the 21 Office of Research, NMSS. We really do get a broadening of 22 the program internally within NRC as well as within the 23 agreement states, and I must admit that it's even delightful 24 to have the Office of General Counsel represented --
25 [Laughtei )
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6 1 CHAIRMAN JArKSON: Delightful?
2 MR. THOMPSON: Deiightful. I mean -- no, but it 3 is one of the few places that I know that we really come 4 together as an agency looking at an important program and I 5 know the Commission has been encouraging us to do that and 6 this is one of the programs that really has, I think, 7 achieved that, and credit should be given to GAO for pushing 8 us in this direction.
9 I wasn't really happy about it to start off with, 10 but I must commend the Staff for taking that challenge and 11 moving forward and today we have two panels, as you 12 mentioned, the reviewers and the reviewers, and we will hear 13 from both.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And some mixture of the two.
15 MR. THOMPSON: And some mixture of the two --
16 that's true -- with Roland Fletcher. He's been on both 17 sides of this approach there, but on my left though is 18 Kathleen Schneider, from the Office of State Programs, who 19 was instrumental in doing much of the early work, both in 20 the agreement state programs in the previous program as well 21 as with the new program, and has been a team leader; Don 22 Cool, who is the Director of the Division of Industrial and 23 Medical Nuclear Safety, who will do most of the Staff's 24 presentation; and the two gentlemen on my right, Carl 25 Paperiello and Dick Bangart, who are members of the Board ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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7 1 and I wouldn't --
2 MS. CYR: -- you can consult me twice --
3 [ Laughter.)
4 MR. THOMPSON: But there's no damning at all in 5 this case, but with no other things I would like to turn the 6 briefing over to Carl -- I mean Don.
7 [ Laughter.]
8 MR. THOMPSON: They look so much alike --
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: It must be the glasses.
10 MR. THOMPSON: It's my tie that's making my vision 11 go wrong today or something.
12 DR. COOL: Good morning.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good morning.
14 DR. COOL: If I can go ahead and have the first 15 slide -- as you indicated we will have two panels here.
16 [ Slide.]
17 DR. COOL: What we intend to do here in the next 18 few minutes is to walk you quickly through some of the
, 19 background, a lot of which we have already touched on, some 20 of the indicators in process, because a number of you were 1
21 not here at the time that we last were up here, which wasn't I
22 that close to two years ago -- it doesn't seem like that !
l 23 long --
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Actually, no one was here in --
25 [ Laughter.]
i
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1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: -- except Commissioner
- 2 Rogers --it was a comma and not a period, the point being 3 that you can be robust in how you kind of give your l 4 perspectives.
1 5 DR. COOL: Right, and some of our results and a
6 schedules. If we can'go ahead and go to the next slide on 4
7 the background, as we have already indicated, we established 8 this program --
{ 9 [ Slide.] l L
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Can you speak a little more
, 11 into the --
l 12 DR. COOL: Let me see if I can get this a little s
- 13 bit closer. There we go. I keep forgetting and Chip I j 14 reminded me all through public meetings years ago that I l
15 need to swallow the microphone, so we will attempt to do l 16 that, and put it here a little bit closer.
I 17 We developed the program in response to some 18 outside inputs to be sure, but also in response to some of 19 the things that we have been observing, so it was in a sense J
20 quite time'ly to try and get some measure of consistency in d
21 how we were looking at our own regional programs, how we i
4 22 were looking at the agreement state programs. l l
23 It was a move to try and move towards performance, l 1 '
24 try and look at the particular areas that really needed to 25 be focused upon, try to get some rigor in that particular s
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9 1 program. l 2 We went through a series of steps in '94 and '95 1
3 in terms of initial pilots, some initial development of '
4 criteria, subjecting those to comments, for which there was 5 a great deal of comment and input, some wonderful l 6 discussions at some of the all agreement state meetings and 7 CRCPD meetings about the indicators, what should be in and 8 what should be out. I 9 We had some very vocal viewpoints on that and it 10 directly influenced the way the common indicators are, as 11 you see them today, implemented then.
12 Go ahead and go to the next slide.
13 [ Slide.)
14 DR. COOL: Following the Commission's approval in i
15 1995 they issued the Management Directive 5.6 under which we 16 are conducting the program, laid out the common performance 17 criteria which were part of that directive.
18 some of the key elements in this process and l l
19 activities, there is state participation on the teams and on 20 the Management Review Boards; the teams themselves are 21 interdisciplinary teams -- depending on the size of the 22 program it may be two or three individuals for some of the 23 states, usually four or five for the larger states and for 24 the regions drawn from a variety of perspectives -- some 25 inspection backgrounds, some licensing background, some of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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10 i l
1 the folks who have more details in terms of some of the ,
i 2 implementation budgetary resources, some of those sorts of 3 things.
4 The focus is on the program performance -- where
! .s it going, how is it going well, are they looking at the 6 right sorts of things, are they implementing the directives ]
7 and requirements that are out there and available.
l l 8 It's also provided an opportunity to go through a 9 much more rigorous documentation process. That is in the 10 development of a report, a review of the report by the group 11 that was reviewed, both the regions or the states, and )
12 coming together and providing that for the Management Review 13 Board that then examines it, has made modifications on 14 occasions to the final outcome and the final review process. l t
15 Staff also began the development of a series of j 16 noncommon indicators, noncommon indicators being those I i
17 particular program areas that do not cross the board through 18 all the regions and all of the states. For example, low 1 l
19 level waste, where there are several states that are j
l 20 pursuant' low level waste programs and other states are not. j 21 Again, similarly in the sealed source and device 22 area, where some of the states are doing sealed source l l
23 device reviews as part of their agreement, some of the 24 states have not chosen to take that particular authority so i
- 25 we use those in those areas where that program is actually
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1 11 l r
1 operating with the states.
2 Drafts were provided, comments received from the i 3 states on those particular program areas, and have been 4 implemented on the first round as we went through the FY '96 5 cycle.
6 The noncommons, both for the states and for the 7 regions, are a year, probably two years, behind the common 8 indicators in terms of having tested them, working through 9 them, refining them, what my friends in the computer 10 industry talk about as " hardening" --
getting them refined 11 down, getting them locked down in a way that everyone has i
12 agreed to over a course of time, so they are not to the same l
13 degree of rigor and are not in fact in the management 14 directive yet, although they will be and we will continue 15 that process. l 16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you this question.
1 '17 Tell me a little more about what you think you have gained 4 18 from the unique perspectives that the agreement state 19 liaison have had -- I am going to ask them the comparable 20 question -- as part of the Management Review Board and have 21 they been effective advocates for states or programs from 22 their states that are different than ours but which achieve 23 good performance nonetheless?
e 24 What do you think we have gained from that?
25 MR. THOMPSON: Well, certainly from my perspective ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 4 Court Reporters !
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12 1 they have been fully active participants, asking questions 2 such that help develop the significance of an issue or of a 3 finding or in certain areas we basically have had reasonably 4 good programs to review.
5 We have had one program that we will talk about a 6 little bit that was more difficult than others, but in each ,
7 program they tend to have areas for improvements or areas 8 that need further exploration of the table and having 9 members of the agreement states there.
10 They have asked excellent questions. They have I 11 been bringing their perspective to the table as to what-a l 12 state may have to achieve in order to correct a deficiency I 13 and it gives us some confidence that, you know, if we are l l
14 asking something that it can be accomplished in the 15 agreement state programs and in programs that are out there.
I 16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Have we taken anything that 17 they may have suggested and migrated it into our own 18 process?
19 MR. THOMPSON: I'll probably turn that over back T' to Don or maybe Bruce and others can talk about it.
21 I can tell you that at each meeting that we have 22 we try to look for good practices and make that available to 23 all the agreement states and to the NRC regions so that 24 where we have a good tracking system, a good method for 25 documenting results, follow-up on enforcement actions, I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 13 1 think almost in every case each state has had something that 2 has been highlighted as being good or one of the evaluators
, 3 will come back and say I really learned a lot here because I 4 liked that way they did "x" at, you know, in North Carolina 5 and then we want to use that back in improving the program 6 either in one of the regions or in one of the states that 7 were participating in it.
8 So, I don't know, Carl?
9 MR. PAPERIELLO: I can't add anything, no.
10 MR. THOMPSON: Okay.
11 DR. COOL: Certainly from the Staff's perspective, 12 there has been a great benefit. They have provided some 13 very good viewpoints, some ways that the individual reviewer j 14 was doing things that was quite useful both to the other 15 team members doing the review and to the region, and those 16 are the ones that I can speak directly to in terms of the i
17 way practices are being done.
18 Perspectives that we have learned in reviews of 19 the states have provided us several things, ways of doing 20 public interaction and getting feedback on customer service, 21 for example, extremely useful sorts of things that were 22 going on there.
23 From a more general perspective, I think it's fair 24 to say that virtually everybody who has been part of each 25 one of these reviews has walked away learning something.
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14 1 To be very frank, my staff is not particularly 2 happy when I go out to one of the closecuts for the regions 3 because they know I am going to come back with something 4 that I am going to ask them to start doing because I found ,
5 something that will probably work better, something that 6 will help our own particular program. That has been a great 7 strength, 8 Just to finish up then --
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Can I ask a question?
10 DR. COOL: Please, yes.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: THe issue of noncommon 12 performance indicators, you said you are running one to two 13 years behind the common performance indicators since the 14 common performance indicators one or two years ago you 15 locked those in.
16 That means very soon you are going to be able to 17 tell us what the noncommon performance indicators are? I am ;
18 just trying to be more precise on timing. ;
19 DR. COOL: Okay -- a two-part answer to your l
l 20 question. We can tell you what the indicators that we are ,
21 looking at are now --
22 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Right.
23 DR. COOL: -- we'll do that in about a slide.
24 My expectation is that when we are ready to do a 25 revision of the management directive, and there will be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- l 15 1 several reasons for doing that when the adequacy and 2 compatibility statement is ready, that we will also be in a l 3 position to write into that management directive the I 4 noncommon indicators, particularly those that go along with 5 the state reviews that have already been subjected to a 6 round of state comments.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: And what would be the 8 role of the Commission in approving the revised management 9 directive?
1 10 Would it be submitted to the Commission as the !
11 original directive was or what is your -- how does that l 12 work?
13 DR. COOL: The previous directive, and somebody 14 may need to help correct me here, was approved by the EDO 15 and provided to the Commission with the Federal Register 16 notice.
17 The management procedures normally have the EDO 18 approving the directives. That doesn't mean that we can't 1 i
19 provide it to you as vou wish.
20 COMMISSIONER McGAJFIGAN: I understand the 21 procedure. !
22 MR. THOMPSON: Yes, we typically keep the 23 Commission informed on any issues that they like to be 24 informed on, and it certainly would be provided to give 25 copies to the Commissions once we have reached the point --
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1 16 1 and as we said, this will really be an integral part of an 1 2 issue that does require the Commission's approval on, the 3 adequacy and compatibility area. ;
4 MR. BANGART: I'd like to add, Hugh, that we are 1
5 further along in terms of experience with criteria for the !
6 noncommon indicators for the ones that cover low-level waste i 7 and sealed source and device reviews.
8 Those were drafted earlier in were part of this 9 interim program that has been conduced the last year.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: For those that you haven't 11 drafted anything yet, what documents were you using?
12 MR. BANGART: They have all been drafted. They 13 have all been out to the agreement stc'.es for comments and 14 were in the --
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, what about the ones for 16 the regions?
17 DR. COOL: For the regions in the fuel cycle area 18 it was the Fuel Cycle Program Plan, which fuel cycle has in 19 the SDMP area, decommissioning arena. They were using the 20 set of documents that go back to the SDMP program statement.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And those are the ones that are 22 then used as the basis for what you are going to be 23 drafting?
24 MR. BANGART: Yes, that 's correc'. .
25 DR. COOL: And in the noncommon area what we have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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17 1 attempted to do is to parallel for that particular program 2 element the same sorts of things that we do in common for 3 the general program, so look at the specific issues or 4 training or qualifications for that area, such as sealed l
5 sources, device reviews in that particular area, so again 6 trying to look at the same sorts of things -- the quality, 7 the timeliness, and the training, but focused on that 8 particular program element.
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: To go back to my 10 original question, when do you see the process getting to a !
11 conclusion and this revised directive being issued?
12 DR. COOL: I would expect we would have the 13 revised directive this year once we're in a position to do i 14 that. I 15 I would also expect that we would probably be I
16 looking on about an annual basis -- as we complete each 17 fiscal year looking and seeing whether there are things that !
18 we have learned, things that have come out of the Management l 19 Review Board meetings which would dictate to us that we want 20 to go back in and modify, adjust -- all those particular 21 exercises.
