ML22032A155
| ML22032A155 | |
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| Issue date: | 01/27/2022 |
| From: | NRC/SECY |
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1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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STRATEGIC PROGRAMMATIC OVERVIEW OF THE DECOMMISSIONING AND LOW-LEVEL WASTE AND NUCLEAR MATERIALS USERS BUSINESS LINES
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2022
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The Commission met via Videoconference, Christopher T.
Hanson, Chairman, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, Chairman JEFF BARAN, Commissioner DAVID A. WRIGHT, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:
ANNETTE VIETTI-COOK, Secretary of the Commission MARIAN ZOBLER, General Counsel
2 NRC STAFF:
CATHERINE HANEY, Assistant for Operations, Office of the Executive Director JOHN LUBINSKI, Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS)
ASHLEY ROBERTS, Deputy Director, Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs, NMSS TED SMITH, Project Manager, Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs, NMSS RICHARD TURTIL, Senior Financial Analyst, Division of Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support, NMSS KATHERINE WARNER, Senior Health Physicist, Division of Radiological Safety and Security, Region I ROBERT LEWIS, Deputy Director, NMSS THERESA CLARK, Deputy Director, Division of Materials Safety, Security, State, and Tribal Programs, NMSS MARYANN AYOADE, Medical Physicist, Division of Materials Safety, Security, State, and Tribal Programs, NMSS JAMES THOMPSON, Senior Health Physicist, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, Region IV 1
3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 9:01 a.m.
3 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Good morning, everyone.
4 I convene the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public 5 meeting for the purpose of discussing the NRC's strategic considerations 6 associated with Decommissioning and Low-level Waste Business Line and 7 the Nuclear Materials Users Business Line.
8 It's very important to keep the public informed of the 9 Agency's development in these areas of high interest. So, I thank all of you 10 for supporting this meeting today, and I'm looking forward to a great 11 discussion.
12 In fact, I might note, at our last appearance, Commissioner 13 Baran, Commissioner Wright, and I, when we last appeared before 14 Congress, before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in 15 December of 2021, easily half or more than half of the questions we received 16 were regarding the topics that we're going to be discussing this morning.
17 So, I find this Commission briefing particularly timely.
18 We'll hear from two NRC staff panelists this morning.
19 First to present are the participants for the Decommissioning and Low-Level 20 Waste Business Line. Next, we'll take a short break. And then, we'll hear 21 from the staff panel for the Nuclear Materials Users Business Line. With 22 each panel, we'll hold questions until the end, and then we'll hear questions 23 from the Commissioners to the panel.
24 Before we start, I'll ask my colleagues if they have any 25 remarks they would like to make. No?
26 Okay. With that, we'll begin with the first panel. The first
4 1 panel will be kicked off this morning by NRC's Deputy Executive Director of 2 Operations, Cathy Haney.
3 Cathy?
4 MS. HANEY: Good morning, Chairman Hanson and 5 Commissioners.
6 We appreciate the opportunity to provide you with an 7 update on the Decommissioning and Low-Level Waste and the Nuclear 8 Materials Users Business Lines, commonly referred to as DLLW and NMU, 9 including current activities and accomplishments, business line priorities, 10 challenges, and emerging focus areas. These business lines are directed 11 by the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, or NMSS.
12 Our business lines continue to focus on ensuring we have 13 the right people at the right time to address challenges in this dynamic 14 environment, which you will hear more about from today's panelists.
15 I would like to take this time to commend the staff in both 16 business lines for their hard work, diligence, and commitment to achieving 17 the NRC's mission. They've adapted to a hybrid work environment and 18 continue to leverage technology to advance the mission of the 19 Decommissioning and Low-Level Waste and Nuclear Materials Users 20 Programs.
21 Today's briefing will be provided by two panelists, which I'll 22 introduce separately. The first panel will be the Decommissioning and 23 Low-Level Waste Business Line.
24 Next slide, please.
25 Our first speaker is John Lubinski, who is the NMSS Office 26 Director. He will provide an overview of the Decommissioning and
5 1 Low-Level Waste Business Line.
2 Ashley Roberts, Deputy Director of the Division of 3 Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs, will present the 4 key successes and ongoing initiatives in the business line.
5 Ted Smith, Project Manager in NMSS, will discuss trends 6 in reactor decommissioning and how the staff are transforming the Reactor 7 Decommissioning Program to adjust for these trends.
8 Rich Turtil, Senior Financial Analyst, will present on 9 decommissioning funding assurance.
10 And then, we'll end the first panel with Katherine Warner, a 11 Senior Health Physicist in Region I, who will present on the ongoing efforts 12 in the Regions on uranium recovery and decommissioning oversight 13 activities.
14 I'll now turn the presentation over to John to kick us off with 15 Decommissioning and Low-Level Waste Business Line activities.
16 Next slide, please.
17 MR. LUBINSKI: Thanks, Cathy. Appreciate you kicking 18 off the meeting for us this morning. Good morning, Chairman and good 19 morning, Commissioners.
20 Next slide, please.
21 Today's presentations will cover several of the significant 22 business line activities and achievements, and we'll have a special emphasis 23 on the 2022 NMSS focus areas. These focus areas are: meet our 24 mission; focus on our people and our future, and optimize.
25 This includes ensuring greater use of data and risk insights 26 in our decision-making, focusing on recruiting, developing, and retaining our
6 1 workforce, and continuing our work on optimizing our processes.
2 During today's presentation, please note in the top right 3 section of the slides you will find these icons indicating which focus area is 4 demonstrated by each topic we are discussing.
5 Next slide, please.
6 We meet our mission by ensuring the effective and 7 efficient licensing and oversight of sites undergoing decommissioning and 8 through ensuring the safe handling of low-level waste. The business line is 9 charged with ensuring effective licensing and oversight of both power reactor 10 and material sites undergoing decommissioning; the licensing and oversight 11 of uranium recovery sites, and ensuring the safe use, handling, and disposal 12 of low-level radioactive waste. The business line also oversees waste 13 incidental to reprocessing and provides support to the Department of Energy 14 for activities related to the West Valley Demonstration Project Act. The 15 business line manages these functional areas in coordination with other 16 federal agencies, states, and Native American tribal governments, as well as 17 licensees and the public.
18 Next slide, please.
19 Currently, we are seeing a significant growth in licensing 20 and oversight activities as a result of the increasing number of power 21 reactors transferring to active or accelerated decommissioning, many 22 immediately upon closure. In this environment, we anticipate increased 23 communication across the industry on best practices and processes, as we 24 have seen with other business lines.
25 To adapt to this, the business line is enhancing and 26 risk-informing processes and optimizing our approach to meet the increase
7 1 in licensing and oversight activities. For example, the business line 2 leverages partnerships with other offices, Regions, and Agreement States, 3 on the ongoing revisions to materials, uranium recovery, and 4 decommissioning inspection guidance, using tools from the Be RiskSMART 5 framework to evaluate and revise inspection guidance.
6 Additionally, the business line experienced a reduction in 7 the number of NRC uranium recovery licensees and a decrease in the 8 corresponding workload since Wyoming became an Agreement State.
9 However, now we are starting to see a slight increase in workload in this 10 area, as the staff works with states and the Department of Energy to 11 terminate licenses for uranium recovery sites under state license.
12 This fiscal year, the staff is working on a transition of two 13 Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act Title 2 sites to the Department of 14 Energy under general license. Specifically, these are the Western Nuclear 15 and Hecla Durita sites, and we expect more of these in the future.
16 Next slide, please.
17 We are promoting a culture of continuous development, 18 supporting our people and optimizing our programs by implementing 19 knowledge management and process improvement activities. The business 20 line delivered training on several topics. These included writing requests for 21 additional information and applying the new Alternative Disposal Request 22 Guidance.
23 The staff also created several Nuclepedia articles on topics 24 including decommissioning; the hydrogeology of the Indian Point Energy 25 Center; background on the American Nuclear Corporation site; a page on 26 below regulatory concern and clearance; and descriptions of innovative and
8 1 advanced technologies for decommissioning and remediation at 2 radiologically contaminated sites.
