ML20195J321
| ML20195J321 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/14/1999 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9906180173 | |
| Download: ML20195J321 (87) | |
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t UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
BRIEFING ON 10 CFR PART 70 -- PROPOSED RULE FOR REVISED REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DOMESTIC LICENSING OF SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL PUBLIC MEETING Location:
Rockville, Maryland
/
[)fDA Date:
Monday, June 14,1999 Pages:
1 - 75 Jg61eggj 990614 m7 em ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
1025 Connecticut Avenue,NW, Suite 1914 Wastdagion, D.C.20036 Sg (202) 842 4 034
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i cr c.
1 e:
a DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on June 14,. 1999, in the Commission's office at One 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 i
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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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
3 4
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY l
5 1
6 BRIEFING ON 10 CFR PART 70 -- PROPOSED RULE 7
FOR REVISED REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 8
DOMESTIC LICENSING OF SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL 9
- +
10 PUBLIC MEETING 11 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 12 One White Flint North 13 Building 1, Room 1F-16 14 11555 Rockville Pike l
15 Rockville, Maryland 16 Monday, June 14, 1999 17 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 18 notice, at 2:10 p.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A.
- JACKSON, 19 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
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20 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
1 21 SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission 22 EDWARD McGAFFZGAN, JR., Member of the Commission 23 GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission 24-JEFFREY S. MERRIFIELD, Member of the Commission i
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STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
2 WILLIAM TRAVERS, Executive Director for Operations l
3 KAREN D.
CYR, General Counsel 4
ANNETTE L. VIETTI-COOK, Secretary i
5 MARVIN S.
FERTEL, Senior Vice President, NEI 6
STEVE SCHILTHELM, Nuclear Safety Manager, BWX l
7 Technologies 8
BILL SHARKEY, Director of Regulatory Affairs, ABB 9
Combustion Engineering 10 CARL PAPERIELLO, Director, NMSS 11 ELIZABETH Q. TEN EYCK, Director, 12 Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, NMSS 13 THEODORE S. SHERR, Chief, Licensing &
14 International Safeguards Branch, NMSS j
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PROCEEDINGS 2
[2:10 p.m.]
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Good afternoon.
Today we are 4
going to be discussing the requirements for the domestic 5
licensing of special nuclear material.
This is found in 10 l
6
'CFR, Part 70.
Several industry representatives have asked 7
to provide a presentation regarding the perspective of the 8
fuel fabrication industry on the draft proposed revisions to 9
Part 70 and accompanying guidance.
10 In addition, the NRC Staff will brief the 11 Commission on its proposal for revising the requirements in 12 10 CFR, Part 70.
The process.to revise Part 70 began in 13 1993 and various aspects were presented to the Commission 14 for resolution in.1996,.1997 and 1998.
Following the last 15 briefing in August of 1998 the Commission directed the Staff 16 to work closely with stakeholders to resolve remaining 17 differences and I understand that slides from both the Staff 18 and the Nuclear Energy Institute, from their slides rather, 19 that this has been a fruitful interaction and that many 20 contentious issues have been resolved, but this is a public 21 process so they are having a public meeting.
22 My colleagues and I look forward to the briefing 23 to assist us in our review of the draft proposed rule that 24 is presented in the SECY 99-147, so unless my colleagues 25 have any opening remarks they would like to share, Mr.
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Fertel, please begin.
2 MR. FERTEL:
Thank you, Chairman Jackson, and good 3
afternoon Commissions Dicus, McGaffigan, Merrifield.
I am 4
pleased to be attending this Commission briefing on behalf 5
of both NEI and all of our fuel fabrication enrichment 6-company members that operate facilities licensed under 10
~7 CFR Part 70.
8 Joining me on my left today is Bill Sharkey, who 9
is Director of Regulatory Affairs at ABB Combustion 10 Engineering for their hematite facility in Missouri, and on 11 my right is Steve Schilthel'm, who is the new Nuclear Safety 12 Manager for BWX Technologies at their Lynchburg plant.
13 On behalf of NEI's Facility Operations Committee I 14 wish to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the 15 Commission this afternoon and to discuss the ongoing 16' rulemaking to amend 10 CFR Part 70.
17 Today's briefing marks a milestone in the joint 18 efforts by the Commissioners, the NRC Staff, the Part.70 19 lic&nsees and other stakeholders to revised the Part 70 rule 20 in accordance with the NRC's new risk-informed, 21-performance-based regulatory philosophy, and I think 22 Chairman Jackson mentioned it got started in '93.
It's been 23 a long road but I think we are almost at the end.
24 Since the last Commission --
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
What did they say in '96?
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[ Laughter.]
2 MR. FERTEL:
We're closer now.
Since the last 3
Commission briefing on this subject in August of 1998, 4
significant progress has been made in addressing and 5
resolving mar.y of the issues we raised at that briefing.
I 6
would like to compliment the NRC Staff for their efforts 7
towards resolving those issues and to thank the Commission 8
for providing the leadership and policy direction to the 1
9 Staff that was essential to address the issues we raised 10 last August.
11 Given the progress made to date, my remarks this 12 afternoon will be briefing, highlighting those key 13 modifications to Part 70 which we believe will make the rule 14 most effective.
1 should also identify three principal 15 areas where we believe further improvements are necessary 16.
-and where Commission guidance may be appropriate.
17 Since the August 1998 Commission briefing our 18 efforts have focused primarily on modifying the Part 70 rule 19-and few NRC or industry resources were available to review 20 and revise the Standard Review Plan.
As I shall discuss 21
-later, NEI ar/d the industry are committed to working with 22 the NRC Staff and other stakeholders over the next few 23 months to undertake a dedicated and comprehensive review of 24 the SRP.
25 Turning first to the draft rule, we were pleased ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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that the rule reflects a majority of industry's 2
recommendations made in NEI's petition for rulemaking filed 3
on September 30th, 1996.
NRC's use of the rulemaking web 4
page facilitated an open and constructive exchange of ideas 5
in the draft rule and we encourage its use in the future.
'e believe that the assignment of a dedicated team of NRC 6
W 7
specialists was instrumental in achieving the successful 8
resolution of issues and in expedited rule modifications.
9 We would like to compliment NMSS management for 10 its effective commitment of resources to this project and we 11 certainly appreciate the efforts of both the NMSS staff and 12 the dedicated team members.
13 Finally, a series of workshops and public meetings 14 facilitated face-to-face discussions of outstanding issues 15 and led to a narrowing of differences and achievement of 16 greater understanding of the basis for the positions being 17 taken by all parties and a better understanding of how to 18 reach mutually acceptable positions.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me ask you a question, Mr.
20 Fertel.
Do you feel that there was'ever any risk of having 21 successive revisions of the rule on the website creating a 22 moving target or do you think it was actually 23 facilitating --
24 MR. FERTEL:
We thought it was facilitating it and 25 we'd encourage it, and in fact one of the things I think I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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would encourage very strongly was when the Staff got ready 2
to send the rule up to the Commission they kind of froze 3
everybody out from seeing it because it was going to the 4
Commission and they didn't want to say, okay, this is'the 5
rule when the Commission hasn't seen it, and from our 6
standpoint what it did is we got their SRP and we didn't 7
have a rule,.so it was making it very difficult for us to 8
give them any constructive feedback on the SRP at that-9 point, even though there wasn't a lot of time.
10 I think that as long as -- whether it is the l
'll industry or the public -- it is clear that the rule is in'a 12 dynamic state and it is changing.
I think it can work very 13 well'.
I think in Part 70 it worked well.
14 I think the experience that my folks told me about 15 Part 35, Chairman Jackson, was a little different.
There 16 wasn't' a lot of feedback to the iridustry that was inputting i
17 or the stakeholders that were inputting in Part 35, so the 18 sense was that it went into a black hole and I think there 19 was frustration in that process, whereas in this process I 20 think our folks were very pleased with the interaction and 21 the dialogue and the amount of information provided, so I 22 wou.ld encourage it.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
And Karen, you are clear, just 24 for the record, that the way of doing it this way is i
25 consistent with the notice and timing provisions of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 Administrative Procedures Act vis-a-vis rulemaking --
2 MS. CYR:
Certainly.
You can lay that out as part 3
of this is how your process is going to do that, you know, 4
make it clear wha *. is the record and what you are basing 5
your decision on, and people have essentially an equal 6
opportunity -- all interested participants have an 7
opportunity to make their comments known to those people who 8
are involved in the decision-making process.
9 MR. FERTEL:
NEI is certainly supportive of the 10 Commission's directive to implement a risk-informed, 11 performance-based regulatory philosophy and h'ow this l'2 philosophy is.being incorporated into the new Part 70.
This 13 approach will enable NRC and licensee resources to be 14 allocated to. safety-significant issues and thereby increase 15.
our confidence in the margin of safety at the fuel cycle 16 facilities.
17 It also appropriately places the responsibility on 18 the management of individual facilities to operate in a safe 19 and responsible manner.
20 We are particularly pleased with the following 21 improvements to the draft Part 70 rule:
22 First, the adoption of the integrated safety 23 analysis as the principal safety basis of the facility and 24 is fully committed to implementing those.
25 Second, specification of performance criteria to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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effectiveness of licensee safety programs can be judged 3-makes it more objective.
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Third,. adoption of a graded approach to safety 5
whereby the robustness of the safety control depends upon l
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the importance to safety of the control.
7 Fourth, inclusion of a facility change process 8
that attempts to codify the current practice permitting 9
modifications without NRC pre-approval to a facility's l
10 processes, structures or sites.
11 Fifth', adoption of a licensing process that 12 appropriately makes the results of the ISA, the ISA summary 13 and supporting safety basis information available to the NRC 14 without unnecessarily encumbering the license itself.
l 15 Finally, the flexibility to adopt alternative 16 approaches to demonstrate the safety of the facility's 17 operation.
18 In addition to these improvements, we concur with 19 the Staff's recommendations to remove from SECY 98-185 the 20 requirements for a license applicant to conduct a 21 preliminary ISA or preliminary process hazards analysis.
1 22 Such preliminary safety scoping studies will, as j
23 appropriate, be undertaken by licensees.
We concur with the i
24 Staff that existing provisions of the Part 70 rule will 25 satisfy the NRC's pre-licensing needs.
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We are encouraged by the deletion from earlier 2
drafts of the Part 70 rule revisions of considerable 3
prescriptiveness, deletions of the requirement to conduct a 4
separate decommissioning ISA, and a focus placed on the 5
comparative risk of an accident sequence rather than in 6
quantitative specifications of its likelihood and/or 7
consequence.
8 Finally --
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Repeat what you just said.
10 MR. FERTEL:
The last point?
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes.