22 COMMISSIONER McGAFF1GAN: So there will be annual 23 review process?
24 DR. COOL: I would think that in order to do this 25 job properly, we ought to always be checking to see if ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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18 -
1 are still on track.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, I think an appropriate 3 way to address the Commissioner's concerns is if you could 4 lay out what your integrated schedule looks like relative to 5 the various pieces coming together.
6 MR. THOMPSON: Dick, you might be able to address 7 that.
8 MR. BANGART: Let me just add that the other major 9 revision to the management directive will be the change in 10 the way compatibility is determined so once the Commission ;
11 hopefully gives final approval to the new adequacy and 12 compatibility policy stat nent and the implementing l 13 procedures -- i 14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Has that come here yet?
15 MR. BANGART: It is out for office concurrence as 16 of this morning.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. That is what I am trying 18 to say is that's what we need to know is what -- how that is 19 coming and how the schedule is for that, because all these 20 other things hinge on that. ;
21 MR. THOMPSON: My sense is within the next couple 22 of months we should be -- is the timeframe we're looking at, 23 and I can send you a little --
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: For the revised adequacy and 25 compatibility policy statement or --
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19 1 MR. BANGART: That will be Day Zero and then a 2 couple of months. Once it's approved, then we'll --
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So if I ask you whether you can 4 get it to the Commission within the next month, is that an 5 issue?
6 MR. BANGART: It is --
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: This has to do with just the 8 adequacy and compatibility.
9 MR. BANGART: We are on a schedule now that would 10 get it to you within a month.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
12 MR. BANGART: We have asked for office concurrence 13 in two weeks and then that will be at EDO's on the 18th.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Because then everything else --
15 and then we need to understand how everything else is linked 16 to that.
17 Yes, Commissioner Dicus?
18 COMMISSIONER DICUS: The other question then, as I 19 understand it, is the policy statement of principles and 20 policy for agreement state programs has to be part of this 21 package as well, is that --
22 MR. BANGART: Yes, they are combined. They are 23 combined into one paper.
24 COMMISSIONER DICUS: With the adequacy and 25 compatibility?
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20 "
1 MR. BANGART: Yes. Those policy statements and the 2 outstanding implementing procedures are all in the package ;
l 3 and it's about like that, unfortunately.
4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And we will review it in three i 5 days.
6 [ Laughter.)
1 7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz? I 8 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes. Has the issue of the low 9 risk, low complexity SDMP cites being addressed as who 30 should take responsibility for those and the issue being '
. 11 discussed to see whether agreement states are willing or l 12 have we made any recommendations or any discussions have 13 been made, and how to handle them if they are put on the l 14 table?
, 15 MR. THOMPSON: The agreement state programs that l
16 we reviewed are typically the ones for which they have the )
1 17 oversight for, and then part of our review process we go and 18 select the parts that we review, so the parts that we select 19 for review are typically those that have more risk l 20 significance and look at those.
t 21 I don't think we are looking at trying to change 22 the regulatory role and responsibility that is currently 23 involved either in agreement states or nonagreement states 4
24 at this time.
J 25 So we are just looking at the agreement state I
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21 1 progrc' and the regional programs as they currently exist.
2 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: So how size with low risk 3 might fall in our field but actually might eventually want 4 to be in some other field. Have those been addressed in any 5 fashion? Because I think eventually that will become an 6 issue.
7 MR. THOMPSON: I think that's addressed, but 8 that's not addressed in this type of a program here. I 9 think to the extent that I think we looked at that as some 10 of the issues with the strategic type planning area and I ,
11 don't know that they quite raised up to the Commission's 12 level of review at this time yet but I think that is the l' forum in which we are looking at what we would push that.
14 For example, I think the Commission is addressing 15 things in the nuclear medicine area and there is one where 16 we are looking at what focus we should have in a regulatory 17 perspective which would -- you know, we would give guidance 18 to the program reviews as to what part of the medical area 19 needs attention and what part needs less focus and less 20 attention on that. l 21 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: This is the same type of 22 issue, essentially?
23 MR. THOMPSON: That's right. But the program we j l 1 l
24 have here today really looks at the program that exists and l
! 1 25 the regulatory programs that are being carried out currently J l
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1 by the states and by the regions.
2 DR. COOL: Okay, we can go on to the slide on 3 common indicators, just walk through these very quickly.
4 [ Slide.]
5 DR. COOL: The five common performance indicators 6 that are looked at common to both the regions and the 7 states, the status of the inspection program, is it being 8 executed in a timely fashion, are there overdue inspections 9 that are outside of the window of opportunity? Are we 10 getting to people on the yearly basis for those that are 11 priority ones, are we getting to new licensees within the 12 first six months to make sure they, in fact, are 13 implementing the kinds of programs that are necessary, are 14 the reports getting issued in a timely fashion, are we 15 moving forward quickly in terms of the enforcement actions 16 or other things that come out of that, so there is not a 17 delay between findings that may be found and communicating 18 and taking actions associated with those?
19 The indicator related to technical staffing and 20 training, in terms of the overall level of staffing, the 21 right kind of staff availabilities, the right kind of mix, 22 the right kinds of qualifications. Are inspectors going 23 through the qualification process? Are license reviewers 24 going through the qualification process? Is there anything 25 that may pose a concern in terms of abnormal rates of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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23 1 attrition or turnover within'the programs?
2 Technical quality of the licensing activities, 3 where representative samples of actions are taken and 4 reviewed, looked at in terms of the findings that are found, 5 whether or not the safety' issues have been properly 6 addressed, try to pull a representative sample across the 7 variety of different kinds of licensing actions, new.
8 actions, amendments, renewals, terminations and a variety of 9 different kinds of program codes from simple types of 10 licensees to the more complex. Try to find one broad scope 11 of some of those activities, so we address a range of areas 12 there.
13 Technical quality of the inspections. Part of the 14 program provides for inspection accompaniments where folks i 15 from some of the other regions or some of my staff, the 16 folks from the agreement states, will 'actually accompany the 17 inspectors of the regions or the states, see how they are 18 doing, what they are looking at, examine how they are 19 documenting those, how they are following up, are they 20 conducting inspections looking for the right kinds of 21 issues.
22 The last one, in terms of response to incidents 23 and allegations, in terms of the level of effort, were 24 appropriate kinds of actions taken to events that were 25 identified as reporting happening in a timely fashion, those ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- 4 1 sorts of activities. :
1 l
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you a couple of l 4
3 questions on this particular slide. I will start from -- l 4 with respect to the last one, the ~esponse to incidents and j l
5 allegations.
d j 6 Obviously we have and are devoting considerable 7 attention to this whole area of allegation management. Are 8 the agreement states' allegation programs similar to ours 9 and have agreement states made parallel improvements along 10 the lines that we have been moving or trying to move? l 1
11 MR. THOMPSON: My sense is that each agreement j 12 state that we have looked has a program that does respond to 13 allegations. They do not have programs as structured as 14 ours where they have allegation review boards. As I can 15 remember, obviously they don't have the power reactor 16 community to -- khich has a large number of people involved 17 in them.
18 They typically have a much, much smaller number of i 19 allegations. They do not have, in general, an investigative 20 office to follow up, though they do have other capabilities 21 at the states to follow up on issues, whether it's like the 22 state bureau of investigations or other investigative 23 support functions. But we do look to see if there was 24 timely feedback. They do, you know, try to track and 25 sometimes their programs, we identify areas for improvements l
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' D 25 1 and identify areas that they could, you know, have proper 2 feedback and control.
3 So I think our program is probably much more f 4 structured and robust than probably any agreement state 5 program would be but we do look to, say, the fundamental 6 aspects of them, that they are identified, tracked and 7 feedback is given as part of our review process.
8 MS. SCHNEIDER: You covered everything I was going a
9 to jump in and say. But, like you said, we have made some I
10 comments in the areas to enhance it and I think it is an j 11 area where we are strengthening the states by this team 12 approach, bringing our expertise out to them.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you this question.
4
- 14 I notice that you had a common performance indicator on status of the materials inspection program and one on 15 i
, 16 technical quality of licensing. But you don't have one and 17 didn't adopt one, I guess, at the initiation of IMPEP on the 18 status of the licensing program, although backlogs are still 19 something that are still being grappled with and were 20 specifically mentioned in discussion of staffing, 21 specifically mentioned with respect to Nebraska.
22 So the question is, is a common indicator on the 23 status of licensing or licensing backlogs something that 24 needs to be looked at?
25 DR. COOL: A couple of comments on that.
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26 o l
1 When the original performance indicators were 2 being discussed, that was a specific topic of discussion 3 and, in fact, was probably one of the areas where there was 4 more discussion and comments with the states than perhaps J l l l 5 any of the others. The view taken by the staff in its l l 6 recommendation to the Commission back now several years ago l
l 7 was that there was not nearly the nexus between the status l 8 of the program and whether or not there were some backlogs l 9 as there was in the inspection area and in response to the !
l 10 comments from the states, who did not believe it should be i
11 present, it was not included in the set of five indicators 12 at that time.
13 In terms of the regional reviews, that is one of i
l 14 the things that was specifically looked at under my i 1
l 15 common -- noncommon indicator in terms of operating plan 16 performance because that's one of the things that are
. 17 specifically addressed between NMSS and the regions as part 18 of our operating plan. So we do chat for the regions but we 1
19 have not done that for the states in view of the comments i I
I 20 and development, 21 The discussions associated with Nebraska and some 1 22 of the areas which were discussed which didn't have a home, )
I 23 if you will, or didn't seem to have quite a particular home 24 brought the issue to light, certainly perhaps warrant some 25 additional discussion but there was a rather strong, l
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l l 27 1 consistent sentiment at that time not to include these -- !
l 2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I am not asking you so much l 3 from the historical perspective but on a go-forward basis in l
l 4 terms of the fact that it did come up in terms of the review 5 of an agreement state program where there was a question 6 about potential placement on probation. And all I am really j 7 asking, is it something in light of your experience you i
l 8 think needs to be revisited. That's number one. And, 9 number two, is it in any sense incorporated into other i
10 common performance indicators?
11 MR. THOMPSON: I'll respond and then I'll let Dick 12 respond.
13 One of the things that's great about the IMPEP l
14 program is that you are free to fullow where the path leads ,
l l 15 you. For instance, in looking at staffing and i
- 16 qualifications, when they started looking at that area where j 17 they had key missing staff members we looked at what the 18 results of that was and in fact the team originally made a 19 recommendation with respect to that particular criterion was 20 that it was an unsatisfactory criterion. We had some 21 debates and we can discuss those a little bit later.
22 We certainly can re-look at that issue but right 23 now I don't think by not having it as a criterion prohibits i
24 us from looking at areas where lack of staffing may have 25 contributed to the issue. And so I felt the board had full ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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28 '
1 knowledge of what the status of that program was at that '
. i 2 . time and, in fact, before we actually made our preliminary 3 conclusions had a status of where it was at the date that ,
4 the board met. ;
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me rephrase the question.
6 Are licensing backlogs in general an issue? '
7 MR. THOMPSON: In fact, I think Nebraska, if my 8 memory's correct, was the first state that we found where it 9 was truly a real issue. We had had some other states in 10 previous reviews that it had been an issue but that's my l 11 memory. Dick, I don't know if you can --
i 12 MR. BANGART: Kathy, I would generally agree with l i
13 that statement. t i
14 MS. SCHNEIDER. Yes. Most of the time you are not 1
15 going to find the backlog in licensing. But you will find :
16 it if you have vacancies in staff, I'll speak historically, 17 they're going to let the licensing go first and redirect the i 18 resources to the inspections. l 19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So it shows up when you look at l 20 the staffing issues?
21 MS. SCHNEIDER: Correct.
I 22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: All right. !
23 MR. BANGART: I would like to follow up. The !
t 24 point that Hugh made about being able to look wherever you !
25 need to look and especially to identify root causes, the i
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1 29 1
Nebraska MRB did reveal that there is no " management 2 effectiveness" kind of category anywhere there. That is a 3 broad brush kind of issue.
4 We need that and we've talked within our office 5 about either Management Directive 5.6 or in our own internal 6 office guidance, we need to deal with management 7 effectiveness. Don said that there is an argument to be 8 made, at least, that there is a weak nexus between health 9 and safety and backlogs but it can be part of management 10 effectiveness. What we plan to do is deal with any broad 11 brush issues like that in a summary section of the report 12 where, in Nebraska, we had symptoms of management weakness 13 spread throughout the report and in multiple places we 14 covered the same thing.
15 So we will focus that now in a summary section 16 that will give a broad brush treatment as to the overall 17 management effec:iveness of the program.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I want to ask you one last 19 general question but I will make one little comment. We did 20 have an earlier Commission meeting where we talked about 21 issues having to do with general licenses versus specific 22 licenses.
