ML20248L378
| ML20248L378 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/04/1998 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9806110116 | |
| Download: ML20248L378 (120) | |
Text
0RGisA_
2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
BRIEFING ON SAFETY EVALUATIONS, FSAR UPDATES AND INCORPORATION OF RISK INSIGHTS - PUBLIC MEETING Location:
Rockville, Maryland Date:
Thursday, June 4,1998 Pages:
1 - 98 O/
pgijo )g 9em
- 7) (c ',-
d PT9.7 PDR ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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DISCLAIMER l
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on June 4,
1998, 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 i
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 Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
L_____
1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION 3
4 BRIEFING ON 5
SAFETY EVALUATIONS, FSAR UPDATES AND 6
INCORPORATION OF RISK INSIGHTS 7
8-PUBLIC MEETING 9
10 11 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 12 One White Flint North 13 Rockville, Maryland 14 15 Thursday, June 4, 1998 16 17 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 18 notice, at 2:05 p.m.,
the Honorable Shirley A. Jackson, 19 Chairman, presiding.
20 21 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
22 SHIRLEY A.
JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission 23 GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission 24 NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission 25 EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
2 ANNETTE VIETTI-COOK, Assistant Secretary of the 3
Commission 4
STEPHEN G. BURNS, Acting General Counsel 5
RALPH BEEDLE, NEI 6
HAROLD RAY,' NEI 7
TONY PIETRANGELO, NEI 8
.HUGH THOMPSON, NRC 9
DAVID MATTHEWS, NRC 10 SAMUEL COLLINS, NRC 11 MARK SATORIUS, NRC 12 13 14 15 i
16 17 I
18 19 20 21 22 23 24.
25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 PROCEEDINGS 2
(2:08 p.m.]
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Good afternoon, ladies and 4
gentlemen.
The purpose of this meeting is for the 5
Commissitn to be briefed by the Nuclear Energy Institute and 6
the NRC staff on proposed regulatory guidance related to the 7
implementation of 10 CFR 50.71(e), which addresses updates 8
to final safety analysis reports, and proposed changes to 10 9
CFR 50.59 entitled Changes, Tests and Experiments.
10.
The Commission recently approved making publicly 11 available a draft generic lettqr providing interim guidance 12 on the implementation of 10 CE9 50. 71 (e).
The Commission is 13 considering approving the staff's request to seek public 14 comment on this paper.
.15 Concurrently, the staff is working to address 16 Commission direction on a revision to 10 CFR 50.59 detailed l
1 17 in a staff requirements memorandum resulting from 18 SECY-97-205.
19 As a result of Commission activity in this area, 20 NEI has requested an opportunity to brief the Commission on 21 its own activities in these areas and to offer ideas and 22 comment for Commission consideration.
23 Consistent with our stated commitment to involve 24 stakeholder in the regulatory process, the Commission is 25 interested in obtaining and considering the views of NEI on ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 these matters in an effort to develop the most fully 2
informed decisions possible.
3 We also look forward to hearing from the staff on 4
the status of their efforts, their opinions on the NEI 5
proposals made_here, and the basis for their recent reply to 6
the Commission on 10 CFR 50.59 changes documented in a staff 7
memorandum dated May 27, 1998, which is publicly available.
8 It is our hope there will be frank, open exchange 9
of the issues before us.
Toward that end, I would encourage 10 both NEI and the NRC staff to provide real world examples of 11 the policy issues they discuss, but not just trivial or 12 anecdotal.
Too often briefings on these and similar issues 13 become so philosophical and programmatic in nature that 14 connections'between policy and field implementation is lost.
15 Unless any of my colleagues have any opening 16 comments they wish to make, Mr. Beedle or Mr. Ray, whoever 17 is leading the discussion.
18 MR. BEEDLE:
Chairman Jackson, thank you very 19.
much.
Commissioner Diaz, Commissioner Dicus, Commissioner 20 McGaffigan.
We appreciate the opportunity to talk with you 21 today.
The matter of 10.CFR 50.59 and the FSAR update rule
~22 are both very significant to the industry as well as the 23 Commission staff.
A considerable amount of time and energy 24 is devoted to these two topics.
As you well know, the 50.59 25 is probably the most exercised rule in the arsenal of l-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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regulations that we deal with.
2 This afternoon we have Mr. Harold Ray, the 3
executive vice president, Southern California Edison.
He's 4
also chairman of the NEI Regulatory Process Working Group 5
that was formed about a year ago to help us address and l
6 focus on the issues of 50.59 and FSAR design basis, and so l
7
- forth, 8
We also have Tony Pietrangelo, director of 9
licensing with NEI, here with us today.
10 We are prepared to discuss the 50.59.
We have i
11 over the course of the last year had quite a bit of
]
12 interaction with both the Commissioners and the staff on i
13 this topic.
14 We appreciate the publication of the draft 15 document on FSAR.
That has certainly helped us put our 16 comments in perspective today.
We think that sets a good 17 tone on how to deal with those issues rather than waiting 18 for a public comment period, at least to get them out and 19 make them available to digest and understand.
20 With that, I would like to turn to Harold for some 21 comments from his perspective as an executive in the utility 22 to discuss the 50.59 FSAR issues.
23 Harold.
24 MR. RAY:
Thank you, Ralph.
25 Chairman Jackson, in the interest of saving time ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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and in the spirit of the dialogue that you invited, I'm 2
going to skip over three things on my talking points here, 3
namely, the introduction, the history of this sordid affair, 4
and the rationale for the industry initiative.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Is that s-o-r-t-e-d or 6
s-o-r-d-i-d?
7
[ Laughter.]
8 MR. RAY:
The latter.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Just wanted to be sure.
10 MR. RAY:
And also the' rationale for the industry 11 initiative that exists.
If any of the Commissioners have 12 questions about that, I'll be glad to comment on them, but I 13 think that we need to cut to the essence of what this is all 14 about as quickly as we can, and I would like to do that.
15 I don't want to skip over, however, recognizing 16 and, I hope you will accept, commending the Commission for 17 taking up this issue as you have.
18 I had the opportunity to make some comments at the 19 information conference not co long ago.
Commissioner 20 McGaffigan was there, I'believe.
I tried to underscore the 21 fact that I thought that the Commission vote sheets on 22 SECY-97-205 were very thoughtfully reflecting on the issues 23 that we all faced.
Like us, I don't think any of you had 24-the magic solution, and so we are engaged now in a process 25 of trying to find what the best outcome is that we can ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 cobble together here.
2 It was very instructive for us to see your 3
deliberations on this.
I commented at the time that the 4
Commission secretary doesn't often come in for comment, but 5
I thought a terrific job was done in trying to gather all i
6 that together into some summary of where this all stood 7
among the Commissioners.
8 Having said that, let me now dive into the essence 9
of this.
Tony will be making the presentation that we have 10 prepared.
We participated in its development and are 11 prepared to answer questions as we go or at the end.
12 I think the thing that would be most useful for me 13 to comment to you on before Tony speaks is the issue of 14 scope.
In the May 27th memo that you referred to that is 1
15 something which is proposed to be deferred by the staff for 16 attention later.
In a letter that Ralph had sent the 17 Commission we suggested that it was timely to take that 18 issue up now.
Tony will indicate we are certainly prepared 19 to address it as a second step in the process that we face 20 here in the interest of addressing the other issues that are 21 on the table and ripe for decision.
22 But I do want to comment on it briefly in terms of 23 the importance of it, and particularly because it connects 24 to the generic letter that you mentioned, the 50.71(e) 25 issue.
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Perhaps the eas'iest way for me to illustrate the 2
point that I want to leave with you is that in talking about 3
50.71(e) -- and I think I've made this comment to each of 4
you separately -- the role of the SAR in defining what the 5
scope of 50.59 is naturally arises.
As you know, we are 6
interested in not having the SAR constitute the scope of 7
50.59 and believe that it has traditionally not been the 8
case that it did.
But we find ourselves now at a point at 9
which that is in fact the case.
10 I want to just extract one sentence from the 11 forwarding letter to you of the generic letter that you 12 referred to to illustrate the point.
The staff is 13 commenting in the context of the SAR that drawings might be 14 simplified in the SAR of the future.
That is one of the 15 changes that might be made.
They comment that the effect of 16 this guidance is to reduce the scope of 50.59 changes to 17 some minor components would no longer be required to be 18 evaluated pursuant to 50.59 as they would no longer be "as 19 described in the safety analysis report."
20 So speaking to a detail on a drawing, you see, the 21 notions persist that by changing what 50.71(e) requires to 22 be in the SAR we are defining or eliminating, adding to, 23 taking away from what is required to be addressed in 50.59, 24 and we just see that as a very significant problem and one 25 that I know you all recognize as well.
We do need to be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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committed, I think, to address that.
2 I can tell you as somebody who in past roles has 3
done a lot of writing of what is in a SAR that the intention 4
never was, I think even up to the present day, but surely 5
over most of the time when SARs were being developed, that 6
they serve as the definition of what was subject to the 7
control of 50.59.
8 They were in fact a convenient place to put 9
information.
An excellent place as a matter of fact, rather 10 than have it distributed in many, many locations that were 11 hard to access, particularly when you are facing hearings 12 and other proceedings associated with issuance of a license.
13 We would just put it in the SAR.
So a lot of things wound 14 up there.
15 I don't think that the regulatory guide that 16 defines what needs to be in a SAR was written with that 17 intent either.
Yet we find ourselves in that place.
18 You asked for a real world, not a trivial or 19 anecdotal example.
This may be anecdotal.
I hope it's not 20 trivial, but it's certainly real world.
21-I have found myself in the position of spending an 22 enormous amount of time, by my standard anyway, dealing with 23 noncompliance having to do with one of these details that I 24 think the staff is suggesting don't need to be on the P&ID 1
l 25 in the SAR.
I was dealing with it because it was a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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violation of 50.59, 2
I won't go into the details unless you want me to, 3
but we had made a change that in our judgment did not 4
require Commission approval, did not involve an unreviewed 5
safety question, and so on, and that became a matter of 6
debate.
It had to do with an orifice in a vent line and 7
whether it was removable entirely or whether it was 8
removable by use of a gate valve.
And that's all it had to 9
do with.
10' Anyway, that is a tiny example, yet one that I 11 have personally been involved in, of why we are concerned 12 that the enormous amount of information that is in the SAR 13 can becom( a source of distraction to the Commission and to 14 us as licensees as we try and go about getting our job done 15 of assuring the safe operation of the plant.
16 I think that's all I need to say on that point.
I 17 just wanted to underscore to you that it is a piece of this 18
.overall picture that is equally important to the one of l
19 increase in consequences, and so on, that we are also l
20 dealing with here today and that I'm not going to speak to; 21 I'll let Tony do that.
But I wanted to underscore to you 22 the importance in our judgment that if we-defer civing 23 attention to that to a later time that it not be a too much 24 later time, because this issue is an area of uncertainty and l
25 also one where I think improvement in the process can be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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made.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
l 3
Commissioner McGaffigan.
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I would like to ask a 5
question about the change.
At the reg info conference you 6
were very strongly arguing for doing it in the first phase.
7 Is it that you now have seen these documents, particularly I
8 the FSAR update guidance, the generic letter?
9 I know you are going to testify that you think 10 that it doesn't have to go out for formal public comment 11 because you are willing to change 98-03 and to accommodate, 12 and you think that the better use of resources, you're going 13 to testify, is that we use our resources to endorse your j
14 guidance.
15 Has the May 27th meeting with the staff and having 16 this document on the table and having some discussions 17 allayed some concerns and so now you are more comfortable 18 with the two-step process that was in the original 19 Commission SRM?
20 MR. RAY:
Commissioner McGaffigan, I would put it i
21 this way.
At the margin we are persuaded that we are all 22 committed to take this second step and therefore, since it 23 is the desire, I believe, of the Commission and certainly of 24 the staff to take the first step, that we don't want to 25 appear as objecting to doing that unless it were to be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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perceived that somehow that was going to be the only chance 2
we had to address 50.59.
3 On the other hand, I would say my concerns aren't 4
allayed by this generic letter for the very reason that I 5
said.
It seems to underscore the notion that we find 6
troubling, that is, that the SAR, and as far as we know 7
everything in the SAR, is subject to 50.59 requirements.
8 At the limit, as I think Tony will say, we don't 9
know how to keep that from making the SAR de facto just an 10 enlarged version of the tech specs.
11 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That wasn't the reason.
Last 12 week's meeting wasn't the reason why we are more amenable to l
13 the two-step process.
I think there are really two reasons i
1 14 behind it.
15 One, I think we got a sense through individual 16 visits with you all that you are committed to do this.
17 Secondly, we think we have some momentum 18 established by the Commission's actions to take some quick l
I 19 action on some things that we think we are fairly close to.
20 In our view, trying to do scope at the same time would l
21.
probably prolong that, and we don't know for how long.
So j
l 22 we don't want to lose that momentum.
We want to keep that 23 going.
Again, with a commitment to look at that second step L
24 in a very serious way, we are satisfied that that is the l
25 right way to go.
l l
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MR. RAY:
Yes.
I think if anything the need is 2
more clear as a result of the generic letter statement that 3
I referred to.
It was just an indication of where we have a 4
real concern.
5 MR. PIETRANGELO:
We have to do the 50.71(e) 6 anyway.
So that was really not the reason at all.
7
[ Slide.]
8 MR. PIETRANGELO:
First, I want to acknowledge we 9
received COM SECY-98-013 yesterday afternoon and got a 10 chance to look at that a little bit and digest it.
We'll 11 try to talk a little bit about some of those views and 12 incorporate that during the presentation.
13 We do want to do a quick overview on the 14 Commission's SRM on SECY-97-205 and talk about the use of 15 acceptance limits.