12 MR. FERTEL:
We think that it was much better to 13 get away_ fro'm talking about -- talk risk rather than 14 separate consequence and frequency, which the initial draft 15 of the rule the Staff was talking about, the frequency of an 16 event or they were talking about the consequence of an event 17 and we were saying that we ought to look at it as relative 18 risk.
We ought to basically integrate the frequency and the 19 consequence and think in risk-based -- and we believe the 20 current rule does that.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You are not proposing to 22 eliminate consideration of frequency or consequence?
23 MR. FERTEL:
No.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Rather it's more of the overall 25 integrated risk analysis?
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MR. FERTEL:
Yes.
I 2
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Just wanted to be sure.
3 MR. FERTEL:
I think that early on we may have had 4
agreement on that with the Staff and we're just all using 5
terminology that had us in disagreement, but then I think we 6
finally got to a point where we are in agreement.
7 Finally --
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
.A state of --
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MR. FERTEL:
What?
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Never mind, it is a mathematics l
l e
11 term.
12 MR. FERTEL:
Finally, we believe the proposed rule 13 revisions provide an effective regulatory framework which i
14 recognizes the comparatively low risk to public health and 15 safety and the environment posed by Part 70 licenced 16 facilities.
The Commissioners and NRC Staff can attest to 17 the excellent demonstrated safety record of Part 70 18 facilities.
Modifications to the Part 70 rule should.
19 therefore reflect a comparatively low risk.
At such 20 facilities we believe it does.
21 While significant progress has been achieved in 22 revising the Part 70 rule, we will be commenting on the rule 23 as part of the formal comment process.
This is part of what 24 I'm-sure Karen meant when you go out with the proposed rule 25 itself.
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Today we would like to bring to the Commission's 2
attention three specific issues.
3 I have previously addressed these issues and shall 4
only highlight our arguments related to them.
I should also 5
note that for two of the three issues significant progress 6
has been made and we believe resolution of the issues may be 7
possible even without Commission intervention.
l 8
The first is backfit.
In the first area, 9
providing for a backfit provision, Commission policy 10 direction is required.
11 I recognize that the Commission position on this 12 issue is mixed.
We would reiterate our position.that Part i
13 70 facilities should be afforded the protection of an 14 immediately effective backfit provision and currently there 15.
is none in the rule.
16 We disagree with the Staff's position that a 17 risk-informed safety basis for a facility cannot be 18 established prior to completion of the ISA.
The NRC knows 19 the safety basis of such plants, as evidenced by their 20 licensing and relicensing for over 30 years.
Most 21 facilities were originally licensed in the 1950s and 1960s 22 and have each undergone three more license renewals,.most 23 recently in the last three to four years for all the 24 facilities.
25 The Staff concern about conflicts over whether a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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plant change will be deemed implementation of the Part 70 2
regulation or a backfit issue is highly unlikely in our 3'
opinion, as all the Part 70 licensees have committed in 4
their licenses to address all unacceptable performance 5
deficiencies identified in the ISAs.
6 Facility operators routinely --
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
They have agreed in their 8
licenses to do tha,t.
9 MR. FERTEL:
Yes, license conditions in their 10 license as part of license renewal.
11 Facility operators routinely implement without NRC 12 direction changes to their, facilities that do increase i
13 safety, something Commissioner McGaffican is interested in.
14 This is sound and prudent business practice.
15 Finally, the Staff expresses concern that 16 significantly larger NRC resources will be required for 17 backfit provisions implemented.
Obviously industry has 18 similar concerns.
While this may be the case, the' 19 appropriate implementation of a backfit provision should 20 represent one of the basic foundation blocks of an effective 21 risk-informed, performance-based regulatory process and as 22 such be effectively implemented.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Hold on -- we have lost our 24 sound.
25
[ Pause.]
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1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Go ahead.
2 MR. FERTEL:
-- and as such be effectively 3
implemented.
4 Also, the impact on the licensee and the 5
imposition of unnecessary regulatory requirements could have 6
much greater --
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Mr. Fertel, could you slow 8
down?
9 MR. FERTEL:
Sure.
You should be able to follow 10 me.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I can, but they cannot.
12 MR. FERTEL:
Sure.
Also the impact on the 13 licensee and the imposition of unnecessary regulatory 14 requirements could have much greater economic consequences 15 than the cost to NRC to implement an appropriate process and 16 therefore we urge the Commission to include in their 17 rulemaking an appropriate backfit provision.
18 The second area that I would like to discuss is 19 the ISA summary.
NEI fully supports preparation of a 20 summary of the ISA to assist the NRC Staff in understanding 21 the safety basis of a facility, but the summary should be 22 tailored to provide NRC with the information it needs in a 23 useful way and not be designed to summarize everything in 24 the ISA.
25 The draft rule requires the description of each ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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process analyzed in the ISA tabulation of all hazards 2
identified for each process and a general description of all 3
identified accident sequences.
1 1
4 We believe this requirement is too broad.
The ISA 5
summary should provide a general description of.the high and 6
intermediate risk accident sequences.
We would propose to 7
exclude from the ISA summary references to low risk accident 8
sequences which the ISA shows cannot exceed the performance 9
criteria of Section 70.61.
10 The draft rule also requires a list of all items 11 relied on for safety and I' emphasize "all" -- the amount of 12 information that this request solicits could be tremendous.
13 What we believe would be most useful to the NRC staff would l
14 be'a narrative description of the type and function of the 15 items relied on for safety at the systems level and 16 specifically for high and intermediate risk accident i
t 17 sequences.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Is it possible at all for under I
19 certain configurations a quote / unquote "no risk" accident 20 sequence to become a higher risk accident sequence?
i 21 Does anybody have an answer to that question?
22 MR. SCHILTHELM:
As you go through the ISA process 23 you identify many of the accident sequences and you attempt l
24 to score them as to their likelihood.
You could find as you 25 are executing the ISA process a system or situation that you l
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had previously believed to be low risk and now is falling 2
into a higher risk because of some different methods of 3
scoring or some new information that wasn't brought to bear 4
on the original analysis.
Likewise, if you were to 5
reevaluate a system you might find that, but to suggest you 6
would have a low risk item that somebody on review might 7
think is high risk, I guess that could happen.
It is a 8
qualitative process.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How much of a burden is it to 10 put these current but lower risk accident sequences into the 11 ISA somewhere?
12 MR. FERTEL:
We think it is probably less the 13 burden, Chairman Jackson, than the fact that for it to be 14 useful, and the Staff needs to decide what is useful to them 15 but they aren't ' cluttered with lots of information that is 16 not relevant to the kind of decisions and the kind of 17 analysis that they had to do, and the bigger we make the ISA 18 summary, the more the folks are busy preparing ISA summary 19 updates to submit in, rather than focusing on the stuff they 20 ought to be, so that is kind of our attitude on that right 21 now, that I think the question you asked is certainly a 22 relevant one.
It would be answered as they go through, 23 using the ISA throughout the year and as they provide the 24 annual update to the ISA that we would propose.
Obviously 25 as things change, the summary would change to reflect that.
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1 I would also think the Staff in their review, 2
particularly in the early years of the ISA when they are at 3
the plants would take a hard look at the process and the 4
methodology to see if they buy into the approach that is i
5 being,used by the facilities, but our attitude was that you 6
ought to try to make the summary most useful.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But then in the end it is 8
actually for the Staff at a certain level --
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9 MR. FERTEL:
It is for the Staff --
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
-- to decide what is most 11 useful if in fact it is not an undue burden to have all of 1
12 these sequences - '
13 MR. FERTEL:
The undue burden is probably not 14 submitting it, Chairman Jackson, but answering all the 15 questions on it.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, that would be true of 17 anything that'you are --
18 MR. FERTEL:
That's true, but the more you submit 19 that's probably not relevant and the more questions you get, i
20 the more the burden, 21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, of course relevance is 22 always in the eye of the beholder.
23 Why don't you go on?
But I would like the Staff 24 to give an answer to that -- to these questions I am posing.
25' MR. FERTEL:
But we propose to work with the NRC ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Staff in better defining the actual content and format for 2
the ISA summary.
I don't think that either one of us have 3
had the same kind of dialogue on that that we have had on 4
some of.the other issues, and we are prepared to develop an 5
industry guidance document on this subjected if that were 6
deemed to be the most effective way to resolve this issue.
7 We do suggest that the unnecessarily 8
prescriptiveness in the ISA summary can be removed in the 9
draft rule and still accomplish what you need to.
10 The last area we wanted to touch on from the rule 11 was the facility change mec'hanism.
We endorse the Option 1 12 facility change mechanism as proposed by the Staff, focusing 13 NRC resources on safety-significant high risk facility 14 changes, and granting the licensee the flexibility to 15 implement changes that do not adversely affect human health 16 and safety is the correct regulatory approach.
17 A typical plant will implement from 300 to 400 18 plant or procedural changes annually, of which we estimate 19 about one percent might be deemed safety significant and 20 subject to NRC review and pre-approval.
That is based upon 21 the experience of the facilities over the last five years, 22 showing what they are doing.
It is not that many license 23 amendments that they are going for.
24 As the Commission stated in its December, 1998 25 SRM, to effectively use NRC resources a change mechanism ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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must establish a threshold to, quote, " capture those few
'2_
significant facility changes that will require a license 1
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amendment."
4 The proposed mechanism in 70.72 does require 5
several important technical changes to make the mechanism 6
more practical and workable.
That's what I would like to 7
touch on.
8 For example, the first criterion to exclude a 9
proposed change from NRC preapproval requires a change not 10 to be, quote, "a new type of accident sequence or one that 11-has not previously been described in the ISA summary."
The 12 footnote to the rule goes on to state that a new type of 13 accident sequence includas a different initiator, 14 significant change in consequence or change in the safety 15 function of a control.
16 This language may be interpreted to-include any 17 process changes, and as such would require significantly 18 more license amendment applications for changes that do not 19 affect the results of the ISA summary.
Therefore, NEI~
20 recommends that this criterion be focused on.new accident 21 types in systems or facilities that were not previously 22 included in the ISA summary.
We think we need to work 23 closer with the Staff at looking at how you would implement 24 this particular provision.
We understand the analog to 25 50.59 and we are not sure it works directly here.
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The proposed facility change mechanism, 2
specifically Section 70.72(d) requires a 90-day reporting 3.
timeframe for all changes to the content of the ISA summary.
4 We believe such 90-day ' reporting is unnecessary and will 5
prove burdensome to both the NRC and the licensee.
We 6
'believe the licensees should only have to submit such 7
information annually, particularly as no NRC approval is 8
required for what's being asked for here.
9 We note that nuclear reactor licensees must report 10 such information at the time of a refuelling outage, which 11 generally occurs every two years.