23 MR. BANGART: Yes, yes.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Keeping up with certain kinds 25 of sources and a need to assure ourselves that we had an ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 ability. And that does propagate to the licensing regime 2 and therefore, to the extent that we believe that our 3 ability to understand where things are with respect to that 4 class of materials licensees has a health and safety 5 implication, then one can't exactly throw out and say that 6 licensing backlogs, without having parsed what that backlog 7 means, has no health and safety significance.
8 MR. BANGART: I agree.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: My last comment is, 10 apparently -- a question -- the teams and the Management 11 Review Board decisions are based largely on the qualitative 12 evaluation of performance. Are there any quantifiable 13 indicators or is the nature of what you're reviewing such 14 that that has no particular place?
15 DR. COOL: The final writeups of the report are, 16 in fact, qualitative dealing with the performance indicators 17 themselves. There is a great deal of quantitative data 18 underneath that originally examined, in terms of inspection 19 frequencies, inspection findings, numbers of events. We go 20 in and look at the nuclear materials e. c database, see 21 what is available there, use that, in essence, to help guide 22 us in going and selecting events to follow up inspections 23 that we might want to check back on, licenses that we may 24 want to examine.
25 So while the final report comes out in a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 31 1 qualitative area, the staff utilizes a number of i
2 quantitative data points underneath it in guiding its review 3 and in looking at some of those particular issues.
l 4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
t Does having the qualitative 5 nature ever cause you to be challenged in your results?
6 DR. COOL: It has not to date.
l 7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: She shook her heard. !
! 8 MS. SCHNEIDER: No. I was -- I would say 9 during -- during the pilot we did have some discussion with 10 some of the states, both Utah and Illinois, as we were i ;
11 furthe refining it, and that's why I shook my head one way. l 12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: All right. Thank you.
13 [ Slide.) !
14 DR. COOL: The next slide dealt with the noncommon 15 performance indicators and I think, perhaps, as a result of 16 discussions, we have already touched on most of those. We !
17 look at the operating plan and the utilization and the i
18 resources and the regional activities, fuel cycle activities 19 and will be working now, as the last bullet notes, in terms j 20 of reviewing the SDMP program which is unique to the 21 regions.
22 In the states, the areas of regulation, legal l
23 authority, sealed source and devices, low-level waste and i
24 uranium recovery, some of those come from the older criteria 25 which the Commission asked us to continue with. A couple of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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32 1 those, sealed source and low-level have, in fact, been 2 drafted, commented upon and tested in some of'the reviews i 3 because some of the states reviewed this year had those 4 programs.
G The uranium recovery one has been drafted, 6 commented but not yet subjected to a test in the field with f
.i f
7 a review because none of the states which were reviewed in l .
8 FY '96 had a uranium recovery program, so it is a little bit l
9 farther behind. ;
10 As I already indicated, that will need to be 11 brought up to speed as we actually have a test of the system 12 see what works. One of the things that we will need to go r
13 back and look at is whether there is some overlap between 14 those things in the noncomment and things which are in the -
15 comment. Whether or not you in fact deal with, say,
- 16 training for all the program area or whether you talk about
' 1'7 the training in SSDs separately from the training associated ;
18 with routine licensing to try and minimize the number of 19 cross-connections, overlaps that come out there.
20 In terms of the implementation -- ;
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: When you talk about refinement ,
22 of noncommon indicators, what kind of refinements do you l 23 think are needed or what do you mean by that?
24 MS. SCHNEIDER: Some of the comments we got on the 25 low-level Seaste and the sealed source and devices is we !
l
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i
, 1 l' 33 1 weren't clear as to exactly what type of statistics we would
, i
) 1 2 want them to maintain on their program. A little bit more 1
3 clear guidance on training. Again, so that's the type of i i
4 refinements we're talking about. '
l 5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
l 6 DR. COOL: Implementation results, which is the
- 7 next slide.
8 [ Slide.]
9 DR. COOL: We laid out a schedule for the reviews l
10 of all of the states in the regions. That review was laid 11 out, assuming a two- to four-year cycle based upon the 12 previous reviews for the states, the previous review 13 conducted under the old cycle. All of them are laid out 1
j 14 under a schedule which has every one reviewed under the 15 IMPEP criteria by the end of FY '99. We do between nine and 16 12 reviews per year, two regions each year, and then seven, 1
17 nine, 10 states depending on the cycle. There are 12 18 reviews scheduled in FY '97, three of which have already had 19 their teams on site and for which the documents are in l 20 various stages of review, comment by the particular state to l 21 move forward.
l 22 We reviewed nine programs in '96. Those were laid l
l 23 out there; I don't need to go particularly further with l
24 that. Seven of those nine have completed the process.
1 25 Nebraska has completed the management review board and that 1
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34
- l 1 report and minutes will be in the EDO's office next week. ;
I 2 The report for Maryland is with Maryland for review and 3 comment back prior to a draft final being prepared for the 4 management review board and --
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Before you go --
6 DR. COOL: Roland is probably going to address 7 that.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Now, I know that there is a 9 delay of at least two-and-a-half months and sometimes longer 10 between the on-site review and the management review board 11 meeting and the question is, is the finding of adequacy and 12 compatibility applicable to the date of the on-site review 13 or of the date of the management review board meeting or the 14 whole period in between? Because I am going to ask you this 15 specifically relative to Nebraska in terms of what you take 16 into account and how much -- what goes on in the interim 17 plays into the ultimate decision and therefore how timely in 18 some sense is the final decision and what's the linkage.
19 MR. THOMPSON: The management review board uses 20 all +he information that is currently available to it at the 21 date it meets to make that decision. Therefore, if the 22 issue were no staffing and they had now hired up and 23 staffing, we would make our finding as of the day that they 24 reflected. If they had staffing of 10 people and they all 25 left, we would find that the problem would be a staffing ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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[ 1 problem, although it may have been fine two months before, a'
2 So that is one of the reasons we actually have the
- 3 state participate and being present to respond to questions
)
4 4 and to issues at the meeting so that we have a current j 5 status that when we make our judgment, it is the judgment as I 4
6 of the facts that are before us that day. ;
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: All of this is documented in
{
'^
j 8 the record that that's the basis for the decision one way or
- 9 the other?
i l 10 MR. THOMPSON: That's correct. That is, and i
I 11 that's the --
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Is there a reason why the 13 mahagement review board meetings are so distant from when 14 the on-site reviews actually occur?
15 MR. THOMPSON: Well, the process that was put in 16 place essentially allowed for the states to have an 17 opportunity to respond and I think that's invaluable.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, and to remediate?
19 MR. THOMPSON: If they are very smart, they will 20 remediate. It wasn't intended to be --
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: To be a remediation?
22 MR. THOMPSON: To be a remediation. Quite 23 frankly, I would like to have no state have to have a 24 remediation period.
25 Some states are able to aggressively respond. We ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 have had some states that would drag the response period out .
2 and that was an uncomfortable situation where it says, you 3 know, well, we've had our review; how come we can't get the 4 states to come in to hold the meeting.
5 Most of the state we are dealing with right now 6 are responsive in a timely fashion and on only a few 7 occasions do I think we end up with an -- with an unusually 8 long time before the --
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Do you negotiate when the 10 management review board meeting is relative to the end of 11 the on-site review?
12 MR. THOMPSON: I usually rely on my staff to set 13 that up. Kathleen?
14 MS. SCHNEIDER: What we've been trying to do is we I l
15 do have a goal of trying to get the draft report out in 30 16 days. Then if we give the state two weeks to respond, then )
17 we try and have it within two weeks after that.
le I do have -- you know, ideal conditions, we should 19 be able to do everything in 90 days to the final report and 20 maybe Mr. Bangart would like to address this a little bit 21 too. But we have not been able to get -- we have found that 22 we have needed to do some refinements in that process 23 because we haven't been able to make it on time all the 24 time. Dick?
25 MR. BANGART: We do track each of the reviews and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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37 i
1 'how we're progressing in terms of issuing the draft report 2 and the final report holding the MRB and unfortunately the 3 delays that are longer than we would like are occurring more 4 frequently than we would like.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Right.
6 MR. BANGART: So we have under evaluation right 7 now initiatives that we can put in place that we think wi.11 8 make the process move more quickly and that starts at the 9 front end from making sure all the team members have a I 10 laptop PC with them so they can work in the evenings. I 11 Another practical consideration like having a meeting room 12 at the hotel so it is easy for the team to get together and l 13 discuss. Having the team leaders making sure that each of e
14 their team members have time available so that they can
- 15 devote the necessary time for prep, conduct the review and
}
! 16- document the followup. And the extreme, I think, l '17 alternative on the other end is have the team stay together
. 18 until all the pieces are submitted to the team leader for i
j 19 incorporating into the report.
- j. 20 So as we consider those, those will be documented
?
l 21 at least for the agreement state reviews in our internal i
! 22 guidance. So we expect that the timeliness is going to i 23 improve.
l i 24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Karen?
j 25 MS. CYR: If I could just make a comment as an MRB q ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 38 *
- 1 n'mber, I view this process in the sense as sort of an 2 incentive process. I mean, T. think there is an enormous' 3 amount of communication that goes on between the team 4 reviewers as they are doing the review and as the-findings
, 5' are being prepared _and they provide that to the state. So 6 that, yes, I think there is an opportunity for states to remediate and come -- but I think that's valuable.
I 7- I mean, 8 I think there is communication going on all the time and 9 they come to the board to provide the current status of l
10 their program and if there have been deficiencies ident ified I
' i 11 in most case, every case we've had, they've taken steps to l 12 try to do that. But I think that'e a value of the process.
13 I mean, I don't --
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We are not going to get into a 15 debate about what the value of the process is. The real 16 problem has to do with~one of timeliness. Timeliness of 17 what the particular snapshot is, you know, we're getting 18 information, what does it mean as well as timeliness of 1
i 19 response by those who are being evaluated to whatever the 20 findings are'at that time. If you have something that is a 21 negotiated kind of ending date, then you can negotiate and 22 the question becomes not that you don't want people to J
23 remediate but people also have to be motivated to know that 24 there is going to be some ultimate decision and that, in 25 itself, can be a motivation to do what has to be done ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I 39
]
1 consistent with whatever constraints they are operating i i
I 2 under in the given situation or state or whatever the case
! 3 may be, i y
4 So I don't thir.k we ' re here debating or arguing l 5 the issue of whether it's a good thing. The real issue has 6 to do with the timeliness with which cnings r:t closed out 7 and what the meaning of the given snapshot is at a
- 8 particular point in time as far as any information the I 9 Commission might get about what you're saying about a given 10 program. And that's all, you know, I thin'k we are j 11 discussing this morning.
d
- 12 MR. THOMPSON
- We certainly are sensitive -- one 13 of the real efforts was to try to move in a timely fashion ,
I. I
. .'. e. with timely feedback to the states, timely feedback to the ;
- 4
] 15 regions and I know, in particular, they appreciate a timely r
j 16 feedback from the results and likewise we like to have a i
1 17 timely resolution of the process and I will continue to work i
] 18 with Dick to make sure that those things that we can do to 19 improve the timeliness of the process are focused on.
l 20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
21 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Can I ask before we 22 leave this slide or can we get slide 7 back up or do you 23 want to go ahead?
24 COMMISSIONER DICUS: Are you changing subjects?
25 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I'm going to change
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l 40 1 subjects.
2 COMMISSIONER DICUS: Okay.
3 I am okay with what you're doing but I have a 4 question with regard to what, in a situation, this would be 5 either for agreement state or a regional office. You go in 6 and in the review a really serious acute health and safety i 7 issue exists where a program, be it one of ours or an 8 agreement state has a serious problem and it is an acute i 9 health and safety issue. Do we wait 90 days or 120 days to l
~
10 do something? I think that gets at the heart of what we 11 need to do.
12 MR. THOMPSON: We obviously don't wait on one of i 13 those. In particular, what we will do, in the past we have l 14 actually provided technical assistance to an agreement state 15 program where we would do their inspections, we would do I 16 their licensing. The same way if we have a problem with the 17 regions, we have often had support from another region to 18 support a particular region, so if there is an immediate 19 problem, we will respond to it as soon as we are aware of 20 it.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That is built into the process?
22 Okay. That's enough.
23 MR. THOMPSON: I'm not sure -- I'm not sure --
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Don't keep talking; we agree.
25 We're fine. We have the answer.
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41 1 MR. THOMPSON:
It's built into my process.
1 2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: On the chart that we 3 were on, the last bullet was regions found to be l 4 satisfactory and therefore adequate to protect public health I 5 and safety. l 6 As I understand it, there are three grades you can !
7 get. You can get satisfactory, satisfactory with 8 improvement and unsatisfactory. Were the regions found !
l 9 satisfactory across the board or satisfactory with 10 recommendations for improvement?