16 One issue we added to this presentation that we 17 hadn't planned to talk about was the design basis 18 interpretation, but it does relate, we think, to some of the 19 issues we are going to discuss this afternoon.
I J
20 Talk about the enforcement discretion provision in I
21 the SRM.
22 Talk about the draft FSAR update guidance, the 23 draft generic letter, as well as Draft 98-03, and then S
24 finish with the scope of 50.59.
25 (Slide.)
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1 MR. PIETRANGELO:
The main bullets in the SRM were 2
to expedite this rulemaking, to clarify the threshold 3
criteria as we mentioned before; the enforcement discretion l
l 4
prior to the rule change, and then to reconcile the two FSAR 5
update guidance documents.
6 We do want to mention one part of COM SECY-98-13 7
dealing with accidents of a different type as well as 8
malfunctions of a different type.
We stand by the proposal 9
we made in our November 14 letter on the language that is 10 appropriate for that criteria.
11 There is one part of the COM SECY that we started 12 discussing this morning really and we're not sure we agree 13 with the staff on.
I think we have to think about it more, 14 but it's really a higher level concern, and that's whether 15 50.59 is a procedurcl standard versus a safety standard.
In 16 the sense that it's a standard for determining whether prior 17 Commission review or approval is needed, it is procedural in 18 that sense.
19 On the other hand, we don't think that something 20 that has no safety significance ought to be sent to the 21 Commission for prior review and approval.
So there has to 22 be some safety content to that test.
I don't think we are 23 prepared today to agree that it's only a procedural 24 standard, that there should be some safety content to the 25 decision.
The Commission's direction in the March SRM on ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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minimal safety impact, we think we understood where you were j
i 2
coming from, and I don't think it's a dichotomy either in 3
terms of those two questions.
We just wanted to make that 4
point today.
5 MR. RAY:
This is the context specifically of the 6
subject of malfunction of equipment of a different type.
i 7
The statement is broader, seemin9?.;.
It says, in view of l
8 the use of 50.59 as a procedural standard rather than as a 9
safety standard, the staff would not propose language of 10 minimal safety impact.
I want to underscore that was in a 11 Epecific context.
Nevertheless, it raises the notion of 12 50.59 that we are not sure we understand at this point.
l 13
[ Slide.]
14 MR. PIETRANGELO:
One of the issues where we think 15 we do disagree with the staff is on the use of acceptance 16 limits in determining the increases in consequences and 17 reductions in margin of safety threshold lines.
We think 18 both of those kinds of limits can be found in NRC safety 19 evaluation reports as well as other NRC guidance, like the 20 standard review plan in Part 100.
21 We did discuss this issue at length with the staff 22 on April 23.
I think the result of that was we pretty much 23 agreed to disagree.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Whether you like the criteria 25 or not, do you believe that the staff has established clear 1
l l
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and objective criteria?
You may not like the criteria, b's.t 2
do you believe the staff has established such criteria?
3 MR. PIETRANGELO:
We have not seen what minimal in 4
terms of consequences means yet.
So it's hard to answer 5
that.
Conceptually, if there is a line out there that is 6
based on the regulatory framework, I think we would prefer 7
that to some construction of what minimal means vis-a-vis 8
where you stand versus the line.
I think that would be our 9
preference.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner McGaffigan.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Going back to the 12 Chairman's admonition that we talk about this in practical 13 terms, as I understand the NEI Guide 96-07 and Mr. Collins' 14 letter of January of this year on this issue of increases in 15 consequences, what you say in that guide is if you find that 16 the agency said something in accepting it relevant to some 17 other document, a Part 100 limit or another document, saying 18 we are accepting it because it's less than that, then that 19 is the limit.
If on the other hand we say we accept it --
20_
you'll have to correct me here -- with reference to those 21 things, then that is the limit.
22 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That's correct.
That's what our
- 23 guidance says.
24 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
What is the practical 25 effect of that difference at a nuclear plant?
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1 MR. PIETRANGELO:
One would have to come in from l
l 2
the change and the other one wouldn't.
What we have been 3
advising licensees to do when they are caught in that 4
dilemma -- there are some that have in the SER -- the SAR 5
value is the only value that you would find.
We say, well, j
6 you'll have to go in then based on our guidance.
The advice 7
we have given is when you get your next SER from the staff, 8
try to get the acceptance limit in the SER so that this is a 9
one-time exercise and you won't have to continue to do that 10 in the future, and then eventually you will have everybody 11 consistent across the industry.
12 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But does the staff 13 understand that that is what you are advising?
14 Obviously the staff has disagreed with you.
If 15 they disagree with you, then one way not to ever provide 16 that flexibility you are looking for is to make sure you 17 don't do what you have just announced you've told your 18 licensees to try to do.
19 Aside from when you have to come in and declare it 20 a USQ and come in for a license amendment or other approval, 21 what are we talking about specifically in terms of the types 22 of things that we end up having to deal with that you think 23 we shouldn't have to deal with?
24 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I can give you an example, and I 25 think it's a current one.
South Texas plant has received a l
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level 4 violation on a very small increase in consequences, 2
from 22-3/4 rem to 23-1/4.
The acceptance limit is 30 per 3
GDC-19, control room habitability.
Because it was more than 4
zero, there is the level 4 violation.
Yet in a previous one 5
.the limit was clearly established as 30.
That would be one 6
where we would think that you shouldn't have to go in for 7
something like that.
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
In that particular case 9
the minimal could cover it.
10 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Right.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I guess the staff's 12 concern, as I've understood it over the years, is they are 13 concerned about going from 22-3/4 to 29-3/4 and being right 14 up against the limit.
That's of concern if we haven't 11 5 routinely approved 29-3/4 in other places; if we have 16 routinely. approved 29-3/4, it may not be.
17 I'm just trying to understand.
18 MR. PIETRANGELO:
My understanding of the staff's 19 is the closer you get to the limit, the more interested they 20 get.
-It's very similar to the Reg Guide 1.174 discussion.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you have a comment on this?
12 2 MR. RAY:
Yes, I do, on point.
I don't want to 23 make it sound like we are talking past each other relative 24 to staff, Commissioner.
So let me add to what Tony has d
25 said.
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I think we need to pay attention to the statement 2
staff makes, which I will read one sentence of here.
3 However, the degree of margin remaining to the 4
limits might be less as viewed by the staff than the i
5 licensee.
Therefore if a licensee subsequently made changes 6
that would have the effect of increasing the calculated l
7 doses up to the limits, it is possible that the staff 8
conclusion would be that the limits were actually e cceeded.
9 So in this case, the example that Tony just gave,
-10 we understand chat the staff may have a different view about 11 what the increase was, that it wasn't from 23, or whatever 12 it was, that it was something else.
That concern that they 13 have does need to be addressed, j
14 Another example.
You may be well aware of the 15 Niagara Mohawk case where there was a blowout panel.
The 16 thing was set for 80 pounds.
The bolts were supposed to be 17 at 45; they were at 53 or something.
The argument is made, i
18 well, as long it's far away from the limit, then we don't 19 look at it as carefully as if it's closer to the limit, and 20 therefore when you move from being far away to being closer 21 you need to tell us so that then we can weigh in and see if 22 there is something we want to do in terms of our own 23 perception.
We understand that.
24-That's why I made the point I did in passing that, 25 okay, given that, though, if you take that philosophy to the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 limit, you basically convert everything that has been said 2
into a tech spec in the sense that we are concerned about 3
it.
4 So we need to be able to sort through and separate 5
the things that are not in the tech specs but which have 6
this character to'them that there is some margin that needs 7
to be maintained against the acceptance limit or the staff 8
wants to re-review the analysis.
We need know where those 1
9 are.
We don't know which they are.
That's the dilemma.
I 10 wanted to add that.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me ask you a different 12 question.
If a SER found a facility to be well below the 13 Part 100 guidelines, would you conclude that Part 100 is the 14 acceptance limit?
15 MR. RAY:
It's the acceptance limit.
I would not 16 conclude that you could approach the acceptance limit 17 without' prior NRC approval.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But you know there is a 19 footnote to Part 100 that specifically states that Part 100 20 guidelines are not acceptance limits.
So are you of a view 21 that rulemaking would be required to have Part 100 22 guidelines as acceptance limits?
23 MR. PIETRANGELO:
We are very familiar with the 24 footnote, and we are trying to get a context for that.
I 25 think how we read chat is you don't have it acceptable to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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release radiation to the environment.
That's not what that 2
means, and I think that's what the footnote was directed at.
3 If you go back through the standard review plan and all the 4
sections where you do have accident analyses and look at the
.5 criteria, that is what is referred to in all the cases we 6-looked at.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
This relates actually to the 8
earlier comments by Mr. Ray.
Do you agree, though, that the 9
SERs are not part of the scope of 50.59?
10 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Right now they are not mentioned 11 in 50.59.
We have some additional proposal language that 12 would get those in play, and I'm going to speak to that in a i
13 second.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right.
Because how are we j
15 having a discussion about acceptance limits that are in SERs 16 for purposes of determining USQs under 50.59 if the SERs are 17 not part of the scope of it?
That has always been my 18 problem with this.
19.
MR. RAY:
I think your comments acknowledge the 20 industry has accepted that SERs are in fact things that must 21 be included within the scope of 50.59 notwithstanding the 22 fact that they are not mentioned.
23 I think the next slide that Tony is going to go to 24 lends itself to talking about Commissioner McGaffigan's 25 question, which is, what is the practical application of
(
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this?
What does it matter?
2 (Slide.]
3 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
May I ask one more on r
- 4 this?
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Sure.
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
By all means go to the 7
slide.
8 Did I just detect in 96-07, what Mr. Ray just said 9
about'as you get close to the acceptance limit, you 10 understand that the staff wants to take a look?
Maybe not 11 if it's going from 22-3/4 to 23-1/4, but as it gets close to
.12 30.
That isn't in 96-07, that concept, at the current time.
13 So that is something that, trying to work out something, you'd be willing to talk about.
14 15 The other way to get at it is this question of 16 minimal.
What is minimal?
Maybe minimal is something that 17 isn't one percent or something, or 10 percent, or whatever, 18 but maybe it's something that depends on, relative to the 19 acceptance limit, am I making more than an X percent 20-approach to the acceptance limit?
Is that what you are 21 going to be suggesting?
22 MR. RAY:
Let me clarify one thing and then answer 23 the question.
24 I didn't say it quite the way I think you repeated 25.
it back to me, Commissioner.
I said if the Commission said ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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that this is acceptable because it is far away from the 2-acceptance limit, which I think was what the Chairman 3
suggested, and you now make it close to the acceptance 4
limit, does that make a difference?
And I said yes, I 5
believe it did, because the Commission said this was okay 6
because it was far away from the acceptance limit.
Which is 7
a little different than saying if you are getting close to 8
the acceptance' limit, that's a problem in and of itself.
9 MR. PIETRANGELO:
And I'm not sure how many SERs 10 say that.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
The real point is, does minimal 12 have a definition, or should it, in and of itself, or can it 13 only be defined relative to the distance from some boundary?
14' That's really what it boils down to.
So I am interested in 15 understanding what you think the boundaries are and what in 16 fact your recommendation is, i
17 Yes, Mr. Ray.
18 MR. RAY:
Can I ask a clarifying question?
Is 19 minimal in that context -- I guess I thought about it 20 differently, which is minimal means minimal change.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I didn't make a statement.
I 22' asked a question.
I l
l 23 MR. RAY:
Okay.
Therefore,.I don't want to leave 24 it as if that's agreed.
I'm understanding minimal to mean 25
' minimal change, not minimal away from some limit.
)
1 1
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(
1 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Your reading of 96-07 was 2
correct.
3
[ Slide.]
4 MR. RAY:
To say it another way, I believe minimal 5
applies to the boundaries of the white square.
6 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let's go back to Part 100 7
guidelines.
8 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Part 100 is the darker gray 9-square where the tech spec limits are.
10 MR. RAY:
You bet.
And minimal we don't apply to 11 that boundary at all.
12 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Right.
This is similar to what 13 we said at the reg info conference.
If you accept how we 14 view it here, we don't believe there should be any reduction 15 in the margin of safety; we don't think you apply minimal to 16 that line.
If the consequence acceptance limits are used, 17 i.e.,
Part 100 or whatever else was in the SER, then you 18 don't use minimal for that either.
19 I think when we viewed the-Commission's SRM you 20 were talking minimal up from the white box on the inside.
21 MR. RAY:
Yes, that we can make the white box a 22 little bigger, and that would be okay.
We're not suggesting 23 we can go a little bit over the line when it comes to the 24 limits that have been set by the Commission in the tech 25.
specs, in the regulations, or any other place.
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MR. PIETRANGELO:
I guess our central point here 2
is and what makes this really germane to not only the design 3
basis discussion but the consequence, margin of safety, and 4
even probability discussion to some extent, is that the FSAR 5
was submitted when a plant went to get its operating 6
license.
It had all this information in it, including the 7
technical specification information lifted out of the FSAR 8-and made part of the operating license.
9 There is a hierarchy established with that 10 information that was selected to be the technical 11 specifications.
Then you apply 50-90; you need to get prior 12 review and approval before you change any of those values, 13 but the rest of that you shouldn't have to get prior review 14 and approval unless it's a similar change to one of those 15 limits.
16 I think the effect of how we have been treating 17 50.59 is to make all the information in the SAR a tech spec 18 limit, and I think that Niagara Mohawk case is another 19 example of where there was basically a degraded condition or 20 nonconforming condition that changed it from the white box 21 that was requiring a one-hour report like it was a tech spec 22 violation.
We think it's very problematic if you are going 23 to treat all the FSAR information like technical 24 specifications.
That's in no one's interest.
25 MR. RAY:
The sentences that I read earlier apply i
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to this light gray area surrounding the white area.
They 2
are basically saying that when the license is granted, it's
~
3 based upon that being a big area, and if you do something to 4
make it smaller, you need our prior approval.