12 These were our comments on the rule.
13 On the SRP, as mentioned at the beginning of my 14 remarks, NEI and our Part 70 licensees have not yet 15 undertaken a thorough review of the draft SRP.
In fact, the 16 fellowa are going to begin working on that tomorrow and the 17 next day.
18 We did have a very productive workshop with the 19 NRC on nuclear criticality safety, which provided the 20 groundwork for the NRC Staff to undertake revisions to 21 Chapter 5 of the SRP.
22 In general, NEI finds the SRP to still contain an 23 unnecessarily large amount of prescriptive detail.
The 24 draft SRP was also' written prior to revision of the Part 70 25 rule, and as a result many of the rule provisions are not ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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accurately captured in the SRP today' 2
We understand that NMSS management intends to keep 3'
its dedicated team together to work with NEI and other 4
stakeholders on revising the SRP.
We strongly encourage 5
Commission support for that approach and are fully committed 6
to working with the dedicated NRC Staff to complete a 7
detailed review of each of the remaining chapters.
8 In conclusion, I wish to compliment the 9
Commissioners and the NRC staff for the progress achieved in j
10 revising the proximity rule.
NEI will provide additional 11 clarifying comments in a proposed rule that. proceeds through 12 the rulemaking process, although the major issues we have 13 with the ruie have been identified to you today.
We look 14 forward to working with the NRC team to revise the SRP to 15 ensure that its implementation provisions accurately reflect 16 the rule content.
Thank you for your attention and we would 17 be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So are you basically 19 recommending that NRC publish the proposed rule for public 20 comment?
21 MR. FERTEL:
We are certainly fine with that.
We 22 would like you to include a backfit provision if you did j
23 that, but we will comment accordingly if you don't.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
That is good to know.
25 Commissioner Dicus?
Commission McGaffigan?
)
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COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Let me ask a few
- 2 questions about the process going forward and Karen can j
l 3
comment.
Once we issue the rule for comment, can we j
4 continue to -- and I chink we did it in Part 35, as we get 5
comments in, we can at least put those on the web page.
6 MS. CYR:
Certainly.
'r COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
And we can, if it turns 8
out'that the staff has -- you would have to make changes.
9 MS. CYR:
I mean you can do it as a dialogue.
I 10 mean I know in one, we had pilot one time where we had in a 11 sense a proposed rule, and there was an ongoing dialogue 12 even,-a dialogue with on that with respect to comments, as 13 part of the comments.
Even proposed, but it depends on much 14 your resource demand is with respect to that.
15 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
How about on the 16 Standard Review Plan, which is not itself a rule, it is a 17 plan for implementing the rule, can that -- can public 18 meetings occur where drafts go up?
That is going to be a 19 more dynamic document.
In fact, we have already gotten some 20 through the T&A process, some changes that the staff is 21 going to make and they say they are going to publish in the 22 paper, what they are going to publish with the rule is 23 whatever the document is the day they publish it.
Can that 24-be --
25 MS. CYR:
Certainly.
Continue the public ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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iteration and noticeable reactions.
2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Okay.
With regard to 3
the language itself, I am trying to understand a couple of 4
points you are making about the rule language.
Your problem 5
with the c,reate new types is not the criterion itself, but 6
the footnote, is that the footnote that got added?
7 MR. FERTEL:
It is the combination of the two.
If 8
you go into reactor space, which is I think what may be the 9
basis was you do look at, in Chapter 15, the different types 10 of accidents.
And if I do create a new accident under
]
11 50.59, I have to' go and get NRC's review and an SER.
12 If you look at the way the evaluations are done 13 for fuels facilities, you don't have an exactly parallel 14 path for the initial licensing review.
The staff apparently 15 does their own independent evaluation from a modeling 16 standpoint of consequences from the accidents that have been 17 identified, but they don't review the accidents, per se, at 18 least the understanding I have gotten from our folks.
19 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I am looking at your 20 comments in March and it looked like you had bought off on
-- there is slightly different wording, but you all were the 21 1
22 ones proposing it does not create new types of accidents, 23 not previously evaluated in integrated safety analysis.
l 24 MR. FERTEL:
I think we are okay with new typ?s.
25 In fact, the words that I used in my comments again, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Commissioner McGaffigan, was type.
For instance, if I have 2
gone. ahead at my facility and I never handled UF-6, and all 3
of a sudden I start to bring UF-6 in, I have created a new 4
type of accident I can have, we think there is no doubt you 5
should review that.
6 If I go ahead and I change part of a process that 7
exists and it doesn't -- it may cause me to do a new 8
analysis, and I may have to go through my ISA, but it 9
doesn't push me beyond the boundaries of what the 10 consequences were before.
It is not really -- even though 11 it could be a new accident, if I looked at the sequence to' 12 sequence, I may have a slightly different set of events.
We 13 wouldn't consider that a new type of accident.
And, again, 14 we are not entirely sure what the footnote which said 15 initiating events and everything else, what is meant.
I 16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Okay.
Well, it strikes 17 me that trying to compare it to your March stuff, it is 18 mostly the footnote that seems to be giving pause.
19 In the language, one of the items you are raising 20 is the breadth of the summary.
And as I louPed over the 21 rule language, I am going to ask the same question of the 22 staff, one of the comments that you made earlier, and there 23 is an interplay among all this stuff, was when we are 24 looking at what needs to be -- these items relied on for 25 safety, the rule language says they must -- the design of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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items relied on for safety must provide adequate inspection 2.
testing and maintenance to ensure their availability and 3
reliability to perform their function when needed.
4 And you all, in your comments, said provide 5
reasonable assurance.
And the staff, when you then do it 6
for each item, it can start to look burdensome.
Additional 7
. contents of applications, description of each process.
Back 8
in another place, where you talk about each, is that -- yet 9
another thing that happens on this page is we recognize l
10 defense-in-depth, there is a very nice footnote with regard i
11 defense-in-depth in the page 52 of the Federal Register 12 Notice in the same general section.
13 And it seems to imply that these items are go to l
14 be interplaying and that they don't -- I mean the l
I 15 connotation to ensure rather than to provide reasonable 16 assurance is that they will all be available all the time.
17 The concept of defense-in-depth is that they might not be.
18 You are going to try, you are going to have a high 1
19 probabili,ty they are available, but if one fails, you are 1
20 not entirely relying on it.
21 How did your discussions go on this?
22 MR. FERTEL:
Again, I think you probably are 23 putting your finger on one of the issues, and I am not sure 24 how far we and the staff are apart on this, because, again, 25 I don't think we have really sat down to truly work this 1
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1 through like we have on things like the chemical safety 2
issues.
But we are more looking at it from the standpoint 3
of systems as opposed to components.
We are looking at it 4
that you have defense-in-depth and that you can afford to 5
. lose something, not that you are going to plan to lose 1
6 something, and that if you give just reams of information P
7 and details, we are not quite sure it is providing either a 8
useful or an accurate picture of the safety embedded in the 9
plant systems.
10 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Madar"> Chairman, I just 11 might say that I'do think this has been a very good process 12
.and I want to compliment both the staff and NEI,.but 13 especially the staff for learning from the Part 35 14 experience and making this a very fruitful process.
I am 15 not sure whether '-- this is not really an enhanced 16 participatory rulemaking because we haven't started the 17 rulemaking yet.
It is enhanced preparticipatory or enhanced 18 participatory pre-rulemaking.
But I think doing this sort 19 of thing and the CSAS report is going to suggest we.do more 20 of it, when and if it ever gets out.
I think we really make 21 the rulemaking process, once it is started, go more rapidly.
- 22 One question I meant to ask, do you all have any 23 problem with the 75 day comment period that is proposed by 24 the staff?
25 MR. FERTEL:
No, I think we are fine.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Actually, you do have things 2
called advanced notices of proposed rulemaking.
3 MR. FERTEL:
Right.
4.
. CHAIRMAN JA.CKSON:
Which, to me, provides you with 5
- a. kind of a framework cover for doing a lot of what is going 6
on anyway.
And I think you might do well to think about 7
that kind of thing going forward.
We did it on electricity.
8 electricity utility industry restructuring.
There was a lot 9
of interactions back and forth and the final rule on 10 decommissioning funding reflected that.
But it was a full 11 notice and it allowed various stakeholders, if they wished, 12 to be on full notice about it.
And I guess that is why the 13 caveat, I am not -- I think using the web page does 14 facilitate things, and it is a kind of enhanced 15 participation.
But I think you need to ensure that we have 16 the right framework.
So I don't think we are disagreeing 17 with each other.
18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
No, I think in this case 19 all the public meetings, too, were fully noticed,. so the 20 three public meetings that were held, four if you count the 21 one that was in September.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I guess I just -- my point of 23 view is that you can accomplish the same thing and not be ad 24 hoc, that is all I-am going to say.
25 Commissioner Merrifield.
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COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
Thank you, Chairman.
2 One question, we have got a.relatively large document here 3
before us.
One piece of it today that I normally hear you 4
comment on with a degree of specificity was that the draft 5
NUREG-1513, the integrated safety analysis guidance 6
document, and I am wondering if there is anything I can 7
infer from that.
Are you comfortable with that document?
8 And would you like to make some comments on that as well?
9 MR. FERTEL:
Bill?
10 MR. SHARKEY:
I just think that is where we still 11 need to do a lot of work is'on that document.
That is where 12 the details are and that is what is going to make or break 13 the rule to us.
So as an industry, we have focused most of 14 our time and energy on the rule itself and not quite as much 15 on the Standard Review Plan.
So we need to spend a lot of 16 time in the next two days, myself and my peers, we will be 17 working on that and try to make more sense out of it.
18 MR. FERTEL:
I think, Commissioner Merrifield, 19 just out of the intensity on the rule dialogue, which I 20 think was very productive, there was not a lot of time spent 21 by either NRC staff or our folks when commenting on the SRP 22 or trying to submit a lot of comments.
We did on a few 23 chapters actually, and probably the chapter that got the 24 most attention, because we had a workshop on it, was the 25 chemical safety chapter.
And we would say that that part of i
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the SRP is actually really in very good shape.
2 And just a comment on something Chairman Jackson 3
said, I think that probably the most productive part of this 4
interaction since September were the workshops and the 5
interactions in person.
The web was very helpful, but I 6
think that the most progress was made when the people get in 7
the same room in an open meeting and discussed it and said, 8
gee, is that what you meant when you said that?
And what 9
does that mean?
And Steve drew some very interesting 10 pictures, which I know Carl Paperiello and some of the 11 others really found interesting when they looked at them, to 12 try and explain some of our points that we were making.
13 But those face-to-face interactions were really I 14 think a major contributor to getting us to the point where 15 we are today, which is really very far down the road.
The 16 SRP has just not had the attention yet.