1 1
11 DR. COOL: They were found satisfactory on all the l l
12 indicators for all the regions thus far. I 13 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: If you are in a 14 situation where it was satisfactory with recommendations for 15 improvement, are you still adequate to public health and !
16 safety? Is it only when you get into the unsatisfactory 17 category that issues get raised as to whether you are 1
18 adequate for public health and safety? I am just trying to l l
19 understand what the grades mean. I 20 MR. THOMPSON: Essentially, we wou.ld have to 21 have -- I think for a not adequate to protect public health 22 and safety on our own program, a programmatic breakdown 1 23 whereas we were, you know, not looking at an area and that
- 24 would have to be fairly substantial.
25 There are lots of things you will find l
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1 satisfactory with recommendations for improvement. Though 2 the program is fine, it may not be operating as quickly or 3 it may not be operating as quickly or it may not be -- the 4 staffing level may not be as high as you would like it 5 because our -- it is slightly different with the regions.
6 We are kind of in touch with the regions on a real time -
7 process and if there is a real issue, Carl or I will be 8 working with the regional administrator to address a health 9 and safety problem immediately.
10 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: What does it mean for 11 the states, then? What do these grades mein for the state 12 program? I know we are going to get to Nebraska in a minute 13 but if a state program were -- obviously if it is 14 satisfactory across the board it is in great shape but how 15 many satisfactories with need for improvement or 16 unsatisfactories do we need in order to trigger a probation 17 or some action?
18 MR. THOMPSON: Well, we haven't specifically 19 crossed that bridge with this program. There were two 20 programs in an earlier state or earlier time that probably l 21 met that area. One was Idaho in which we took the program j 22 back and the other one was Iowa which, really, we ended up l l
23 doing all the inspections and the licensing reviews for that l 24 program. Those would be the types of situations where we 25 would expect to be sufficiently proactive in the activities ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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43 1 in order to ensure that a safe program exists.
2 I don't think you will find this program coming in I 3 with something that is inadequate to protect public health 4 and safety. We will be in touch with the Commission well 5 before that ever occurs.
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Okay.
i 7 MR. BANGART: If it were to happen, though, if an l 4 8 agreement state had an overall rating of unsatisfactory, 1 I
9 that would equate to not adequately protecting public health 10 and safety.
l l 11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: It's sort of like -- I'm 12 trying to analogize to the reactor area. Our lowest 13 category in the SALP scores is, as I recall, adequate or 14 something like that and then the testimony we've had in 15 previous Commission meetings is, if it ain't adequate, it's j l
16 shut down.
i l 17 MR. THOMPSON: That's right. We would take l 18 action.
19 Now, you know, there is a formal process to go 1
20 through and there may be some -- there may be some day -- I 21 keep seeing the agreement state programs in an improving
- 22 trend. Nebraska was a test for us and we can discuss that a 23 little bit later on, I think. That was one of the reasons 24 we wanted to have this meeting after we had kind of taken a 25 hard one to see where we would end up on it.
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44
- 1 But, in essence, right now, you really don't give 2 a program to the state unless you have some confidence that 3 it is adequate to protect the public health and safety to 4 start off with and then you stay in contact with them so 5 that there is a reasonable expectation that you are not 6 going to find one unsatisfactory. It really, you know, the 7 two that we had in the past with respect to Iowa and Idaho, 8 we had lots of dialogues in particular with the Commission 9 early on with those or supported the state with our own 10 inspection efforts.
11 MS. SCHNEIDER: If I could offer one thing, we do ,
12 have a process. We have both in the law -- Karen, correct 13 me if I'm wrong -- that if there is a problem, we can do an 14 emergency suspension. If the public health and safety has 15 been compromised.
1 16 MR. THOMPSON: And even for a specific facility.
17 MS. SCHNEIDER: Right.
18 MR. THOMPSON: I think there was a state --
19 MS. SCHNEIDER: Yes, there was, back in '78, '79.
20 MR. THOMPSON: That triggered that change in the 21 law so we could come in and if the state were not taking 22 sufficient action and we had a public health and safety 23 concern, that we could come in and take over the response 24 for that particular incident.
25 MS. SCHNEIDER: Right, and we have a procedure to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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45 1 do that, too, in place.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
3 [ Slide.]
4 DR. COOL: All right, the next slide which you 5 have, which is slide eight, talks about frequencies and 6 reviews. We do the regions on a two-year cycle, pick up two 7 each year back and forth, irrespective of the fact that they 8 have had all satisfactory performance, we use this as our 9 opportunity to examine all the areas within the NMSS 10 program.
11 For the states, the team recommends to the MRB an 12 interval based upon the findings. The MRB can adjust that 13 based upon things which they may observe as a result of that 14 process. Normally two to four. In the case of Nebraska, 15 which we will deal with in a moment, it is going to be less 16 than that. There have been several that have been in the 17 two to three range and several where the recommendation has 18 been for a four-year review.
1 19 A number of comments as we have gone through this j 20 process and interacted with the states in the Management l l
21 Review Board meetings was that while the formal length of l 22 review going out three, four years in recognition of good j 23 performance was an appropriate thing, that there was a l I
24 concern expressed about a lack of contact that might result '
25 if you don't show back up for three or four years.
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46
- 1 Thus, the proposal that the Staff plans to move 2 forward with is to do in a annual get-together the regional 3 liaison officer, staff person within OSP, meeting with the 4 state representative, reviewing where the program is going, I 5 follow-ups to any of the things that may have been l
6 discussed, changes and trends, new authorities that may have 7 been looked at, other issues that may be coming along, i 8 issues which might warrant going back and looking at whether I 9 the next scheduling is still appropriate or otherwise, 10 and/or influencing the composition of the team that might be 11 considered when you get to that point.
12 For example, if someone relinquished sealed source 13 device authority then someone of my folks that are part of 14 the sealed source group wouldn't be part of that team, so 15 that we can make ongoing adjustments to that program.
16 COMMISSIONER DICUS: I have a couple of questions 17 and comments regarding the annual one-day meetings.
18 In one of the documents, I think here in the 19 policy issue statement, and you have talked about who would 20 participate in that annual visit with the state, and if it's !
l 21 an agreement state it would tend to be the state agreements 22 officer.
1 23 The issue I want to surface, because I think it's i 24 one that is a little bit troublesome with the states, and I 25 think we need to consider it on our FTE situation with the ]
l d
l l
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. - - -. _ . . . _ _ - . -- - .___ _ - = .
47 1 agency, is that the director of a state agreement program is 2 generally a Civil Service position but there is also a 3 position in the state called the state liaison officer, 4 which is a position as we all know appointed by the Governor 5 of the state.
6 Now in many of the agreement states the director 7 of the state program and the state liaison person out of the i 1
8 Governor's office are one and the same people. In many I l
9 states they are different in agreement states or non-10 agreement states alike.
11 The state agreements officer of course has 12 generally always dealt strictly with the agreement state and 13 then the regional liaison person has dealt with the 14 Governor-appointed liaison person within the state.
15 Again, sometimes it's the same, sometimes they are !
1 16 not, but they focus on different issues. They may focus on 17 the same issues sometimes but sometimes not. i l
18 The point I want to bring up on these annual i 1
19 meetings that are going to occur is that in Region I we have 20 six agreement states now, including Massachusetts in that ,
i 21 number, and they have -- we have a regional liaison officer 22 and a regional agreements officer, I believe -- so we have 23 two FTEs.
24 Is that correct, I think?
25 DR. COOL: I'll turn to Dick for that.
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48 1 COMMISSIONER DICUS: Okay. In Region II we have ,
2 eight agreement states, and I think the same staffing.
3 In Region III there are two agreement states and 4 there's one FTE doing half and half in the two.
5 In Region IV there are 14 agreement states, and we 6 have one agreement state officer but I think two liaison 7 officers if we include the staff, and the state agreements 8 officer is at the field office in California.
9 So the question or the point I am trying to get 10 around to is ensuring that there is some sort of equity 11 across the regions if we are going to do these annual 12 reviews given the state we have got a Region IV with 14 13 agreement states in it as opposed to a region that only has, 14 say, two agreement states, and how you see this coming out.
15 I think what is happening is that the roles 16 between the -- the regional agreement state officer and the 17 regional liaison officer are simply being meshed and the 18 distinction between the two are going away and I would like 19 a little feedback on, from anyone, what you see, any 20 problems with this, including the fact that these can be 21 different people at the state level, they can be the same 22 people at the state level, and they may be dealing with 23 entirely different issues.
24 I would like some feedback.
25 MR. THOMPSON: I'll respond first and then I'll ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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49 1 let Dick.
2 l We looked at, early-on, areas where we thought we l 1
3 could achieve effectiveness and efficiency in the NRC 4 programs in light of decreasing resources that were 5 available.
6 My discussions with regional administrators in all l
7 the regions were that this was an area they believed that 8 they would be able to have, over time be able to combine 9 those responsibilities into a single point of contact with a 10 backup within the materials programs in the regions ana be 11 able to effectively carry that, those programs out with l 12 support from the NRC Office of State Programs and from 13 Headquarters.
14 That process is one that's evolutionary and it's 15 evolving fairly slowly but that was the approach, and we 1
16 were sensitive to this issue, to make sure -- because 17 sometimes there were different skill levels involved in the 18 individuals and the questions that were being asked.
19 Some of them required a fairly technical response 20 with the agreement states where the state liaison was a bit 21 more --
22 COMMISSIONER DICUS: On policy.
23 MR. THOMPSON: -- on policy area, but Dick, do you 24 want to provide any additional thoughts on that?
25 MR. BANGART: Just a small comment.
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50 -
1 The long-term goal is to have a state programs 2 representation in the regional office, as you suggested by 3 the meshing comment, and so we hope to have people with 4 backgrounds and skills that will allow them to deal both 5 with policy-related issues, reactor-related issues, which 6 often are discussed with the state liaison officer as well 7 as agreement state materials program issues, so the goal in 8 the Region IV situation is that there would be three FTE but 9 that FTE, those three persons, would be able to deal with 10 any and all issues where we interact with states in Region 11 IV and we think that that would be a sufficient amount of 12 resource to carry out that function.
13 In the interim period now, there is additional 14 support coming from our office to fill that loss of the one 15 RSAO position. ;
1 16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I think we have to move along l 17 here -- even though I am at fault, basically.
18 [ Slide.)
19 DR. COOL: Okay. The next slide, slide 9, was in 20 fact -- we now come to the point -- we have talked about it 21 two or three times -- where we'll get to Nebraska, just as a j 22 very quick synopsis of the process, and then Mr. Thompson 23 will talk about the MRB.
24 The team was out in July, late July timeframe. At 25 that time there were several indicators that were found ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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r 51 1 satisfactory.
. There were several indicators which had l
2 recommendations. There was one indicator at that time where 3
the team's finding at that point was an unsatisfactory 4 finding. There was a relatively long period of time where l
5 the state was responding back and in fact responded back in 6 several piece, more than one piece of correspondence.
7 The Management Review Board met on January 22nd 8 and was represented both by the Governor-appointed director 9 of the program as well as the individual who was actually 10 running the program.
11 A couple of the issues associated with regulations '
12 and with staffing which, getting to the point you were l 13 making a little while ago, the snapshot during the week the !
14 team was there -- some significant weaknesses, some i 15 regulations which were not in place, and some significant 16 staffing issues.
17 During that intervening period we were caught up 18 ,,po date. Staff was hired and hired up. The regulations 19 were brought up to date and brought into line, such that by 20 the time we got to the Management Review Board meeting in 21 the regulations are they were all up to date, completely 22 caught up.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So you are saying that the 24 Management Review Board's decision was based on substantive 25 performance in the interim and not planning relative to l l
l l
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52 1 that?
2 MR. THOMPSON: That is correct. In fact, we 3 explicitly, even in the staffing level, assured ourselves 4 and asked questions did the new staff they have, were they 5 qualified.
6 One of the areas that we looked at was the quality 7 of their licensing review and the quality of inspections.
8 They had not, even with their lower staff, had a 9 failure in doing quality health and safety reviews and 10 quality inspections.
11 So by the time they had their rules and j 12 regulations up to date and in place and had their staffing, i
13 I think there was one person left who was being hired, but 14 essentially they were at full staffing, they clearly -- and 15 also had addressed the management issue, which Dick had 16 pointed out, that our performance indicators don't capture 17 very well, but it was one where we were comfortable, as 18 comfortable is maybe not quite the right word, but it was 19 our judgment that in fact the program was not satisfactory 20 with room, still recommendations for improvements as 21 identified, but they had completed the inspections that were 22 the ones that were overdue -- you know, the inspections that 23 had been done that hired consultants in there to complete 24 some of their inspection reports, so I was confident at the 25 time that I made my support for a finding of satisfactory it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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53 1 was based on the significant improvements as well as the 2 promises 3 They put a plan in but they had made significant 4 accomplishments between the time that the team had done 5 their review and the time the Review Board met.