.That's what 5
the staff is saying here.
6 Although Tony said that's the way it is, I guess I 7
would change that to say that's the way it has become.
It 8
certainly wasn't that way for a long time.
I've been in i
9 this business a long time, as most everybody else in the 10 room has been, and I can say that many things were put in 11 the SAR without any idea that that in fact was going to 12 become the case, j
1 13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How would the boundaries of i
1 l
14 your diagram fit with the ASME code?
15 MR. RAY:
The ASME code is in the area lying 16 outside, in the most dark band.
In other words, the ASME 17 code, having sat on the committee there too, I can say I
18' addresses where the limits should be on stress on other
]
19 things given that construction is imperfect, that there are 20 defects in the material, that the loadings are going to be 21 uncertain, and many other things.
You put in the ASME code 22 a margin against the true breaking strength of the material, 23 let's say,.which then allows you to define the next box in, 24 which are the limits of the ASME as they are adopted by the 25 Commission;-the Commission established for design.
Nobody I
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~
1 can go beyond those.
2 MR. PIETRANGELO:
In fact the source documents for 3
much of the design basis information are from the codes.
4 MR. RAY:
Then we back down further to say, okay, 5
here's how we are going to operate the plant, and for those 6
really important things, we are going to put them in tech 7
specs and make sure that you guys focus on them and don't go 8
outside that box without getting our approval.
What we are 9
now doiug is talking about other things that aren't in the 10 tech specs but are in the SAR, and thus to the issue of 11 scope that I addressed to you in the beginning.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Suppose we had a hypothetical 13 plant that had a containment with an internal design 14 pressure of 50 psia and ultimate failure pressure of 100 15 psia, but the accident analysis says that you can have 46 16 psia peak containment pressure.
Where do those fit on this 17 box?
18 MR. PIETRANGELO:
The 50 would be the acceptance 19 limit.
20 MR. RAY:
It would be from the inside out, 46, 50 21 and 80, I think you said.
22 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Right, 46, 50 and 100 from the 23 inside out.
I 24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So where is 46?
25 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Forty-six is on the perimeter of 1
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28 1
the white box.
2 MR. BEEDLE:
If I can take that a step further, i
3 you picked one that is very likely to be one that you can't 4
go to 46-1/2 or 47 without getting the Commission's approval 5
even though it's not in the tech specs.
Our dilemma is, how 6
do we pick those out from the zillions of other pieces of 7
information in the SAR if we are going to use the SAR?
8 That's the problem with the SAR.
If we change to 9
some other measure or some other definition of what we are 10 concerned about, then it's easy to capture the 46 in that, 11 and say, I don't want you to change the 46; I don't want to 12 make it 46-1/2 or anything else without my prior approval.
13 As long as we continue to use the SAR, we are in 14 the dilemma'that there is so much in there that doesn't have 15 that importance that I think we have a hopeless task.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes.
17 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
I was just going to say that I 18 hate to use the word right now, but it appears to me that 19 you are trying to risk rank the design and operating 20 envelope.
21 MR. RAY:
I wouldn't hate to use that word, 22 Commissioner Diaz, but I thought that this was a binary risk 23 ranking here we are talking about.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
It's a tier.
25 MR. RAY:
One of my committee's responsibilities ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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~
1 is to support from the industry side risk information, risk 2
ranking, application of risk, and I certainly want to 3
endorse the idea.
l 4
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Then you should have endorsed 5
option 5 of the staff's paper.
6 MR. RAY:
You have me at a disadvantage.
l 7
[ Laughter.]
8 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Can we go to the next slide, 9
please.
.10
[ Slide.]
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
We're not through yet.
12 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Following up on that 13 example, if those numbers had been 20, 50 and 100, what you 14 are saying is you understand why we would be concerned if we
'15 are already at 46, the operating envelope, but if it's at 16 20, then going to 21 or 22 or even 25 -- let me just ask 17 you.
If the inside envelope is 20, the next one is 50, the 18 next one is 100, where should we get concerned?
19
.MR.
RAY:
You illustrate the problem we have, 20 which is that there hasn't been, to use Commissioner Diaz' 21 ~
notion, a categorization of these things in terms of risk 22 ranking.
23 I can imagine a situation in which 20 would be 24 even something that the Commission wouldn't want you to 25 exceed without their prior approval for the reason, as the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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staff argues here, they just didn't review the analysis very 2
thoroughly because it was so far away.
Well, then you have 3
to make that clear, because we can't guess where that is 4
true without, as I said, converting everything into a tech 5
spec type limit.
6 We have got to somehow solve this problem.
I 7
understand that, and I don't have any silver bullets.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I want you to keep in mind your 9
risk categorization.
10 MR. PIETRANGELO:
We did mention that we would try 11 to say how we would incorporate risk insights during this 12 particular briefing.
I think in this case, besides the 13 example Harold gave you, we think there is an opportunity, 14 and right now-it's on very much an evolutionary path, to 15 change the perimeter of the gray box through risk informed 16.
tech specs and applying PRA even to the design basis 17 accident analyses.
NEI has a pilot project to do that, and 18 I think there is one pilot that is looking at coincident 19 LOCA and loop and all that kind of thing from a risk 20 perspective.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner Diaz.
22 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Even if we back away from 23 risk, and I'm going to go back to Commissioner McGaffigan's 24 20, there is an engineering judgment that is applicable to 25 these cases.
Engineering judgment tells us that there is no ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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\\
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~
1 1
difference in calculation accuracy or in measurement of 2
response of equipment between 20 and 21, and that's minimal.
)
3 MR. RAY:
Commissioner Diaz, I certainly agree 4
with you.
I don't want to prolong this part of the 5
discussion beyond what you all wish to do, but I do want to 6
say that we are in an era that is different than the past, 7
for whatever reason.
There is no point in debating why we 8
are here, but we are here.
One of the things I was going to 9
say in the history discussion was, I.think we have learned, 10 all of us, that we have got to deal with the literal 11 application of these words, like it or not, and we're here 12 to try and figure out how to do that.
13 I would just suggest to you that the existence of 14 the tech specs was in fact a binary risk ranking.
Stuff 15 went in there or it didn't go in there.
Now we are into a 16 different world.
I won't opine on that further.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
It was a binary ranking.
We 18 could argue all afternoon about to what extent it is risk 19 ranked.
One could argue that within the FSAR there is a 20 risk ranking.
Then if you were looking at relative risk, 21 you might have things in the FSAR and things in the tech 22 specs that cross each other one way or the other.
23 My basic point of view is that it's really a new 24 paradigm, but we will continue within the context of trying 25 to tinker at the edges, which is really where we are, in my l
l f
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opinion.
2 MR. RAY:
Regrettably.
3 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Could we go to the next slide,
'4 please?
We're running way behind here.
5
[ Slide.]
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
No, you're not behind, because 7
we asked the questions.
8 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Design basis interpretation.
9 There is some history to this one.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
There is history to all of 11 this.
12 (Laughter.)-
13 MR. PIETRANGELO:
First of all, it is an important
~14 issue because it's critical to both operability and 15 deportability determinations.
We put together guidance in
.16 the late 1980s or early 1990s.
We revised it last year.
It 17 has been with the staff since November.
18 Interpretation that was provided to a licensee on 19 a particular issue gave a new interpretation of'what the 20 50.2' definition of design basis entails, and that is any 21 information you used to determine the acceptability of the 12 2 design.
It's very much what we were just talking about.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Have you seen guidance 24L documents that say that?
25 MR. PIETRANGELO:
It's in a letter.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
A letter from?
2 MR. PIETRANGELO:
The agency to a licensee.
3 MR. RAY:
Yes.
As a natter of fact, it's 4
September 1997.
5 MR. PIETRANGELO:
September 12, 1997.
6 MR. RAY:
The way it's expressed, it says the 7
guidance in NUREG-1022 and this letter in September --
8 MR. PIETRANGELO:
There is a little bit more 9
history.
When we saw that interpretation, we immediately 10 wrote to the agency saying, wait a minute, there is a 11 Commission policy statement from 1992; there are other 12 regulatory guidance documents that we don't think are 13 consistent with this interpretation of what design basis 14 information entails.
15 There was more interaction with the licensee in a 16 subsequent letter that came out this past March which 17 mentions the consistency of this September 12th letter with 18 the deportability guidance in NUREG-1022.
I think that's 19 part of the problem.
We don't think those two things are 20 consistent at all.
21 MR. RAY:
It is precisely what I was alluding to 22 in the scope context.
Again, it is one sentence.
Let me 23 read it:
24 It would be inappropriate for the NRC staff at 25 this juncture to provide any new or different guidance ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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regarding the definition of design bases provided in 10 CFR 2
50.2 beyond that already provided in NUREG-1022, revision 2, 3
and the NRC's letter of September 12, 1997.
4 The problem is those two things are not 5
consistent.
6 MR. PIETRANGELO:
And if there was a new 7
interpretation, it was made in September.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
This is one example and it's 9
something obviously, if in fact what you say is true is 10 true, that we need to follow up on.
Has this been a 11 broad-based change that you have seen in guidance documents 12 or numerous communications between the NRC and licensees?
13 MR. PIETRANGELO:
There is no NRC guidance on 14 chis.
The deportability guidance which was just issued, I 15 believe in February of this year, was the NUREG-1022, 16 revision 1.
We know the staff asked some activities to look 17 at 50.72 and 50.73 reporting.
Our point is that that is 18 kind of trying to get at the symptom versus the root cause 19 of what is the appropriate interpretation of the --
20 MR. RAY:
You asked a question I don't think we 21 have a good answer for:
how prevalent is this?
I can't 22 answer that.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
That is what I mean.
There are 1
24 two questions.
One is, is it your understanding that the 25 definition of design basis has remained static since the i
I l
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days of the Atomic Energy Commission, or do you feel there 2
has been some evolution as the industry and we have 3
responded to events such as TMI, Browns Ferry, et cetera?
4 That is one question.
5 The second is whether there is either specific 6
change in guidance or there is some widespread de facto 7
change in guidance that exists through correspondence.
8 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think it's the latter, 9
Chairman Jackson.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Then you need to bring us that 11 data.
12 MR. RAY:
We understand.
13 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Wait.
I got calls this week 14 from a Region IV utility group, and they read everything 15 that comes out of this agency.
They're afraid about being 16 in willful noncompliance for not reporting in a similar 17 instance, and this has a destabilizing effect.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I'm not here to argue with you, 19 Mr. Pietrangelo.
I'm saying to you we are trying to reach 20 some point of where we can and should go on this.
If you l
21 want to be helpful to NRC, then what you can do is provide j
22 us with the information in a constructive way.
That's all l
l 23 I'm trying to tell you.
I f
24 MR. BEEDLE:
We will provide the Commission with a 25 letter.
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l 1
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
This is an issue that I 2
hadn't been up on,-but we have some draft report language 3
that may have been changed since.
I assume it reflects this 4
issue.
5 In order to resolve this design basis uncertainty, 6
NRC needs to reaffirm its interpretation of design basis 7
information consistent with NUMARC 90-12 or the proposed NEI 8
97-004 revision of NUMARC 90-12.
9 You said earlier that 97-004 had beed submitted to 10 us last year sometime?
11 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Last November.
12 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
With a request that we 13 endorse as a guidance document?
How is that transmitted to 14 the Commission?
15 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That particular letter, I 16 believe, was sent to Mr. Collins or Mr. Callan.
I can't 17 remember which.
Previously the NUMARC 90-12 document, we 18 did get a letter of acknowledgement from the director of NRR 19 at that time.
Subsequent to that there was a Commission 20 policy statement.
I can read you the language that we 21 quoted in the letter from the staff, but we'll provide that 22 later.
It basically said, our rationale for the design 23
. basis was consistent with the 50.2 definition.
Then you see 4
24' the NUREG-1022 guidance as.well.
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and guidance path, and then this letter came out that 2
seemingly was a new interpretation of that.
We tried to 3
-bring it to the agency's attention.
4 MR. RAY:
As I think we said at the beginning, 5
this is a bit of a sidetrack from the 50.59 and 50.71(e) 6 subjects that the Chairman indicated we are here to talk 7
about, but it bears on it to some extent.
So we bring it to 8
your notice and we'll follow up with a letter.
9 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Let's go to the next slide, 10 please.
11
[ Slide.)
12 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Part of the SRM from March 24 13 dealt with enforcement discretion for 50.59.
We talked 14 about this a little bit.
There seemed to be a disagreement 15 following the reg info conference session about what that 16 direction from the Commission meant with regard to
'17 enforcement discretion until the rule was changed to 18 incorporate the minimal standard versus the zero increase 19 standard.
I l
20 Car perspective was that we don't know how long l
21 the rulemaking is going to take.
We hope it's a going to be 22 a fairly quick one, but that in the interim, to avoid 23 examples like the South Texas one I went over before, there 24 shouldn't be enforcement action taken when the clear intent 25 of the Commission on minimal with regard to probability l
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increases or consequences or malfunction with a different 2
cause but the same result occurred out there.
3 The staff was apparently interpreting that as, 4
well, there still has to be enforcement action but instead 5
of a level 3 it's a level 4, or instead of a level 4 it's a 6
non-cited violation.
7 We thought this is very similar to two-year 8
discretion on the FSAR that ends this October.
We wanted to 9
raise this because we think there are some interpretation 10 differences between how we view what was in the SRM versus
'11 the staff.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How do you propose that we 13 proceed in a way to ensure consistency if there isn't a 14-definition of minimal?
15 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Our guidance, and we have the 16 initiative that the deadline is the end of this month, is 17 really less than minimal; it's negligible; or where there is 18 a discernible trend.
19 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
We are not going to get into 20 that.
21 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That's the industry guidance.
22 My point is that our standard is already higher in the sense 23 of less than minimal than what the Commission said in the 24 SRM.
