ML20212Q110
| ML20212Q110 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/10/1987 |
| From: | Zech L NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Burdick Q SENATE, ENVIRONMENT & PUBLIC WORKS |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20209A941 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8704200034 | |
| Download: ML20212Q110 (22) | |
Text
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S sp tEcu,
.. # 'o UNITED STATES
! j , , , ,jg NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
,, WASHINGTON D. C. 20555 o S g, ,;
je April 10, 1987 CHAIRMAN -
The Honorable Quentin Burdick, Chairman Cemittee on Environment and Public Works United States Senate
_ Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Enclosed for inclusion in the Budget hearing record of February 18, 1987 are our responses to additional post-hearing questions from Senator Simpson on user fees, use of the nuclear waste fund, and source term research.
If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely, vv . n.
Lando W. Zech r.
cc: Sen. Robert T. Stafford Nb l
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QUESTION 11. What is the status-of the Commission's efforts to implement the existing statutory authority authorizing the NRC to collect 33 percent of its budget through user fees?'
ANSWER.
The Commission adopted a new regulation (10 CFR 171) which became effective October 20, 1986. The new regulation is based on the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA) of 1985 and requires the NRC to assess and
- collect annual fees from each operating power reactor. The annual fee to be assessed during FY 1987 is $950,000 per reactor. Fee collections in FY 1987 under 10 CFR 171 are estimated to be approximately $96 million. This amount, when added to the fees assessed under 10 CFR 170 (estimated at $37 million),
eouals about $133 million or 33 percent of the NRC FY 1987 budget. Three lawsuits have been filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the annual fees assessed under 10 CFR 171. The cases have not been briefed. To date, the NRC has collected $49.3 million under 10 CFR 171. Several utilities have filed requests for exemption from the annual fee. The Commission is now considering these requests.
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-QUESTION 12. As I understand the reculations that the Commission promulgated to implement this authority, part of the fee would be based upon a flat assessment for individual reactors and part of the fee would be tied to the regulatory service provided by the Commission. How many of the Commissioners support the approach that was taken in the final rule? Is this, in your view, the closest that the Commission can come to collecting
., fees that are related to the regulatory service that you provide individual licensees?
1 ANSWER.
The Commission's current user fee regulations (10 CFR 170) are based on the.
premise that each licensee shall be assessed fees only for services rendered to that licensee, Under 10 CFR 170, each applicant and licensee is charged
. fees for licensing reviews and inspections that are_ performed as a' condition of receiving or maintaining their specific license.
In addition, under 10 CFR 171, holders of power reactor operating licenses are charged an annual fee to recover a portion of NRC's costs for providing research and other generic services to these licensees. In calculating the annual fee the Commission only included the costs of services that benefited all power reactor licensees. These costs were divided equally among our power reactor licensees. No attempt was made to charge for services which benefited some, but not all, of our power reactor licensees. _Four Commissioners voted 4
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OUESTION 12.- (Continued) l to promulgate Part 171. Commissioner Roberts abstained. Although approving <
the rule, Commissioner Bernthal provided separate views.
-The Commission believes that it can develop a revised Part 171 that provides for tying fees more closely to the costs of.providing specific services rendered to specific licensees. Congress in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliatica Act directed the Commission within a five-month period to promulgate a final rule through notice and comment rulemaking. The Commission, after further reflection, now recognizes that it would be -
preferable to base its annual fee on the principle that those licensees who require the greatest expenditure of NRC resources should pay the greatest annual fee. The NRC staff is now developing a proposed rule that would implement this approach. This should result in a rule which ties regulatory fees more closely to the costs of providing services to each individual licensee.
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-8 QUESTION 13.- In materials provided by the NRC staff to the Committee staff, you have identified licensee-specific Commission expenses for a number of problem plants or controversial reactors--including
$3.5 million for the TVA program, $3.5 million for Comanche Peak,
$500,000 for Davis-Besse, $818,000 for San Onofre. Are these expenses recovered under your current rule? How are such expenses identified and what is the process for calculating these amounts?'