3 I've highlighted only a few of the accomplishments in this 4 business line, and additional activities and accomplishments will be 5 described in the remainder of this presentation.
6 That concludes my remarks this morning, and I would now 7 like to turn the presentation to Ashley Roberts.
8 MS. ROBERTS: Thanks, John. Good morning, 9 Chairman and Commissioners.
10 Today, I will share several of the key significant 11 accomplishments and other activities of the Decommissioning and 12 Low-Level Waste Business Line since the last Commission briefing in 13 November 2020, as well as forward-looking activities for the program.
14 Next slide, please.
15 Since promulgation of the dose-based license termination 16 rule in 1997, the business line has successfully completed many 17 decommissioning, uranium recovery, and waste management activities.
18 Among these activities are the safe and effective decommissioning of 27 19 research and power reactors and 51 complex material sites.
20 In addition, the business line developed guidance 21 documents, reviewed and approved decommissioning activities, and 22 provided oversight to the license termination process for uranium mill tailings 23 sites, military and non-military radium sites, and provided support to the 24 naval reactors decommissioning efforts related to the Surface Ship Support 25 Barge.
26 To support these activities, we participated in
9 1 decommissioning, uranium recovery, and waste-management-related 2 rulemaking efforts, guidance and inspection manual revisions, and led 3 working groups for various decommissioning-related activities; for example, 4 the reactor transition, financial assurance, and decommissioning working 5 groups.
6 The chart illustrated on this slide provides you with a visual 7 representation of the number of license terminations executed since 1998.
8 Fifty-one complex materials sites, 19 research reactors, and eight power 9 reactors, totaling 78 licenses safely and effectively terminated over the last 10 20-plus years. Four of the 78 license terminations were completed during 11 calendar year 2021. The staff terminated the licenses for unrestricted use 12 at Humboldt Bay Power Reactor, the Sigma-Aldrich Complex 13 Decommissioning Site, and two General Atomics TRIGA research reactors.
14 Next slide, please.
15 This flowchart illustrates an overview of the power reactor 16 decommissioning process and NRC's regulatory function. It highlights main 17 actions required by the licensee and the NRC and the opportunities for 18 engagement with the public during each step of the decommissioning 19 process.
20 Key steps in the reactor decommissioning process are the 21 certification to the NRC of the permanent cessation of operations and 22 removal of fuel; submittal and implementation of the Post-Shutdown 23 Decommissioning Activities Report, or PSDAR; submittal of the License 24 Termination Plan, or LTP; implementation of the LTP; and completion of 25 decommissioning with license termination.
26 As the chart reflects, the NRC is required to hold a public
10 1 meeting in the vicinity of the facility to obtain public comments on both the 2 PSDAR and the LTP. The NRC reviews the License Termination Plan and 3 only approves after determining the licensee has met all regulatory 4 requirements. In addition, the NRC reviews the final license termination as 5 a license amendment and terminates the license only after confirming all 6 requirements have been met.
7 The regulation specifies the content of the PSDAR, 8 including the licensee's high-level communication plan; planned 9 decommissioning activities and schedule; the status of the Decommissioning 10 Trust Fund; and affirms decommissioning can be conducted safely within the 11 site's Environmental Assessment.
12 In addition to establishing license requirements, our 13 oversight program includes routine programmatic inspections. The 14 inspection manual chapter, or IMC 2561, "Reactor Decommissioning 15 Inspection Program," establishes a risk-informed approach for the Regional 16 Offices to perform onsite inspection for routine programmatic reviews and 17 high-risk activities. NRC's oversight program and guidance also defines 18 pertinent NRC follow-up actions for any deficiencies identified during the 19 decommissioning inspections which are prior licensee corrective actions.
20 Next slide, please.
21 The staff has completed many significant accomplishments 22 over the last year. These accomplishments demonstrate our strong 23 commitment to fulfill the mission within the business line in an innovative 24 manner. This year, the business line developed and provided the 25 Commission a Draft Proposed Rule for Groundwater Protection at Uranium 26 In Situ Recovery, or ISR Facilities. And we received Commission direction
11 1 to publish for comments a Proposed Rule focusing on the regulatory 2 improvements for production and utilization facilities transitioning to 3 decommissioning.
4 These proposed rules will enhance regulatory stability, 5 predictability, and clarity in these aspects of our licensing and oversight 6 programs, and the staff will ensure strong public engagement throughout the 7 process.
8 The NRC continues to work on the Church Rock license 9 review. The NRC has engaged with the Navajo community in innovative 10 ways to enhance the community outreach during the pandemic -- by scripted 11 radio broadcasts on Navajo radio in English and Dine and expanding the 12 Draft Environmental Impact Statement comment period for a total of 353 13 days. These actions were needed to address the challenge of the 14 pandemic; ensure the Navajo Nation people had the opportunity to 15 participate in the regulatory process, and to ensure open channels of 16 communication with other government agencies.
17 The business line has made significant progress on 18 uranium recovery activities for Agreement States and uranium recovery 19 sites. For example, staff inspected the Preliminary Final Long-Term 20 Surveillance Plan in November 2021 for the Western Nuclear Incorporated 21 Site and has held several public meetings with the licensee and the 22 Agreement State of Wyoming to facilitate the license termination process.
23 In this program, these discussions are an innovative way that we are 24 meeting our mission, as we gather perspectives from the relevant 25 stakeholders and provide status updates on the NRC's process.
26 The NRC staff is planning and preparing for the
12 1 termination of additional uranium recovery licenses located in Agreement 2 States, and we expect to continue to work on these activities in 2022.
3 In 2021, we completed a revision to Inspection Manual 4 Chapter 2801 for operating uranium recovery facilities, which codified and 5 standardized a risk-informed approach to performing onsite inspections.
6 Currently, staff is working on IMC 2602 for the Fuel Cycle and Materials 7 Decommissioning Inspection Program.
8 We also issued the results of the Very Low-Level Waste, 9 or VLLW Scoping Study which identified possible areas that will merit 10 improvement to the existing NRC's VLLW regulatory framework. The 11 evaluation concluded that the current regulatory framework provides 12 adequate protection of public health and safety, while providing licensees 13 with VLLW disposal flexibility under a risk-informed, performance-based 14 framework.
15 Also in 2021, we approved a first-of-a-kind license 16 amendment leveraging the Be RiskSMART principles to modify the number 17 of armed responders at the Pilgrim Power Reactor Decommissioning Site in 18 Plymouth, Massachusetts. The staff approval was based on the detailed 19 review of the site-specific issues and risk-informed analysis.
20 Lastly, as a commitment to our international community, 21 we issued the Seventh U.S. National Report for the Joint Convention on the 22 Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste 23 Management, and are preparing for the Joint Convention meeting, which will 24 be held in June 2022.
25 Next slide, please.
26 The business line has been heavily focused on developing
13 1 the skills necessary to meet our mission and focusing on building and 2 strengthening our workforce. Based on regional demands for 3 decommissioning health physics inspectors, staff in Headquarters and the 4 Regions continue to cross-qualify as Reactor Decommissioning Inspectors 5 to supplement the existing resources in the oversight program. As a result 6 of these cross-qualifications, five Headquarters staff members completed 7 qualifications as Decommissioning Inspectors. And these Headquarters 8 staff supported onsite inspections in Regions I, III, and IV during the fourth 9 quarter of FY 2021. We are continuing with these activities in FY 2022 to 10 ensure we have the right people when and where they are needed.
11 Additionally, the business line sponsored two IdeaScale 12 Campaigns, one focused on the Guidance for Characterization and Final 13 Status Surveys of Subsurface Residual Radionuclides and the other on 14 Decommissioning Oversight and Inspection Program for Fuel Cycle Facility 15 and Materials Licensees. Also, our staff actively participated in the 16 IdeaScale Campaign on Categorical Exclusions.
17 Next slide, please.
18 We are strengthening our licensing and oversight 19 programs through strategic resource planning, leveraging technologies to 20 enhance data-driven decision-making, and enhancing our processes to 21 increase effectiveness.