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: What was the unsatisfactory?
7 MR. THOMPSON: There were two originally. One was 8 technical staffing and training and the second one was the 9 legislative and regulations.
10 The legislative and regulations one was fairly 11 clear -- you know, either you have the regulations in place 12 or you don't -- it's one of those. You can actually 13 implement programs by orders or something that we have given 14 credit for if you only have one licensee, do you have to, 15 you know, go through a whole process to have an acceptable 16 program.
17 The staffing and training one was much more 18 systemic in the program that had led to a number of 19 licensing delays that they had and a number of the programs 20 of almost a year, for which they did not have a manager of 21 the program in place, that they had people acting, and as a 22 result of that their program wasn't being managed and it was 23 drifting along, even though the people who actually went out 24 and did the inspections and did the licensing reviews when 25 they did them they did them well.
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e 54 *
- 1 Their ability to reorganize, to get their program .
2 focused, and which they did, within the state and their 3 commitment by the Governor, I believe it was Governor 4 Nelson, and to his desire to have present at the Board 5 meeting was the director of the Department of Regulations 6 and she was able to relate not only her personal commitment 7 at the cabinet level but the Governor's commitment to this 8 program, that it was going to conz#nue to have --
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: What was it they were 10 committing to that related to the problems you had 11 identified?
12 MR. THOMPSON: Ensuring that that program got 13 adequate management attention, that it didn't drift.
14 They actually have taken that program out of, I 15 think, part of the Health Services area and put it in a 16 Division of Regulation and Licensing, which is what the 17 responsibilities of this program were directed at.
18 So that was their mission now was the regulation 19 and licensing and with that focus and with the cabinet-20 level support to keep it focused in that way as well as the 21 improvements that they had made and the fact that they did 22 not have a defective or significant problems in the 23 technical quality of the work was the basis that at least I 24 was using to judge and you have got three other members here 25 if you wish --
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55 1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So you are saying that relative 2 to the two unsatisfactory categories they had actually made 3 measurable progress? They had addressed the technical 4 staffing issue. They had trained the people?
5 MR. THOMPSON: That's correct.
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And that they had adopted the 7 relevant regulations?
8 MR. THOMPSON: That's correct.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And then over-arching this was 10 the commitment by this high level state official that the 11 program would no longer be treated as an orphan?
12 MR. THOMPSON: Correct.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So the promise wasn't having to 14 do with the specific unsatisfactory category, it had to do 15 with giving it continued attention --
16 MR. THOMPSON: Continued attention.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: -- but the unsatisfactory i 18 issued had been --
19 MR. THOMPSON: -- had been fixed.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
21 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Did they jump all the 22 way from unsatisfactory to totally satisfactory or did they 23 jump to satisfactory with improvement?
24 MR. THOMPSON: It's really satisfactory with 25 improvements.
l 1
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56
- 1 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Out of the seven I
. 1 2 categories, as I understand it, two were unsatisfactory, 3 four satisfactory with need for improvement, one l 4 satisfactory without, and it looks like four grades in that J
5 six-month period, fottr grades moved up at least. Am I
{
6 correct --
the team comparing to the MRB.
7 MS. SCHNEIDER: Compared, there was a change in 8 the regulations from unsatisfactory to satisfactory. l 9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Totally satisfactory?
l 10 MS. SCHNEIDER: Right. The only other change was 11 the other unsatisfactory was then changed to satisfactory 12 with recommendations. I 1
13 All the other findings for the indicators stayed 14 the same and then the overall team finding was satisfactory i
15 with recommendations.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: That stayed the same --
17 MS. SCHNEIDER: I mean adequate with 18 recommendations for improvement.
19 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Do we.have -- the 20 November memo to the Commission said that there were -- in 21 the five common performance indicators, four were 22 satisfactory with recommendations for improvement, one was 23 unsatisfactory. In the noncommon there was one 1
24 unsatisfactory and one satisfactory. '
25 MS. SCHNEIDER: By now it is five satisfactory j l
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)
57 1
. with recommendations in the common and in the two noncommon 2 they're satisfactory.
3 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: So that's slightly 4 different from the slide but --
5 MS. SCHNEIDER: Excuse me, I'm sorry. It's my 6 mistake. I am trying to do it here.
7 Licensing quality, so it is four out of the five.
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
With recommendations.
9 MS. SCHNEIDER: With recommendations.
10 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Four out of the five --
11 MS. SCHNEIDER: Common indicators.
12 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Right and they all 13 stayed the same and the two unsatisfactories did jump all 14 the way to satisfactory?
15 MS. SCHNEIDER: No. One of the -- the training 16 and staffing is a common indicator and that went from --
17 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Unsatisfactory --
18 MS. SCHNEIDER: -- unsatisfactory to satisfactory 19 with recommendations.
20 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Right, and then the four 21 that were satisfactory with recommendations, did one of 22 those improve?
23 MS. SCHNEIDER: No, they stayed the same.
24 MR. BANGART: Let me -- I guess the original 25 licensing quality was always fully satisfactory.
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- 1 MS. SCHNEIDER: Correct.
, 2 MR. BANGART: From the outset -- so of the 3 remaining four common the only one that changed, as she 4 indicated, was for training and staffing from unsat to sat 5 with recommendations.
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: So the November memo 7 then is the place that's wrong? It said --
8 MS. SCHNEIDER: Right.
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Okay.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Maybe you need to correct that 11 for the record.
12 MS. SCHNEIDER: Okay.
13 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The reason -- it is 14 obvious in terms of the recommendation to go back in just a 15 few months and look at them again that while they are not on 16 probation they are not exactly in totally good graces 17 either.
18 We are going to be from Missouri in terms of the 19 promises that were made to you, is that correct?
20 MR. THOMPSON: That's correct. Typically we have l
21 a two to four year timeframe and our objective was to say 22 programs that really look solid and sound we may review only l 23 once every four years, others that are, you know, fairly 24 stead, three years, once -- and this one, since they did 25 have and had had this experience in the history --
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-1 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: There is a history here 2 too.
l 3 MR. THOMPSON: There is a history here and we were 4 not unaware of the history and that is why.the Board 5 recommended going back in a period of a year to 18 months to 6 do a follow-up review process.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: And that is a year to 18 8 months from last July,-as opposed to from --
9 MS. SCHNEIDER: Correct.
10 MR. THOMPSON: Correct. l 11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Dut by not putting Nebraska on )
12 probation, I mean given what you said and given the history, j 13 have we in any sense changed the threshold in terms of how !
14 we are then able to deal with other states?
15 MR. THOMPSON: I don't believe there was any ,
16 intent to change the threshold. I can't say that there --
17 obviously what other states may look at, it says, gee, we 18 can, if we can get our program all fixed by the time we meet 19 with the MRB they are prepared and will look at a team's 20 report and change a recommendation.
21 I would also say that the team at this particular 22 meeting withheld their final recommendation to the Board 23 until after they had the presentation from the state and the i
24 team did recommend that they make a modification and not 25 place the program on probation.
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- 1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Going back to Commissioner 2 McGaffigan's comments, in terms of being from Missouri, how 3 much are we relying on promissory notes versus actual 4 progress?
5 MR. BANGART: As I tried to indicate earlier, my 6 decision was based on the accomplishments that they had 7 made with the program that they had modified. I was 8 confident that program was satisfactory and with 9 recommendations inadequate to protect public health and 10 safety.
11 If they had not been able to staff, if they had 12 not had the leadership, if they had not been able to put 13 regulations in place, there would be no question they would 14 be on probation in my mind.
15 MR. THOMPSON: The other piece that is missing ;
16 here in the discussion is that there is ongoing 17 communication between both the Regional State Agreements 18 officer and staff in my office with all the agreement states 19 throughout the year. We knew that they had lost staff 20 because the Regional State Agreements Officer told us that 21 six months ago. He has since retired. What we didn't know, 22 they hadn't restaffed the ones they had lost and we didn't !
1 23 know the extent to which there was lack of day-to-day 24 management being exercised.
25 "ut we do have that to rely on as well and if we I
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61 1 learn of something occurring that is different from what we 2 believe to understand will happen, then we can refocus on 3 whether we need to go back out sooner or not, even before 4 .the one year, 18 months.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
6 MR. THOMPSON: We wanted to have Nebraska behind 7 us so that we could -- it was a test of the bd and the 8 system. We could have come and briefed the Commission 9 before Nebraska and it wouldn't have been as tested and you 10 may not --
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And we won't have been as 12 testy.
13 [ Laughter.)
14 MR. THOMPSON: I'll put that back in my -- Don?
15 DR. COOL: Moving through the last couple of 16 things that we were going to cover, slide 10 dealing with 17 the ongoing implementation.
18 (Slide.]
19 DR. COOL: We have issued a good practice report 20 for the previous year. Our expectation is we will issue one 21 of those each year once the reviews that were conducted in l 22 the physical year are completed.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Stop.
24 Kudos to you for that one.
25 DR. COOL: Thank you.
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- I l
1 We found it very useful. It was asked for; we 2 agreed.
4 4
3 What we want to look at is some of the things that i
l 4 people have talked about of particular areas of lessons 5 learned, the sort of other side of the coin. You know, l l
6 pitfalls to watch out for. We have discussed ways to do 7 that. Whether we can include some of those within the 8 report, do a separate report. In the interim and anyway, 9 these are public documents. The regional reviews are 10 provided to all the regions. The OSP reviews are on the 11 home page and available so that everyone can see all of the 12 detail that you get in there.
13 We have already talked about the management 14 directive so in the interest of trying to help us move 15 along, unless there are questions, jump to the resources.
16 When we originally came to the Commission, we 17 provided you with an estimate that was about a half and 18 FTE's worth of effort to conduct a review. That has 19 actually panned out very well. There are variations, of 20 course, but on the average that has actually panned out very 21 well. About an FTE's worth of that effort coming from the 22 folks from the states who have participated on the teams, 23 the other portion of it being staff within NMSS, state 24 programs and the regions and going through that process. We 25 have budgeted that for future years and are continuing to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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a
- 63 1 move forward with that.
-2 In terms of the annual meetings that we have 3 talked about, and Dick could certainly address this further, 4 state programs believes that they can accommodate that 5 within-the budget and the effort they devoted to the liaison 6 officers and the activities.
7 Moving then on to our conclusion, back to what we 8 said in the beginning, this has proven to be a very 9 effective process for us,. Good learning experiences from 1 10 all concerned. The reviewees, the reviewers, those of us l
11 who come out as managers to take a look at the program 12 finding good ideas, things that are going on has allowed us I 13 .to look on a consistent basis.
14 Has been used as a mechanism by those reviewed --
15 here I will speak for the regions and not necessarily for 16 the states -- to look at themselves in a consistent fashion.
17 That is one of the things that we have not tried to pick up 18 here using a similar process, to look at ourselves in the 19 same manner and get some measure of consistency and improve 20 our performance. We are already on track and have already 21 been out to three reviews, have 12 reviews planned for FY 22 '97 and to move forward with the program.
23 MR. THOMPSON: That completes our presentations.
24 If you wanted to go to the panel and we will stand by?
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We will see. Commissioner ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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. - . . . . - _ - , . . i.;- ,a4 64 1 Rogers, do you have a question?
2 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: I don't have a question; I 3 just had one comment. That is that on your slide four when 4
you were describing how you got started on this, that you 5
assembled the impact teams and conducted training and I 6
don't think we have time to talk about it but it seems quite 7
apparent the training seemed to work very well and certainly 8
this program has gone very well and I just suggest that 9
however you did it, take note of and see where we might be 10 able to use it in the future.
11 DR. COOL: We brought everyone in, sat them down 12 for a full day, walked through the process, the criteria, 13 the underlying philosophy, metrics, culture, whatever sorts 14 of things you would like to do. We have had the state 15 people participate with that this year. We did 38, nine of 16 them from the state. And interestingly enough, we also had !
17 a couple of folks from FDA come over and observe and !
18 participate in that process. My understanding is that FDA 19 is considering a similar kind of process and approach in 20 looking at some of their activities, some of the mammography 21 reviews that they are conducting with the states. It's been 22 very useful. Those also get everybody around the big table 23 in the auditorium with a lot of exchange.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I think we need to move along.
25 Commissioner Dicus?
l l
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65 1 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
, No questions.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
3 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes.