I can't tell you 17 that there is tremendous disagreement with the staff.
18 Neither one of us have put a lot of effort into it yet.
19 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Could I just clarify 20 that?
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Please.
22 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Commissioner Merrifield 23 asked not about the SRP, but the integration safety' analysis 24 guidance document that is behind the SRP.
We though you 25 were closer on that.
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MR. FERTEL:
Yes.
2 MR. SCHILTHELM:
The ISA guidance document has 3
been in existence for several years and I don't think there 4-is any major disagreement or anything with how an ISA is 5'
done or actually with the results of an ISA.
I think what 6
we are just struggling is with what is the ISA summary that 7
gets submitted during licensing.
8 MR. FERTEL:
How does the ISA fit in the licensing 9
process?
Because there has been, literally since 1993, I 10 think, discussions on what is an ISA and how would one go 11 about doing it.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right.
That one goes back six 13 years.
And I would that -- and I think there is, as you 14 have said, yes, concurrence on that.
15 Anything else, Commissioner?
16 MR. FERTEL:
Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, thank you very much.
I 18 think we will now hear from the NRC staff.
19 Your name is not Ted Sherr?
20 MS. TEN EYCK:
No.
I didn't think you would be 21 confused, but we just thought we would make it official.
22 DR. TRAVERS:
Good afternoon, Chairman and 23 Commissioners.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Dr. Travers.
25 DR. TRAVERS:
As you pointed out, Chairman, AJR7 RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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earlier, as a result of him following the September '98 2
Commission meeting, the Commission directed the staff to 3
obtain stakeholder input and revise the draft proposed rule 4
that we had submitted to the Commission at that time.
- And, 5
of course, we have done just that, and in SECY-99-147 have 6
' submitted a proposed rule in Part 70 that we would like to 7
discuss with you today.
8 Joining me at the table are some familiar faces, 9
Carl Paperiello, of course, the Director of Nuclear Material 10 Safety and Safeguards is joining me.
I also have Ted Sherr, 11 who is the Chief of Licensing and International Safeguards 1
12 Branch, and Liz Ten Eyck, who is the Director of the I
J 13 Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards.
And Carl is 14 going to start the briefing.
15 DR. PAPERIELLO:
Thank you.
Good afternoon, 16 Madame Chairman, Commissioners.
The rulemaking that is the 17 subject of today's Commission meeting has been underway for 18 a number of years, as has been noted, and it has involved 19 nmch Commission and industry interaction.
20
.In December of 1998 the Commission directed the 21 staff to submit a revised proposed rule by June 1, 1999.
In 22 order to meet this deadline we formed a task group to 23 support Ted Sherr in this effort.
This task group is seated 24 behind us, Andrew Persinko, Bob Lewis, Heather Astwood and 25 Gary Comfort..
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Mr. Sherr will now brief you on the proposed 2
rulemaking with a focus on where agreement.was reached
- 3 through the stakeholder interactive process and identify 4
residual differences in view.
5 I would like to take note that in comparison to 6
Part 35, there has been a much more cohesive set of views on 7
the part of the regulated industry and Part 35 has a far 8-grea,ter div7rsity in'stakeholders which has made it more D
difficult.
But I will turn it over to Ted to make our 10 presentation.
11 MR. SHERR:
Thank you, Carl.
Good afternoon.
12 Marvin Fertel had referred to the dedicated NRC 4
13 staff that has been involved, and I think dedicated as in 14 both senses of the term, the administrative notion as well 15 as they have been very dedicated.
I appreciate the 16 significant efforts that they have provided and the good 17 quality work.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
19 MR. SHERR:
I would also like to recognize at this 20 time the extensive support that the task force received from 21 other NRC staff.
Kathryn Winsberg and OGC provided
+
22 continuing. support to the task force and she was able to 23 respond to us quickly in spite of the significant demands on
.24 her time.
And also Barry Mendelsohn managed the web site, 25 which is a very important part of this effort, and did a
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tremendous job on that.
And Rich Milstein, who had been 2
involved in the rule that the Commission saw last year, 3
provided the continuity and supported the task force in 4
carrying forth the effort.
5 In the briefing that I have that we are going to 6
cover today, I am going to give a brief overview of the i
7 rule, discuss some aspects of the stakeholder interaction, 8
discuss the status of the resolution of issues and I will 9
try to address some of the questions that came up in the NEI l
10 portion of the briefing in that regard and, finally, the 11 staff's recommendation.
Slide 2, please.
12 The rule is risk-informed, performance-oriented.
t 13 It focuses on major accidents at the facilities and requires 14 a systematic.and integrated review of accident safety.
It 15 is risk-informed.
As Marvin had indicated, the performance l
16 requirements of the rule are expressed in terms of the 17 elements of risk, where the consequence and likelihood of i
?
18 occurrence are specified.
And it is performance-based in 19 the sense that it allows the flexibility of the licensee to 20 employ the specific measures, that they not prescribed.
The 21 preventive and mitigating measures is up to them, in 22 whatever combination.
l 23 The focus on major accidents, the rule defines 24 consequences at the high and intermediate level.
Other 25 existing Part 70 and Part 20 requirements deal with normal l
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operations and minor upsets.
2 As has already been discussed, the major element 3
of the rule is the integrated safety analysis which 4
systematically identifies the accidents of concern and the 5
items to be relied on for safety to prevent the occurrence 6
of those accidents or mitigate its consequences.
And it is 7
integrated in the sense that the different hazards are 8
jointly evaluated.
Slide 3, please.
9 This proposed rule, as has already been mentioned, 10 was in response to the Commission SRM and to the proposal 11 that was provided in SECY-98-185 which addressed the 1996 12 NEI petition as well as other staff recommendations.
The 13 Commission SRM directed staff to modify the proposed rule 14 and provide it for the Commission's consideration in six 15 months, which was June 1st.
The SRM provided guidance on 16 some specific issues and directed to staff to interact with 17 the stakeholde'rs in trying to resolve or at least come to 18 closure on issues and using the Internet in that regard.
19 We believe, and I hope the Commission agrees, that 20 the draft proposed rule and the process that we employed in 21 developing it is responsive to the requirements and spirit 22 of the SRM.
23 In stakeholder interaction we used the Internet 24 and we also used public meetings.
We established a web site 25 that was specific to Part 70 and any time we made a posting ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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on that web site, we provided an e-mail to all the 2
interested parties as best we knew them in terms of what 3
posting had been provided, so it wasn't a matter then to 4
discover it.
5 These postings included changes in rule language 6
as we developed it.
The same thing for SRP language and 7
staff comments on related issues.
We also posted all 8
comments received in the course, which was primarily in the i
9 form of letters from NEI, but there were some others as 10 well.
And we also posted the transcripts of the public 11 meetings we had.
12 We have had a number of public meetings throughout 13 the course, including -- we mentioned the ISA guidance 14 document.
We had two or three public meetings back in the 15 1995 timeframe on that.
That was vetted in that process a 16 long time ago.
17 But since the SRM was issued in December, we had 18 three public meetings, in December, in January and in March, 19 and at those meetings we discussed specific issues on 20 language and exchanged views on possible approaches to 21 resolve concerns.
22 The meetings that we had were publicly announced, 23 but, generally, the attendees of the meeting were NRC staff, 24 representatives of the industry and other government 25 agencies.
There wasn't a broad participation, but we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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announced it broadly.
And we had announced'the public 2
meetings also on the web site, so we put those announcements 3
there as well.
4 As a result of the significant and substantial 5
comments we received both on the rule and the SRP, and the 6
discussion'of the public meeting, we think we made 7
significant progress in the rule language and the SRP and 8
that as a result of this process we think we resolved most 9
of the major concerns that were identified with the rule 10 that was before the Commission a year ago.
11 But as noted in the discussion, there are still 12 some areas, more on the specific level rather than the 13 policy level, I think, broad policy level.
Slide 5, please.
14 This slide lists the major areas of agreement.
15 Marvin had identified a number of these, the form of the ISA 16 submittal, the matter relating to decommissioning ISA, 17
' preliminary'ISA, chemical hazards, nuclear criticality 18 safety., the change process and the reporting requirements.
19 And. these were the areas of major industry concerns on'the 20 proposed rule that we had last year, and they also involved 21 many of the specific issues that were identified in the SRM 22 as well.
Slide 6, please.
23 The first area of agreement was on the general 24 nature of the ISA submittal.
The concern expressed last 25 year was the concern of where all the ISA summary ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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information would be in the license.
Any changes to that 2
would require an amendment.
Also, there has always been and 3
there still seems to be a little confusion in terms of when 4
we are talking.about the ISA itself and when we are talking 5
about the ISA summary.
The ISA is the very detailed 6
information that is maintained on the site and the rule 7
attempts to make that clear.
8 And the ISA summary would not be part of the 9
license, but would be submitted on the docket in conjunction 10 with the license application.
And so that resolved that 11 area of issue.
12 Another, a second area of agreement, the earlier 13 proposed rule had included a requirement for decommissioning 14 ISA.
The SRM had requested that requested that staff 15 justify, based on' health and safety and cost benefit basis, 16' any requirement for -- any specific requirement for 17 decommissioning ISA.
And the SRM had suggested different 18 perts of the regulation that might want to focus on it in i
19 that regard, and staff was obedient in this regard and.
2 0 determined that 70.38 and other provisions are sufficient to 21 deal with the decommissioning plan requirements and no new 22 specific requirements were needed.
23 The FRN does include -- does encourage the use of 24 the ISA in the decommissioning plan submittal.
25 CHAIRMAN. JACKSON:
It does.
That was going to be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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that my question.
Is the way risk significance is 2
considered in the decommissioning planning process 3
consistent with the way risk is considered in the ISAs?
4 MR. SHERR:
Well, I can't answer that.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Are the approaches the same?
6 Because if you are saying that you have a decommissioning 7
planning process and that is in lieu of a decommissioning 8
ISA, then one wants to have some comfort that the approach' 9
to considering the risk significance of any activities-or 10-configurations, you know, in fact, is consistent.
It is a 11 question they really have to answer, but you can make a 12 comment if you want, when he is done.
Okay.
13 MR. LEWIS:
For decommissioning, of course, we 14 don't have performance requirements that are set.
But the 15 existing decommissioning plan that is submitted prior the 16 start of decommissioning activities does have some language 17 in the rules that would allow accidents that could occur to 18 be analyzed.
And what we would attetpt to do is to the ISA 19 and use language in the Federal Register Notice that N
20 encourages the ISA, the use of the ISA in developing that 21 decommissioning plan.
22 So the answer is really no.
To date, accidents 23 haven't been analyzed in the way they are going to be 24' analyzed in the ISA as part of the decommissioning plans.
25-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So where does that leave us?