22 The business line has overcome challenges through 23 systematic optimization and enhanced public outreach. We completed a 24 self-assessment survey on the Waste Incidental to Reprocessing, or WIR 25 Program to evaluate the performance of the WIR Program and identify 26 potential areas where the program could be more effective, efficient, and
14 1 risk-informed. The results of the assessment identified two areas for 2 improvement.
3 The first is focused on the enhancement of existing 4 guidance to support knowledge transfer, consistency, and transparency of 5 across the program. The second is focused on strengthening and 6 enhancing the internal and external communications to improve program 7 efficiency and consistency, as well as facilitate effective interactions with the 8 Department of Energy and other stakeholders within the program. The 9 activities for enhancement of these identified areas are continuing in FY 10 2022.
11 I am also very pleased to inform you that the business line 12 successfully completed the transfer of all active casework and non-casework 13 data in the Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Program 14 Division to the Web-Based Licensing System, or WBL. The transition of 15 licensing activities into WBL provides an up-to-date repository of all licenses 16 nationwide and a venue for Agreement States to use the same licensing 17 information platform as the NRC.
18 Its use will allow the staff to track and monitor workload 19 and ensure consistency across the Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety 20 Programs and enable strengthened, data-driven decision-making.
21 Additionally, it will facilitate data collection and analysis and enhance the 22 visualization of data through consistent datasets and a common system 23 across the Agency.
24 For example, collection and presentation of data related to 25 performance metrics are being developed now across the program in an 26 integrated fashion, ensuring the use of compatible and authoritative data to
15 1 evaluate trends, assess risks, and inform workload planning.
2 This concludes my presentation, and I will now turn it over 3 to Ted Smith.
4 Next slide, please.
5 MR. SMITH: Thank you, Ashley.
6 Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. It's an 7 honor to speak with you this morning.
8 The Reactor Decommissioning Program is mature and will 9 continue to grow for the foreseeable future. We need to continue to 10 innovate our licensing and oversight process while maintaining public health 11 and safety to avoid reputational risk and not being able to meet the 12 continuing demands for timely decommissioning of nuclear power reactors.
13 Next slide, please.
14 The program continues to adapt to the changing landscape 15 for reactor decommissioning, including an expected increase in the number 16 of sites entering decommissioning and an increase in sites opting to 17 decommission on accelerated schedules under the new business models.
18 Under the Decommissioning License Transfer Business 19 Model, licensees typically submit License Termination Plans earlier in the 20 process than in traditional decommissioning. Accelerated schedules 21 condense the timeline for required licensing work to five to seven years. If 22 multiple decommissioning reactors request accelerated schedules, including 23 earlier License Termination Plan, or LTP submittals, NMSS and partner 24 offices, primarily NSIR and the Regions, may require additional 25 organizational capacity to support simultaneous licensing and inspection 26 work. The increased workload potentially affects our planning needs for
16 1 staffing, travel, and contractual support to conduct confirmatory radiological 2 surveys. An organizational capacity shortfall would create longer review 3 schedules, potentially creating a backlog of LTPs for approval, challenging 4 the metrics in our congressional budget justification, which normally allots 5 two years for approval of an LTP.
6 In addition, while we will not close actions on a site that 7 doesn't meet our license termination criteria, this delay would impact 8 inspection activities, which rely upon the approved radiological criteria 9 contained in the LTP to assess survey finality. Not having firm radiological 10 cleanup criteria may potentially cause longer timeframes for site 11 decommissioning, which may result in the unscheduled use of 12 Decommissioning Trust Funds and the potential loss of public confidence.
13 This graphic demonstrates our challenge. The next few 14 slides will discuss our response.
15 Next slide, please.
16 This graphic demonstrates our current phased approach to 17 work planning. Aggregated resource needs are estimated in the phased 18 approach, so that resources needed for oversight and licensing are based in 19 the current phase that a decommissioning site is in, adjusted by modifiers 20 we've identified that affect resource needs. The modifiers we've used to 21 account for an unplanned shutdown, enhanced stakeholder engagement, 22 and optimization to account for work at a multi-unit site. This graphic 23 represents our current work planning approach, which does not account for 24 accelerated decommissioning.
25 Next slide, please.
26 Staff are implementing an updated systematic approach to
17 1 better respond to the new dynamics of power reactor decommissioning and 2 provide better fidelity in our work planning process. We are looking at how 3 we have staffed accelerated decommissioning work, applying lessons 4 learned to work planning, including oversight and interagency office support.
5 To account for accelerated decommissioning schedules as 6 well as provide advanced planning information, staff are working with the 7 Operating Reactor Program in NRR to develop and implement and optimize 8 needs for the transition of decommissioning plants, which addresses the 9 License Transfer Business Model, as well as the anticipated implementation 10 of enhanced NRC guidance, such as guidance revisions resulting from the 11 decommissioning transition rulemaking.
12 In this augmented graphic, the lighter shaded portions 13 represent adjustments to be made to account for the changes in the program 14 we are currently experiencing, which are causing increases through the 15 reactor decommissioning arena, to include licensing, oversight, support 16 office work, as well as contracts. Increased effort is expected for licensing 17 reviews, such as license transfers to decommissioning entities; security and 18 licensing amendments, and exemptions associated with permanent reactor 19 shutdown; and reviews to support final site release, including License 20 Termination Plans and Final Status Survey Reports.
21 Inspection activities, such as performing confirmatory 22 surveys, are also expected to increase to support oversight of 23 decommissioning activities. The impact to licensing staff needs some to 24 faster and earlier work on an accelerated site, including LTP reviews for all 25 of the increasing number of sites entering accelerated decommissioning.
26 Next slide, please.
18 1 We are updating two key decommissioning guidance 2 documents which provide guidance for the development and completion of 3 site final radiological surveys.
4 First, we are issuing a revision to NUREG-1575, which is 5 the Multi-Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual, or 6 MARSSIM, which provides the statistical basis behind final radiological 7 surveys for demonstrating that a site meets the NRC license termination 8 criteria, and communicating with licensees to help enhance processes and 9 standardize and improve the quality of applications, and help mitigate 10 resource challenges during decommissioning.
11 Second, staff in the business line are working to issue 12 NUREG-1757, Volume 2, by mid-FY 2022. Volume 2 of NUREG-1757, 13 Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance, contains guidance on 14 characterization, survey, and determination of radiological release criteria.
15 We are also working with industry to encourage initiatives 16 to develop lessons learned; participate in industry forums; and promoting 17 interactions aimed at providing resources for them to strengthen the 18 technical robustness and clarity of decommissioning submissions, as well as 19 highlight the applicability of existing Agency guidance and resources.
20 We have been informed that the Nuclear Energy Institute 21 will provide draft guidance early next year that they believe is adequate for 22 addressing the areas of site characterization, remediation planning, 23 environmental reporting, final radiological surveys, and a crosswalk with our 24 NUREG-1700, Standard Review Plan all integrated as a template for LTPs.
25 We are also working to develop a path forward to interact 26 in the future with industry on improving guidance for subsurface
19 1 contamination and discrete particles.
2 The Reactor Decommissioning Branch has participated in 3 the Nuclear Regulator Apprenticeship Network, NRAN, this year to engage 4 entry-level health physicists to inculcate interests and working knowledge of 5 the unique work of decommissioning health physics. Timothy Hooker has 6 just completed his year with RDB and Louis Caponi recently completed a 7 year in the Risk and Technical Analysis Branch.
8 Additionally, as part of the start of a larger plan for 9 reorganization, Regions I and IV have reorganized to combine Operating 10 Reactor HP Inspectors and Decommissioning Inspectors in one branch to 11 allow cross-qualification and consolidated resources.
12 Staff conducted knowledge management sessions on the 13 revision of IMC 2561 on the decommissioning of power reactors and 14 inspection programs and collaborated to provide specific training on the new 15 inspection requirements in Inspection Procedure 71801, "Decommissioning 16 Performance and Status Reviews at Permanently Shutdown Reactors," all 17 that support the Decommissioning Trust Fund financial reviews.
18 And now, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Rich 19 Turtil.
20 MR. TURTIL: Thank you, Ted.
21 Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners.