4 I just want to make a comment that, you know, the 5 impact seems to be such an effective mechanism that I think 6 we should -- I mean, it is a win-win situation for the NRC 7 and the regions and so forth, that we should encourage you 8 and the regions to communicate, you know, as widely as 9 possible the results and we need all the good press we can 10 get and therefore sometimes even the good practices report, 11 I think that is certainly something that should be widely 12 distributed and used.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
14 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Thank you, no questions.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much.
16 Are we hearing specifically from the regions? I 17 MR. THOMPSON: Bruce Mallet will be here 18 representing the regional review as well as the --
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: The agreement states. Very 20 good.
21 We should try to move along, even though it is 22 totally our fault. Commissioner Dicus is going to have to 23 leave in about 15 minutes or so, so we want to try to cover 24 as much as we can before then.
25 MR. MALLET: Well, good morning, Chairman and the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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66 -
1 other Commissioners. It is a pleasure to be bere today.
2 I am Bruce Mallet; I am from Region II. I am the 3 Director of the Division of Nuclear Materials Safety. My 4 comments today are based upon assessments that we did in 5 Region -- all the regions in 1995, 1996. I did receive 6 input from my counterparts in the other regions. Some have 7 accused me of getting co-bagholders. I received input to 8 give.you a complete picture.
9 (Slide.]
10 MR. MALLET: If you turn to the first slide, I 11 broke the comments up into three areas. Strengths, areas 12 that we thought were improvement and challengcc to the 13 program. I won't in the interest of time go through all the 14 strengths but I would highlight a few of them to point out 15 answers to questions you had earlier.
16 If you look at the first one on level of 17 expertise, I believe Chairman you asked what we gained from ]
l 18 the process. As f ar as the individuals participating in ;
1 I
19 both the agreement states and regions, we gained what I 20 believe are three things. Expertise and experience from all 21 different levels. It really was helpful to have that broad 22 wealth of knowledge.
1 23 I believe you also gained what I call a fresh !
24 look, insights. An example, an individual from the state of 25 Georgia was on our team. We thought that we had everything l l
4 1
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67 I well done but this individual pointed out that we were not 2 documenting our basis for decisions very well. A whole new 3 area that we hadn't thought to look at. We wouldn't have ,
4 had that insight without that.
5 On timely issuance, I recognize you talk about 6 timeliness of the review board so let me clarify this >
7 comment. We thought jt was a strength on the issuance of 8 the reports in draft form. They call came out to the 9 regions within about four to six weeks after the review. It 10 was very timely to get that turnaround. In past reviews we 11 have had, it's been several months to a year before you get i
12 the draft report back.
i 13 On the Management Review Board, I would highlight 14 there we felt the strength was decisions are made at the j 15 review board to make corrections. In the past, when you 16 didn't have that appear process or that discussion, you i
17 didn't get the senior managers involved in correcting it '
1 j 18 right away if it was a problem.
l j 19 On the sharing of good practices, I would add I 1
1 1
20 something in addition to what we discussed that's going on.
- 21 I don't know if you're aware of it. When you're not on the i
22 list of good practices as a region, you are looking for new
! 23 areas to improve so you can be put on the list.
4 4
24 (Laughter.)
l 25 MR. MALLET: So it's an insight I don't believe we l
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I figured on or planned on but you are gaining that out of the 2 process.
3 I would also say on causes of the programs being 4 evaluated themselves, you have caused the regions, and I 5 believe the agreement states would probably support that, to 6 do our own self-assessments and that's what we're after in 7 the process. I think all the regions now are looking ahead 8 before the team finds the problem.
9 In areas for improvement, we talked about sharing 10 of good practices. It is also important to share the 11 corrective actions from the various regione and how they 12 have solved the problem. Right now, we are doing a good job 13 of getting the reports out and sharing amongst the regions.
14 I am not so sure we are sharing with the agreement states ;
15 what are the findings and we propose that would be an area i
16 for improvement as well as how they fixed the problem would 17 be an important item to have.
18 As far as we talked about reviews in agreement 19 states, the second bullet there, we believe that we would i F
20 support an ongoing review between the three to four years of 21 the IMPEP reviews as issues come up and the states having a 22 mechanism to go out and take a look to see if they are 23 consistent.
24 The thit ? bullet for areas for improvement has l
25 caused a lot of discussion. Let me clarify that bullet. It j l
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69 1 says, Maintain the level of rigor in the creation and use of 2 the noncommon indicators. It is not the indicator; it is 3 the criteria that supports that indicator or the measure.
4 To support the same level of rigor that we had in the 5 development of the common indicator criteria or 6 measurements. And we discussed that earlier. Unless there 7 is a question, I won't go into that in any more detail.
8 I will mention one other comment. During the 1994 9 and 1995 reviews, the criteria had gone out to the regions 10 for comments but it was being developed during the review 11 process. It is hoped during the next set of reviews the 12 criteria will be set and you won't have a development during 13 the process. That will help establish that criteria.
14 I would move now to challenges. It is very 15 important in the program. I think Commissioner Rogers 16 mentioned earlier about the training. I will go to the 17 second one first, that we maintain a cadre of experienced l 18 team members. As you develop, this program goes on. We've i
j 19 seen it before in the agency. We tend to slide back and not
, i 20 train as well and not keep the staff -- !
i
- 21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON
- I thought you said the training l
j 22 is conducted every year and the team members participate in '
- 23 several reviews a year.
24 MR. MALLET: It is. And our comment is not an 25 area for improvement; it is an area of challenge to maintain 0
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_. . .- ~ . - - -- - _ . . . - - - . . .. -_
70 -
1 in the program that we continue doing that and we don't back 2 down from that. ,
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
4 MR. MALLET: And keep the same level of experience 5 and expertise.
6 If I can flip to the first one, as in any program 7 where you do assessments, we believe you ought to continue 8 to evaluate the adequacy of those indicators.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Are you referring to both the 10 noncommon --
11 MR. MALLET: Both the noncommon and common. And 12 we need to not assume that we've solved the problem; we need ;
13 to keep looking at them each year to make sure they're 14 correct to get us the adequate assessment of the program, 15 what we're looking for.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Not only just what's in them 17 but if there are others that might be needed?
18 MR. MALLET: That's correct, make sure they are 19 adequately assessing that performance.
5 20 That concludes my comments, unless there are any 21 remarks or comments from you?
22 No?
23 MR. RATLIFF: Chairman Jackson and Commissioners, 24 I think in the interests of time, you know, I am Richard 25 Ratliff, past Chairman of the Organization of Agreement l
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1 71 1 States with the Texas Program, Roland Fletcher who is the 2 chairman elect who is going to talk about two aspects, 3 actually be in on the management review board as a state 4 member and a state having been reviewed and then James 5 McNees on the far right from Alabama who will talk about 6 being on an IMPEP team.
7 I had some prepared remarks and I think just to 8 cut it short I'm going to give them to the state program 9 staff and let them give them to you rather than taking the 10 time here but just some real good observations I've seen, I 11 think it was back in 1993 when we first heard the acronym 12 IMPEP and we were all trying to figure out what it was. We 13 were in Tucson or Phoenix, Arizona, 14 There was a lot of change since that time period.
15 Initially, some of the noncommon indicators were things like i 16 the number of incidents that the state has and the states 17 made a good point that it is not the number it is how you 18 handle a response to them. I think NRC did a good job.
19 We worked well in paring this down to things that l 20 we all agreed the bottom line is protection of public health 21 and safety. The IMPEP program I think has worked well. I 22 Many of the states were real apprehensive when it first 23 started. They normally would have two people come to the 24 review. When they saw this team, I think they rally felt, 25 what are we going to do.
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- 1 But I think they soon learned that they were 2 looking more at performance and looking at sharing 3 information. That is really what had happened when we first 4 started out as agreement states. When we had our program 5 reviews, they were more share information because the 6 authority had been relinquished to the states and it was 7 mainly just to check and see and share information on how to 8 do things better and I think this really helps. You have to 9 make sure that we are doing our jobs but that sharing of 10 information is really one of the most important areas.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: It helps you.
12 MR. RATLIFF: As we have had people who have been 13 on the teams from the states, the comments that I get is it 14 helps them from several directions because they have really 15 been able to work with other NRC folks and let them realize 16 that the state people really are qualified, that they deal 17 with not only radioactive materials but NORM and NARM and X-18 ray and so many areas that they really do have expertise 19 usually in licensing and inspection and incident response, 20 so they have a wide variety of expertise. So this has 21 helped, I think, to let the state people come to the table 22 with equal credentials and I think it has really worked 23 well.
24 But we have learned, from other states, from NRC 25 regions. I think that is one of the things we found that is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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73 !
1 good.
. When we go to different programs you are always going l 2
to find something that they're doing better and that really 3 helps you in your program, even though you are committing 4 this FTE from the states, I think this has been a good 5 endeavor.
1 6 We have a few concerns but they are not major.
7 You know, timeliness was always the question. When we were I 8 regulatory agencies, when we expect timely responses from 9 our licensees that have problems, they have to know that !
10 they have problems. The close-outs are good and almost all 11 of the draft IMPEP reports come quickly. But there has been 12 a tendency, like was mentioned earlier, that they are 1 l
l 13 getting a little longer and you really need to have that 14 quick turnaround so that the states, if they are given two 15 weeks, like we heard earlier, that would be difficult. And l 16 you have to plan around what's happening.
17 We do nuclear power plant emergency response 18 exercises, we do the large X-ray programs. And so I think 19 that two-week time period has to really be based on what 20 other activities does the state have going on. But I think 21 timeliness really is important and if there is an issue that 22 really impacts health and safety, I concur with the previous ,
l l 23 panel. It has to be something that's addressed right away 24 and really -- and it very seldom happens but when it does, !
l 25 it has to be taken care of.
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- 1 The noncommon performance indicators, I think, are 2 going to be an evolving issue and I hope we can have the 3 same communication we have had on the others as we try to wk 4 through what is required. The decommissioning issue came up 5 and it's getting more and more resolved because most of the 6 states have real detailed programs in their license revic.:c 7 and they terminate to look and make sure the sites are 8 clean. I think we have always done that and so it is not as 9 big of an issue but we need to make sure that, as we get 10 into waste, uranium, sealed source and devices that we have 11 equal coverage.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Do you think that 13 decommissioning should be folded into the common indicators 14 for licensing and inspection?
15 MR. RATLIFF: Yes, I do, because that is a common 16 indicator that the states look at and we have -- I think,
'17 historically, the states, because we are closer to the 18 situation and even more accountable to our governing bodies, ,
19 we have looked and we have closed out facilities and we have 20 made sure thst they were clean. Some states have developed 21 rules that e"en give guidelines so the licensees know going 22 in how clean is clean. So I think that that should be ,
23 common and it will help in the long term.
24 Several of the states made the comment to me, and 25 in pretext I think we would agree, that if you have low-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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75 ,
1 level waste and/or uranium and/or sealed source and device, 2 it is better to come all at once, though, within a month 3 period and do all the review because one thing I think that >
4 always gets lost and it came out a little earlier is that ;
i 5 the agreement was signed by the governor of the state and, -
6 for years, I have pushed the idea that there should be a 7- close-out with the governor's office. If not, at least with !
8 the liaison that the governor appoints so that there should 9 never be a point where a governor would all of a sudden get i 10 notified that your state is not doing well. I think they ;
11 should know when we are doing good and then when we are 12 having problems so that could be factored in.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So are you saying that the low-14 level waste and uranium programs are or are not being l
l 15 conducted, reviews being conducted at the same time or a !
16 different time? ;
17 MR. RATLIFF: I think we are at a point where it l 18 is just starting. I know California had its review and the l {
19 waste was not as detailed. In Texas, our review is 20 scheduled for June and all of the programs will be done in i t i l 21 June,-which is good. I think that is the way to go because 22 that way, when you come out with your final draft report, it j 23 is a draft report on the compatibility of the state of ,
24 Texas, not the Department of Health or the Department of l
25 Natural Resources. So you really, I think, need to make ;
l i
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- 1 sure that coordination is done.
2 So far it has worked well but we want to just 3 emphasize that. And then, before I turn it over to the 4' other guys here, I really think acknowledging that the 5 states really are helping, that we do sacrifice a lot of 6 other things to put people on the review teams and the MRB 7 and that we really do need the training and without those 8 resources you might see a problem with us being able to 9 continue.
10 Any other questions, or we can let the other folks 11 talk and we can do questions at the end.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
13 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Why don't we do it at the end.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
15 MR. FLETCHER: Chairman Jackson, Commissioners, I 16 am Roland Fletcher. I am the Radiological Health Program 17 Director for the state of Maryland. I feel very fortunate 18 to have had the opportunity to participate in an IMPEP 19 review for the state of Maryland and also participate on two 20 MRBs. I like to think that it's because of, you know, my 21 qualifications, et cetera, et cetera. But it occurs to me 22 that every now and then my physical location might have 23 something to do with it.