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MS. TEN.EYCK:
Well, I think where it leaves us is 2
that the licensees are in a new effort also in developing 3
the ISAs.
And once they do that, I think that there is 4
going to be a more specific identification of these risks, 5
and I think their onus would be on them to, as they go into l
6 decommissioning, to assure the NRC staff that these risks l
7 are appropriately addressed through the decommissioning 8
process..
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Mr. Fertel, you wanted 10 to make a comment.
11 MR. FERTEL:
I think what Liz said is probably 12 pretty correct.
I mean what was said was we are not using 13 an ISA.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
It not that it is correct, you 15 mean it is consistent with your point of view.
16
[ Laughter.]
17 MR. FERTEL:
Right now Owen is using ISAs, they 18 are just beginning to use ISAs for operational activities, 19 let alone considering them for decommissioning.
I think it j
20 is probably less that it is going to be to satisfy NRC 21 needs, though that will certainly be important, than it will 22 be part of the culture on how the operators.are managing 23 their facility and their risks.
And as the ISA becomes part 24 of-their culture activities and their management processes, 25 they will use it appropriately.
It may not be the only ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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thing they use when they do decommissioning planning.
2 Whatever objections to the decommissioning ISA 3
was, it was being called for, you know, like now, and that 4
doesn't seem to make a lot of sense when you are not 5
planning on decommissioning for maybe 20 years.
So it 6
didn't seem to make a lot of sense in timeframe to sort of 7
sit down and do a hypothetical decommissioning ISA early in 8
the process.
9 But I think that, as Liz said, when the 10 decommissioning plan is submitted, NRC will certainly get to 11 ask a lot of questions.
My own expectation would be that we 12 would see the facilities use an ISA because of the nature, 13 the sort of systematic nature and methodology that it 14 applies to assess risk, that by then they would be using it 15 as part of the way they do business.
It wouldn't be 16 something imposed, it would be something in the way I 17 normally do my business.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So let me let you give again a 19 succinct statement to the Commission as to why the 20 decommissioning ISA and preliminary ISA are no longer 21 required?
You feel you were following direction as opposed 22 to a decision that you made?
23 MR. SHERR:
Well, I think the fact the rule now 24 excludes the decommissioning aspect from the performance 25 requirements of the rule, and the staff's perception was ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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that the Commission was saying that unless you see some 2
significant problem with the current requirements that 3
address decommissioning requirements, you should not address 4
that.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So is that what you meant when 6
you said the staff was obedient?
Is that what you said?
7 MR. SHERR:
Well, I didn't mean it -- it isn't a 8
vicious complaint.
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Madame Chairman, I think l
l 10 the staff does a better job of explaining their views on 11 page 14 of their Attachment 2.
And part of it is there is 12 already a decommissioning plan that, quote, in our rules 13 requires the description of methods used to ensure 14 protection of workers and the environment against radiation 15 hazards during decommissioning.
So a combination of 70.38 16 Part 20, and 70.25 is a pretty good decommissioning 17 structure that we just recently put into place.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But all I was interested in was i
19 what was going to be the cross between these ISAs and the 20 decommissioning planning process under those existing 21 requirements.
Because ir. the end, if they aren't 22 consistent, then you just have a proliferation of 23 approaches, whether you require -- so it is not a question 24 to me of whether you require a decommissioning ISA.
The 25 question is, what is the linkage between what you find out ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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by virtue of having the ISA done and how you consider risk 2
in the planning, decommissioning planning process, whenever 3
you do it?
And that is my only concern.
I think that one 4
ought to make that connection, otherwise you have a 5
proliferation of approaches.
1 6
MR. SHEPR:
The next area deals with the 7
preliminary ISA.
As Marvin mentioned, this was a 8
requirement to submit a preliminary ISA, it was included in 9
the previous version of the rule for new facilities or new 10 processes at existing facilities.
And the SRM endorsed that 11 approach.
12 Staff reviewed, in light of the industry's 13 concerns with it, and questions in terms of why NRC would 14 need this.
If you are asking to submit it, but you are not 15 asking it to be approved, why require it and all this.
And 16 we reviewed the existing regulations and determined that, 17 effectively, what we intended to satisfy by the submittal of 18 the preliminary ISA was covered by the existing regulations 19 for new facilities and by the change process for existing 20 facilities.
So with that in mind, we removed the 21 requirement for a preliminary ISA.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me go back to the 23 decommissioning ISA one more time.
Is there a problem with 24 laying out an expectation, not that you could do a 25 decommissioning ISA today, but laying out an expectation ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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that what comes out of the ISA that is done is folded into 2
risk considerations vis-a-vis decommissioning planning?
Is 3
there a problem there?
4 MR. SHERR:
As far as I know there isn't, but I 5
think the way they have the language right now, my 6
recollection is that decommissioning would be excluded from 7
the performance requirements of this rule.
But that 8
excl,usion could be easily changed and still not require --
i 9
what Marvin has expressed, their concern was the fact that 10 having to submit a decommissioning ISA now rather than at 11 the time the decommissioning was taking place, we never 12 intended that.
I think that was a misunderstanding of what 13 was intended with the previous rule.
So the rule could be 14 written that when the decommissioning plan is submitted, it 15 needs to include consideration of the performance 16 requirements of this rule.
17 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Madame Chairman, I 18 honestly think -- it is my view that that would be 19 duplicative of the requirement that already exists for 20 decommissioning planning.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I understand exactly what you 22 are saying.
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I don't understand how 24 relevant an ISA for operating the plant --
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Is to decommissioning.
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COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
To decommissioning.
2 Reactor space, we have an FSAR and PRAs and whatever on the 3.
operating plant.
And then we have a decommissioning plan 4-that gets submitted and then a license termination plan, or 5
whatever.
I think that all the steps, and I think it is 6
maybe even an extra step in reactor space, but for a 7
decommissioning ISA to be relevant to the decommissioning of 8
the facility, it probably has to be closer to when 9
decommissioning is going to occur.
Since we already require 10 a decommissioning plan at that point, I certainly am not 11 opposed to risk being built into that decommissioning plan.
12 But it just strikes me that we are mixing apples and 13 oranges.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
It could well be that an 15 operating ISA, y'u know, may not have direct relevance to o
16 decommissioning.
But if the Commission is moving to 17 risk-informed regulation, I am just saying somewhere down 18 the line, you need to address things in a consistent way.
19 And so you don't do things one way, you know, in one part of 20 regulatory space and then do something in a different way.
21 Whatever the methodology is or the mechanism is 22 for doing it, you need to have a consistent approach, that 23 is all I am really saying.
24 MS. CYR:
We certainly make it clear that the ISA 25 process is an acceptable way of going about the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 decommissioning plan.
l
[
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
If it is relevant.
I L
3 MS. CYR:
I mean in the context of that.
I mean j
4 so to the extent that y'ou can build on either what you 5
already know, or the processes that you have in hand, that i
is an acceptable way to move into decommissioning and get 6
7 there.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right.
But to the extent -- we 9
will move into it, right, but to the extent that it is 10 relevant.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Yes, but one of the 12 things we are struggling with.in reactor space is one I i
13 think Sam Collins, who is not here, is working on giving us 14 rulemaking plan for Part 57, which is how to handle what we l
15 are. currently handling by exemption for decommissioning l
16 reactors, and they are going to build all of the stuff we l
17 need there.
But the big issue from a risk perspective turns i
18 out, as we all know, to be fires and zirconium cladding in 19 the first few years after the reactor -- or first few months 20 after the reactor is shut down.
And that is so far from 21 being typically analyzed when the plant is operating because 1
22 there is a lot worse things happening than that.
I 23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I think you are getting hung up 24 on the specific use of the operating ISA or an operating PRA 25 for decommissioning activities.
The fundamental point I am ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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making is, if you are going to risk-informed when you are 2
operating, then be risk-informed when you are 3
decommissioning.
And it doesn't matter to me when or if you 4
put in the specific requirement relative to an ISA.
Just be 5
consistent, that is all I am saying.
6 DR. TRAVERS:
I understand your point about 7
consistency of approach and I think we will, if you agree, 8
as a take away, look at that relative to the existing 9
requirements Commissioner McGaffigan has mentioned and get 10 back to the Commission on, you know, whether or not that is 11 the case or whether we think something additional should be 12 done.
O 13 MR. SHERR:
Okay.
The next area deals with --
14 where agreement was reached, deals with the consideration of 15 chemical hazards in the rule.
The SRM had indicated that 16 staff needs to clarify the basis for the chemical safety and 17 chemical consequence criteria in the rule and particularly 18 in the context of the Memorandum of Understanding with OSHA.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Speak a little more into the 20 mike.
21 MR, SHERR:
I'm sorry.
And the rule, substantial 22 revision was made to the performance requirements of the 23 rule in this regard, and that it incorporates the language 24 found in the OSHA MOU.
Slide 7.
25 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
OSHA is now happy.
We ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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were not happy at one point in February, but they are now' 2
happy.
3 MR. SHERR:
Well, define happy.
4
[ Laughter.]
5 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
They are not going to 6
pull you in Federal Appeals Court.
7 MR. SHERR:
No.
Well, that is not -- there is the 8
problem of preemption.
I mean, basically, they are agreeing 9
that what we have in our rule, they have no objection to, 10 and that it is consistent with the MOU, but they are also 11 saying it creates problems in terms of their own statutory 12 authority.
13 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
When I worked for the 14 Senate Environment Committee, Senator Chafee had a term for 15 this, he said it was sullen, but not rebellious.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Did you deal with OSHA in that 17 Committee?
18 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
No.
But we did on the 19 EPA.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
We are going to stay on point.
21 We are staying on point here today.
22 MR. SHERR:
We did consult with the EPA as well, 23 they are very happy.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
We are having a good 25 discussion.
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1 MR. SHERR:
Not sullen.
Slide 7, please.
Your 2
next area is in the area of nuclear criticality safety.
3 This wasn't focused on any SRM but we had numerous comments 4
from the industry suggesting that the requirements be more 5
closely tied to existing industry standards and the rule 1
6
' language in the SRP was modified accordingly.
The rule 7
language closely follows the language of ANSI /ANS State 8.1 8
and the acceptance criteria in the SRP makes extensive 9
reference to applicable ANSI /ANS Standards.
10 The next area of agreement deals with the general 11 formulation of the change process.
The proposed rule that 12 was before the Commission last. year, the change process was 13 along the lines of 50.59 language.
The concerns at that 14 time expressed by the industry, and subsequently, was the 15 fact that this would result in a significant number of 16 changes, it would be in to NRC all the time.
And the 17 Commission's guidance on the SRM was the fact that the 18 change process should be such that it captures a significant 19 few changes along the lines of what currently are required 20 in license amendments.