22 My name is Richard Turtil, and I'm a Senior Financial 23 Analyst in NMSS.
24 Next slide, please.
25 Since the Financial Center of Expertise, or FCOE, was 26 established in NMSS in October of 2019, we have successfully worked on
20 1 both nuclear materials and reactor and decommissioning financial assurance 2 issues. Staff brings financial qualifications and decommissioning funding 3 assurance expertise to the Center, and that experience and expertise, 4 coupled with effective communications, has helped support needs across 5 the Agency among various business lines. Staff possess skills and 6 knowledge and experience across a broad range of financial, technical, and 7 safeguards fields, including electrical and chemical engineering, finance, 8 business, accounting, and nuclear security and safeguards.
9 Next slide, please.
10 In coordination with NMSS's Reactor Decommissioning 11 Branch and NRR's Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Branches, 12 financial analysts in the FCOE perform safety evaluations for power reactor 13 license transfer for the purposes of decommissioning. Staff also directly 14 supports the Regions and regional inspectors.
15 Many decommissioning reactors previously were pursuing 16 SAFSTORE, a decommissioning approach in which licensees can take up to 17 60 years to complete decommissioning. Many now are pursuing immediate 18 decommissioning. The FCOE has been highly successful in supporting the 19 Agency in addressing this industry transition.
20 Staff evaluates four primary areas for applicants and 21 licensees: financial qualifications, decommissioning funding assurance, 22 foreign ownership control or domination, and insurance and indemnity.
23 Regarding financial qualifications and decommissioning 24 funding, in all cases, staff has ensured transferees are financially qualified to 25 acquire the licenses and to fund decommissioning activities.
26 FCOE staff continues to develop and implement consistent
21 1 policies and procedures across all business lines to the extent practical; 2 provide NRC staff with guidance on federal and Agency financial 3 assessment and processes and procedures; ensure that FTE and financial 4 resources are efficiently managed to perform financial review activities for 5 the Agency; and communicate with various audiences, providing insight 6 about NRC's financial qualification, decommissioning funding assurance, 7 insurance and indemnity, and foreign ownership control or domination 8 regulations, oversight, and guidance.
9 2021 has seen increased coordination between FCOE 10 Financial Analysts and NRR and NMSS Reactor Project Managers and 11 Regional Inspectors, as reactor licensees decommission their facilities, by 12 measure of collaborative interactions with licensing branches and divisions 13 throughout the Agency and completed licensing actions and reactor 14 decommissioning funding evaluation and reporting timeliness.
15 Establishment of the Financial Center of Expertise has been highly 16 successful.
17 Next slide, please.
18 The NRC's comprehensive, regulation-based 19 Decommissioning Funding Oversight Program provides reasonable 20 assurance that sufficient funding will be available for radiological 21 decommissioning of all U.S. commercial nuclear reactors from the start of 22 reactor operations. NRC's reasonable assurance standard for 23 decommissioning funding assurance is met through a series of lifelong 24 funding and reporting requirements that initially establish, maintain, and then 25 regularly report on the status of Trust assets. Operating reactor licensees 26 provide Decommissioning Fund status reports to the NRC for review every
22 1 two years, and every year for those in decommissioning.
2 A summary of staff's latest review of these reports is 3 provided in SECY-21-0108 entitled, "Summary of Staff Biennial Review and 4 Findings of the 2021 Decommissioning Funding Status Reports from 5 Operating and Decommissioning Power Reactor Licensees," which was 6 made publicly available on January 3rd of this year.
7 Processes are available to address shortfalls in funding, 8 should they occur, including extending the time horizon for completion of 9 decommissioning and providing additional financial assurance through 10 addition of new funds or other acceptable funding assurance mechanisms.
11 Next slide, please.
12 Staff's recent Decommissioning Fund Status Report review 13 of plants in active decommissioning included 24 reviews, totaling over $12 14 billion in Decommissioning Trusts. All plants in decommissioning met 15 NRC's decommissioning funding assurance requirements. These reviews 16 allow us to act during decommissioning, as necessary, to ensure adequate 17 funding is available to complete decommissioning.
18 Staff continues to develop and has successfully 19 implemented new financial review procedures and guidance in response to 20 findings of NRC's Reactor Decommissioning Financial Assurance Working 21 Group, including updated inspection procedures, one of which the next 22 speaker will address. These efforts have improved NRC oversight and 23 awareness of decommissioning spending at licensees' sites and has 24 enhanced Headquarters and regional collaboration and communication.
25 Staff also continues to implement improvements in annual 26 decommissioning funding review process controls; update internal annual
23 1 review guidance; implement centralized tracking of staff's reviews; and 2 periodically assess Decommissioning Trust Fund trustee compliance with 3 NRC requirements.
4 This concludes my portion of the presentation. I will now 5 turn it over to Katherine Warner.
6 Next slide, please.
7 MS. WARNER: Thanks, Rich.
8 And good morning, Chairman Hanson and Commissioners.
9 My name is Katherine Warner. I'm a Senior Health 10 Physicist in Region I.
11 Today, I will give an overview of the reactor and materials 12 decommissioning inspection activities, including a significant challenge we 13 have in staffing for the Decommissioning Oversight Program and some of 14 our initiatives to transition our oversight guidance to more a risk-informed, 15 performance-based approach.
16 Next slide, please.
17 There has been an increase in demand for 18 decommissioning inspectors, and it is expected to continue to grow over the 19 next several years, given the increase in reactor decommissioning workload.
20 This increase necessitates that staff acquire and implement a wider skill 21 set, to include both Resident Inspector and health physics topics. This is 22 because when a reactor first shuts down, the inspection focus is split 23 between the spent fuel pool and associated cooling systems, initial changes 24 to the plant, including abandonments and modifications, and occupational 25 health physics.
26 Once the fuel is fully transitioned to an ISFSI pad, which is
24 1 happening earlier in the process as of late, the major inspection focus shifts 2 to health physics as the site is decommissioned. Oversight of site 3 programs, such as environmental and effluent monitoring and fire protection, 4 continues throughout.
5 The increase in inspector workload is also due to an 6 increase in stakeholder interactions and requests to support meetings 7 around decommissioning, including congressional and state legislators.
8 Concurrently, we have had, and expect to continue to 9 have, a significant amount of inspector attrition that has resulted in 10 decreased margins in our inspection resources and experience.
11 The Regions have taken steps, such as hiring new 12 inspectors with a variety of experience, and we are working on knowledge 13 transfer, including having inspectors do cross-regional inspections to see 14 new sites and inspection styles.
15 The Agency recently hired three inspectors and 16 cross-trained two in the Regions and several more at Headquarters. We 17 expect to train new and/or cross-qualify several individuals over the coming 18 year.
19 As always, we will meet our safety mission of ensuring 20 public health and safety despite these challenges. However, I should stress 21 the Regions' focus on actively hiring and training inspectors, so we are 22 prepared for the years to come.
23 Next slide, please.
24 As I just discussed, we have some new decommissioning 25 inspectors getting started. So, we are proactively updating our 26 Decommissioning Inspection Oversight Guidance using Be RiskSMART
25 1 principles. The revisions also include working to decrease duplication of 2 efforts and incorporate experience gained since the last revision, which, for 3 some of these documents, was 20-plus years ago.
4 Last April, with travel restrictions in place due to 5 COVID-19, the Decommissioning Power Reactor Inspection Program 6 Working Group optimized our available time and expanded our scope from 7 the inspection manual chapter to also include the core procedures, which 8 are the inspections we perform annually. This allowed us to take a 9 big-picture look at the program. The effort was completed in 2020 and 10 effective January 1, 2021.
11 The number of inspection hours overall did not significantly 12 change. Instead, they were shifted to focus on risk-informed areas, 13 including Financial Assurance and Inspection Procedure 71801 and Fire 14 Protection, which was originally a section in one of the procedures. But, 15 given its importance, we created its own core procedure.
16 These newly-revised procedures have had a year of 17 runtime, and we have received positive feedback from the inspectors, which 18 will be further assessed by our Headquarters staff during this year's 19 Decommissioning Counterpart Meeting.