ANSWER.
The cited expenses for FY 1986 will not be recovered in full under 10 CFR 170. Some expenses cannot be recovered under 10 CFR 170 including expenses associated with pursuing an allegation, expenses resulting from an order issued by the Commission, and safety review expenses not associated with a license amendment. Recovery of certain categories of expenses are subject to specified caps, e.g., FY 1986 expenses related to the Comanche Peak 1 operating license review will not be recovered as this plant reached the cumulative recovery cap of $3,077,400 prior to FY 1986.
I The NRC is giving consideration to raising or lifting the recovery caps l under 10 CFR 170 and expanding the coverage of 10 CFR 170.
The contract expenses associated with individual reactors are identified by examining agency accounting data and determining those amounts which are allocable to specific plants. The staff hour expenditures applicable to l
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QUESTION 13. (Continued) - -
2-individual reactors are extracted from agency staff hcur accounting systems and then augmented with a prorata share of management supervision and-secretarial time. To determine the cost, these staff hours.are multiplied by an average salary factor.
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OUESTION 14. How many on the Commission endorse the legislation that has been submitted by the Administration to authorize f;RC to collect fifty percent of its annual budget through user fees?
ANSWER.
The Office of Management and Budget asked the NRC to include in its proposed authorization bill for Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 a provision directing the NRC to collect user fees approximating 507, of the NRC budget. Although the NRC included this provision,~it takes no position regarding whether the NRC should charge user fees, and if so, what sum should be collected. However, if Congress decides that new user fee legislation is appropriate, the Commission is interested in working with Congress in developing the principles that will guide the NRC in formulating its user fee schedule.
Commissioner Asselstine adds:
Commissioner Asselstine supports imposing annual charges to recover a greater portion of the costs of safety research and generic rulemaking from licensees l
who benefit from such activities. He believes that the 50% user fee proposal l
included in the Commission's FY 88-89 budget request is one means of accomplishing this objective. I 2/18/87 BURDICK Q14 I
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Q QUESTION 15. If this legislation is enacted, how much of the $214 million that you would be authorized to collect would come from a flat fee and how much of that amount would be related to actual NRC benefits provided to licensees?
ANSWER. .
If the proposed legislation is enacted and the Commission revises Part 171 (as indicated in the answer to question 12), the entire amount collected would be related to the costs of providing benefits to specific licensees.
Some of the fees-would continue to be collected under 10-CFR 170. Under those regulations, which implement the Independent Offices Appropriations Act of 1952, fees are assessed to individual licensees for license reviews and inspection activities. In addition, an annual fee would be collected under a revised Part 171. The revised Part 171 would depart from the current practice of assessing a flat fee to all licensees and make the annual fees more closely related to the costs of providing specific regulatory services to individual licensees.
2/18/87 BURDICK Q15
QUESTI0'N 16. In last year's reconciliation debate, the Senate took the position that the fees collected by the NRC should be related to the actual services provided by the Commission to individual licensees. Is the approach recommended by the Senate last year workable in your view?
ANSWER.
The approach recommended by the Senate last year is similar to the approach now being considered by the NRC. The Commission prefers the approach that those licensees that receive the greatest level of regulatory services from the NRC would pay higher fees than'those who receive less.
2/18/87 BURDICK Q16
QUESTION'17. As an agency that basically regulates 107 nuclear power plants, why is it so difficult to calculate what you spend on each reactor?
ANSWER.
The Commission currently charges licensees for the costs of providing license reviews and inspection activities. These costs are not difficult to calculate.
The challenge is to fairly allocate research, rulemaking, and other generic costs to individual licensees. These generic costs constitute a significant portion of the NRC budget.
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O-QUESTION 18. As I understand it, the Commission has had under discussion ,
l the option of recommending legislation to authorize you to collect your waste-related expenses from the Nuclear Waste :
i Fund. What is the status of this initiative? "!