So we think there will be consistency in that regard.
25-COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
The increase in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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39 1
consequence within acceptance limits.
You get into that I
2 same issue we just spent 20 minutes on.
3 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That's right, subject to 4
whatever the Commission decides, obviour' 5
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Are you basically suggesting a 6
blanket exemption to the industry?
7 MR. PIETRANGELO:
If it has the minimal consistent I
1 8
with the intent of the SRM until the rule is changed.
i 9
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I'm just saying there it, an 10 issue having to do with what guidance one is operating off l
1 11 of.
Otherwise, what you are saying is that you want a' 12 blanket exemption until the rule is done.
Is that what you 13 are saying?
14 MR. RAY:
I would be perfectly comfortable with 15 the notion that the staff simply needed to assert that 16 something wasn't minimal and thereby say that they had i
i 17 satisfied the Commission's direction if they felt it was
)
1 18 necessary to do so.
19 LVery often we see things identically in terms of I
20 their significance.
It's the compelling need to go ahead
~ 21 nevertheless that is the problem.
So I don't think we need 22 to debate as much as we think we do what is minimal and what 23 is~not, because I'm comfortable with any of the NRC managers 24-that I know making a judgment.about what is minimal.'
I just 25
.would like them to be able to say, well, yeah, I agree it's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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minimal, and therefore enforcement action is not required.
2 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Next slide, please.
3 (Slide.]
4 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Switching gears now to the draft 5
FSAR update guidance.
This is an overview slide for the 6
next few.
I want to talk about focus of what the update 7
ought to entail, some of the reconciliation issues that we 8
read in the SECY that transmitted the draft generic letter, 9
talk about enforcement discretion on 50.71(e) also, and give 10 our perspective on that.
11 Before we move to the next slide we want to thank 12 the Commission for issuing the draft generic letter.
I 13 think that was very helpful for us to get with the staff.
I 14 think we are on a positive track here, and I think you will 15 see as we go through the issues that this one is on a good 16 path to resolution.
17 Next slide, please.
18
[ Slide.]
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I detected a degree, shall we 20 call it, of excitedness in the April 16th letter from NEI.
21 You recognize that the guidance is interim.
22 MR. RAY:
Remembering only that the subject of 23
. implementation of 50.71(e), if we can separate it from the
'24 tide of 50.59, is one that I think has the character that 25 Tony just described to you.
It's on a track that is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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reasonable.
2 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think the staff did a good job 3
in the draft generic letter of spelling out what was 4
originally required under 50.34 in terms presentation of the 5
design basis for 50.2, the safety analyses, the operating G
limits, and then what we call a contextual description of 7
-those things.
8 Our guidance document basically had the same 9
focus.
I think our only point we have been discussing 10 lately is the limite on operation we would equate with the 11 tech spec values that were in the original SAR that were 12 lifted out and became the tech specs.
So they may or may 13 not be in the SAR, but in any event whatever is in the SAR 14 ought to be consistent with the tech spec values.
15 Next slide, please.
16 (Slide.]
l 17 MR. PIETRANGELO:
In the SECY to the Commission 18 the staff said there were three reasons why without change 1
19 they would be unable to cndorse NEI 98-03.
The first had to 20 do with removal of historical information; second, removal 21 of obsolete and less meaningful information; and third, 22 treatment of detailed drawings.
23-In our presentation material that we discussed 24 with the staff on May 27 we proposed some changes to 98-03 L
25 that were very consistent, we think, with the draft generic i
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letter that would resolve those issues.
2 In addition, we understand there are going to be 3
some comments made part of the meeting summary from May 27 4
that will provide additional comments that the staff has on 5
98-03.
We think we will be able to turn our document around 6
by the end of this month to continue the discussion.
So it 7
is very positive.
8 In term of the three issues that would preclude 9
endorsement, we were very comfortable that we could address 10 those concerns.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Could ! get you to go to slide 12 10.
13 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Yes.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Based on your interpretation of 15 design basis, would this approach that you are talking about 16 exclude updates for nonsafety-related issues involving 17 station blackout, ATWS, or safe shutdown under Appendix R?
18 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Absolutely not.
Those are 19 required under 50.71(e).
But I think the types of 20 information about those things you cited would fall into 21 these categories.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
What about FSAR supplements 23 submitted under the license renewal?
24' MR. PIETRANGELO:
It's required by Part 54.
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
That's right, but is it
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~
1 captured?
2 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Those are really talking about i
3 programmatic descriptions, and I might have to refer to the 4
PM for license renewal, Doug Walters here.
But my 5
understanding is that is what the rule calls for, to 6
supplement the SAR with programmatic descriptions made as a 7
result of the license renewal review.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Would you like to comment?
9 MR. WALTERS:
The position we have taken is that 10 under license renewal the FSAR supplement would be to the 11 same level and same detail that you have today, and it would 12 be the incorporation of, let's say, programs that you are 13 crediting-as aging management programs if they are not 14 already described.
So there are really two issues:
What do 15 you put in the SAR and then what is the level of detail?
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Can you give me a contextual 17 description of a hypothetical accident analysis?
18 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Not off the top of my head I 19 can't.
20 MR. RAY:
I think it's a redundancy, isn't it, a 21 hypothetical accident analysis?
All of them hopefully are 22 hypothetical.
. 23 MR. PIETRANGELO:
By contextual, we mean how does 24 it fit into the safety analysis.
This is the safety 25 analyses report.
By contextual, we mean how does that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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information --
2 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Can you give me an example?
3 Frame it out for me.
4 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think in terms of presenting 5
the design basis and the description of the system and how 6
it functions and all that, I would say what were the input 7
assumptions and parameters that were used and the input back 8
to the safety analyses.
I would try to keep that 9
description contextual to the safety analyses.
10 We know, though, that over time it got broader 11 than that.
I used to work for a vendor and we had separate 12 documents that were system descriptions that had the 13 nameplate data on the motors and the pumps, and all that was 14 eventually' included in the SARs, and the initial hazard 15 summary report, I don't think, had a lot of that kind of 16 information.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
On slide 11, how would NEI 18 98-03 change as a result of the draft generic letter's 19 content?
20 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I will do them one by one.
I 21 think I can do the first two, and I may need help on the 22 third.
23 On the treatment of historical information and the 24 revision that the staff has, we suggested removal of 25 historical information that wasn't going to change.
I think ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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the draft generic letter made some points about what was L
2 required by 50.34.
What we suggested to the staff on the 3
27th is rather than remove that historical information, it 4
could be reformatted into an appendix or some other part of 5
the document where it would not be subject to change or 6
subject to update.
That's our definition of historical.
l 7
On the second bullet, with regard to removal of 8
obsolete and less meaningful information, the draft generic 9
letter suggested that the licensee needed to have a process 10 to establish by some criteria what information was obsolete l
11 and less meaningful.
12 I think it would go back to the previous slide on 13 what the focus ought to be.
That process along with l
l 14 providing a~ rationale for the update of why that information 15 came out, a kind of documentation trail that with that L
16 process there would be flexibility to remove and less i
I 17 meaningful information.
18
.I think it's basically the same on the detailed 19 drawings.
As long as there was a process of paper trail to 20 say why the drawing went from very detailed to a schematic, 21 for example, I think we would tie it back to whether those 22 components listed on the drawings or in that detail were 23 credited in the accident analysis.
24 MR. RAY:
Let me interject here and say I believe 25 a lot of this activity is driven off from the need to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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conform the SAR to an acceptable scope for 50.59.
If you 2
once break that link, I think the question is, well, why not l
l 3
have detailed drawings in the SAR?
It's not that big a 4
deal.
You just take reduced size P& ids and put them in 5
there.
That's what people had done, and they thought that 6
was okay.
7 The reacon that we are driven back to take out all 8
of these details and slim it down to something that doesn't 9
have a lot of details in it is really in an effort to make 10 them not subject to 50.59, which is exactly what the staff 11 said it was for.
12 I just think we need to first break that link and 13 then decide what to do with the SAR, because we might come 14 out with different answers.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
My position is well known.
16 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Could we go to slide 12, please.
17
[ Slide.)
18 MR. PIETRANGELO:
With regard to the enforcement 19 discretion on 50.71(e), we are still in the middle of a 20 period of enforcement discretion that ends October 18 of 21 this year.
That enforcement discretion required the 22 licensee put a program on the docket to describe how they 23 would go back to validate and verify the information that is 24 in the SAR is accurate.
25 Given that this is the first stab at regulatory ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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guidance for 50.71(e), there is also an issue with regard to 2
completeness.
We've had a lot of discussion on whether 3
compl.eteness and accuracy are mutually exclusive or not.
My 4
own opinion is they :.e not.
Sometimes you are not entirely 5
accurate if you don't have all the information there.
6 The sub-bullets here.
7 There is no safety urgency for this information.
8 This is information that is already on the docket.
It's a 9
location problem per the regulation, and we recognize that i
10 under 50.71(e) there will be a need for many licensees to go 11 back.
They may not have captured some of the information 12 that was required.
l 13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Are you talking completeness or l
l 14 accuracy?
j 15 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think we are talking both, l
l 16 Chairman Jackson.
Again, in my own mind, it's hard to 17 separate the hvo-But we understand that what is in the j
i l
18 document needs to be consistent with what is in the plan and 19 the procedures.
There are different shades of this also.
I l
20 think for a lot of licensee, based on the feedback we have l
21-received, they will have identified a lot of the l
l 22 discrepancies in the FSAR, but they may not have clcsed them I~
23 out yet; they may be in the corrective action program.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Do you support the staff's 25
-approach to risk informed enforcement discretion periods?
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MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think that is a way to do it.
l 2
We did have a discussion about this in last week's meeting.
3 You don't want to get in a situation where you are off for a 4
couple of years and you don't know at the end of that period 5
whether everybody is going to be finally done with this or 6
not, and it's appropriate to get some feedback at some point 7
or some intermediate milestone that would give the 8
Commission a sense that the licensees are progressing with 9
this, and it makes sense to use risk ranking to focus on 10 those.
11 Right now, given that the FSAR, as I think Harold 12 has underscored, is not basically a risk-significant 13 document, there are certain systems you could pull out by 14 the maintenance rule guidance to say, yes, we can focus on 15 those first.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Wasn't that the original 17 go-forward direction?
It's certainly the accuracy issue on 18 the FSARs, that it should have been done on that risk ranked 19 basis.
So if in fact it hasn't been done on that risk 20 ranked basis, why should there be two more periods?
If the 21 most risk-significant things haven't been done, why should 22 there be two more years?
23 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think with regard to accuracy 24 it hasn't mattered at this point.
I said only a way, 25 because I may want to go back to that focus slide and make ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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sure all my design basis information is accurate and make 2
sure all my safety analysis inputs are accurate, because i
.3 there has been a lot of activity on those too, and that is 4
not with regard to risk significance That's another way to 5
approach the which ones I do first argument.
6 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Your recommendation is two 7
years?
8 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That's the normal cycle for an 9
FSA update period.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right.
It already will have 11 been two years in October, right?
12 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Yes, and I think there has been 13 extensive effort.
I think most people are there with regard
)
14 to accuracy, but the completeness part and given the new 15 guidance, we think it's appropriate to extend that.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Could I clarify?
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Sure.
Go ahead.
18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I guess I'm having 19 trouble with the accuracy and completeness as well.
Your 20 recommendation, as I understand it, is to not try to make 21 the distinction between accuracy and completeness.
22 If I were to take the staff's proposal and try to-
)
23 merge it with yours, give you six months for accuracy and 24 completeness with regard to the systems and the maintenance 25 rule or the most risk significance and give you two years ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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for the rest of it, but don't try to make this distinction 2
between accuracy and completeness on October 18, 1998, where 3
you would have to be accurate -- I don't want to get into 4
semantics over whether it was inaccurate because it was 5
incomplete, and maybe we just need a time period for both.
6 That's what strikes me as I listen to this for the first 7
time.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right, but the real issue is 9
that in the end, whatever the time period is, we're probably 10 guaranteed that you are going to come back and say we should 11 have two more years, right?
12 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Get the Bibles out.
13
[ Laughter.)
14 MR. RAY:
Is that a question requiring an answer?
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
No.
l 16 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think it's a question of 17 degrees.
As Harold underscored, there is a lot of other 18 information in the SAR. ~ We know there-is more important 19 information.than others.
We may want to use that as the 20 stick to. measure progress versus some other.
21 The final slide on SARs is the outcome slide.
22 (Slide.]
l t
23 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Our conclusion based on the 1
24 draft generic letter and.the meeting we had with the staff
]
25 on the 27th.
We don't see a need to issue the draft generic j
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letter, and purely from, we think, an efficiency and speed 2
standpoint, we can save a step in this process.
3 We are comfortable that we are on converging paths Y
4 with the staff based on the meeting.
It is more efficient
)
l 5
to seek public comment on a final draft reg guide endorsing 6
our guidance versus having to get formal public comment on I
7 two separate documents.
l l
8 We have talked about a tentative schedule for j
9 closure with the staff.
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
What is that?
11 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I'm about to go through that.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Tell me the ultimate drop-dead 13 date.
l 14 MR. PIETRANGELO:
By the end of the year.
{
I 15 Our other conclusion is we don't think there is a 16 need for rulemaking on 50.71(e).
That language is pretty i
{
17 straightforward, and I think we are comfortable with it.
18
[ Slide.]
19 MR. PIETRANGELO:
Finally, the last set of slides I
20 is on the scope of 50.59.
We have already discussed the 21 industry proposal at some length, about decoupling the scope 22 from the SAR, trying to define in A-1 of the rule what scope 23 is, and our April 16 letter suggested a focus on the safety 24 analyses in the SAR.
25
[ Slide.)
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MR. PIETRANGELO:
We think there are a number of I
2 benefits to doing this.