20 Along the same lines, the Working Group for the 21 Decommissioning Oversight and Inspection Program for Fuel Cycle Facilities 22 and Materials Licensees is ongoing. They are tackling both the manual 23 chapter and most of the procedures incorporating risk insights. This effort is 24 expected to be completed in the spring of this year.
25 With new inspectors qualifying or cross-qualifying, it was 26 well overdue to take a look at our Training Qualification Journal. We took
26 1 an innovative approach to revise the manual by adding a basic inspector 2 qualification, followed by two technical inspector tracks: Materials and 3 Reactors.
4 Similar to other training manual chapters, this allows a new 5 inspector to go through the initial part of their training to get familiar with 6 NRC processes and procedures, including inspector conduct through the 7 basic qualification. Once achieved, an inspector continues training under 8 one or both technical tracks, but can help perform inspection work under 9 supervision. Having two technical tracks allows the Branch Chief flexibility 10 to have the inspector trained in the area needed most with the ability to 11 cross-train later. We also added some activities to address the increased 12 stakeholder outreach activities I mentioned, including adding media training 13 as a required course.
14 Next slide, please.
15 While looking at these programs and living through 16 COVID, we tried to incorporate what we were learning. We determined that, 17 while some portions of the inspections could be conducted remotely, such as 18 some of the document review, onsite inspection with direct observation of 19 activities is the preferred method of inspection, as remote inspections tend to 20 be more compliance-based, rather than that risk-informed, 21 performance-based methodology we strive for.
22 With this in mind, we sought to include guidance that has 23 inspectors spend the appropriate amount of time in the field, such as 24 observing the lineup and physical condition of the spent fuel pool cooling 25 system and radiologically significant work activities.
26 Also, for the training manual chapter, we incorporated new
27 1 inspector feedback to enhance guidance for trainees to get out in the field 2 and better learn technical matters and inspector conduct.
3 Take a look at the two pictures on the screen. On the 4 right, you're looking at a grainy picture of myself and another inspector 5 looking over the shoulder of a plant employee working around the spent fuel 6 pool area. If I was doing this inspection remotely, I might have access to 7 this camera for this blurry view, but I couldn't look at what the employee is 8 actually doing or see the whole picture of what was going on. But we were 9 there.
10 And when you look at the picture on the left, you can see 11 that we are watching spent fuel pool racks come out of the pool. This is 12 direct observation of work activities, rather than a blurry or no view and 13 relying on paperwork.
14 This concludes my portion of the presentation, and I will 15 now turn it over to Cathy to close out this part of the briefing.
16 Next slide, please.
17 MS. HANEY: Thank you, Katherine. And thank all of 18 you, the panelists, for your presentations.
19 Also, I'd like to thank all the NRC Headquarters and 20 Regional staff and Agreement State staff that support and make the 21 Decommissioning and Low-Level Waste and Uranium Recovery Programs a 22 success. Their hardworking commitment helps us to successfully fill our 23 important safety and security mission for the American people.
24 This concludes our presentation on this business line, and 25 we look forward to answering any questions that you may have for us on this 26 portion of the briefing.
28 1 Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Cathy and John, and 3 the rest of the staff for your presentations.
4 We're going to begin questions this morning with 5 Commissioner Baran.
6 Commissioner Baran, over to you.
7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Well, good morning.
8 Thank you all for your presentations and the work you're 9 doing on these issues.
10 Katherine, I want to follow up on your discussion of the 11 value of in-person inspection. As you alluded to, during the pandemic, 12 some inspections were performed remotely out of necessity. But it sounds 13 like you and other inspectors have found that onsite inspection with direct 14 observation of licensee activities is superior to remote inspections. I was 15 really struck by your description of the stark difference between in-person 16 and remote inspection, the difference between direct observation of what the 17 licensee is actually doing and looking at a blurry camera view or just relying 18 on paperwork.
19 If our goal is performing a quality inspection -- and, of 20 course, that is the goal -- it sounds like there's no substitute for having 21 independent NRC inspectors onsite; in-person inspection is much, much 22 better. Is that the right takeaway from the inspection experience of you and 23 your colleagues?
24 MS. WARNER: I agree, the direct observation activities 25 and being onsite is definitely the preferred method of inspection. Like I 26 said, we did find that we could do some of that document review remotely,
29 1 and I have also used the ability of having Rich Turtil actually listen in on one 2 of my interviews on financial assurance at the site. So, there have been 3 small silver linings of being able to do some remote, but onsite activities is 4 definitely better for a couple of reasons.
5 One is the quality of inspection. When I'm doing a remote 6 inspection, I ask a question, and the licensee is generally good about getting 7 back, but when I'm onsite, I can have a quicker interaction, and then, delve 8 deeper into a topic, pull the string, that kind of stuff.
9 Also, as you can see from the picture, there is no 10 substitute for being there in person and actually watching a work activity.
11 Some of the things that we do just cannot physically be done from home.
12 So, there's also, with some of the things we do, like 13 watching a pre-job brief, I tried to do that remotely during the pandemic, 14 when we absolutely had to during those early stages. And I just couldn't get 15 anything out of it. They were trying to pass the cell phone around, so I 16 could hear.
17 So, remote inspections rely on both a licensee's 18 cooperation and their capabilities. So, while I found their cooperation to 19 generally be good, the capabilities just aren't there. So, we need to be 20 there in person.
21 COMMISSIONER BARAN: And as an inspector, are 22 there issues you find in person that you wouldn't have identified through a 23 remote inspection?
24 MS. WARNER: Yes. Absolutely. Because when you're 25 there and you're able to see the whole 360 picture, rather than relying on, 26 say, a checkmark of a licensee going and doing their walkdown, I can say I
30 1 can do the walkdown with them and see how they do it, but then also, once 2 they're doing the work activities, I can look over, say, at this checklist that 3 was actually a recent inspection and say, "Hey, can you explain to me how 4 you met this part of the checklist?" And it turns out they actually hadn't, and 5 I ended up catching that. And I could not have done that remotely.
6 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Well, thanks, 7 Katherine.
8 And, John or Ashley, based on that kind of inspector 9 feedback, I assume that as the Inspection Guidance is updated for 10 Decommissioning Fuel Cycle Facilities and Materials Licensees, a clear 11 default for in-person inspections will be included, is that right?
12 MR. LUBINSKI: If I could start, Commissioner, thank you, 13 and then I'll let Ashley talk more specifically about some of the guidance with 14 respect to decommissioning inspections.
15 What Ashley highlighted earlier -- and also, Katherine 16 talked about it, some of our revisions to inspection guidance -- the focus of 17 that was really looking at taking into account risk insights to make sure, as 18 Katherine said in her example, that we focus on the most risk-significant 19 areas of activities. It's not a focus of those reviews to determine whether or 20 not those activities should be done remotely or in-person. We are doing a 21 lessons learned more generally out of COVID to determine what activities 22 should be done in person and whether any could be done remotely.
23 We, of course, engaged with the inspectors across all the 24 Regions to get their insights. They did issue a report in November. And I 25 believe Rob Lewis in our next presentation will talk about that, but two 26 highlights I want to focus.
31 1 From their recommendation for all business lines, they did 2 believe that the majority of inspections being performed should be for direct 3 onsite inspection of those activities, as Katherine said, based on the 4 benefits, which I personally totally agree with what Katherine said.
5 They also included in there on a case-by-case basis there 6 should be some flexibility for inspectors for certain inspection activities which 7 could be done remotely, as long as they determine that they're effective.
8 Katherine identified a couple of examples, and I really appreciated her 9 identifying that some of the technical expertise, either from Headquarters or 10 other offices, can be pulled in remotely to provide that additional expertise 11 and the individuals don't need to go to the site.
12 In those cases, the report from the Working Group, again 13 for all business lines, recommended if that was to be done, that it should be 14 aligned, that the inspector and their management totally agree that those 15 parts that could be done remotely are effective, and only based on that 16 would they make the determination to do that.
17 Ashley, did you want to add anything with respect to the 18 focus of the inspection reviews we've done so far?
19 MS. ROBERTS: Thanks, John. Yes.
20 The main focus in risk-informing the IMCs overall, 21 Commissioner, has been incorporating lessons learned in new guidance, 22 eliminating duplication, codifying and standardizing the risk-informed 23 approach to strengthen the effectiveness of the program.