21 Staff continued two options, one, which is 22 reflected in 70.72 of the rule.
23 The other, which parallels the current proposed 24 version of 50.59 language, and that Option 2 is included as 25 in the Commission paper.
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'l The provisions in 70.72 identify the specific 2
situations when preapproval of changes would be required.
3 They are expressed in straightforward objective criteria,.
4 with the exception of one issue that Marvin raised an'd we 5
will talk about shortly and the application of these 6
criteria is expected to conform to the notion that the 7
number of license amendments would be along the line -- the 8
number and types of license amendments would be along the j
1 9
lines of what we experience at the present time.
10 The issue that Marvin raised in the course of his 11 presentation in terms of the term "new type of accident 12 sequence" versus "new type of accident" -- the basic 13 question is what constitutes a new type of accident.
It 14 could be in a very general sense -- in other words, well, we 15 already addressed a criticality type accident so this is 16 just another criticality type accident so we don't have 17 to -- I agree with Marvin that this is an area where further 18 work and interaction -- I think there are two extremes.
One 19 is that it could be looked at so broadly that if you have 20 one criticality accident then you don't have to look at 21 anything, any other type of accident.
22 At the other extreme, minute changes in the 23 accident sequence could be viewed as a different type of 24 accident sequence so I think we need to work at trying to 25 define exactly, but the underlying intent is the fact that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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when we have new types of controls or types of accidents 2
that could occur that are going to be relied on that have f
3 not been evaluated previously that these would in fact'have j
4 to be looked at by Staff before being put into place.
5 The last area that we have identified has to do 6
with the reporting requirements.
The SRM had indicated that 7
the reporting requirement should contain those certain 8
significant events because of their potential to impact the 9
worker or public health and safety.
The proposed rule 10 includes one hour and 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> reports for significant events 11 that have occurred or where there is a loss of items relied 12 on for safety and there doesn't seem to be any disagreement 13 in that area.
14 So.these seven areas that we have discussed here, 15 as I indicated earlier, represent the major areas of concern 16 that were expressed other than backfit with Staff's earlier 17 proposals and we think that it represents significant 18 progress.
19 I'll now cover some of the residual differences.
20 These are on Slide 8.
21 These differences relate to matters concerning the 22 ISA summary content -- and you heard a little bit about that 23 already; the ISA summary update frequency -- and again 24 Marvin has mentioned that; the concurrent reporting 25 requirement; backfit -- which we have heard about; and the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Standard Review Plan.
2 I think Staff shares the views that NEI expressed 3
that further consideration of these differences would 4
benefit from the public comment period and we would expect 5
that to take place.
6 I address each one of these separately, 7
identifying the industry view and the corresponding Staff 8
proposal and perspective on the issue.
Slide 9, please.
9 The first issue deals with the ISA summary
.10 content, and Marvin had identified two aspects of this.
One 11 has to do with the listing of all the items relied on for 12 safety and the second issue deals with whether or not they 13 should include in the summary all accident sequences or just 14 those relating to the high and intermediate consequences.
15 I think'with regard to the latter, the Staff is 16 asking for all accident sequences -- one of the things that 17 Staff needs to do when it reviews the ISA summary is 18 determine whether or not they feel that the analysis has 19 been complete and if Staff only has the accident sequences 20 for the high and intermediate consequence accidents, it 21 doesn't have a basis for judging that completeness.
22 The other thing is that the Staff would be 23 reviewing the input to see whether it agreed with the 24 categorization th&t was made, so that is the reason why the i
i 25 Staff is asking for the complete set of identification of l
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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accident sequences rather than those for.just the high and 2
intermediate consequences.
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Say that again?
4 RMR. SHERR:
Okay If the.ISA summary just 5
included the intermediate and high consequence accident 6
sequences,' Staff wouldn't have a basis to judge the 7
completeness of the review.
That was the first point.
In 8
other words, whether or not -- to know'whether a specific 9
accident sequence was considered but viewed not to be in an 10 intermediate category or whether it just wasn't considered 11 at all, so that is the first aspect.
12 The other one is to review those that weren't 13 considered intermediate, to the level of intermediate 14 consequence, and Staff has a basis for judging whether or 15 not they agree with the licensee's conclusion that that is 16 right categorization, so that's the reason why we were 17 asking for that completeness.
18 Now on items relied on for safety, as Marvin 19 indicated, the industry perspective is to provide more of a 20 nagrative description of the items relied on for safety at 21 the systems level, but not a listing of each of the 22 individual items relied on for safety, but the in'dividual 23 items relied on for safety doesn't necessarily mean on a 24 component level.
That can be at a systems level as well.
25
.Under the Staff-proposed rule, the language is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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53 1
that a list briefly describing all items relied on for 2
safety in sufficient detail to understand their functions in 3
relationship the performance requirements.
4 Now the items relied on for safety is the basic 5
element of the safety program under the rule.
This measure 6
is to either prevent the accidents from occurring or to
~
7 mitigate their consequences.
I guess to some extent perhaps 8
the concerns in this area may be the basic issue in terms of 9
what kind of level of Staff review is expected, and the' 10 Staff is expecting to be able to make -- is looking at its 11 proposals in the sense that it would have enough information 12 to be able to make a judgment in terms of whether or not the 13 accident sequences that have been identified are adequately 14 protected against in relation to the performance 15 requirements of the rule.
16 In the absence of a listing of all the items 17 relied on for safety, which is your key aspect of the rule, 18 Staff's licensing decisions would either have to be limited 19 to based on just broad licensee commitments that in fact 20 they will employ all the right systems, or will require 21-extensive review on-site, to review the detailed 22 information, so that is the reason for Staff's.
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Let me probe a little on 24 this too.
j 25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner McGaffigan.
l i
J l
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COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Do we have -- once this 2
question of how much is enough, are you going to need 3
additional resources to look at these ISAs when they come in 4
at the level of. detail you want to look at them?
5 MS. TEN EYCK:
No.
I think that we programmed 6
resources with the expectation that we will have enough of 7
the detail at a high summary level to be able to make 8
determinations that they have adequately addressed the 9
risks -- that they have measures in place and they have 10 identified items relied on for safety and they have measures 11 in place to ensure that they are going to be available and 12 reliable when needed, and that is the level of detail that 13 we are looking at and the licensee gets the option to be 14 able to identify this level that they give us in the 15 identification of' items relied on for safety
~
16 As Ted said, it could be at the systems level if 17 that is the way they want to identify it, but we feel we 18 need to have the specific identification on what they are 19 relying on to control the risk.
20 COMMISSIONER McGAF'FIGAN:
Madam Chairman, again I I
21 think this comes down to just a few words, because I don't 22 think there is a lot of disagreement about the definition of 23 items relied on for safety, but then in the summary there 24 are these words "at the systems level" that list briefly 25 describing at the systems level is what I think the industry ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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.ould prefer to all items relied on for safety, and you all 2
leave out the words "at the systems level" and yet you just 3
said and I think it is implied in the definition that they 4
to some degree can define. items for safety at the systems 5
level, and so are you setting yourself up for an argument 6
years down the road when you are actually' implementing this 7
thing as to whether in'the summary it was okay to be at the 8
systems level?
9 As I say, I read the definition, if I apply the 10 definition to items relied on for safety in the discretion 11 you have given the licensee there, they can come in and do 12 what you may not want them,to do, listening to Mr. Sherr, so 13 try to straighten me out on this.
14 MR. SHERR:
I think there is going to be flexibility on t'e part of the licensee and we have even 15 h
16 seen this already in the types of information that licensees 17 submit -- in terms of the level of detail that they define 18 the items relied on for safety, and the items relied on for 19 safety themselves, you know, in terms of the definition, is 20 structures, systems, equipment, components and activities 21 and personnel -- so I mean it covers a broad range of 22 things.
23 To the extent that licensees choose to describe 24 things at the systems level, that will work.
I mean it 25 might be that some things can't be described to that level ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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or they choose not to because it will be more onerous to 1
2 describe it in the long-run, to describe it at the systems 3
level than it will at the component level.
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But the more you put 5
into this document, it does get down to components and 6
whatever, 'the more the 90-day or one year, depending on what 7
we decide, update requirement the more onerous that becomes, 8
because if they are going to change & component, they are --
9 if this description in the summary is at the component level 10 rather than the systems level, you are going to -- you know, 11 there is-just going to be a lot of bookkeeping.
12 MR. SHERR:
Well, I think that, one, we have to 13 first start in terms of what -- as we mentioned before, the 14 ISA itself is maintained at the site, and in any case --
15 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But the summary --
16 MR. SHERR:
Oh, no, no -- but in any case what 17 they have -- the items relied on for safety at the site has 18 to be in some specific form and they have to maintain 19 records of those things, so the fact is that they have to 20 maintain those records anyways.
We are going to'get into i
21 the frequency of updates shortly but I mean the separate 22 issue has to do with once they change those records, the l
23 more often they have to send it to NRC for review, but they 24 do have to maintain the records at the site for any changes 25 to the items relied on for safety -- anything that would ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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affect the ISA, so I don't think what is included in this is 2
affecting that particular problem.
3 We have some comments, I think.
4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Did you want to make a comment?
5 Would you go to the microphone, please?
6 MR. PERSINKO:
My name is Drew Persinko.
7 Licensees do have the option of identifying the items relied 8
on for safety, either at the systems level or the component j
9 level -- which reminds of a question we identified at the 10 systems' level.
Not every component in the system is really i
11 is an item relied on for safety, so now the question will 12 remain what components within that system, so if a licensee 4
13 identifies a system as an item relied on for safety and then 14 saying that everything in that system is an item relied on 15 for safety, so there's tradeoffs in how you want to define 16 the items.
1 17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Did you wish to' comment?
Go 18 on, feel free.
]
19 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
This is a dedicated s
I 20 group here.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I understand -- in both senses 22 of the word.
23 MS. ASTWOOD:
I'm Heather Astwood.
The reason why 24 it would be burdensome to some folks -- I am looking at "at 25 the systems level" -- if they did identify it at a system L
I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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level, it's because items relied on for safety are tied to 2
the management measures and they would then have to treat 3
that system as an item relied for safety where they would 4
have to follow the rigorous management maintenance of that 5
whole system, identifying it at that level versus 6
identifying it on the component level.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
There is one other 8
requirement that comes in fresh in this final rule that we
/
9 hadn't seen before, at least in the drafts that I had seen 10 that I am not quite sure how it plays but it sounds 11 burdensome at times is this log that crops up in 70.62 in 12.
the "Each licensee shall establish and maintain a log 13 available for NRC inspection documenting each discovery that 14 an item relied on for safety or management measure has 15 failed to perform its function either in the context of the 16 performance requirements of 70.61 or upon demand.