In the interest of time, we won't 3
do this, but we could give you several examples on full 4
safety evaluations that really have little or no safety or 5
regulatory value.
6 We did a survey last year as part of our 7
commenting on NUREG-1606.
The average full safety 8
evaluation time takes about 27 hours3.125e-4 days <br />0.0075 hours <br />4.464286e-5 weeks <br />1.02735e-5 months <br />, and that does not 9
include review tims.
We think there could be a substantial 10 benefit in terms of reducing the number of these full 11 evaluations.
We think it would improve the consistency 12 between the rule and implementation.
13 Finally, it gets at trying to define what is 14 important in the SARs from a 50.59 standpoint and would have 15 the effect of leveling this playing field on big SARs versus 16 small'SARs, and we know there has been a concern about that.
17-Last slide, please.
18
[ Slide.)
19 MR. PIETRANGELO:
We continue to believe there is 20 a need per the Commission's SRM to expedite the rulemaking 21 on'the threshold criteria, and that's the best way to get 22 long-term regulatory stability in 50.59.
I should have said 23 before that part of the rationale-for the enforcement 24 discretion until the rulemaking is complete is to get that 25 kind of stability in the short term, but'that's no ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 substitute for the rule language being correct.
(
2 We have not changed our mind about the need for a 3
rule change on the scope of 50.59.
We are prepared to work 4
in the two-step process.
We went over the rationale before, i
5 Commissioner McGaffigan.
I think the primary reason was l
6 after the individual visits we were convinced there was a 7
commitment on the part of the Commission to follow through 8
on this.
L 9
We are ready to go on this.
We had some l
l 10 preliminary contractor work done on this concept of safety l-l 11 analyses.
We are encouraged by the results we are getting i
12 thus far.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
When you talk about safety f-14 analysis, do you include shutdown safety, ATWS, station l
15 blackout, Appendix R safe shutdown?
16-MR. PIETRANGELO:
Yes.
It's all the required l
17' analyses as well as some of the requested ones for 50.71(e) l l
18' that had an effect on the analyses or were new.
j l
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Does that include human 20 performance and operational safety issues that are currently R21 covered in the programmatic sections of the FSARs?
j i
22 LMR. PIETRANGELO:
Our initial work that we have 23 asked the contractor to help us with went back through all 24-the generic letters and bulletins and tried to find where
{
25 there was a request for a safety analysis to be submitted by l
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the licensee.
That could be with regard to some human 2
performance, but I'm not sure.
We did find out of a 3
population of about 300 generic letters about 21 that did in 4
fact request the licensee to submit a safety analysis; in a 5
population of about 100 bulletins there are about 29 that 6
requested a safety analysis.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner McGaffigan.
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I want to understand how 9
the 50.59 process works in a real plant.
I had an 10 interesting conversation a month or two ago with a young man 11 who I won't name but who had worked in plants.
We got into 12 a discussion as to whether we approve changes in plant 13 managers and whether a safety evaluation has to be done to 14 determine whether there is an unreviewed safety question 15 when Joe replaces Tim.
16 I said to him, Oh my God, they can't be doing 17 that.
18 But do you?
When Joe replaces Tim as head of the 19 operations department, is there a multi-thousand dollar 20_
evaluation made as to whether that is an unreviewed safety 21 question?
22 MR. RAY:
No.
It's a fair question, but the 23 answer is there is nothing in any set of. reference documents 24 that I could.think of that would mean that was a change to 25 the facility.
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COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
That was the example 2
this person used.
3 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That was a title change.
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
The title change one I'm 5
well aware of.
We have a license amendment in at the moment 6
because it's a tech spec change.
This particular utility 7
did not, as the staff recommended a long time ago, get all 8
these titles out of the administrative section of the tech 9
specs.
So we have a license amendment in at the moment to 10 change plant manager to vice president, and we are going to 11 have to go through a license amendment process.
12 I assume, Mr. Ray, that Southern California Edison 13 probably took the staff's advice in the late 1980s and got 14 all of that stuff out of its tech specs.
Or maybe you never 15 change titles.
16 MR. RAY:
We were a lead plant for standard tech 17 specs, and I don't believe that'the titles are in the i
18 standard tech specs.
19 MR. BEEDLE:
The situation you'are referring to, 20 though, the plant had in their tech specs and in their FSAR 21 titles.
When they changed the title of their senior manager 22 on site, then they ended up doing 50.59s for that change as 23 well as tech spec changes in order to accommodate that.
y 24 Some plants do 50.59s when thei change people; when they 25 change a plant manager, they do a 50.59 on it.
1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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A lot of that is driven by the request or comments 2
by resident inspectors, and in some cases regional-based 3
inspectors, and so the plant reacts to that and says it's a
]
4 change in the facility, whether it's people or process or I
5 equipment, and they effectively come to ALSAP where they do 6
50.59s.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
We aren't supposed to 8
vote in public, but I suspect there is no Commissioner who 9
would ever ask you to do that in the history of the agency.
10 I get a little bit frustrated.
I used to work on Pentagon 11 type issues.
We would sneeze in the Congress and they would 12 catch pneumonia at the Pentagon.
So I understand.
Some of 13 chis stuff is self-imposed.
That's the only point I'm 14 trying to m:ake.
15 MR. BEEDLE:
I would agree with that, and I think 16 that just points out the significance of the work that is 17 ongoing right now on 50.59 and 50.71(e).
The complexity of 18 the process is such that you have several thousand people 19 out there trying to utilize this rule and they all look at 20 it a little bit differently, and where there is ambiguity or 21 a vague definition, then they all interpret it a little bit 22 differently.
I'm not saying that they are wrong, but I'm 23 telling you that it yields strange results, this being one 24 of them.
25 MR. RAY:
We need to get up and give the staff a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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chance to address this issue.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes.
3 MR. RAY:
I just want to say one thing in l
4 conclusion.
I'll just say it very briefly.
I perceive that l
5 we will engage in a continuing quest for the unattainable, 6
and that is an' objective definition of minimal, and so on.
l 7
I think we ought to get beyond that.
I believe the managers l
8 in the NRC are responsible public officials who, if they are l-L 9
given the latitude to decide that something is okay because 1
10-it's minimal, will make the right decisions, and we don't i
11 need to try and find some ruler to give them all that they l-12 can apply to everything out there.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Then you will head off the next 14 Tower's parent study.
15-MR. RAY:
Chairman Jackson, if I had the 16 opportunity to head it off, I would make that commitment.
I l
17 don't believe that's in my_ purview.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you very much.
We l
19 appreciate it.
20 Let's hear from the NRC staff.
l 21 Good afternoon.
l, 22 Mr. Thompson.
o
.23 MR. THOMP3ON:
Thank-you, Chairman Jackson, l
24 Commissioners.
This is a very important issue both for the i
25 NRC and for"the industry.
I think you've heard today that i
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we have made a lot of progress working well together, and we 2
certainly intend to continue that.
3 Before I turn the remarks over to Dave Matthews, 4
who will be making our presentation today, also at the table 5
we have Mark Satorius, who is the deputy for the Office of 6
Enforcement, and then Sam Collins, who is has a few opening 7
remarks.
8 MR. COLLINS:
Madam Chairman, Commissioners, the 9
majority of my opening remarks have been covered in some 10 context.
I would just acknowledge that today's me~ ting is 11 part of the continuing dialogue and interaction with the 12 Commission on chese important elements of the regulatory 13 process.
14 The staff is and has demonstrated in the past it 15 is willing to continue discussions with NEI on guidance 16 documents for implementation.
As Hugh so noted, we are here 17 today to provide the Commission progress reports since the 18 last meeting that was held on this topic in December and to 19 respond to the Commission's questions.
With that, I will 20 turn the briefing over to David Matthews.
21 MR. MATTHEWS:
Good afternoon 22
[ Slide.)
23 MR. MATTHEWS:
In the interest of time, I do have 24 a slide on background which I will have you look at briefly, 25 and then I am going to discuss the central issues that we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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have today on the updated FSAR guidance and 10 CFR 50.59.
2 Recommendations were provided to the Commission in 3
these areas, among others, in 97-;;b in September 1997.
We 4
had an immediate action shortly after that to address a 5
problem relative to regulatory stability in terms of the 6
treatment of USQs during periods when a plant might be shut 7
down and needing to restart and their relationship r safety 8
and operability.
9 The Commission approved and we issued a revision 10 to Generic Letter 91-18 to address that issue.
I've heard 11 feedback from many arenas that that was long overdue, well 12 needed, and has resulted in an increased amount of stability 13 in terms of the treatment of USQs and their relationship to 14 operability.
15 We providea a briefing to the Commission in 16 December, which this is in effect an update to.
We have 17 provided the Commission a proposed generic letter which 18 would address interim guidance on updating of FSARs in 19 accordance with 50.71(e) 20 Prior to that time, because of concerns associated 21 with the enforcement policy and its relationship to 22 treatment of violations under 50.59, we established an 23 enforcement panel.
We did that in November of 1997.
We did 24 it by the instrument of an enforcement guidance memorandum 25 which is publicly available that we issued at the end of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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October.
It guides the enforcement discretion the staff f
2 exercises under the current policy when dealing with issues 3
of 50.59 and attempts to resolve concerns associated with 4
relative safety significance.
5 We also have a draft rulemaking proposal on 50.59 6
that has matured to the point that it is out for office 7
concurrence throughout the NRC and is with the Office of 8
General Counsel.
This is with a goal of providing the 9
Commission a draft rulemaking package by the requested date 10 of July 10th.
At the present time we are on track to 11 provide you that rulemaking package as requested.
12
[ Slide.]
13 MR. MATTHEWS:
Turning now to the FSAR, I wanted 14 to provide a little context for future discussion and 15 reminding everybody that the FSAR serves several purposes in 16 our regulatory structure.
1 17 The requirements are outlined in 50.34 (b) relative I
18 to its contents, and 50.71(e) relative to its updating.
i 19 However, the last four bullets on this slide
{
1 20 indicate that.it is relied upon in many contexts, one of 21
-which is the scope of 50.59 in that-50.59 limits its scope 22 to the facility as described in the safety analysis report.
23 But it is also relied upon as a reference for the vast 1
24 majority of licensing actions that the NRC undertakes in 25 response to licensee requests for amendment.
1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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It is also used as a document for NRC inspectors 2
in that it describes the facility and is utilized in many 3,
different ways to implement our inspections procedures 4
associated with an examination of the conformance of the 5
facility with the agreed upon licensing basis of the plant 6
as. reflected in the FSAR.
l 7
I mentioned 50.59.
It also, as was mentioned 8
earlier today, is a document that forms a basis document as 9
we move into a renewed license arena, and the license 10 renewal rule in Part 54 envisions that it would be 11 supplemented as described in that rule and then continue on 12 as one of the foundations for describing the licensing basis 13 for a renewed license.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me ask you a question.
15 Does 50.71(e) apply directly to the license renewal 16 supplement?
17 MR. MATTHEWS:
Yes.
Not by its word, but the 18 license renewal rule indicates that 50.71(e) applies as well 19 to the supplement.
So indirectly I would. argue 50.71(e) 20 applies.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
The scope of 50.59 is described l
22 as the " facility -- in the safety analysis report."
Does L
23 that mean the FSAR, the FSAR and other documents, the 24 updated FSAR?
25 MR. MATTHEWS:
It means the facility's FSAR as l-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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described in 50.34(b) as updated in accordance with 2
50.71(e).
(
l 3
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right.
4 MR. THOMPSON:
That's clear.
5 MR. MATTHEWS:
Let me now turn to slide 5.
6
[ Slide.)
l 7
MR. MATTHEWS:
In developing guidance on the 8
updating of FSARs to provide additional guidance beyond that 9
which was available with regard to the implementation of
-10 50.71(e) we examined alternative approaches to providing 11 this guidance.
The staff concluded that guidance could be i
12 provided that would provide enhanced recognition of the 13 requirements of 50.34 and 50.71(e) and at the same time 14 would provide some needed stabilization to the issue 15-surrounding uncertainties as to what should and shouldn't be 16 in a FSAR.
17 We also concluded that there was benefit to going i
18 forward with this guidance at this point in time and there l
19 wasn't a need for rulemaking to address the problems that 20 had been identified.
21 That's a long way of saying that the issues that 22 had been raised associated with information that was 23 contained in the FSAR whose safety significance might not be 24 all that evident or reflected obsolete, outdated or 25 historical information could be dealt with under the current L
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regulations by treating it in a different category, putting 2
it in a different appendix or a different portion or 3
formatting of the FSAR, and therefore increase the utility 4
of the FSAR for the purposes which I described in a prior 5
slide.
6 Yes, rulemaking could have been undertaken to 7
eliminate the need for some of that information from even j
8 being in the FSAR.
The staff didn't feel that it was really 9
a worthwhile use of the Commission's resources to undertake 10 that rulemaking given that we think the purposes could be 11 served by this interim guidance in that regard.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Would our consideration of the 13 information required be limited to the information 14 originally required by 50.34 (b) ?
i 15 MR. BURNS:
No.
16 MR. MATTHEWS:
I think our consideration of 17 information always ought to be confined by the description 18 of information in 50.34 (b).
That information may have 19 changed over time and therefore the updating requirements l
20 would possibly include more information, but not information 21 of a different type.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So that covers ATWS and all 23 these other things that we talked about?
l 24 MR. MATTHEWS:
Yes.
25 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Are you going back to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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that slide you were on?
2 MR. MATTHEWS:
Yes.
I did just want to indicate 3
that the guidance would be applicable to plants undergoing
'4 decommissioning in terms of updating.
5-We did propose in connection with that revised 6
guidance to the Commission that enforcement discretion be
.7 applied in the following way,.and we have discussed this 8
already to some degree.