24 As Katherine mentioned, it gives the inspectors the 25 flexibility to still access facilities that have the most safety-significant 26 consequences and allows inspectors to plan and focus their activities
32 1 commensurate with those site activities, which may vary.
2 So, overall, while we've risk-informed our procedures, as 3 Katherine mentioned -- I'm in the Decommissioning Reactor Program -- the 4 overall number of inspection hours have not changed as a result of the 5 updates, and we're really just focusing on the risk-informed areas.
6 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Thanks, John and 7 Ashley.
8 Rich, I'd like to ask about Power Plant Decommissioning 9 Trust Funds and cost estimates. To satisfy NRC that there will be adequate 10 funds to decommission a nuclear power plant, the regulations currently 11 require operating reactor licensees to set aside enough assets in a 12 Decommissioning Trust Fund to meet or exceed the amount established by 13 NRC's generic decommissioning funding formula.
14 And then once a plant permanently shuts down, the 15 licensee must prepare a site-specific cost estimate and demonstrate that the 16 assets in the Decommissioning Trust Fund are sufficient to cover the 17 estimated decommissioning costs.
18 The formula hasn't been updated for over 30 years and 19 has been criticized by GAO and the IG. And I'm concerned that the formula 20 routinely underestimates the actual cost of decommissioning. Have you 21 and your colleagues found that the detailed, site-specific decommissioning 22 cost estimates typically are much higher than the minimum amount required 23 by the formula?
24 MR. TURTIL: Thank you for your question, 25 Commissioner.
26 Our assessment of the site-specific cost estimates against
33 1 the minimum formula amounts have found kind of a broad range of 2 comparisons. I know one recently that we evaluated for Indian Point Unit 3, 3 reflecting about 90 percent of the site-specific cost estimate for radiological 4 decommissioning, was about 90 percent of the minimum formula amount.
5 But we also recognize some of the minimum formula amount comparisons 6 for other sites have not been as robust and there have certainly been deltas, 7 but the licensee funding and regular reporting that we receive from licensees 8 on a regular basis, that allows us to kind of keep an eye on what funding is 9 available and it forms the basis of kind of our comprehensive analysis of the 10 decommissioning funding requirements and the licensee's obligation.
11 So, I mean, I'd like to say that for the minimum formula, the 12 staff has concluded it continues to be an adequate method of assessing the 13 amount required to cover what is referred to as the lower end or the bulk, if 14 you will, of expected decommissioning costs. So, we've seen deltas 15 definitely. We recognize there will be outliers regarding the minimum 16 formula and site-specific cost estimate comparisons, but staff still concludes 17 the formula has proven effective. And to this day, of course, no plants have 18 gone through decommissioning becoming short of decommissioning funding.
19 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Well, I appreciate your 20 comment that it's kind of a range of results. Some of the examples are 21 pretty stark. To take one, at the end of 2016, Beaver Valley Unit 1 had a 22 site-specific cost estimate of $711 million. Unit 2 didn't have a site-specific 23 cost estimate at that time; it had a formula amount of $482 million. But, by 24 the end of 2018, both units at site-specific cost estimates, and they were at 25 $748 and $756 million. So, the formula amount, at least in that case, was 26 over $200 less than what was estimated as necessary to complete
34 1 radiological decommissioning.
2 In terms of kind of the spectrum of cases, have you or your 3 colleagues seen that kind of gap at other plants?
4 MR. TURTIL: We have seen -- again, what we do as we 5 get closer to decommissioning, we're evaluating the site-specific cost 6 estimate. We have to ensure the cost estimate at all times certainly is equal 7 to or exceeds the minimum formula amount.
8 I think in the case of Beaver Valley, we are looking at 9 somewhere of 63, between 63-67 percent of the minimum formula amount 10 reflected what you just suggested, 63-65 percent of the site-specific cost 11 estimate provided by the licensee for decommissioning.
12 So, again, we're looking at this range, and as we get more 13 into decommissioning, we're seeing efficiencies that are coming around, as 14 the industry sort of transitions into special -- like the licensee that has taken 15 on Indian Point, specialized decommissioning activities of that particular 16 licensee. So, we're certainly seeing evolving site-specific cost estimates as 17 efficiencies are gained.
18 So, we do see those deltas, as you suggest. And in our 19 view, the formula still provides that which is necessary to ensure over that 20 lifetime that the funding is being put in place. Is that responsive here?
21 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Yes, right, it is.
22 And how often do you see a plant where the amount 23 required by the formula is deficient to complete radiological 24 decommissioning?
25 MR. TURTIL: Generally not. Generally, we are seeing 26 the minimum formula amount, that approach, which is not a cost estimate
35 1 per se by any means -- it is perceived and used to provide funding for, 2 planned funding over a 35-45-year life of an operating facility to set aside 3 funds for decommissioning. So, it is not a specific cost estimate. So, in 4 most cases, we find that the minimum formula amount would not provide that 5 which would be required specifically for the site-specific cost estimate.
6 So, in many, many cases -- and maybe it would be most 7 cases -- that would be the case. The site-specific cost estimate would 8 require more than or exceed. But, again, we're finding of late that some of 9 those cost estimates are getting closer to, if you will, the minimum formula 10 amount that's provided. And staff is finding those cost estimates to be 11 reasonable.
12 COMMISSIONER BARAN: And I know that 13 decommissioning costs vary significantly across sites and depend a lot on 14 site-specific cost-drivers. That's why, ultimately, you need to have a 15 site-specific cost estimate.
16 But if we're going to rely on a generic formula in the 17 regulation to have licensees accumulating funds appropriately over the years 18 of operation, wouldn't it make more sense to have a formula that did a better 19 job of estimating the total cost of radiological decommissioning? I mean, it 20 seems to me, to kind of put you on the spot, it's a little bit of a policy 21 question. But, I mean, what's the merit of having a formula that just 22 represents the bulk or represents the low end of a decommissioning range?
23 Wouldn't it make more sense to have a formula that actually captures what 24 we think it would take to decommission the site?
25 MR. TURTIL: Well, I would agree with you. I know the 26 IG and the GAO certainly have made these observations, as you are
36 1 indicating. We, of course, would not want licensees, we would not want to 2 put a burden, if you will, on licensees to end up providing for funding that is 3 more than that which would be required for decommissioning. We would 4 want the licensee, obviously, to be able to provide that which is reasonable 5 in terms of meeting the expected decommissioning burden.
6 And again, we're of the view that, as we get closer to 7 decommissioning, as we find the site-specific cost estimates have started to 8 come in toward the end of life, that process allows us and allows the 9 licensee, to ensure that there is adequate funding in place to meet 10 decommissioning requirements.
11 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Well, thanks, Rich. I 12 appreciate the conversation. You know, the formula, if we're going to have 13 a formula approach, this conversation matters because if an operating plant 14 isn't setting aside enough funds each year under a formula that's kind of 15 underperforming, there could end up being a large deficiency at the time of 16 shutdown that would have to be made up. And that raises the risk of 17 insufficient funding to decommission the plant, if the licensee is struggling 18 financially at that time. Fortunately, we haven't had that happen, but I think 19 that's the risk. So --
20 MR. TURTIL: I'm sorry.
21 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Go ahead.
22 MR. TURTIL: If I may add, in our latest biennial report, 23 which I allude to in my presentation -- and again, I just want to indicate that's 24 SECY-21-0108 -- there's a table in there that actually shows and provides 25 what is the funding that is currently in place and what is that funding at time 26 of decommissioning. And if one were to look at that, the funding at time of
37 1 decommissioning, in all cases there is more-than-adequate funding to meet 2 that minimum by a large percentage in almost all cases, just as a reflection 3 of where would facilities be at time of decommissioning. So, how that 4 process is working I think is reflected well in that table, just to provide 5 additional information.
6 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Thanks, Rich.
7 I may have gone over my time. I don't have the benefit of 8 the tracking I usually have. Next time, I'll set a stopwatch myself.
9 Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.
