ML20214E415
| ML20214E415 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/13/1987 |
| From: | Zech L NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Eckart D HOUSE OF REP. |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20214E398 | List: |
| References | |
| REF-QA-99900403 NUDOCS 8705220077 | |
| Download: ML20214E415 (4) | |
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UNITED STATES o,,.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION.
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b so May 13, 1987-
^ CHAIRMAN
'The Honorable Dennis E.'Eckart United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C.
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Dear Congressman Eckart:
I am responding to your letter of April 10, 1987 concerning allegations made by Mr. Sam A. Milam, III, a former General Electric Company (GE) Nuclear.
Engineer, and Mr. Charles Stokes, a consultant to the Government ' Accountability Project (GAP).
Your letter raises ou'estions concerning our response to your letter of December 8,- 1986,.regarding the Commission's practice of notifying an outside party of the nature of a Congressional inquiry. The Commission disagrees with
- your characterizations of our December 24, 1986 response on how and why GE was-infonned of your letter. The Commission staff has acted in a responsible manner consistent with established agency procedures. The Agency's action in permitting GE-to make a-proprietary review was undertaken only_after the staff was satisfied that such review would not jeopardize any further Agency action. addresses this matter.
The Items of Nonconformance addressed in NRC Inspection Report No.
99900403/86-01 dated December 24, 1986, are receiving attention. The staff has recently completed an additional inspection at GE's San Jose facility to review documentation used by GE to support their response to the Items of Nonconformance referenced on pages 3 and 4 of your letter.. This inspection report is presently being drafted. An NRC review of documentation used to support GE's response to Unresolved Items identified in Section C of the 86-01
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inspection report, along with six additional items from the Stokes report, was i
also performed during the inspection. Deferred verification remains an unresolved item. This matter will be reviewed further in an inspection scheduled for July 1987.
You expressed a lack of con'idence that all allegations were resolved with respect to the reactor mode switch. This issue was identified in inspection report 86-01 as an unresolved item and, as such, will receive further attention.
The previous 86-01 inspectiot report did not address all of the concerns raised in Mr. Stokes' account of Mr Milam's extensive work record. Only a representative sample of pote ntially significant concerns was selected for review by the NRC. GE was requested in the 86-01 report to provide a written reply to 143 additional items. Three of the four issues you identified for i.
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. further action by the NRC, including the issue of unverified documents used in Final Safety Analysis Reviews, are included in-this list. The results of the staff review of these 143 additional items will be documented in a report.of the July inspection.. You will be provided a copy of that report. The four'th issue concerns improper divisional separation in electrical power distribution panels manufactured and designed by GE. This was resolved by replacing the single power source feeding all four divisions with a design utilizing two separate power sources.- GE reported this problem to tre NRC Region V office on August 7, 1980. As a result of the above action taken by GE, this particular issue was closed during the 86-01 inspection. provides the staff's response to the seven questions you asked regarding specific technical issues. A copy of the repcrt documenting our most recent inspection will tHe forwarded to your office upon completion. We expect it to be completed within the next four weeks.
Commissioner Roberts did not participate in this response.
Sincerely, 4Wl4) Lv.
Lando W. Ze
, Jr.
Enclosures:
1.
Staff Responses to Questions in 12/08/86 Letter To Chairman Zech 2.
Response To Questions On Specific Technical Issues l
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ENCLOSURE 1
' Staff Responses to Questions in December 8, 1986 Letter to Chairman Zech I'.
LProv.id'e the Subcommittee with all. correspondence between the,NRC and General-Electric concerning these allegations 'and the subsequent NRC investigation.
-NRC Response: Our original response to this request was provided on December 24,'1986. Additional correspondence received from General Electric. Company subsequent to that date is included with this enclosure.
- 2.
When did the Commission notify GE of the November 20,-1986 letter? Why?
Who decided to notify GE? Provide the Subcommittee with a copy of.the
- letter informing GE of this request.
If the notification was made by-y telephone, provide the date and time of the call and the parties who spcke.
NRC Response: The NRC first informed GE counsel of the November-20, 1986 congressional request for the Milam documents in a telephone conversation-on the afternoon of November 24, 1986 between Mr. Edward Shomaker, NRC, Office of the General Counsel, and Mr. Barton Smith, Esquire, of General Electric. The decision to inform GE was not an individual decision, but one made as a = result of staff discussions. A-follow-up letter was sent on November 25, 1986 which was provided in the documents' previously. supplied.-
This notification was performed in order to allow GE an opportunity to conduct a limited proprietary review of documents which the-Commission had decided to make publicly available. Such a review is conducted in
'accordance with established agency procedures.- It was decided that the Milam documents, the Stokes Report, and any subsequent NRC developed documents sheuld be made publicly available only after the NRC was satisfied that. release would not jeopardize any further Agency actions.
The NRC had reached that point prior.to November 20, 1986, so when Lcongressional requests were received as well as' requests from the Government Accountability Project, the Governor's Office for the State of Ohio, and aides to Senator Glenn, the staff proceeded to take the i.
necessary stegs to release the documents to the public.
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3.
Does the Commission routinely notify targets of investigation of document requests made by committees of Congress? If yes, please explain why and for what purpose. If no, then explain why this case was an exception.
The NRC does not " routinely notify targets of NRC Response:
In investigations of document requests made by comittees of Congress."
this case, the NRC's initial inspection into the allegations of Mr.
Milam was completed but the 3gency report was not final. The documents relied upon by the NRC were claimed to be potentially proprietary by GE and agency management felt that allowing a proprietary review would not It was in this context that the Office affect agency actions in any way.
of the General Counsel was asked to contact GE's legal department and i
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. arrange for a proprietary review. The staff felt that the Milam allegations could best be addressed by placing as much.information in the public domain as possible.
It should be noted that any request for such documents, for example under F0IA, would have had the,same effect of triggering a proprietary review. Additionally, the staff would have taken the same review steps, even absent a congressional request, when the Inspection report was made final.
4.
(a).When did the Commission decide to permit GE to review the documents?
(b) Why did the Commission refuse to permit GE to review these documents before December 1, 19867 (c) What prompted the Commission on December 2, 1986 to permit GE to examine the documents?
(d) Did the November 20, 1986 letter from the Subcommittee have any influence whatsoever on this decision? If yes, please explain.
'NRC Response:
(a) As stated in the response to question 2, the staff decided to pennit GE to review the Milam documents on November 24, 1986 since requests had been received for these documents from members of Congress and the public, and the NRC was satisfied that release of these documents would not jeopardize any further agency actions.
(b) The NRC did not allow GE to review these documents prior to E
December 1, 1986, because it had been actively involved with the inspection regarding the allegations of Mr. Milam and because it was felt that premature access to the subject documents would not be proper. Absent a request for the documents, the documents would have been released to GE in the normal course of business when the l
inspection report was issued (December 24,1986).
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(c) By December 2, 1986, the staff had completed its initial inspection l
and felt,that there would not be an impairment of any present or future NRC actions by allowing GE to review the Milam documents for l
l proprietary information.
(d) The November 20, 1986, letter from the Subcommittee did influence the decision as to the timing of the proprietary review. The NRC had received requests to make the Milam documents available from the Government Accountability Project, the Governor's office for the l-State of Ohio, and aides to Senator Glenn as well as from your i
Subcommittee. Therefore, since the final inspection report was almost completed, the NRC decided to start the review process by making the Milam work records immediately available for GE review and then to allow a similar review of the final NRC inspection report when that
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report was completed.
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