1 ANSWER.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently issued a legal opinion in which it concluded that the Commission is already obligated to collect its high-level-waste-related expenses from the Nuclear Waste Fund and 00E is obligated to pay the Commission for these expenses. Accordingly, the Department of Justice has concluded that additional legislation is not necessary. Commission staff will soon meet with DOE'to work out implementing details by the NRC that will provide for appropriate collection of waste related expenses from the Nuclear Waste Fund.
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OUESTION 19. Is there adequate authority under current law, in your judgment, for DOE to pay your expenses -- and do so in a manner that does not compromise your independent status as the licensing agency for the geologic repository?
ANSWER.
As explained in question 18, there is adequate authority under current law.
We are aware of the need to maintain NRC's independent status and believe we can establish a process that will not compromise our independence.
Since any fees collected go to the Treasury and not to the NRC, the NRC's independent status as the licensing agency for the geologic repository will not be affected by the implementation of a waste-related fee. In establishing the waste-related fee process NRC will. assure that the Commission's indepen-dent status is not indirectly affected by the implementation of the process for collecting fees from 00E.
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00ESTION 20. Would it make sense, in order to avoid any potential disagree-ment between you and DOE, to establish a separate mechanism, implemented by the Commission, to collect your waste-related expenses directly from the utilities?
ANSWER.
No. A disagreement between the Commission and DOE is not anticipated. Every
- effort should be made to have a single mechanism for collection rather than having utilities contend with two separate Federal collection mechanisms.
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QUESTION 21. Where does the Commission stand on resolving the remaining uncertainties that have been identified in the source term
'research program?
ANSWER.
The NRC is currently in the process of deciding what action is appropriate to deal with the uncertainties. The staff has assessed the remaining technical uncertainties identified in the source term research program. This assessment (SECY-86-369, " Plan to Address Source Term Technical Uncertainty Areas")
would focus our severe accident research program (NUREG-0900 Rev.1, "The Severe Accident Research Program Plan") on these uncertainty areas.
The source term research program has recently been reviewed by expert review groups under the direction of the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). A report on the conclusions of this review is scheduled to be available'in the near future. The NRC will carefully review the BNL report before making any needed program modifications.
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l Commissioner Asselstine adds the following: l Core meltdown phenomena and containment response thereto are very complex. !
While much ha.s been done to gain a better understanding of the phenomena over the last six years or so, much more needs to be done as evidenced by the 2/18/87 BURDICK 021
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QUESTION 21-(C'ontinued)~ .
attached Table 6-1 from NUREG-0956 that lists the current major areas of uncertainties. These' areas of uncertainty involve fundamental issues. The quantified uncertainties in source terms contained in NUREG-1150 are equal to or greater than the estimated uncertainties of twelve years ago.- Thus, i
despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars on severe accident research over the past decade, it does not appear that we have been able to achieve a substantial reduction in these uncertainties. NUREG-1150 contains the following discussion of the approach to quantifying the uncertainties:
However, for the issue of concern here--severe accidents--few parameters I have a high degree of statistical rigor because of the lack of data on the progression of such accidents. In other cases where lack of precise data has been a problem, the judgments of experts in the field have been used to provided the required ranges and weighting factors (Ref. 2.18),
and this process has been used for the uncertainty analyses. Fore each of the three parts (frequency, containment behavior, and source terms),
a group of experts on severe accident phenomena was assembled and asked to assess the ranges and fractional weights of the set of potentially important issues, using their knowledge of relevant experimental calculational results and their individual judgments where "hard" data were sparse or nonexistent (the latter being a frecuent circumstance).
(See page 2-7 of NUREG-1150.)