10 MR. TURTIL: Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Baran.
12 Commissioner Wright?
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, 14 and good morning to everyone.
15 And thank you for your presentations. Even though I'm 16 seeing you on the screen, I'd much rather see you in person, and I look 17 forward to that. But, regardless, I still continue to be impressed by your 18 ability to adapt. I mean, things are changing constantly. Even this 19 morning, you all have to be nimble, isn't that right, Cathy?
20 (Laughter.)
21 So, your ability to see the possibilities in these times, I 22 mean, it's evident in the presentations today. And the bulk of my questions 23 are going to go, really, to hone in on our readiness for the future, I think, and 24 are we going to be staffed and ready for it. So, Cathy, I'll come back to you 25 in a second with that.
26 But I want to follow up, very quickly, on something, that
38 1 line of questioning that Commissioner Baran was on. So Leon, I'll come to 2 you.
3 This is a change for me because in a former life as a state 4 regulator, not even 10 years ago, states were very concerned that the 5 utilities, the Decommissioning Trust Funds that they had could possibly be a 6 slush fund; you know, that they had more money than they need to do the 7 decommissioning, and then in the end, the money that was left would go to 8 the utility, right, and it could be shared for whoever, their stockholders, or 9 whatever.
10 But, in the majority of these utilities that have nuclear 11 operations, this is ratepayer money we're talking about that's funding the 12 Decommissioning Trust Fund. So, there has to be some recognition and 13 balance, which I think that we do at the NRC through the minimum funding 14 thing that you've got while the plant is operating.
15 And it's my understanding -- and I don't think this has 16 changed -- that five years before shutdown, they have to move toward fully 17 funding their Decommissioning Trust Fund, is that correct?
18 MR. TURTIL: So, this is Rich Turtil. So, the case is at 19 five years prior to the termination of operations, the licensee will provide a 20 preliminary site-specific cost estimate.
21 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right.
22 MR. TURTIL: And at that point, staff will evaluate that and 23 ensure that the funding that is presently provided by that licensee within the 24 DTF will meet that site-specific cost estimate. So, that is the case at five 25 years prior to.
26 Now what occurs, of course, is some licensees don't allow
39 1 for that five-year planning because they'll terminate operations earlier. So, 2 it's at that time we would be seeking site-specific cost estimates. The staff 3 would want site-specific cost estimates at that point as soon as possible.
4 The licensee, if they were to discontinue operations in a very short notice, 5 they must provide a site-specific cost estimate within two years of 6 termination of their operations.
7 So, as all this comes together, whether it's long-term 8 planning, because a licensee will terminate at its projected operational 9 license termination date, or if it's shorter than that, and if it's a lot less notice 10 than that period, we are looking to receive the site-specific cost estimate and 11 then do those evaluations. And again, at this point, we have found no 12 exceptions, no outliers, to licensees meeting those requirements.
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: All right. So, thank you for 14 that clarification. I appreciate it. Thank you. So, Cathy, I'm going to come 15 back to you now.
16 We've heard about the great resignation that they say is 17 out there, and there's concern that employees are going to resign en masse 18 across all sectors of the economy, not just in ours, right? But in talking with 19 Mary Lamary about this, and with Dan earlier, too, it doesn't appear that 20 that's happening overall at the NRC. And I wanted to hear, I guess from 21 you, whether you're concerned about that. Or, in your opinion, are we 22 experiencing higher-than-normal attrition?
23 And I'll just preface that by saying we all kind of anticipated 24 that, when we came out of COVID and as we started out of COVID, people 25 who had put off retirement because they could work at home might exercise 26 that opportunity now. So, we might see a little bump, anyway.
40 1 But, with that as a caveat, could you give me your opinion?
2 MS. HANEY: Sure. I'd be happy to. Thank you for 3 asking.
4 So, I think let me start out by looking at, kind of addressing 5 how we've seen the mass exodus. We actually went back and looked over 6 multiple years' data on a number of individuals that left the Agency over a 7 given year. And we really found a pretty constant -- you know, plus or 8 minus a few people, obviously, I believe if you look over an eight-to-ten-year 9 span -- but looking at calendar year 2021, we didn't see a larger number of 10 people retire than what we had in past years.
11 Now, with that being said, you used the words, am I 12 concerned about the loss of staff going into the future now? And I kind of 13 smiled because it's like I could say yes to that question of whether I was 14 concerned or I could say no.
15 The reason that I would give you a yes answer is I do think 16 that we need to be sensitive to the number of people that could leave going 17 forward, could leave for other agencies, could leave for various reasons.
18 So, we do need to be sensitive to that.
19 The other thing that we need to be sensitive to is we need 20 to be building the workforce for the future. It's not just this year that the 21 executive team is looking at. We really are looking out into future years as 22 far as the number of people. And it's not just the number of people; it's 23 really we need to just look at it from the standpoint of, do we have the critical 24 skill sets that we need?
25 So, with that in mind, we've been working with our Chief of 26 Human Capital Office to look for ways of identifying our needs, which we're
41 1 using strategic workforce planning, which I believe we've spoken to the 2 Commission before, which is where we go out and look at our needs over 3 the next five years. We've looked at that data. We've been talking with the 4 different Office Directors, the business line leads, and looking for where are 5 those pockets that we need to focus our hiring areas, or that we need to look 6 at specifically.
7 And because of that, now Mary, as you mentioned, will 8 work with her recruiters looking at where to recruit; when to post; how to 9 post; what vehicles to use. There are several different tools that are 10 available to us, taking advantage of that, and we are working very closely on 11 that.
12 So, back to your question about a concern, we are very 13 sensitive to the needs of building the future workforce, needing these critical 14 skills. There are some pockets within the Agency where we have greater 15 demands and we, as a team, are focusing our attention on making sure that 16 we have the right people.
17 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. Well, thank you for 18 that. And I'm going to follow up real quickly. There are really three 19 questions I really want to get to, but I'll do my best to kind of combine them 20 here.
21 Thanks for your update on that. Because I, myself, am 22 concerned that there may only be one or two staff members in a certain area 23 that are basically the experts in that area, right? And if they leave, we've 24 got a problem, and that is problematic, you know, for several reasons. And 25 I know you're concerned about the bench strength. I just heard you talk 26 about knowledge management and all that.
42 1 So, is there anything that you need or you all need from 2 the Commission level to address these concerns that you don't have right 3 now? And in the budget process, I certainly would encourage you to be 4 vocal about it, including in the budget request and the justifications as well.
5 MS. HANEY: So, I think if I answer that question right 6 now, "Today is there anything that I need from the Commission?" I would 7 say not today. But, really, you're going towards the budget request, and 8 that's something that as we're working on the budget going forward and 9 we're identifying needs and particular areas that could have an impact on 10 our budget, we certainly want to dialogue with the Commission. And 11 possibly in the future -- I don't want to say yes -- but when we get into the 12 budget areas, I think it's likely that we'll be communicating with you.
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. And my last question 14 I'm going to be able to spit in here, I hope, Mr. Chairman, is, you know, I've 15 heard about and we've talked about some of the activities to retain and 16 recruit, especially health physicists, right, including cross-training and 17 matrixing licensing and inspection staff.
18 Can you tell me a little bit more about how we're going to 19 be addressing staff shortages in other skill sets? I mean, are there certain 20 skill sets that we expect to be more challenging to recruit or to retain than 21 others?
22 MS. HANEY: I would say there's a little bit across the 23 board. Some of the areas, you know, if I focus on the NMSS program 24 areas, really the financial area, the decommissioning areas that we've 25 spoken about today, those are areas that, in all honesty, have been some 26 challenges over the years, and as you've heard, will continue to be
43 1 challenges. That's the particular areas that we need to look for.
2 There's also some going into the advanced reactors. I'm 3 going outside of this business line briefing. But, as we're hearing more and 4 more about the advanced reactors, there are different skill sets that we'll 5 need there.
6 We are competing with industry. We are competing with 7 other federal agencies, as that part of the industry goes. So, that will be a 8 challenge for us there.