This log 17 must identify" -- and then there is a long sentence that 18 follows.
19 I am not sure quite how the log requirement works.
20 I guess at the component level -- you are saying at the 21 system level if something fails, if a single component fails 22 then they are going to have to come in and give you a 23 report, whereas if they had managed to do it at the 24 component level they would only have to focus on the 25 component failing or -- but this sounds like -- I mean ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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. totally aside from how this interplays on the issue we have 2
been discussing, it just in itself sounds like a fairly L
3 burdensome reporting requirement, depending on how broadly 4
this stuff is defined.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Maybe you might want to look 6
at -- can you make a statement about the burdensome, the 7
burden -- maybe the issue has to do with how well it 8
explained the burden of reporting requirement is -- versus l
9 the burden the other way, as the young lady described, 10 and/or the need of the Staff here,-and there is some burden, 11 so you can't make the whole burden disappear, so the real 12 issueisdoweunderstandtherationalethattheStafhis 13 presenting for wishing to have that, whether it is 14 recordkeeping and/or reporting burden vice what the 15 perceived need is from a safety point of view.
I mean that l
16 to me is the calculation one wants to do here.
l 17 MR. 'SHERR:
Well, included in the rule is to 18 provide a basis for when the NRC inspectors go out to be 19 able to have some basis for assessing how well the i
20 management measures are working to provide for the l
21 reliability and availability of the items relied on for l
l 22 safety, otherwise there is really no information to judge 1
23 that, so it's kind of a performance-oriented aspect.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner, Merrifield, did l
25 you have a question or comment?
l l
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COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
No.
2 MR. SHERR:
Okay.
The next issue is one that NEI 3
had already indicated that has to do with the update 4
frequency of the ISA summary, information on changes that 5
are made that would affect the ISA summary.
6 First of all, this information would be reported 7
to the NRC for review by the license reviewers to be 8
satisfied that the changes that have been made and that did 9
not require NRC prior approval.
10 It would not affect the licensing basis.
And the 11 systems at the facility continue to satisfy the performance 12 requirements of the rule.
So it is there for staff to be 13 kept apprised and informed of the changes that could affect 14 the safety of the facility.
15 And the issue here isn't whether the information 16 should be provided, it is how frequently it should be 17 provided.
The industry view, as Marvin indicated, is 18 annually.
The proposed rule is within 90 days.
Staff's 19 perspective is that the burdens associated with quarterly 20 reporting versus annual reporting would appear to be 21 reasonable in relationship to the benefits of having 22 confidence on a more currently basis that the licensee's 23 safety programs. continue to meet the performance 24 requirements, and also the notion that if there are any 25 problems with changes made, that they would be identified ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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early.
2 It is clear that I think the -- I mean I think to 3
say that the burden would be only the difference of having 4
to put some four packages a year versus one package a year 5
would be understating it because one would expect that there 6
might be number of changes made to the same page throughout 7
the year, and so --
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, we are going to have 9
electronic docketing, are we not?
So we are not going to be 10 sending -- taking a package and taking it around.
11 MR. SHERR:
Whatever.
But in any case, that is 12 the perspective, that is where the staff comes -- I mean it 13 is just a question of how current staff is, is apprised of 14 changes that.are made.
1 15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Madame Chairman, I am 4
17 not going to bother to -- we are going to get comment on 18 this, clearly, as we go forward.
But if we ever went and 19 tried to change 50.70 1E to make it every 90 days, I think 20 there would be major backfit issues.
But since we don't 21 have a backfit provision here, which I also support, I won't 22
-- but this strikes me that we are going to be getting more 23 information about facilities that are inherently safer than 24 the -- facilities.
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, we now know what your ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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. vote will be.
2
[ Laughter.)
3 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Actually, for a lot of 4
facilities, we are willing to wait'quite a bit longer for 5
that information.
6 MR. SHERR:
Actually, in other parts of Part 70, 7
some of the update requirements are 60 days, so --
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
So this is a polite look 9
at Part 70's reporting requirements.
10 MS. TEN EYCK:
I would just like to make one 11 point, is that we are looking at it a little bit more 12 frequently on the SNO, but we are proposing to have a more 13 liberal change process that allows the licensee to make a 14 lot more changes that they would normally make under a 50.59 15 type process without our review.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But it is what we have 17 been doing forever.
I mean all we said was maintain the 18 status quo.
So whatever you don't know now, you won't know 19 tnen, maybe.
But whatever.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay. 'One man, one vote.
21 MR. SHERR:
Okay.
Slide 10, please.
The next 22 difference deals with a current reporting requirement.
This 23 wasn't identified by NEI and maybe we shouldn't have 24 identified it.
25
[ Laughter.)
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MR. FERTEL:
You can report us if you want.
We 2
don't have a problem.
3 (Laughter.)
4 MR. SHERR:
The rule requires some current 5
reporting to NRC, news releases and notifications to other 6
government agencies.
These reports are limited to events or l
7 situations related to health and safety of the public and 8
on-site personnel or the protection of the environment.
9 The industry view, at least as we understood it, l
10 was that they were somewhat opposed to the requirement 11 because there wasn't any safety basis for it Staff's 1.2 perspective is that the burdens of concurrently reporting to 13 the NRC are reasonable in light of NRC's need to be able to 14 be responsive to public inquiries relating to the safety of 15 NRC licensed facilities.
16 Now, the favorite topic is the next one, which is 17 backfit.
The industry view, as Marvin indicated, is that 18 the rule should contain an immediately effective backfit 19 provision and'other comments made, that it should be as 20 quantitative as possible.
21 The proposed rule does not incimle a backfit 22 pt:crtision.
The Federal Register Notice lists its comments 23 on the Commission's intent to defer that.
I will talk about 24 the FRN request in a few minutes.
The prcposed staff's 25 proposal for the Commission's position on this issue is that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S-64 1
once a safety basis, including the ISA summary, is 2
' incorporated into the license application, and staff has
)
3 gained sufficient experience with implementation of the ISA 4
requirements, a qualitative backfit provision could be 5
considered.
And consistent with the SRM, when that is 6
considered, it would not include the substantial increase in 7
safety tests that have been --
8 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
I would like to ask a 9
question about the backfit, particularly the part of gaining 10 ample experience, and that may be the right way to go, but 11 that is very open-ended.
So do you have a time, how will 12 you know that you have gained adequate experience?
At what
'13 point are you going to look at this and how will you make 14 that decision?
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
We should put a timeline.
16 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Yes.
We need a'timeline.
17 MR. SHERR:
Okay.
We don't have anything specific 18 in mind, but I think it would certainly be after the 19 application has been approved and the measures have bee'n 20 implemented to NRC satisfaction, I think.
21 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Madame Chairman, I 22 forget in looking here, but you mentioned some experience 23 with Part 76, there wasn't a backfit at the start.
Is there 24 a backfit provision in Part 76 now?
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes.
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COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
So we didn't wait very 2
long'in that case after you did the certification to put in j
3 a backfit provision.
l 4
MS. TEN EYCK:
Maybe I can clarify a little bit.
i 5
When we certified the GEPs, they had a compliance plan and i
6 they needed to do things to come up to NRC's level of 7
expectations, and there was no backfit issues for the 8
compliance plan.
So they are still completing the 9
implementation of their compliance plan.
10 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But there is a backfit 11 provision in 76 now that would apply going forward.
12 MS. TEN EYCK:
But there is a backfit provision in j
13 76, yes.
l 14 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
That may give us some 15 hint as to timing!
16 MR. SHERR:
One of the points that we wanted to 17 make in this regard is, in the absence of a backfit 18 provision, the licensee isn't at the mercy of the views of i
19 the individual licensee reviewer, that if there are 20 differences between -- I think of the critical areas here 21 has to do with maybe a difference of view of what satisfies i
22 the performance requirements of the rule, a difference of 23 view in terms of the adequacy of particular measures and.all 24 this thing.
I 25 And those differences, in the first instance, will i
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be at the level of the license reviewer and the licensee's 2
staff.
And in the past, when we have had differences of 3
view at that level, they have been elevated through the 4
management chain for broader considerations as appropriate.
5 And we would continue to employ this process.
6 So I think a lot of the aspects of backfit 7
considerations are things that are considered in the course 8
of that review process.
9 With regard to the Federal Register Notice, 10 Solicitation of Comments, in addition to commenting on the 11 Commission's position to defer consideration,of the backfit 12 provision, the Federal Register Notice requests suggestions 13 for language that would specifically address fuel cycle 14 backfit needs.
And then in the context of those proposals, 15 request them to identify the information that would be 16 available to support the analyses that would be needed.
17 And part of this relates to our concern with the 18 quantitative nature of such' reviews, because the ISAs, as we 19 expect them to be employed, are going to be more qualitative 20 than quantitative, and the quantitative database just isn't P
21 there.
22 The last area, and certainly not the least, is 23 relating to the Standard Review Plan and as I think was 24 reflected earlier, over the last eight months we have gotten 25 a lot of comments on the Standard Review Plan and there have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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been substantial changes.
The Standard Review Plan work 2
does lag behind the rule work, it has got to be focused on l
3 that.
l l
4 And we did make significant progress.
As Marvin l
5 had indicated, the criticality safety and chem safety l
6 chapters were substantially revised, and in those ' articular p
7 cases we received very specific, detailed comments.
In most 8
instances the comments we received to date are more general, 9
broad.
And NEI has indicated in recent correspondence that 10 they plan to provide more specific comments now that they 11 have the rule language that they can judge the SRP against.
12 We are continuing to review the comments that were l
13 received in May.
The version of the Standard Review Plan i
14 that is attached to the Commission paper incorporates some 15 of those comments.
We would anticipate that the version of 16 the Standard Review Plan that is made available at the time 17 the rule is published would address some further comments in 18 that area.
19
.In addition, stuff will address all comments 20 received during the public comment period, which we would 21 expect would include those relating to a number of the 22 issues that we have discussed.
Also, staff is developing 23 specific SRPs for the tours and the MOX facilities, and the l
24 comments we received in relationship to those SRP 25 developments would also be fit back into this process.
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We anticipate that the final SRP that will l
2 accompany the final rule that staff transmits to the 3
Commission will have the benefit of all these comments.
4 Slide 11, please.
5 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Madame Chairman, before 6
we get away from that 7
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes.
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Do you intend to have 9
any further public workshops on the Standard Review Plan 10 during this comment period?
I was trying to figure out, are 11 you going to put a Federal Register Notice out separate from 12 the rulemaking on the Standard Review Plan, or is this whole 13 thing going into the Federal Register on the rule language?
14 MR. SHERR:
I think with regard to the last 15 question, I think' kind of our practice, and, of course, we 16 are in your hands, that we would maintain the Part 70 web 17 site.
