ML20199E830
| ML20199E830 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/22/1998 |
| From: | Reis T NRC OFFICE OF ENFORCEMENT (OE) |
| To: | Lieberman J NRC OFFICE OF ENFORCEMENT (OE) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20199E832 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9901210097 | |
| Download: ML20199E830 (5) | |
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20666 4 001 December 22, 1998 l
MEMORANDUM TO: James Lieberman, Director Office of Enforcement l FROM: . Terrence Reis, S S cialist l Office of Enfore
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF DECEMBER 17,1998 MEETING WITH THE NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE (NEI) REGARDING APPLICATION OF THE CONCEPT OF REGULATORY SIGNIFICANCE IN THE ENFORCEMENT POLICY On December 17,1998, representatives from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), its legal counsel, and licensee's supporting NEl met with the Director, Office of Enforcement, the Assistant General Counsel for Hearings and Enforcement, and ottfir NF$ staff members to discuss the use of the concept of regulatory significance in the NRC's E[qorcement Policy. This meeting was intended to be a public meeting, however, unfortundiiilly, due to a breakdown in intemal public NRC Internet administrative server. processes, the meeting notice was r@wer p@ted on th g
A representative from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)hho s aware of the meeting through direct invitation from the Office of Enforcement came to@e bijinning of the meeting ,
and respectfully requested that the meeting be rescheduled given that'the public was not given ;
appropriate notice of the meeting. After a short internal deliberation, the NRC made the decision to proceed with the meeting despite NRC policy and practice given that some stakeholders had incurred expense in getting to the meeting and the importance to the NRC's change process in obtaining NEl's and UCS's views. It was committed that the NRC and NEl would meet again in a properly noticed meeting to review the discussions that took place on December 17,1998. However, the UCS representative reiterated his protest and declined to participate. The meeting resumed and proceeded for approximately 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> with those attendees designated in Attachment 1.
By way of background, this meeting was a continuation of previous meetings with NEl and UCS concerning approaches to changes to the NRC Enforcement Policy. The Director, Office of Enforcement sent letters to both NEl and UCS on November 3,1998, (Attachment 2 w/o enclosures) requesting that they review escalated enforcement actions for FY 1998 and \: I comment on the appropriateness of NRC's use of the concept of regulatory significance in those cases in preparation for the December 17,1998, meeting. UCS and NEl responded to that request on November 11 and December 14,1998, respectively. These responses are provided as Attachments 3 and 4. All enforcement cases referenced by these documents are '
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publicly avai!able in the Public Document Room (PDR) as well as on the NRC's Internet web b'b Page (www.nrc.oov/oeA. Attachments 2 through 4 have previously been placed in the PDR.
I NEl presented a summary of its proposed revisions to the NRC's approach to escalated l enforcement. The summary was discussed in the context of the slides prepared by NEl which
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are provided as Attachment 5. This attachment essentially summarizes NEl's more detailed December 14,1998, correspondence (Attachment 4).
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Key points stressed by NEl during this initial discussion were:
Escalated actions need to be based on either the actual or potential consequences of a finding based the tables NEl prepared in Tables A and B of Attachment 3 or for issues that don't lend themselves to direct risk assessment, the guidelines in its Table C should apply. '
That current NRC usage of " potential consequence" relies on presupposing alternate scenarios or plant configurations that were not pertinent at the given time of the finding. .
NEl contends this "what if" mentality doesn't serve any stakeholders well and leads to inconsistency.
Aggregation of non significant individual violations into an escalated action is inappropriate and will not be supported by NEl.
Aggregation and programmatic issues are better evaluated and addressed through the performance assessment process. NEl's concept for the relationship between the enforcement and assessment process was presented graphically. These graphics are provided as Attachment 6.
Adoption of NEl's Tables could eliminate the need for attempted application of the difficult to define concept of " regulatory significance." ,
l There was substantial interchange during NEl's presentation focusing on the place in enforcement for regulatory significance and potential consequences in a broader sense than presented by NEl's proposal. No commitments were made and the Director, Office of Enforcement offered that an additional meeting was necessary between the NRC and NEl parties responsible for the assessment oroaram, as well as the enforcement program to better understand how the issues as proposed by NEl that will not be addressed through enforcement will be addressed through the assessment process.
Following the above presentation and discussion, the meeting focused on cases in which wrongdoing was involved. There was no disagreement with respect to escalated enforcement being appropriate for wilful violations of NRC requirements regardless of risk significance. The treatment of violations involving 10CFR 50.59 was discussed, in this discussion NEl reiterated its position on enforcement of such issues should be per its position as stated in Table C of Attachment 4. The NRC communicated that it was not entirely in agreement with this approach in that it felt there was still a place for escalated enforcement for impeding the regulatory process even in cases in which the unreviewed change to the facility is ultimately deemed to be acceptable. The NRC offered that it currently determines severity level for unreviewed safety questions not solely on the determination of whether the change is ultimately acceptable, but rather on both acceptability and degree of review required to determine acceptability. The NRC l offered that this position was satisfactory given that the purpose of 10 CFR 50.59 is to ensure j that the regulator is given the opportunity to review facility changes that meet the unreviewed l
safety question criteria. NEl argued that this approach was flawed with subjectivity and
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3 reiterated its position that, similar to most other enforcement actions, that escalated enforcement should be determined on the outcome alone.
Following was a short discussion of two actual cases from FY 1998 that involved the concept of regulatory significance. These cases were EA Nos.97-367 and 97 591. In this discussion, NEl did not argue the outcome of the NRC's decision on the cases under the existing policy, but offered what it thought the results would be under its proposed revision to the policy.
Given the time constraints of the meeting, which was scheduled for two hours, there was then a short discussion on how regulatory significance would fit into the assessment process. The NRC agreed at the next meeting to provide a more detailed discussion of its review on how enforcement should align with the assessment process.
Attachments: As stated cc: Ellen Ginsberg, NEl David Lochbaum, UCS Public Document Room l
4 DISTRIBUTION:
J. Lieberman, OE M. Knapp, DEDE R.W. Borchardt, OE M. Satorius, OE T. Reis, OE L. Chandler, OGC C. Holden, NRR .
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