9 In light of the fact that we have already had a 10 longstanding involvement in the issue of improving the 11 accuracies of FSARs' stemming way back to a policy statement 12 that the Commission issued and an attendant or related 13 enforcement discretion that was granted relative to that 14
. accuracy, our view is that with regard to the information 15' that is in an FSAR or should have been there relative to the 16 plant as it stands today that the FSAR should be accurate by 17
.the-deadline that the Commission-imposed by vi rtue of 18 granting the original discretion.
19_
Although accuracy and completeness we could argue 20 semantically, the staff adopted those terms really for 21 convenience.
The concept, I think, is generally accepted
- 22
.that the FSAR should describe the plant as it is built and 23 being operated.
That's accuracy.
If there is.information g
l
[
24 that should have been included in the FSAR even though it 251 might exist somewhere.else, owe think it ought to be included ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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within the FSAR at one location, and that's completeness.
2 With regard to the issue of completeness, 3
particularly in light of the enhanced guidance we are 4
proposing to be provided, we proposed a two-step process, 5
that the material of the highest safety significance, and we 6
would use as a descriptor of that the description that was 7
utilized in the regulatory guidance we published associated 8
with the maintenance rule, ought to be included within the 9
FSAR within six months of issuance of the final generic 10 letter, and we think that an additional period of time could 11 be provided for the information of less significance.
12 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Could you clarify for me this 13 enforcement discretion?
Is there a compelling health and 14 safety issue by which the accuracy is demanded by 10/18 and 15 the completion of high safety significance six months later?
16
.Is there any reason why we should maintain that?
17 MR. MATTHEWS:
I have a personal view on the 18 significance of accuracy.
Given the use of the FSAR and 19 that it is relied upon as a description of the plant, 20 sometimes to the exclusion of actually going out and 21 looking, I think accuracy does have a significance, and I 22 think it probably goes beyond completeness in terms of that i
23 significance.
24 MR. COLLINS:
Commissioner, broadly looked at, the 25 staff's main focus would be that if it's being used, it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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should be accurate.
To what cxtent we are amenable to 2
enforcement discretion is in fact, I believe, a resource 3
question; at what point do we believe it is necessary to 4-focus the industry's resources on this type of a goal within 5
a defined period.
I think that in and of itself is a matter 6
of some discretion by the Commission to determine how 7
exactly do we want to dictate the industry use those limited 8
and vital resources, because this is an important topic.
9 But day to day, give" that this document is 10 utilized, it should be viewed as being accurate when it's 11 used.
So I think there is a window in there.
What that is 12 is probably a matter of some discretion and Commission
~
13 guidance.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
This is what you are proposal 15 is in terms of what you call the risk informed.
16 MR. THOMPSON:
That reflects the staff's current 17 proposal.
There are some judgments in that.
18 MR. MATTHEWS:
This does reflect a phased 19 approach, which I'think is responsive also to the staff's 20 concern that we not come upon another two-year deadline, l
L 21 then look, find we are not there, and our choice has become 22' very limited, and then you have to'ask the safety
~ significance' question, and if you can't answer that it's 23 s
24 overwhelmingly safety significant, what action do you take 25 at that point?
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I think the idea of periodic checking and feedback 2
is important, which this does.
l 3
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I want to ask a 4
technical question as to how all this relates.
Even if we 5
take the accelerated NEI approach, which I think in answer 6
to the chairman they said by the end of year they would hope 7
you would be in a position to endorse 98-03, you get into a 8
situation where the final guidance may not be out, whether 9
it's by the generic letter, which NEI would say is a slower 10 approach, or this convergence that appears to be occurring 11 where you would endorse in a reg guide their language.
12-Should we pragmatically exercise enforcement 13 discretion at least to the point where a document gets out 14 that everybody agrees on?
Does that bear on the accuracy 15 issue?
16 MR. SATORIUS:
One thing that I think is important 17 to point out is that the enforcement policy as written today 18 provides for discretion as long as licensees are finding and 19 fixing these problems in the FSAR.
So we have discretion 20 available to us beyond what we would propose here.
That 21 would continue to be available for the staff to utilize.
22 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
So what you have here is 23 a blanket enforcement discretion which you propose to l
- 24 terminate at some point, and then you have remaining within 25 the policy some discretion to use even after the blanket ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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discretion terminates.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right, but that would be true 3
even after 10/18/98.
4 MR. THOMPSON:
That's true.
If it's 5
self-identified, if they have an aggressive program that 6
they are looking hard and identifying the errors, they get 7
credit for that.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But does not the current 9
enforcement policy also have a risk gradation built into it 10 also?
11 MR. SATORIUS:
It utilizes risk-informed 12 information in order to make our determinations.
13 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But then you are 14 expending resources of your own and the licensee, saying 15 it's a 3 that deserves to be a 4 or a non-cited, et cetera.
16 MR '. THOMPSON:
That's a process that we would not 17 necessarily have to go through.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You could ask this question.
19 Is there enough of a distinction between accuracy and 20 completeness, in your minds, to be able to draw this line at 21 10/18/98?
22 MR. SATORIUS:
I am a member of the 50.59 review 23 panel, and myself and other members of the staff hear every 24
. proposed 50.59 violation, and we do determine that there are 25 some that you can say there is an accuracy issue here or ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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there is a completenece issue here.
I think the answer to t
l 2
your question is, yes, we can determine the difference 3
between the two, and we have been able to do that.
4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But in your opinion, as you 5
have gone through it, are licensees able to consistently l
6 draw a distinction between the two so that we aren't just 7
creating problems for them and problems for us?
8 MR. COLLINS:
I think it's probably not 9
appropriate to ask licensees to have a program that is l
10 formulated that way such that they would have to focus 11 resources on accuracy versus completeness.
I'm not smart 12 enough, for example, to be able to dictate that to happen.
13 I think the goal would be for the documents to be both 14 accurate and complete at a given point in time, which is at 15 the discretion of the Commission, given the licensee's best 16 use of resources, with a caveat that if the document is to 17 be used to make regulatory decisions, then that portion of 18 the document needs to be accurate.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
That's why you really want to 20 put this 10/18/98 here.
21 MR. THOMPSON:
Yes.
22 MR. COLLINS:
That was the original thought.
23 MR. THOMPSON:
It might be helpful if we take a 24 look at and give you some examples of the types that fall 25 into the two categories so at least you could have available ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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to you how we bend those.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
3 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
If I may go a little bit 4
further in time and look at 2/28 and the fact that that is 5
also a deadline date that the Commission has set to get 6
clarification on the scope and how all the things are coming 7
together, and the fact that, as we all understand from the 8
50.59, the real issue is definition, how do you define 9
things so that people can actually work with them?
10 Would it be appropriate to be ac strict as we want 11' on a date in which we have really defined what the 12 requirements are, be it 10/18 or 2/28 or six months later, 13
'whatever it is that is appropriate, but without ambiguity 14 and "Oh, I didn't understand it was accuracy or this was 15 completeness" or we just frame it at one point and say this 16 is it?
17 MR. THOMPSON:
That's certainly one approach that 18 we could do.
We gave you our recommendation.
For the 19 reasons we said, it's our best recommendation right now, but 20 that doesn't mean that there is not merit in other 21 approaches.
We have worked with this issue a fairly long 22 time.
There is enough information available, enough 23 guidance available that the dates that are spelled out in 24 our proposal are, I think, doable in most cases.
25 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Okay.
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MR. THOMPSON:
There may be some people that 2
started late and didn't have it, or they may have a bigger 3
problem than we originally anticipated, but as I said 4
earlier, if they are really working at it and they are 5
self-identifying it, we think that the current enforcement 6
policy gives us flexibility and gives them flexibility not 7
to face escalated enforcement.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
I 9
[ Slide.]
10 MR. MATTHEWS:
On page 6 I wanted to summarize the 11 staff's review to date of NEI 98-03.
We shared the 12 substance of these reservations with NEI the last time we 13 met with them, and that is why they indicated they were well 14 aware of what the staff's views were.
15 In addition, of course, they had the benefit of 16 seeing the draft generic letter, which would have also 17 articulated to them what differences there were between that 18 and 98-03.
19 Ue did perform a preliminary review in response to 20 their request for our review and endorsement of 98-03, and
-21 we initiated that review in November when we received that 22 document.
23 The document that we received in draft form as 24 originally proposed the staff would not be able to endorse 25 short of also proposing changes to our rules with regard to I
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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the content of FSARs.
We are receptive to the possibility 2
of endorsing a revised 98-03 if it is revised to address 3
those particular shortcomings.
4 We think there is a path to resolution in terms of 5
. coming to an agreed upon NEI document, but to some degree 6
that is very heavily dependent upon their ability to respond 7
to us with a document that reflects those changes, and we 8
don't have an estimate right now of how soon they will be 9
able to do that, although they have committed that they will 10 try to get us back a document very shortly.
11 We committed to provide them our preliminary 12 comments such as they have been developed to date.
We even 13 proposed that since we shared them with them orally in a 14 public meeting, we may attach the description of those 15 concerns to the back of the meeting summary so they would 16 have that, and that we would endeavor to deliver a letter to 17 them very shortly thereafter articulating the concerns with 18 more specificity to give them a basis for making changes 19 that will have the effect of hopefully being as close as 20 possible.
21 In terms of overall schedule, though, I think you 22 heard from them an estimate of December as a possible 23 schedule for bringing that to closure.
Recognize that the 24 staff, if it is to endorse a' document like that, would need 25 to endorse it by means of a reg guide, and we have to have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 public participation in that process.
So we would be faced 2
with coming to resolution with NEI, then issuing a draft 3
regulatory guide proposing to endorse NEI's document, 4
receiving the public comment on same, and then going through 5
the final steps associated with a final reg guide.
6 That process is one that we can proceed on.
We 7
outlined that process, by the way, in the Commission paper 8
and did so in some detail.
9 The staff believes, however, that issuing the 10 draft generic letter for public comment as it has been 11 proposed to you and then issuing that in final form could 12 take place as soon as four months after your agreement with 13 the contents of that generic letter.
Thic would also have 14 provided public comment during the summer on that document 15 and would have met that need.
16 At a later date, then, that generic letter could 17 in effect expire as far as its utility is concerned once we 18 endorse a reg guide that would have been developed in 19 parallel with that process.
{
l 20 That's a long way of saying that we think we can I
21 move in a parallel process, and would succeed with interim 22 guidance being out there sooner.
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I don't totally 24 understand that.
I'm looking at the paper.
From the date j
25 of Commission approval of the generic letter, which hasn't ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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occurred yet, it's 150 days to issuing the final generic l
2 letter.
So we are talking close to the end of the year in l
3 any case; we are talking November.
And we have run a 4
parallel process that could be resource intensive.
You are 5
talking about workshops and all that.
6 We will have a public process if you get to the 7
reg guide, as you said, a reg guide endorsing 98-03, but we 8
don't have two competing documents out there, 98-03 as they 9
try to adjust it to meet the staff's desires, and this 10 generic letter simultaneously out there.
11 MR. MATTHEWS:
I have on the one hand a generic 12 letter that has already been prepared that you've heard from 13 NEI they have no problem with in terms of its content.
It's 14 ready for issuance.
So it can get out very quickly.
I 15 have, on the other hand, the possibility that we are going 16 to be able to reach closure with NEI on a document I haven't 17 seen the nature of yet.
So I have a little difficulty in 18 being as certain with one date as I am with the other.
19 I feel more comfortable with the staff's ability 20 to issue the generic letter and go through that process of 21 public participation and workshops than I do on setting a 22 date for when I'm going to be able to issue a draft reg 23 guide.
24 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
What process did we 25 follow in the maintenance rule?
There we endorsed an NEI ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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reg guide, right, 94-01, or something like that?
2 MR. MATTHEWS:
Tom Bergman was intimately involved i
3 in that process.
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Did we start with a 5
generic letter and have competing documents?
6' MR.. BERGMAN:
There was a parallel reg guide very 7
early in the process.
NUMARC 93-01 eventually took it over 8
and the staff never issued that original regulatory guide.
9 Going from one revision to another even of NUMARC 10 93-01 is a great deal of work.
If you look at Reg Guide 11 1.160, Rev 2, after several years of work we still had about 12 a dozen exceptions or augments to 93-01 that we took in that 13 reg guide.
14 That process to go from Rev 0 t o Rev 2 -- Rev 1 15 was withdrawn shortly before Rev 2 came ciut of NUMARC 93-01 16
-- was a good year of work between the st.aff and NEI to come i
17 up'with a workable Rev 2 to 93-01, and we still had to put a 18 lot in the reg guide.
The scope of this FSAR thing is at i
1
^
19
.least as comprehensive as 93-01.
20 MR. PG4TTHEWS:
If there are no more questions on 21 the FSAR updating, I'd like to turn to a discussion of-22 50.59, 23
[ Slide.]
24 MR. MATTHEWS:
Slide.7 summarizes in bullet form a
>25 paraphrasing of the Commission's SRM on 97-205 as it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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pertains to 50.59.
There were many other issues in that 2
SRM.
3
[ Slide.]
4 MR. MATTHEWS:
I wanted to summarize what the 5
staff has done in response to that SRM in connection with 6
50.59.
j 7
We have prepared a proposed rule package which 8
addresses the following issues:
9 It adopts an approach for allowing for minimal 10 increases in probability and consequences.
11 It establishes a definition for acceptance limits 12 for defining margins.
13 It introduces the possibility that we would allow 14 equipment malfunctions with a different result, which is 15 consistent with an NEI view that that is more important than i
16 malfunctions of a different type, and we agree with them.
17 It also addresses collateral changes to Part 72 18 because the rules are parallel with regard to ISFSIs and 19 spent fuel storage.
20 We have before you in a COM SECY of a number I 21 can't recall right now three remaining questions that 22 stemmed from that SRM.