I would note that Ref. 2.18 is a 1977 report entitled "Can Weather Forecasters Formulate Reliable Probability Forecasts of _ Precipitation and Temperatures?" This is indicative of the current level of sophistication in our attempts to measure and define the uncertainties involved in severe accident probability and consequence analysis. The Agency is now on a course to use this information to perform cost / benefit analyses to justify or reject safety improvements. Given the uncertainties involved and the subjective nature of these judgments, I do not believe that the existing information is sufficiently reliable for this purpose.
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- s 00ESTION21(Continued) - 3.-
I also do not.think the existing uncertainties and unknowns in source term quantities will be " resolved" in the' foreseeable future. While I support continued research in this area, I am not optimistic that reliance on subjective judgments in quantifying source terms will be substantially reduced for some time to come. Recognizing the current uncertainties in severe accident analysis, I would adopt a common sense approach to nuclear safety regulation. Given that early containment failures because of a core meltdown cannot be ruled out, we should do all that is practical to prevent core meltdowns and to mitigate the consequences should a severe accident occur.
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Table 6.1 Major areas of uncertainty affecting current sousce term analyses
- Area of Uncertainty
- 1. Natural circulation in reactor coolant system
- 2. Core melt progression and hydrogen generation
- 3. Steam explosions
- 4. High-pressure melt ejection
! 5. Core-concrete interactions
- 6. Hydrogen combustion
- 7. Iodine chemical form
- 8. Fission product revaporization a
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A QUESTION 22. What sort of time-table do you envision for addressing-
, these uncertainties.
a ANSWER.
As stated.in our response to Question 21, the NRC is currently in the process
- of deciding the appropriate action for addressing these uncertainties. It is
. necessary to complete this review before making program modifications and setting schedules, i
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QUESTION 23. If your tentative judgement on the uncertainties is confirmed by the Brookhaven report, how much additional funding will be required to address these individual areas--and how much of this is "unfunded" in your fiscal year 1988 and 1989 budget requests?
ANSWER.
NUREG-0956, " Reassessment of the Technical Bases for Estimating Source Terms,"
described eight areas of major technical uncertainty. A preliminary estimate of the cost to resolve these uncertainties shows the need for $9.5 million of additional research which is not currently included in the FY 1988/FY 1989 budget request.
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QUESTION 24 . As I understand your Chernobyl implications report, you 4
have concluded that the Chernobyl accident does;not warrant.
any additional regulatory changes for U.S. reactors. - Does this, in turn, mean that your projected source term program will not change significantly either? .
ANSWER.
Yes, that is correct. The phenomena of the Chernobyl accident were greatly influenced by the design features and materials in the RMBK reactor, which differs in many respects from those of U.S. reactors. The only affected radionuclide release areas identified to date that are not currently modeled in U.S. radionuclide release analytical models involve two mechanisms of fission-product release from fuel debris; namely, mechanical dispersal and chemical stripping (fuel surface layer removal through chemical change of l theuraniumoxide). Although it is not clear that these mechanisms will have l any impact on accident sequences relevant to U.S. reactors, we will examine 4
these areas carefully and, if appropriate, incorporate such phenomena into our models. Additional attention to these two mechanisms should not cause a l
significant change in the overall source term program.
Commissioner Asselstine adds the following:
j I disagree with this response. The Chernobyl source term was equal to or less than some of the source terms estimated in NUREG-1150. The consequences j
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QUESTION 24 (Continued) -
l of the Chernobyl source term and the estimated probabilities of early ;
containment failure in the event of a core meltdown listed in NUREG-1150 for all containment types dictate that the NRC source term program should errphasize studies of how to better mitigate the consequences of core meltdown accidents.
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- a QUESTION 25. Would it make sense to fund the remaining source term research through a dedicated assessment to be paid by the utilities?
Would this approach provide a stable and adequate source of funding to complete this work?
ANSWER.
The primary funding for all Commission activities, including' source term research, should be from the Commission's appropriation. Source term research costs are including the fee base that is used to calculate the annual user fee set forth in 10 CFR 171. Thus, power reactor licensees are currently paying a portion of NRC's source term research costs.
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