ML20236X047
| ML20236X047 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/20/1987 |
| From: | Zech L NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Brown H KIRKPATRICK & LOCKHART |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8712080387 | |
| Download: ML20236X047 (2) | |
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UNITED STATES.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY. COMMISSION-4 j
,E WASHINGTON, D, C. 20555 l ;'>
3' November. 20, 1987-9
'CHA R AN; A
m Herbert H. Brown, Esq.
Kirkpatrick'& Lockhart 4
South Lobby, 9th Floor -
.1800 M Street, N.W.-
1 Washington..D.C. 20036-5891
Dear Mr. Brown:
This responds to your two'1etters of October 27 and 28', 1987. The first deals with the Commission's consideration of letters from' public officials (not' named in your letter) who criticized the staff recommendations contained;in
.SECY-87-257, the memorandum on the emergency planning rule..According to your letter, consideration of those letters was " insensitive to public concern for the integrity of this rulemaking [and] procedurally irregular," and you state.
that the Commission has thus " fouled the rulemaking."
J The.Comission. believes your allegations are an inappropriate reflection on the propriety of the communications from the public officials who wrote to-criticize the staff recommendation:
Senators Breaux and Burdick, Congressmen Pashayan, Hall, and'Markey, and Governor Dukakis. Those letters were promptly released to the. press' and placed in the NRC's Public Document Room.
- Indeed, one.of-the lettersj specifically-requested that it be placed 'in the docket and.
made public. We fail 'to see a' basis for any suggestion that = those. public officials' were attempting by their letters to circumvent the Commission's public' process for considering the~ emergency planning issue. Rather, they were: expressing their views, for the'public record, on a matter of high'public Concern.'
The claim in your October 28 letter that the NRC staff acted inconsistently in public and in private is also incorrect. SECY-87-257, as the staff briefers explained'_ t the October 22 public briefing'for the Commission, included a
y a recommendation that would have made no assumptions about the precise' actions that state and local governments would take in the event of an actual.
emergency. Under the recommendation, the NRC would have to make case-by-case determinations of what those governments would do.
i
'In the days preceding the October 22 briefing, in discussions between NRC staff. and FEMA, FEMA made clear that to evaluate the adequacy of a utility plan..it would need to know that the decision would be made -- by someone n'
other than FEMA -- whether the state and local governments would follow the utility plan:~ in other words, if.it could be assumed that the ~ state and local governments would follow the utTrity plan in an emergency, then FEMA could offer a meaningful evaluation of tne merits of the utility plan, but FEMA l
itself could'not be in the position of deciding whether the plan would be followed.
In accordance with that approach, the NRC staff sent a memorandum G712000387 e71120' 6
PDR COMMS NRCC CORRESPONDENCE PDRf
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g to FEMA on October 21, describing the assumptions to be employed in the FEMA evaluation. There was no inconsistency between SECY-87-257 and the October 21 memorandum to FEMA, since nothing in the memorandum to FEMA was inconsistent with a case-by-case finding as to whether.the state and local governments would in fact follow the utility plan.
Between.the October 22 briefing and the October 29 affirmation session, the staff proposal in SECY-87-257 was changed to include explicitly a rebuttable presumption' that state and local governments will follow the utility plan in an actual emergency in cases of state and/or local non-participation in
- emergency planning. To emphasize, that presumption may be rebutted in individual cases.
Your incoming letters and this response will be placed in the Public Document Room.
Sincerely,
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N.
Lando W. Ze
, Jr
_