23 That is, your suggestion that we consider 24 including a provision that would permit accidents of a 25 different type with minimal safety impact; if they were ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 1
identified, that the change, if it were to result in that, t
'2 would still be an acceptable change without NRC approval.
3 That we reconsider acceptance limits for l
4 consequences.
Given that the staff had viewed that 5
acceptance limits for consequences ought to be that 6
reflected as'the acceptance limit in the FSAR, NEI has i
proposed that acceptance limits either established by the 8
SRP, the SER or regulatory limits represent the degree of 9
freedom that they would be permitted to have without NRC 10 involvement.
The staff has been opposed to that.
11 I'm going to comment on that because I want to 12 make a summary statement about this issue in a moment after 13 I mention minimal reductions in margin of safety.
14 The Commission also asked us to consider 15 regulatory language that would permit minimal reductions in 16 margin of safety provided you put some limit on the word i
17
" minimal."
This was a proposal that the Commission made to i
18 the staff in that SRM.
19 The staff had not proposed minimal decreases in 20 margin of safety to be permitted.
We viewed that permitting l
21 that in the light of 50.59 was translating 50.59 from 22 essentially a procedural regulation or a process-related l
23 regulation into a safety-related regulation in that we were 24 now going to permit changes to margins of safety that had 25 been established through the licensing process.
i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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We went into more detail in our memorandum as to 2
the reasoning behind that, but I wanted to then reflect in 3
terms of that issue and the one on acceptance limits for 4
consequences that also raises that same issue in that we 5
felt that that was proposing a change in philosophy with 6
regard to the role that 50.59 plays in our regulatory 7
framework; that we were moving it into an arena that it was 8
starting to become a safety regulation as opposed to what 9
the staff had traditionally viewed 50.59 as being, and that i
10 being one that controlled process and regulatory process in 11 terms of setting thresholds for when the agency needed to 12 become involved and whethe'r to agree with a change or not.
13 Many changes that might exceed the threshold for i
14 needing staff review still ultimately are acceptable, but i
i 15 when we deal with issues that have started to threaten the 16 margin of safety established through the licensing process, 17 we feel the NRC needs to be involved in those decisions 18 before we agree with that change.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thinking outside the box, is 20-there a way to reconcile those two, or should it become a 21 safety regulation in the sense that you are describing it?
22 I know I am putting you on the spot.
.23 MR. MATTHEWS:
You've heard this phrase.
It's a 24-matter of degree and how much flexibility and freedom that 25 the Commission chooses to want to give the industry.
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COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Minimal.
2
[ Laughter.]
3 MR. MATTHEWS:
If it's minimum, then I would argue 4
the best way to do that would be to confine it to being a 5
procedural regulatien, noc a safety regulation.
6 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
That might not be responsive 7'
to the Commission's original intention.
It might be that we 8
might want you to think outside of the box and see not what 9
is traditional, but what is effective, what is protective, 10' and what can be really.done.
11 MR. MATTHEWS:
I understand that.
I think the 12 staff took a hard look at it from that perspective.
I don't 13 believe our answer that we provided you in May was 14 conditioned on.it just being traditional.
I think we 15 actually viewed that there was a potential that margins of 16 safety might be reduced in ways that were unintended, and 17 that the staff, upon having the opportunity to review them, 18 might not have agreed with.
19 Let me go back to the issue of consequences.
20 We've seen charts and boxes, but the essential issue as I
. 21' understood it, as NEI has described it to us in meetings 22 that predated this one, was that they would like the 23 utilicies to have the ability to move from the acceptance 24' limit that they established in their FSAR and that the staff l
25 agreed with to another limit if they so chose or as the l
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result of a facility change that would be an SRP established 2
limit or a regulatory limit without NRC involvement.
3 Those changes could be significant.
They might be 4
so significant as to engender, if they were submitted as a 5
license amendment, our inability to make a no significance 6
hazard claim on that license amendment.
7 If you were to accept the NEI proposal as I've 8
understood it in the past, there was a great deal of change 9
that could be made on their own volition without NRC 10 involvement, and the staff is concerned that it's a greater 11 change than we would want to approve, and may include 12 changes that we wouldn't approve were they submitted.
13 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I want to stay on this 14 consequence thing.
I'm going to bo back to the first one 15 too at some point, accident of a different type.
16 You heard NEI earlier today say it may be a matter 17 of degree, that they understand if the limit is 50 and they 18 are at 46.5 that you might want to know about it.
What they L
19 don't understand is if the limit is 50 and you are 21.9 20 going to 22.3, whether that's a big deal and whether we are 21 wasting our and their resources on that.
I heard that there 22 is some middle ground here, that a line in the sand sort of 1
l 23 appror.ch may not be the right thing.
24 What has confused rae all along is why what tney l
l 25 say in NEI 96-07 with regard to the basis for the tech spec, 1
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where they say the same thing, that they find acceptance 2
limit either in regulations or SERs or standard review l
i 3
plans, and that's okay with you guys; that's what Sam 4
Collins' letter said in January; but when it comes to the 5
consequences where they use almost verbatim verbiage it's l
6 not okay.
7 I think Mr. Ray said occasionally 20 going to 22 l
8 might be significant.
How do we define that without having l
9 everything submitted, without having every change of what 10 may be a trivial nature submitted to us?
11 I remember Commissioner Rogers when we dealt with l
12 tritium and the.2 millirem increase when the acceptance 13 limit was rems, a.2 increase in consequences under some 14 design basi ~s accident scenario at the site boundary.
When 15 we get.through this process, that can't be, and I know it 16 won't be, because that can't be a 50.59 unreviewed safety 17 question.
That is one metric by which we can judge whether 18 we have succeeded.
19 Is there a middle ground there?
20 MR. MATTHEWS:
I think the staff in the Commission 21 paper, and I'm ready to discuss it here, was going to 22 propose a middle ground.
23 I have to be honest.
The statements of Mr. Ray 24 with regard to that issue on consequences was the first time 25 that we heard that kind of view out of NEI, because previous ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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'to this point in time it has been on consequences, an issue 2
of whether or not they could move from the acceptance limits 3
identified in the FSAR up to those values you just 4
described, SRP, SER, or regulatory limits, without staff 5
review.
6 Our view is that a minimal change, as the 7
Commission had suggested, is the way to put a limit on that.
8 We have a view that is still undergoing staff review of what 9
would put some limits on minimal increases.
What I am 10 giving you is the opposition to a position we've heard to 11 date from NEI that they'be allowed to move to the regulatory 12 limit or to the acceptance limit in the SRP irrespective of 13 the licensing review that was conducted on the acceptance 14
. limit they offered in the FSAR originally.
'15 We think the FSAR value provides a very sound 16 basis for determining the baseline from which we ought to 17 measure minimal, and we would suggest that is a good
- 1. 8 baseline for a regulatory process in' terms of when the NRC
-19 ought to get involved.
20-COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Would you say that again?
I'm 21 sorry.
22 MR. MATTHEWS:
We think'the value that the 23 licensee offered in the FSAR with regard to the consequence 24' attendant'to a given design basis accident is a good
~25.
baseline from which to measure a minimal increase which will ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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=
1 attempt to put boundaries around through the rulemaking 2
process, and that will provide the flexibility.
3 What we are opposed to is a position that would 4
allow increases from that FSAR value up to regulatory 5-limits, SRP limits, or if the staff had done a SER 6
evaluation that came up with a consequence that exceeded the 7.
FSAR value.
We view that since this is a regulatory 8
threshold that we should only hold them accountable for the 9
analysis that they did themselves, namely, the FSAR value, 10 and the changes about that are what.need to be examined.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
When I once asked the 12 question, why is 96-07 okay when it discusses acceptence 13 limits for margin of. safety as defined in the basis for any 14 tech spec and why it isn't okay for consequences, one of the
~ 15 answers I got was a legal answer:
because (2) (i) mentions 16 the words "previously evaluated in the safety analysis 17 report" and (2) (iii), where the margin of safety is defined 18
.as the basis for tech spec doesn't talk about "as previously 19 evaluated."
i 20 Is it the legality that leads you to the 1
. 21
. rejection, or is there a substantive reason as to why NEI is 22 okay in looking to acceptance limits as they have defined 23 them in (iii) but they are wrong on (i) ?
l' 24 MR. MATTHEWS:
It's a good question.
What I have
{
25 been speaking to is the issue of minimal increases in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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consequences attributable to that portion of 50.59 that 2
describes that.
3 On the other issue, margins of safety, our view is 4
that the margin of safety, whic'n is the difference between 5
the value proposed and accepted by the staff and some 6
ultimate design value or some regulatory limit, that is an 7
established differential that should be maintained.
8 Otherwise we are in effect changing the philosophy of $0.59 9
and allowing margins of safety to be decreased voluntarily.
10 So we think you need to hold the margin of safety.
11 However, there are instances where calculations 12 are done associated with consequences related to design 13 basis accidents for which a plant change that would result
'14 in a minor change in those accident consequences would be 15 acceptable.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Maybe I misinterpreted 17 Mr. Collins' letter from January.
Didn't you endorse NEI 18 96-07 as it dealt with acceptance limits for margin of 19 safety?
20 MR. MATTHEWS:
Yes.
That's not a problem.
They 21 didn't propose any flexibility on that point and NEI has 22 never proposed any flexibility.
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I thought they did.
24 MR. MATTHEWS:
Not that I'm aware of.
25 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Maybe I'm misreading ANN RTLEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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96-07.
2 MR. MATTHEWS:
Can you clarify, Tony?
3 MR. PIETRANGELO:
I think what David just 4
described we would disagree with.
The example I would cite 5
is what has been in NSAC 125 since 1989 and is still in NEI 6
96-07.
It's a containment heat pressure example that the 7
Cha11 man went over.
Clearly in that we would not call the 8
margin of safety the difference between the calculated value l
9 in the acceptance limit.
l 10
.t's back co our box chart again from the 11 acceptance limit to the failure point.
He referred to that 12 as the margin of safety, and we would disagree with that.
13 That has never been the industry position.
14 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
They are endorsing you 15 but they are using a different definition.
16 MR. PIETRANGELO:
That's correct.
17 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
So you didn't really 18 endorse them on that.
l 19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You endorsed the words but you 20 have to give definitions.
21 MR. MATTHEWS:
Yes, and I've indicated that here, l
22 that we had proposed that we would provide a definition of i
l 23 acceptance. limits to be applied to calculations of margin of L
24 safety.
We may disagree with NEI with regard to what margin l
25 we are talking about.
They would like it to be a margin l
l i
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outside of a box that we would choose, but I don't think 2
there is any disagreement with regard to the existence of a 3
terminology of minimal decreases in margin of safety.
L 4
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
One last question.
On 5
the accident of different type with minimal safety impact, 1 6.
read the staff paper as at least being willing to go to "is 7
created" as opposed to "may be created," which is what we 8
say in Part 60; is that correct?
9 MR. MATTHEWS:
Yes.
Understand there is an 10 attendant consequence to that.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I understand.
But it 12 has the beauty of at least being consistent with what we did 13 and defendable, and we're not asking for speculation on a 14 licensee's part.
15 MR. MATTHEWS:
You are correct in that regard.
16 The possible unattractive consequence is that if they were 17 to fail that test and bring that to us as an amendment, it 18 is not an amendment that we could issue as a no significance 19 hazard amendment.
If a hearing were requested and accepted, 20 we sculd have to hold that hearing before we could issue the 21 amendment because of'the nature of 50.92.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Why don't we go on.
23-
[ Slide.]
24 MR. MATTHEWS:
On the next slide we provided some 25 preliminary views.
I put it that way because this ic just ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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that, a proposal on how to deal with issues associated with 2
minimal increases of probability and consequences.
3 These are conditioned somewhat by our interaction 4
with the industry and the Commission and the puolic on the 5
development of the reg guides associated with risk-informed 6
licensing decisions.
7 In there, as you know, there is a terminology of 8
"very small" wherein the staff would entertain license 9
amendment requests that would allow very small increases in 10 probability relative to core damage frequency and large 11 early release fraction.
So to some degree we are talking 12 about potential changes being in what I would refer to, as 13 you've heard it before, the negligible category, below those 14 levels when you are dealing with similar parameters.
15 We have proposed that we permit increases of 16 probability of accidents in the order of one percent without
.17 the need for any NRC review.
18 With regard to reliability or probability of 19 equipment malfunctions, we think that there could be a 20 graduated establishment of threshold based on safety 21 significance.
22 With regard to consequences, we have attempted to 23 address this issue that consequences, when they are very far 24 below regulatory limits, we are probably more flexible on 25 than consequences that start to approach regulatory limits.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How are licensees going to l
2 reach these numerical conclusions?
Are we saying they have 3
to have at their disposal the way to numerically determine 4
the changes in risk to support compliance?
5 MR. MATTHEWS:
It's going to be a challenge.
I i
6 think we would expect that they would invoke the same level 7
of precision on this problem as they did with regard to the 8
initial calculation that formed the basis for the value in 9
the FSAR.
You only have the tools that you have.
'10 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
How do you go about verifying 11 the adequacy of a licensee's assessment?
Is the inspection 12 staff going to do that, and how are they going to do that?
13 MR. MATTHEWS:
That is going to be a daunting task 14 as well, but the inspection staff is going to have to at 15 least recognize that this-is going to form a basis for 16 licensee decisions and be able to appreciate the 17 reasonableness with which they have done that.
We are going
'19 to have to have inspection guidance.
That will have to be a 19 companion piece.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You're going to have to kind of 21.
take selected systems based en risk and have the SRAs take a 22 look at it.
23 MR.- MATTHEWS:
Yes.
24 MR. THOMPSON:
It would be that type of approach 25 and probably a sampling basis.
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1 CHA1.@;AN JACKSON:
Okay.
l l
2
[ Slide.]
l 3
MR. MATTHEWS:
You've heard from NEI with regard l
4 to their view with regard to the concern they have in that 1
j 5
they'think that the scope of 50.59 ought to be moved away 6
from the FSAR.