18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Right.
19 MR. SHERR:
So the next version of the SRP, we 20 would in fact put on the web site, just like we put --
21 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But there wouldn't be 22 Federal Register Notice on the SRP, or would there?
23 MR. SHERR:
We think the Federal Register Notice 24 just indicates that it is available in the public document 25 room.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But you state here that you 2
would publish the most current version when you put out the 3
proposal.
4 MR. SHERR:.That's right.
l 5
DR. TRAVERS:
Yes.
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
And we have already 7
gotten a few things.
8 MR. SHERR:
I think, from the staff point of view, 9
we are open -- we think the public meeting process has been 10
-- this whole process has been very helpful to us, and we l
11 appreciate the substantial input that we have received. 'You 12 know, it is nice to have the benefit of the perspective of 13 those people who have to implement the process.
So I mean 14 we are open to that.
I mean, you know, again, we are --
15 COMMIS'SIONER McGAFFIGAN:
It sounds like you are 16 being encouraged by the industry to do that.
17 MR. SHERR:
- Yes, 18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
And given the success so 19 far, and given the number of differences,.it may well be 20 useful.
21 MR. SHERR:
Yes.
I am not sure what the right 22 timing for such a meeting.
In other words, my intuition l
l 23 would be that those meetings would make sense once we have 24 received the public comments and had time to digest them, 25 and then, on the basis of that review, have public meetings 1
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4 S-70
~
1 to discuss the public comments and get clarity on them.
And 2
then this thing.
3 But I think the proposal that was made by NEI was 4
that we would continue to work on the SRP even during the 5
public comment period.
Yes, both possibilities are there 6
and maybe even doing both at the same time.
7 MR. SHERR:
The Staff's recommendation, which 8
fortunately is similar.to what you heard earlier, was that 9
the proposal will be published for public comment.
We agree 10 that the rule is risk-informed and performance-based and 11 would provide increased confidence in the margin of safety 12 at major fuel cycle licensees.
13 As I indicated earlier, we reviewed the proposed 14 rule and the process for its development has been responsive 15 to the Commission's direction in the SRM of last year.
It 16 reflects the results of extensive interactions with the 17 stakeholders and addresses most of the major concerns that 18 were expressed with regard to the July, 1998 version, and as 19 far as the residual issues are concerned Staff will. consider 20 in the development of the final rule all comments received 21 and we would expect those comments would include further 22 information in relationship to these residual issues.
23 That concludes my presentation.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
Commissioner Dicus.
25 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
No.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner McGaffigan?
2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I want to just go on 3
this question of "shall ensure" versus "shall provide" 4
reasonable assurance.
5 On page 48 of the Federal Register Notice, and it l
6 is 70.61 of the rule, you all -- and this is not -- this is 1
7 me, it's not the NEI -- I am just trying to -- you all say 8
the, safety program established and maintained pursuant to 9
70.62 shall ensure that each item that is relied on for 10 safety will be available and reliable to perform its 11 intended function when needed, et cetera.
12
" Ensure" is stronger than "shall provide 13 reasonable assurance" and the same thing happens back on 14 page 52 when you are talking about the inspection, testing 15 and maintenance program that they have to have -- "the 16 design of items relied on for safety must ensure" their 17 availability and reliability, and.yet on that same page 18 there is, as I said earlier, a very interesting footnote 19 about defense-in-depth and we sometimes argue about it in 63 20 and whatever.
21 Where you say that the design philosophy --
22 defense-in-depth practices means a design philosophy 23 applied, et cetera, such that you will not be wholly' 24 dependent upon a single element of the design, construction, 25 maintenance or operation.
So I am just trying to understand ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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why.
" Ensure" is more absolutist.
It's got to be there.
2 It's got to be available.
And then there is reporting or 3
recordkeeping requirements that talk about each time 4
something inn't available or whatever they better log it or 5
"each" is used, the adjective "each" is used quite often in 6
this rule and then defense-in-depth sort of gets tossed in 7
as something that is good, and I agree, but that implies 8
that maybe everything individually doesn't have to be 9
perfect, so is it a perfection standard that I am reading in 10 here or does " ensure" really mean " provide reasonable 11 assurance" or what is going on?
12 MR. SHERR:
Well,,I think there is probably room 13 for improved wording.
I think in the final analysis the 14 focus of the rule is if you have a high consequence 15 accident, you need to provide -- make it highly unlikely 16 that it is going to ever occur, and what makes it highly 17 unlikely is the combination of the item relied on for safety 18 and the management measures that are there to assure that 19 those items are available and reliable, so, you know, it's 20 not like -- the management measures aren't to make it 21 isn't an absolute.
It is just to make it highly unlikely in 22 the total sum of --
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I't may well be that this 24 is -- that there isn't enforcement guidance on this rule yet 25 either, but if somebody, if the safety program has to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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ensure -- "shall ensure" -- that each item relied on for 2
safety will be available, then every time one isn't l
3 available then I guess I may have just violated the rule, as 4
opposed to assuming these things are not perfect, a 5
reasonable assurance standard which is what pervades our 6
regulations --
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, agreed, but you have got 8
to come down somewhere.
9 If you are going to throw out, quote / unquote " low 10 significance accident sequences" and you are going to be 11 focusing on -- that is if you will agree to that -- high 12 significant ones, then you would want to turn around and 13 you'd sort of say, well, you know, maybe -- you have got to 14 be careful, but I think the language can be tangled up --
15 without throwing the baby out with the bath water here.
16 MS. TEN EYCK:
I'd also add if you recall we 17 originally proposed programs like maintenance and a 18 confi-guration control and QA, that they would have to apply l
19 to these measures.
This is an effort to back up and let the l
20 licensee from a performance perspective identify what things l
21 they need to have in place to ensure that the item relied on 1
l 22 for safety is available and reliable.
23 If we see a system that is continuing to fail or 24 is not available, then it is obvious that there needs to be 25-more management measures to assure it's available and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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reliable, so that was why our-concept of trying to let them 2
identify what measures are necessary, but it is just our 3
confidence in having this measure available to protect 4
against these high consequence areas was just a little bit 5
more than just reasonable assurance.
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Is there something 7
between " reasonable assurance" and " absolute assurance" 8
herg?
9 MS. TEN EYCK:
I am sure there is.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner Merrifield?
11 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD:
No, thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, I would like to thank Q
13 each of the presenters today for the information you 14 provided in the briefing.
This will assist the Commission 15 in focusing its review of the proposed revision to Part 70, 16 and I am advertising that I intend to complete my review 17 promptly --
18 (Laughter.)
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
-- to facilitate a time of the 20 proposal of the rule, and I want to commend the industry 21 representatives and the dedicated, in both senses, of the 22 NRC Staff -- seriously for your diligence and commitment in 23 working through the tough issues, and I would say th'at the 24 results of your effort are apparent in the draft rule in 25 front of us, so unless my colleagues have any additional ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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comments, we are adjourned.
2
[Whereupon, at 3:51 p.m.,
the briefing was l
3 concluded.)
l 4
5 6
7 l
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 f
17 18 19 20 l
21 1
22 23 24 25
]
1 1
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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)
4 CERTIFICATE This-is to certify that the attached description of a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING:
BRIEFING ON 10 CFR PART 70 -- PROPOSED RULE FOR REVISED REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
' DOMESTIC LICENSING OF SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL' PUBLIC MEETING PLACE OF MEETING:
Rockville, Maryland DATE OF MEETING:
Monday, June 14, 1999 9
was held as herein appears, is a true and accurate record of the meeting, and that this is the original transcript thereof taken stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company Transcriber:
Rose Gershon Reporter:
Mark Mahonev
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Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking i
Overview of Rule Proposed Rulemaking 0
a Risk-informed / Performance-based
= Focuses on Major Accidents Briefing to the Commission
= Requires Systematic and Integrated Review of June 14,1999 Accident Safety l
Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Previous Staff Proposal Stakeholder Interaction
= Briefed Commission in August 1998
= SRM Directed Staff to Modify the Proposed Rule and to Interact with Stakeholders Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Areas Where General Agreement Reached Areas Where General Agreement Reached
.ISA submittal
=ISA Not in the License
' Decommissioning ISA ISA kept onsite a Preliminary ISA
- ISA summary only docketed
= Chemical hazards "ScParate Decommissioning ISA Not Required
. Nuclear criticality safety
= Preliminary ISA Not Required a Regulation of Chemical Hazards per NRC/dSHA a Change process MOU
= Reporting requirements i
I
_]
Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Areas Where General Agreement Reached Areas Not Mutually Resolved
=ISA Summary Content
= Nuclear Criticality Safety per ANSI /ANS Standards mISA Summary Update Frequency
= Change Process to Contain Straightforward,
" Concurrent Reporting Requirement Objective Criteria a Backfit
= Reporting Requirements to Contain Two
= Standard Review Plan Reporting Classes Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Areas Not Mutually Resolved Areas Not Mutually Resolved Staff Proposals Staff Proposals
= Concurrent Reporting Requirement:-
= IS A Summary Content:
- concurrent reponing of news releases and notification
- includes list of items relied on for safety describing of ther govemment agencies their functions relative to the performance requirements a Backfit:
=IS A Summary Update Frequency:
- defer backfit decision
- changes reponed within 90 days
- differences elevated for management review
= Standard Review Plan:
- staff will continue to address comments
- most current version will be published with proposed rule Part 70 Proposed Rulemaking Recommendation
= Staff Recommends Proposed Rule be Published for Public Comment
o e
SUCCESSFUL PROCESS 10 CFR 70 OVERVIEW FACILITATED BY appropriate and workable rule incorporstmg nsk-
- NRC Rulemaking Website facilitated a
informed, performance-based approach dialogue and stakeholder input
- few outstanding issues
- assignment of a dedicated NRC team
- SRP(NUREG 1520) requires considerable significantly improved focus and issue resolution industry committed to open and interactive p
process to complete SRP resisions workshops (9/98,12/98, !!99,3/99)
E RULE ATTRIBUTES RULE CONCERNS
- risk-informed, performance-based rule
- applicability of backfit provision
- ISA r,d grading of safety controls
- ISA Summary content
- aprtopriate performance requirements facility change process details
- F SRP STATUS FUTURE ACTIONS Concerns:
- Rule:
- wntien prior to rule revisions and does not
- address those few outstanding concerns as part currently reflect rule provisions of Rule Making Process
- unnecessarily prescriptive and repetitive
- SRP:
Resolution:
- pursue open and interactive exchange ofideas
- significant progress achieved through NRC.
on SRP issues of concern using Webpage and industry workshops (nuclear cnticahty) a a workshops Webpage exchanges
- continued parteipation of dedicated NRC team i
1 j