24 [ Laughter.]
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, you see, that's a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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77 1 . qualification.
2 MR. FLETCHER: I I would like to touch upon a few of 1 3 the aspects of our review. First of all, I would like to 4 echo what everyone has said and that is that the team I 5 approach is extremely beneficial. It gives the opportunity 6 that your program is really being looked at in toto, not 7 just concentrations but you get a full program review ]
8 perspective and you have various levels of review and I 9 believe it is more thorough and more complete. So the team ;
10 approach, I think, is the way to go and it has worked out 11 well.
12 I also feel that the IMPEP creates less of the 13 licensee inspection approach. No matter how you do a 14 program evaluation, if you are coming from one level to 15 another level, there is going to be something of an IG type, j 16 you know, get ready, clean up, dust off everything and watch '
17 out for the white gloves. But the team approach that is 18 being implemented, I believe, takes some of that away and 19 the evaluation of-the programs, not only how you are ,
20 implementing how you are implementing the programs according 21 to established rules and regulations but new ideas that you ,
22 have presented, new approaches that you have undertaken --
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Do you think it strengthens the 24 willingness to self-assess?
25 MR. FLETCHER: I believe so. I really do. I 1
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- 1 believe that individual states will -- I think someone 4 2 mentioned that they love to be in this good practices, you 3 know, publications and many states are doing innovative !
4 things that sometimes don't come out in the standard report 5 and I think the team approach gives that opportunity.
l 6
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Before you go on, I am going to 7 give Commissioner Dieus the chance to see if there are any
^
)
8 l particular questions or comments she wants to raise. '
)
9 COMMISSIONER DICUS: No. I want to apologize 10 first to both sides of the table and certainly to the staff.
1
! 11 I think this is the first time I have had to leave a 12 briefing early and it would be this one.
- 13 I do very much apologize to each of you but I have j 14 a killer schedule this week and I have to be someplace else l 15 at noon. I'm not going to make that now.
16 But thank you all. I really appreciate what the 4
17 staff has done and appreciate what the agreement states have i s
18 done in implementing this and I think it is being extremely i 19 effective and very helpful. ;
4 20 Thank you.
21 MR. FLETCHER: And I also because of the approach 22 feel that it is less of a let's find something wrong 23 approach. I have been through program reviews where it j 24 appeared -- maybe of course, you know, we're somewhat
! 25 paranoid sometimes -- but it appeared as though the goal was ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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79 1 to find something wrong.
2 This was not the impression that I got through 3 this approach. There was more discussion. There was more 4 interaction and, as I said, more analysis of positive 5 things.
6 The agreement state team participant is an 7 excellent addition, and it does two things. Every program 8 director and program staff have pride in their program.
9 There is a little extra boost of knowing that another 10 agreement state is looking at your program that goes even i 11 beyond following everything that's there.
12 You want to make sure that the things that you 13 have done in your program, the agreement state participant 14 looks at it and says ah, yes, that's good, I like that, or 15 we are doing similar things.
16 There is a ce: ain level of comraderie there that 17 hasn't existed before and I think, you know, that is very i 18 beneficial.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: But then if we go to put you on 20 probation you are going to be more angry then?
l 21 MR. FLETCHER: Well --
22 [ Laughter.)
23 MR. FLETCHER: I want to talk about it. I was on 24 the MRB for Nebraska and I want to talk about that.
25 [ Laughter.)
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1 MR. FLETCHER: I think the exit briefing therefore ,
]
2 becomes more credible because I believe my staff really felt l l
3 as though we had worked together through that program l j 4 evaluation, and it was a more positive response from them 5 than any of the previous ones that we had been through so !
d 6 once again I think this is a very positive approach and we 7 should continue it. )
8 As far as the MRB is concerned, I participated in j s
1 9 two, Georgia and Nebraska, and I wanted to say that I felt i 10 that my participation, particularly on the Nebraska MRB, I 11 had an appreciation of what that state had to go through to l 12 get from the exit briefing to the MRB, I mean perhaps more l 13 so than anyone else sitting on the MRB because there are 14 demands on the state that are beyond the demands that are 15 NRC-specific and what has had to have happened is that a I 16 great deal of emphasis, a great deal of priority and a great l 17 deal of resources had to be brcught to bear in spite of, i
18 unfortunately, falling behind perhaps in some other areas, 1 19 because that is almost inevitably what has to happen, in i
20 order re-address the things that were brought out in this '
21 program. ;
22 I am happy to see that they were able to do that 23 and I am also happy that in the MRB process we can take into l l
1 24 account the efforts that that state takes to address the '
1 25 things brought up in the exit briefing and give them, you j l
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81 1 know, give them recognition that they are heading in the 2 right direction.
4 3 The NRC -- the IMPEP-NRC Staff, we interface with 4
each other pretty regularly, but the Governor, the Secretary 5 of your Dep..rtment doesn't have that interface, and unless 6 there is some continuing encouragement when they devote the
- 7 resources to taking care of a problem, there's got to be 8 that continuing encouragement so that that program director 9 can continue to move in the direction that you need, so I 3 10 think being able to reassess what has happened between the 11 exit briefing and the MRB is very beneficial to the very 12 levels of program performance that you are looking for.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, that's it? Mr. McNees.
14 MR. McNEES: Yes, ma'am. Chairman Jackson, 15 Commissioners, I am Jim McNees with the state of Alabama J
16 where I am in charge of Radioactive Materials Compliance.
17 Having been outspoken in my beliefs for the past 18 20 years I was a little surprised when I was selected to be 19 a part of this --
20 (Laughter.]
21 MR. McNEES: I am thankful for the opportunity and 22 it really turned out to be a wonderful experience. I am
- 23 thankful to the NRC for paying for the travel. I am also 24 thankful to the state for giving me three plus weeks of work 25 time to devote to it and if anybody was going to be on a i
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1 team it will take at least three weeks of your time and a 2 critical time is when you first return home from the review 3 that'you can avoid the pressing business long enough to get 4 your portions of the report finished.
5 I participated in one review and I believe that 6 the function of the team leader is really a key to the 7 success of the state person as well all the other team 8 members, having an organized and specific task for you to do 9 and evening discussions that we had reviewing what the team 10 had accomplished and what we were going to accomplish the 11 next day.
12 Also a key to the success was the IMPEP book of 13 standards or the criteria. They are a significant step 14 forward. The set up expectations of the regulatory agency.
15 It's a set of expectations where any regulatory agency could 16 use it for a self-review to see how they are standing at any 17 time.
18 As a member of the team, I received more than I 19 contributed. I learned a lot from looking at how the state 20 of Kentucky did things and ways that they did things that we 21 could take back and improve for ourselves.
22 I also learned from the other team members in the 23 discussions we had of how various problems were solved, how 24 various corrective actions were taken, and from their input, 25 so it was a very positive experience to be the member of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIA'3S, LTD. ,
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83 1 team.
2 The IMPEP program itself eliminates a past 3 animosity that the states had because in many of the states 4 you would hear comments of they should take care of all 5 their own inspections or their own inspections before they 6 come criticize us. They should take care of their backlog 7 before they criticize us.
l 8 One of the most positive things of IMPEP is that 9 it sweeps everybody's door-step with the same broon, and I l 10 think that is a very positive thing.
11 In looking to the future, two concerns we need to 12 think about. One is timeliness. The effectiveness of the
, 13 program is enhanced by having the report, draft report, back 14 in timely fashion, the report out in timely fashion, the 15 answers back in timely fashion.
16 Also, the success of the program has a lot to do 1
l 17 with the purpose of the team. In addition to evaluating the i 18 regulatory indices, the purpose of the team I was on was to l 19 help that body or that regulatory entity do a better job.
2 20 That was the underlying philosophy of everybody that was on i 21 the team. We are here to help them to do a better job and we i 22 need to make sure that that stays the purpose in all future
. 23 teams and all future reviews.
- 24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON
- Okay, thank you. Anything 25 else?
4 i
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84 1 [No response.]
4 2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you this question, 3 those of you from agreement states.
4 Have agreement states personnel, either the 5 liaison or -- on the MRB or the team members discuss their 6 experiences with other agreement states, in a broader based 7 way, not one on one, such as the OAS meetings or CRCPD
- 8 meetings, and then that leads to the second question -- do 9 states that are not participating on the teams or on the MRB 10 know that NRC -- know that NRC -- is evaluating its own 11 regions in all agreement states in the same manner, using as 12 much as possible the same common indicators?
13 MR. RATLIFF: Yes. In fact, at our agreement 14 states meeting last September we not only had presentations 15 by Kathy Schneider, NRC, but the states themselves, to give 16 their experiences, what they had found, and from the people 17 who were on the review teams.
18 I think some states would love to put someone out 19 there but if you are a state like North Dakota with three or 20 four people, that one person for three weeks really is a 21 large part of their resources, and they would love to get 22 the experience.
23 The whole idea of what is going on and how it is l 24 helping I think has been transmitted to the states. All the i
25 states agree.
J t
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85 1 Some states are actually anxious for their IMPEP 2 review, you can believe it and in fact what Jim said is real 3
- true. What we did in Texas was took the TMPEP tools and 4
dedicated four staff for two weeks to do our own internal 4
5 IMPEP review to see how we would do before you all came to
, 6 look at us, and I think that is important.
1 7 The states really should evaluate themselves 8 whether they do a full-blown evaluation or not.
9 One thing I forgot to mention earlier, Madam
]
10 Chairman, was that different reviewers for each IMPEP review 11 is going to help. You know, it was nice to have the same 12 face come back every time from the region but I think this 13 is going to benefit us long-term in having different people 14 from different NRC programs and different states. It's 15 really going to improve so you don't get into the thing 16 where they always miss this area. That's a real benefit.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. Thank you.
18 MR. FLETCHER: One point that I wanted to 19 elaborate on is that various states would love to be able to 20 participate in having a representative on the team, but as '
21 Richard pointed out, states are constrained as far as their 22 numbers, their resources, and right now I have discussed 23 with my state and with various other states we encountered 24 in meetings the desire to learn, to see what variations 25 there are from state to state -- not severe, perhaps, but ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. !
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86 '
1 different approaches to, you know, to sometimes troubling 2 problems that don't elevate themselves to an IMPEP review 3 report may still be something that an individual on another 4 staff has come up with a procedure to handle, so for the l 5 )
most part people would like to have that opportunity. 1 J
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan, do you 7 have any comment along that line? '
8 (No response.]
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers.
10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, we have spent a lot of 11 time here today and I don't want to prolong it, but I do 12 want to say that I see the changes that have taken place in 13 the last few years through the development of this program.
14 It's really dramatic.
15 We didn't hear words like we're hearing here today 16 from agreement states and others. I think that everyone 17 that's been involved with the development of this program 18 really needs to be complimented because I think it is really 19 a superb achievement.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
21 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I couldn't agree more with 22 Commissioner Rogers. I really think this like I said before 23 is a win-win situation. I thin) is obvious why.
24 Regulators with common goals are formed into teams which 25 share common views, common goals and they try to do a better ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 87 l 1 job.
2 Really.there's substantial benefits to the t 3 approach. I am almost sorry we cannot do this with' 4 reactors.
5 [ Laughter.]
6 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I do believe there's always --
7 there's this question of funding and I'd like to say that 8 maybe we should apply some creative thinking and maybe even 9 honest creative accounting to try to solve that issue when !
10 it is necessary, but again I commend you.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Be careful talking about them, 12 Commissioner. ,
13 [ Laughter.] !
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
15 [No response.]
i 16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you one kind of 17 overarching question and this is really directed probably 18 more to the Staff but to anyone, and this is on behalf of '
19 Commissioner Dicus, but I think it's an excellent '
20 overarching question.
21 That is, based upon the IMPEP results to date, if 22 we had a GAO audit and report, would that report find the 23 issues previously raised to have been resolved?
24 MR. MALLET: I thought you wanted me to answer it.
25 MR. THOMPSON: I.would like for you to answer it, :
l i
i l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I
88 1 but, no, I believe they would.
2 Obviously they were focusing on having a 3 consistency between the agreement states, a consistency 4 between the performance. They might like more quantitative 5 numbers. I mean they will always be pushing us to improve, 6 but I think the things that we have heard here today about 7 the communication that goes on, it's almost an intangible 8 benefit and whether the GAO would-have even recognized that 9 that would be a significant part of this product in our 10 response when they made those recommendations, I don't think 11 that was part of it, so I would hope they would think that 12 their expectations have been surpassed.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: It's a serious question in 14 terms of, you know, I mean since that was a big spur one 15 does not like to come under the GAO spotlight, but your 16 judgment is that from your understanding and experience that l 17 the issues would have been felt to have been resolved?