7 We think that the criteria changes that we have 8
proposed ought to go forward now.
We haven't examined 9
alternatives for scope beyond those we discussed with you 10 last year with regard to going to some sort of risk informed 11 perspective associated with essential information or less 12 essential information, j
l 13 NEI has offered us the outline of a proposal in a 14 meeting a month or so ago which we are willing to go further 15 with and examine.
Our idea was that during the course of 16 the year, as they flesh that proposal out, we'll be very 17 receptive to hearing that and seeing whether or not it 18 provides a feasible alternative.
19
[ Slide.]
20 MR. MATTHEWS:
With regard to 50.59 enforcement 21 discretion, you asked us to exercise discretion during the 22 period.of any rule change associated with 50.59.
We would 23 propose to continue the current policy, which does have 24 provisions for discretion.
25 We have added to that, as you know, the 50.59 l
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enforcement panel, which meets as needed on every 50.59 2
enforcement action.
We would propose as a result of our 3
experience gained in that panel to bring back to you in our 4
July rulemaking package the criteria that have evolved and 5
that we would propose we would embrace in more concrete form 6
for this purpose.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I understand what you 8
are doing is consistent with the reading of the SRM based on 9
what you had originally proposed.
10 What we did on the FSAR update where we had this 11 blanket time period during which we were trying to solve a 12 problem until October 18th of this year, or whatever other 13 time we decide, and then have discretion after that time 14 clock is over with, why is that approach not what the staff 15 originally proposed in 97-205, and why shouldn't we at least 16 consider the approach that.has been suggested at least for 17 minimal increases in probability?
18 I think for consequences Tony was trying to slip 19 one in there on that one.
l 20 There is a lot of procedure that gets into.
This 21 enforcement panel is presumably resource intensive.
We are 22 spending a lot of time thinking about whether something is 4 23 or non-cited.
Maybe the right thing to do is to sort of say 24 they are all minor until proven otherwise and therefore we 25 are not even going to bother to write them up if they are in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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this absolutely minimal category.
2 MR. MATTHEWS:
Let me turn to Mark first.
3 MR. SATORIUS:
The short answer is that, quite 4
frankly, they are not all minor.
It does take some staff 5
review to determine there are a lot of them that are minor.
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
If they fit the category 7
where they are going to be after the rule goes through, they 8
are going to be not only not minor, they are not going to be 9
rules violations at all.
That's what the NEI proposal is.
10 For those things that meet a minimal test, or in their view, 11 a negligible test, we shouldn't be spending a lot of 12 resources on them, at least as regard to probability.
With 13 consequences there may be some.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I think, though, in order for 15 you to do that -- I'm not the lawyer -- you have to exercise 16 discretion with respect to something.
It strikes me that 17 you then basically have to consider whether you want to tell 18 the staff to, on an interim basis, adopt NEI guidance i
19 vis-a-vis what a minimal increase would be, barring modulo 20 working through what the ultimate situation is going to be 21 with the rule.
They have to operate off of something, if I 22 take Mr. Sartorius' point of view that not everything is 23 necessarily trivial.
So you have to have some guidance that 24 you operate off of.
The Commission in principle could say, l
25 okay, on an interim basis use NEI's guidance and then go l
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forth and do the rule.
2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
We could also amend the 3
enforcement policy in some way.
4 How many of the level 4 violations that we are now 5
criticized for increasing from 500 to 1,400 over the last 6
two years are in this area?
7 MR. SATORIUS:
Probably about 40 or 50.
Since we 8
started the panel process, I think in October or November, 9
we have probably considered 60 or 70 issues ?.otal.
We 10 average about two or three a week.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So that's not where the problem 12 is.
13 MR. COLLINS:
Commissioner, to respond generally, 14 the staff is not opposed, with propar guidance, EGMs, 15 enforcement guidance memorandums, and training to the 16 inspectors, to providing for a period of implementation and 17 stabilization.
During that period I think it's a learning 18 process both for the industry and for us as regulators, 19 including.the inspectors, to understand how the process is 20 to be implemented, and there is clearly a transition cost 21 with that, and there is a savings in resources over a graded 22' period of time.
23 I would propose that during that period, though, 24 we still go through at least a phased manner of 25 understanding the industry's implementation and testing our ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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inspection and our enforcement guidance.
That would be 2
probably with a panel very similar to the one that Mark is a 3
member of now.
The disposition of those issues, however, 4
would be a matter of discretion.
5 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Right.
6
[ Slide.]
7 MR. MATTHEWS:
I just wanted to conclode with what 8
we saw as the next steps.
I think they are probably 9
obvious.
10 We were looking for Commission direction on the 11 proposed generic letter on FSAR updating.
Attendant to 12 that, of course, is the acceptance or at least the response 13 to the staff's proposal with regard to enforcement 14 discretion in the area of FSARs.
15 We were looking for a response back to the issues 16 we raised in our recent May memorandum with regard to 17 clarification or possible modification of the SRM in several 18 areas.
19 We have, as I mentioned, a rulemaking package 20 embracing those elementu that I referred to.
That is very 21 far along.
We met with the ACRS this morning.
We are 22 meeting with the ACRS again, I believe on the 17th of June.
23 We are scheduling CRGR review of that rulemaking package, 24 and we expect that to come to closure quickly.
25 And we are going to continue interactions with NEI l
l l
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with regard to all of these topics.
They have several 2
guidance docu
's on our plate that relate to this issue.
3 They've got 97-04 with regard to design basis issues; 4
they've got 96-07 with regard to 50.59 issues; and they've 5
got 98-03 with regard to FSAR issues.
So we are actively 6
reviewing and working with them on these documents in the 7
hopes that we can come to agreement on industry guidance 8
that could conform to our current regulations or those that 9
have a likelihood of being imposed.
10 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Can I ask a process 11 question?
It came up at the reg info conferences, putting 12 these documents out as they come to us and the generic 13 letter which you got permission to do, and you had the May 14 27th meeting, thE 50.59 memo that you've given to us for 15 resolution.
I've noticed over the time I've been here this 16 disconnect between what we allow you all to do and what we 17 allow NMSS to do.
NMSS is off doing Part 35 rulemakings and 18
' putting straw men out on the Web and coming to us 19 occasionally for a little guidance, and a lot cf guidance 20 this month.
There are various and sundry other quite open 21 processes they run.
22 One of the criticisms that we get is we oftentimes 23-aren't as open on the reactor side, and I understand the 24 Commission over the years has kept you on short leashes on 25 the reactor side, like the design reviews on the modern I
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1 reactors, et cetera.
2 MR. COLLINS:
I'm not sure I like that analogy, 3
but I understand your point.
l 4
MR. MATTHEWS:
My image of a short leash is two 5
links.
6
[ Laughter. ]
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
A metaphor came from one 8
of the staff I talked to.
9 2HAIRMAN JACKSON:
Why don't you look into 10 creating a 50.59 chat room?
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Would the staff 12 appreciate the greater. flexibility in their interactions?
13 Public interactions.
Not in closed doors, but public 14 interactions with the regulator on what you all call 15 pre-decisional documents.
I don't know what Carl calls 16 them, because he gets away with a lot more flexibility.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let's let him answer it.
18 MR. THOMPSON:
Obviously it is very helpful to 19 have un open and frank dialogue.
What you have to be 20 comfortable with is what the stage and level of maturity of 21 these documents is.
What I guess I would like to propose is 22 that we would come back and maybe propose some guidelines 23 for you.
We have done that in the NMSS area.
We have told 24 you when we are going to put things up on the Web.
We have 25 told you when we are going hold public workshops.
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Maybe just put some guidelines out.
I think we 1
2 can do that and give us some more flexibility as well as 3
give you an understanding of how we would decide that.
4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
The only question and probably 5
why it has been on such a short leash, aside from the issues 6
involved, is to ensure that it is not just one channel, that 7
if it is public and you are dealing with the stakeholder, 8
that you deal with all the stakeholder.
There are 9
different constituencies, and NEI is a critical one, but 10 it's not the only one.
11 MR. THOMPSON:
We have special arrangements with 12 Agreement States.
They are kind of co-regulators, and we 13 have a certain degree of flexibility there.
14 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Another document that 15 some of us, because it's about six inches thick, have been 16 slow to vote on -- the Chairman, give her credit, has --
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
That's because I'm a fast 18 reader.
19 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
It's the decommissioning 20 reg guide.
Even as we voted on it it was on the Web page.
21 We must have a pretty big Web page, by the way.
22 MR. COLLINS:
Your point is well taken.
It's a 23 worthy pursuit.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Chat Room 50.59.
25
[ Laughter.]
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0 97 e
1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
On behalf of the Commission, 2'
let me thank NEI and the staff for presenting to the 3
Commission the results of their respective evaluations and 4
recommendations for improvements in the areas of FSAR 5
updates and 10 CFR 50.59.
6 The staff's Commission papers on these areas and
.7 today's presentations are helpful in describing the options 8
available to addressing these two important issues.
While 3
obvious differences remain between the staff and NEI on i
10 issues related to 10 CFR 50.59, it's encouraging to note j
11 that clarity and agreement are being reached in the area of 12 FSAR update requirements.
13 The conclusions reached in this area appear to be 14 appropriately focused on meeting and properly enforcing the 15 existing regulations, ensuring that information is i
16 maintained current and that new information is appropriately 17 and accurately included.
18-At the same time, these conclusions allow 19 licensees the latitude to reformat to some degree, to slim 20-down and to simplify their'FSARs.
21 With respect to 10.CFR 50.59, things'are in a 22 state of flux, but it is clear that the staff is working 23 hard to responsibly implement Commission direction, and the 24 extent to which the staff's conclusions are adopted will be 25-considered obviously by us in the near future.
NEI's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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comments in this crea have been helpful in presenting 2
alternative approaches to the changes we seek to make, 3
particularly with respect to 50.59, including the scope 4
issue.
S-Unless there are further comments, we are 6
adjourned.
Thank you.
7
[Whereupon at 4:30 p.m. the briefing was 8
concluded.)
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22-23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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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 SAFETY EVALUA"' IONS, FSAR UPDATES AND INCORPORATION OF RISK INSIGHTS PLACE OF MEETING:
Rockville, Maryland DATE OF MEETING:
Thursday, June 4, 1998 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:
4 v
Reporter:
Mike Paulus
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t Nuclear Regulatory Commission June 4,1998 Industry Perspectives on i
10 CFR 50.59,10 CFR 50.71(e),
and Related Issues i
Y' l
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Industry Presenters a Ralph Beedle, Senior Vice President and ChiefNuclear Officer, Nuclear Generation, Nuclear Energy Institute a Harold Ray, Executive Vice President, Southern California Edison Company a Tony Pietrangelo, Licensing Director, Nuclear Energy Irt,Jtute V'
t l
/
l
a i
Overview a SRM on SECY-97-205
= Use of acceptance limits a Design bases interpretation
= 10 CFR 50.59 enforcement discretion a Draft FSAR update guidance a Scope of 10 CFR 50.59
't* '
SRM on SECY-97-205 March 24 SRM provided important direction e Expedite rulemaking to clarify USQ criteria e Exercise enforcement discretion prior to rule change a Reconcile draft industry and NRC staff guidance on FSAR updates
't" 2
O O
1
~
l l
Acceptance Limits l
l
= Provide clear and objective threshold l
criteria for increases in consequences i
and reductions in margin of safety
= Can be found in NRC safety evaluation reports
= Discussed with NRC staff on April 23
'1F '
l l
OPERATING AND SAFETY MARGINS F
y[i hi
+y
^ 6 Uj f,.fh;, [1 t
w
~
g gg
- .', 5-y __ __
f' 3
Vi~
Design Bases Interpretation Critical to operability and deportability determinations a NRC staffinterprets as any information used to determine the acceptability of the design
= Inconsistent with past guidance and policy 1"
10 CFR 50.59 Enforcement Discretion
= No enforcement action should be taken pending rule change when...
. increase in probability is minimal
. increase in consequences is within acceptance limits
. malfunction with different cause, same result
= Similar to existing two-year discretion on FSAR updates pi i
4
Draft FSAR Update Guidance
= Focus of UFSAR updates
= Reconciliation issues
= 10 CFR 50.71(e) enforcement discretion
= Outlook 1
Y' l
l Focus of UFSAR Updates a Design bases per 10 CFR 5.0.2
= Safety analyses a Contextual description related to above, including limits on operation V'
S
i V
Reconciliation issues I
. Treatment of historical information
. Obsolete and less meaningful information
. Detailed drawings a Discussed revisions to NEI 98-03 consistent with draft generic letter in M'ay 27 meeting with NRC staff
,, V '
Le 10 CFR 50.71I'e)
Enforcement biscretion a Longer implementation period appropriate
. no safety urgency
. information already on docket
= Nominal two years recommended
. with allowance for timing of cycles
. provide feedback at intermediate milestone
,, V '
6 L_______________________
Outlook
= No need to issue draft GL for comment
. Convergence underway l
. More efficient to seek public comment on i
draft regulatory guide endorsing NEI 98-03
. Tentative schedule for closure l
= No need for rulemaking on 10 CFR 50.71(e)
Y' i,
l l
Scope of 10 CFR 50.59
= Industry proposal in April 16 letter l
. Decouple scope from FSAR
. Defme scope directly in rule
. Focus on safety analyses as the appropriate scope
't* '
I 7
Potential Benefits
= Fewer evaluations oflittle or no safety / regulatory value
= Improved consistency between rule and implementation
= Address concerns about small vs. big FSARs j
i l
is conclusions Need to expedite rulemaking on threshold criteria to restore regulatory stability
. Rule change is necessary to better focus the scope of10 CFR 50.59
= Prepared to work with NRC in two-step process per SRM V'
8