18 MR. THOMPSON: That's my judgment.
19 MR. MALLET: I would add something to that. What 20 the GAO report said was a couple things. Hugh mentioned one !
21 of them -- consistency.
22 But driving towards the common goal -- in the past 23 we were reviewing the agreement states with different 24 criteria and different goals than we were reviewing the 25 regions and I believe the GAO now would come out and say, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
89 1 yes, you are on the same criteria.
. You are talking about 2 the same common goals now. I think that is a big plus.
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Very good. Well, thank you.
4 The Commission would like to thank the Staff and '
5 the representatives from the agreement states for a very 6 thorough briefing. We particularly appreciate the 7 participation of the agreement states as well as the folks .
8 from our regions to get those perspectives as we strive to 9 have a national and a uniform level of protection for the 10 public, for workers as well as the environment in the 11 nuclear materials programs, as evidenced today and as the i 12 various Commissioners have attested to.
i 13 I am not going to re-preach. Obviously IMPEP has !
I 14 matured significantly since its inception in 1994 and that- '
15 is a fairly short period of time and it's good to see NRC's 16 material staff and the agreement states staff working 17 together more closely in evaluating materials programs, 18 because both Federal and State regulatory bodies stand to 19 benefit from this interaction.
20 IMPEP provides a structured, systematic 21 approach -- you know, there are always things that can be 22 improved -- but it does provide that for evaluating the 23 regions and agreement states an approach that was obviously 24 lacking a few years ago, and so real progress has been 25 demonstrated and you know that consistency is very important ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202)-842-0034 i
90 -
1 in terms of regulatory effectiveness.
2 But the year and a half of experience also has !
3- shown us that there are areas for improvement.
4- The Staff is aware, and you have spoken to the ;
1 5 ~ fact that the noncommon indicators need to be refined, and ;
-6 both the regional and. agreement states' representative have 7 also addressed this concern.
8 The Management Review Board's decision-making 9 process -- I think it's useful to self-assess -- in my 10 view -- and you have actually assured us this is the case 11 but it is the kind of thing that should be continually self !
12 assessed -- that the Review Board's findings should be based 13 on, you know, being from Missouri, that they should focus 14 closely on performance as opposed to plans or promises for 15 future improvement.
16 I think we should leave open and see what the !
17 Commission wants to say on this issue of the relative 18 timeframe between the onsite review conclusion and the 19 ' Management Review Board's decisions, and so again the 20 Commission thanks you and thanks all of you for your very a 21 diligent efforts and progress in an area that is important, j 22 and so unless there are any further comments we stand l 23 adjourned.
24 [Whereupon, at 11:57 a.m., the briefing was 25 adjourned.] j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
CERTIFICATE l
l This is to certify that the attached description of a meeting l
of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING: BRIEFING ON INTEGRATED MATERIALS PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROGRAM -
PUBLIC MEETING 1
l PLACE OF MEETING: Rockville, Maryland l
J l DATE OF MEETING: Friday, January 31, 1997 1
l i l was held as herein appears, is a true and accurate record of
[ the meeting, and that this is the original transcript thereof l taken stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court l
reporting company l
l Transcriber: i d m i; L .y h w w. m Reporter: Mark Mahoney 4
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STATUS REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF INTEGRATED MATERIALS PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROGRAM (IMPEP)
Presented to t
THE COMMISSION, JANUARY 31,1997 Donald A. Cool, Director Division ofIndustrial and Medical Nuclear Safety Office of Nuclear Matenial Safety and Safeguants Kathleen Schneider, Senior Pmject Manager Office of State Pmgrams .
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Purpose:
- To provide the Commission with a status report on IMPEP, and to !
recommend continued program implementation.
- To share the perspectives of Regional and Agreement State participants, and '
managers of programs recently reviewed.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 2
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Background:
e IMPEP was developed to establish common performance indicators to obtam comparable information to evaluate Agreement States and NRC regional materials programs. !
- GAO/ Congressional interest.
e SECY 94-011 documented the proposed program, and staff adjusted the common performance indicators and standards based on several rounds of Regional and Agreement State comments.
e In 1994, Commission gave conditional approval for pilot application in two Regions and three volunteer Agreement States (IL, NH, and UT) e SECY 95-047 reported on pilot program results, and Commission approved expanded implementation of IMPEP on an interim basis in FY 1996.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 3
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission
\...../ ;
Update on Actions Taken Since SECY 95-047:
1 e Staff issued Directive 5.6, which describes IMPEP program in detail; 5 common performance indicators, IMPEP process and its review criteria.
Key Elements Include:
State participation on teams and as liaisons to Management Review i Boards (MRBs), comments on draft reports, and attendance at MRBs
- Greater review focus on program performance and root causes
- Clearer documentation of the IMPEP process, and report issuance ;
i e Staff began development of non-common performance indicators (LLW, sealed source and device reviews, uranium recovery).
e IMPEP teams were assembled, and training conducted 11/95 and 12/96.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 A
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Common Performance Indicators:
e Status of Materials Inspection Program o Technical Staffing and Training e Technical Quality of Licensing l e Technical Quality of Inspections 1
e Response to Incidents and Allegations f
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 5
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission
\...../ i Non-common Performance Indicators: !
e For Regions: Operating Plan Performance, Utilization of Resources, Fuel Cycle Activities.
e For States: Regulations, Legal Authority, Sealed Source and Device Reviews, .
Low Level Waste Disposal, Uranium Recovery.
e Licensing terminations & decommissioning will be considered a subset of the routine licensing and inspection programs and reviewed under the common indicators.
i e Non-common indicators will continue to be refined based on experience l
gained during FY 96 review cycle.
e Non-common indicator will be developed for regions' management of, and i resource expenditures for, SDMP.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 6 . ,
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Implementation and Results:
e Tentative schedule for initial reviews for all Agreement States and regions established.
e 9 programs reviewed in FY 1996 (Region I, Region II, NC, GA, ND, IA, KY, MD, NE).
e Process completed for 7 of the 9 reviews, with MD and NE still in progress.
Agreement States found to be " adequate" and " compatible."
Regions found to be " satisfactory" for all common and non-common indicators, and therefore " adequate" to protect public health and safety.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 ;
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Frequency of Reviews:
- MRB determines interval for review For Regions: Normally scheduled for 2 year intervals.
For States: Team recommends interval (normally 2 to 4 years)
Reviews supplemented by annual one-day meetings to help parties remain knowledgeable about each other's program changes and plan for next IMPEP review.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 8
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission .
Nebraska:
e MRB met on January 22,1997, to review the proposed final report.
The Nebraska Program was found to be adequate, but needs improvement and compatible. ,
3 indicators " satisfactory" 4 indicators " satisfactory with recommendations for improvement."
Next IMPEP review will be conducted in Fall 1997.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 9
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Ongoing Implementation:
e Good Practices report issued in July 1996, provided forum for sharing IMPEP findings on innovative regulatory techniques and list of contacts.
Staff intends to issue this report annually.
e IMPEP (Management Directive 5.6) procedures will be updated again when the Policy Statements on Adequacy and Compatibility, and Statement of Principles and Policy for Agreement State Program are issued in final.
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IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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Resources:
e Interim phase has been conducted within budget levels (about 0.5 FTE per review), or about 4.5 FTE per year (includes 1 FTE from the Agreement States).
e Agreement State annual meetings could be accommodated within base budget.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 11
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Conclusions:
e IMPEP has proven to be a very effective process.
e Staff proposes continued use of IMPEP as its mechanism for reviewing ,
Regions and Agreement States.
l i
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 12
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[ } Nuclear Regulatory Commission REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON INTEGRATED .
MATERIALS PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROGRAM (IMPEP) i Bruce Mallett, Director Division of Nuclear Materials Safety RII 1
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission Strengths Observed in the Program o Level of expertise and type of representation on teams.
e Focus on performance during review and in results '
- documentation.
i e Fostering consistent goals for programs.
e Timely issuance of written reports / findings.
e Management Review of Process - MRB.
e Sharing of " Good Practices."
e Causes programs being evaluated to increase self-assessment.
IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 2
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[ } Nuclear Regulatory Commission I
Areas for Imorovement in the Program e Sharing corrective actions among programs.
i e Support ongoing review of Agreement State Programs.
e Maintaining the level of rigor in the creation and use of non-common indicators.
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IMPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 3 ,
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Challenges for Program ;
e Continue to evaluate adequacy of indicators.
e Maintain cadre of experienced team members.
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BIPEP Commission Briefing January 1997 4 . .
Organization of Agreement States
- NRC Commission Briefing IMPEP Impressions January 1997 ;
4
- 1. Richard Ratliff - Texas OAS Past Chairman - General Overview II. Roland Fletcher - Maryland, OAS Chairman Elect e Agreement State that has been reviewed under IMPEP e MRB - Agreement State representative prospective
. III. James McNees - Alabama, Agreement State participant
- on IMPEP Review Team j IV. Questions i
I l
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OAS General Overview of IMPEP l
I. Pilot Test States and First 12 Agreement State IMPEP Review Comments 4
A. Reviews thorough and more performance oriented B. More interaction between Agreement State staff and IMPEP Review Teams
- C. Agreement States welcome the addition of an
. Agreement State person on the IMPEP Review Teams and on MRB D. Initial draft reports were timely; it is hoped that NRC i will continue timely feedback from IMPEP Reviews.
1 II. Concerns
! A. Non-common performance indicators l l 1. Need to have decommissioning as a common j performance indicator
- 2. Need to do all program areas at the same time
self evaluations and NRC check lists at least every two l years C. NRC needs to acknowledge the Agreement State contribution of staff resources to IMPEP Teams and 1 MRB in its decisions on future of funding Agreement I State training.
~
NRC COMMISSION BRIEFING--IMPEP Impressions
! 31 January 1997
+ AGREEMENT STATE & MRB PERSPECTIVES +
i Roland G. Fletcher 1
4
- 1. MARYLAND IMPEP REVIEW { September 23-27,1996}
j A. Team approach very beneficial.
i B. Less of a " licensee inspection" atmosphere. !
l C. More discussion, interaction and analysis of positive j program aspects.
l l D. Agreement State participant on team certainly j broadens evaluation capability.
l l E. Much more credible exit briefing with senior j management.
l 2. MRB - GEORGIA AND NEBRASKA l A. Agreement State member adds a degree of l understanding of competing program priorities.
l B. Organizational location and status of program affects
! IMPEP outcome.
C. Continuous consideration of positive actions l strengthens IMPEP process and allows for changes j in findings.
Being a State Member of an IMPEP Review Team a Thankful for the Opportunity
- NRC for the travel expenses
- State for 3 + weeks of work time a Team Leader made success easy i e Objective Standards made review effective s I received mo~re than I contributed.
- From the State of Kentucky
- From other team members l
u IMPEP eliminates major source of past animosity.
- - - - _ - - - - - - - _ - - - - - - - - - - - ------------.a
4 i -
l OAS General Overview of
! IMPEP 1
! I. Pilot Test States and First 12 Agreement State IMPEP Review Comments A. Reviews thorough and more performance oriented B. More interaction between Agreement State staff and IMPEP Review Teams C. Agreement States welcome the addition of an Agreement State person on the IMPEP Review Teams and on MRB D. Initial draft reports were timely; it is hoped that NRC will continue timely feedback from IMPEP Reviews.
II. Concerns A. Non-common performance indicators
- 1. Need to have decommissioning as a common performance indicator
B. Four year review cycle needs to be supplemented by self evaluations and NRC check lists at least every two years C. NRC needs to acknowledge the Agreement State contribution of staff resources to IMPEP Teams and MRB in its decisions on future of funding Agreement State training. .
l
! NRC COMMISSION BRIEFING--IMPEP Impressions l 31 January 1997 i:
l + AGREEMENT STATE & MRB PERSPECTIVES +
- Roland G. Fletcher i
l 1. MARYLAND IWPEP REVIEW { September 23-27,1996}
l A. Team approach very beneficial.
l B. Less of a " licensee inspection" atmosphere.
i C. More discussion, interaction and analysis of positive program aspects.
D. Agreement State participant on team certainly broadens evaluation capability.
E. Much more credible exit briefing with senior management.
- 2. MRB - GEORGIA AND NEBRASKA A. Agreement State member adds a degree of understanding of competing program priorities.
B. Organizational location and status of program affects IMPEP outcome.
C. Continuous consideration of positive actions l strengthens IMPEP process and allows for changes l in fm' dings.
i Being a State Member of an IMPEP Review Team u Thankful for the Opportunity
- NRC for the travel expenses
- State for 3 + weeks of work time a Team Leader made success easy ,
m Objective Standards made review effective
~
m I received more than I contributed.
- From the State of Kentucky
- From other team members e IMPEP eliminates major source of past animosity.