9 There are a couple of other pockets in our Office of 10 Investigations, our agents. We have been doing some specialized targeting 11 there to bring individuals. Weve had a large number of agents leave over 12 the last year. So, that's another targeted area. But Tracy, who is the head 13 of our Office of Investigations, is well on top of that, working with OCHCO.
14 There's a few other pockets in our Office of Administration.
15 So, I mean, that's a very long answer to, yes, there are pockets across the 16 Agency, but using our strategic workforce planning and working with the 17 Office Directors, I think we've done a great job in identifying those. And 18 then, that will help us go out with the targeted recruiting.
19 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. Thank you.
20 And I know that you're having attrition with the 21 decommissioning inspectors. And I know we're too short on time here, but I 22 would appreciate, maybe later on, you know, learning a little bit more about 23 the knowledge management being incorporated into inspection document 24 revisions, so that the new inspectors benefit from this going forward from the 25 past inspection experience. So, that would be helpful probably to me and 26 the other Commissioners' offices as well. So, thank you.
44 1 MS. HANEY: Certainly.
2 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
3 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Wright.
4 Really good discussion on I think a lot of really important topics this 5 morning.
6 And this is always the risk, I think, of going last in these 7 things, is to think about the other areas that maybe haven't been covered 8 this morning by my colleagues.
9 Ted, I wanted to start with you. You made a really 10 interesting comment to me about establishing firm cleanup criteria, 11 radiological criteria, in the LTPs. And I was hoping you could clarify that for 12 me and for the public, about how that works, right? Because, you know, 13 fundamentally, we have a free release standard in decommissioning, right, 14 where it's supposed to be the sites are supposed to be available to anything, 15 for any use, after decommissioning is completed.
16 We also have EPA criteria out there with regard to 17 exposure for the public. And we also have "As Low As Reasonably 18 Achievable" in our own regulation. So, could you tell me how those things 19 kind of interact to establish how we're going to evaluate how clean is clean 20 enough for a site at the conclusion of decommissioning?
21 MR. SMITH: Yes, Chairman, I'd be happy to discuss the 22 License Termination Plan.
23 The License Termination Plan focuses heavily on the final 24 site conditions. The criteria that apply for power reactors in 25 decommissioning is, as you mentioned, release for unrestricted use, which is 26 defined in Part 20 as 25 millirem plus ALARA.
45 1 And so, what we expect to see, and what we look for and 2 analyze in those License Termination Plans is their analysis of what are the 3 scenarios that could apply. And typically, for power reactors, they look at a 4 very conservative scenario: the resident farmer living on the site.
5 And then, they look at the radionuclides of interest that are 6 remaining at that site, and you basically sum up the potential dose from all 7 pathways, and you confirm that it's under 25. And so, after you run all the 8 computational models, you end up with an allowable concentration by 9 radionuclide for each of the survey units that you've divided the 10 decommissioning area into. So, the areas are divided by where you would 11 expect to see a like kind of contamination.
12 So, you end up with a list of these allowable 13 concentrations, that if they're at those limits, you will be under our standard 14 of 25 millirem a year in that very conservative scenario. So, we have to 15 have those in place, so we can go do surveys and show that they're meeting 16 those allowable concentrations.
17 CHAIRMAN HANSON: You mentioned the survey units 18 across the site. Of course, that could be really important. Are the survey 19 units averaged across the sites? How do you take into account, say, for 20 instance, hot spots, for lack of a better term, at a site?
21 MR. SMITH: Yes. So, a great question.
22 We do look at each survey unit individually for its dose 23 contribution, and those are divided. And the statistical basis for making 24 determinations of them are based upon the radiological history of that 25 particular survey unit.
26 So, for areas in the interior of a plant, or where we know
46 1 there was radiological material, it's a much more robust set of surveying that 2 we do, and up to 100 percent of scans and sampling in a gridded approach.
3 That would minimize the chance for having hot spot concentrations by the 4 statistical process which allows a way of evaluating areas that are elevated 5 by using a grid approach. So, in an area where you would see that kind of 6 potential, it would fall under that rigor of a survey plan. And so, you're right 7 that the classification survey unit is important to ensuring that we're doing 8 enough with those kind of elevated areas.
9 Now separately is hot spots, which are a little different than 10 elevated areas. It's a very small, discrete hot area. And that's its own 11 challenge, in that it is really looked at site-specifically, depending on those 12 plants' site-specific conditions and history. And so, it's one of those several 13 areas in decommissioning where we really rely upon the expertise of our 14 performance analysts and health physicists to go make sure that the 15 licensees are doing the right things to address the conditions at their site.
16 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Okay. Great. Thank you.
17 That's very helpful, particularly as I know this is a big concern for the public 18 and community oversight boards, and so forth, understanding how we're 19 making those determinations about what the release criteria for the site are.
20 Katherine, I've got a couple of questions for you. And I'm 21 very interested in your experience as an onsite inspector. You know, we 22 don't keep inspectors onsite full-time during decommissioning. We go out, 23 the Agency goes out to the site for certain kinds of activities at regular 24 intervals. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about what 25 kinds of activities would bring you to the site to oversee, and what kind of 26 frequency you find yourself onsite to oversee those kinds of activities.
47 1 MS. WARNER: Sure.
2 So, for reactor decommissioning, a site will be in a different 3 category, whether they're in active decommissioning, post-operational 4 transition and that category determines what procedures and about the 5 amount of effort for each procedure we perform annually.
6 But a lot of that is based on site activities. So, there's a 7 split. You do inspection for specific site activities that are more 8 radiologically significant, but you also do basically a program review, 9 especially any changes to programs. Like environmental and effluent 10 monitoring is something that we do annually, especially looking at any 11 changes.
12 So, I find myself, for active decommissioning, we generally 13 go out about every six weeks, but it really does depend again on those site 14 activities. And something that would definitely take need to the site is, say, 15 reactor internal segmentation, setting up for that, actually doing it. Cutting 16 into higher contaminated components, I want to see how they're controlling 17 occupational health physics, making sure their workers are safe, and that 18 they're not releasing into the environment.
19 Also, for fire protection, as they're getting into 20 decommissioning, it is another focus area for us because they start doing 21 "hot cutting," typically, on some of these contaminated components. And 22 making sure that they're really controlling that work area and controlling 23 transient combustibles in that area we've found to be of importance.
24 CHAIRMAN HANSON: And do you, say, focus on -- for 25 instance, if you had a repetitive task where there were, say 12 of something 26 that we're going to be decommissioning, do you go at the beginning of, say,
48 1 taking apart those 12 things, or do you kind of go in the middle or are you 2 there throughout? How do you prioritize your efforts in that area?
3 MS. WARNER: So, as we're able to, and a good example 4 of this is like removal of a steam generator, right? Sometimes they'll try to 5 cut segments of it, and then, groom the segments at a time. So, what I like 6 to do for something like that is go near the beginning and take a look at how 7 they have everything set up; if they're, again, controlling the area for 8 contamination, radiation, airborne. You're always thinking about those 9 things.
10 And if they are doing it well and things are going well so 11 far, I might not go back as much, based on licensee performance. But if 12 they're having a lot of issues and I'm seeing a lot of CRs, especially like 13 personnel contamination events, those are indicators to me that I need to go 14 back and watch more of it. And that's what I'm going to do.
15 CHAIRMAN HANSON: CRs being Condition Reports.
16 MS. WARNER: Yes. Thank you for defining that.
17 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Yes, no problem.
18 I agree with Commissioner Baran wholeheartedly that 19 nuclear safety is a contact sport. And so, do you feel like, the public health 20 emergency notwithstanding, that you're onsite at sufficient intervals to 21 provide reasonable assurance and to have sufficient situational awareness 22 that you could walk out of a plant and go talk to the public, and assuming 23 that it was actually the case, that you could tell them that things were 24 happening safely and securely?
25 MS. WARNER: Yes, absolutely. I believe that our 26 inspection program provides that reasonable assurance of adequate
49 1 protection.
2 And I should also point out that, in addition to our onsite 3 time, we do have periodic calls with these sites, as they're going through 4 decommissioning. So, I have a weekly or biweekly, kind of depending on 5 what's going on, update and they'll give me an update status of what 6 activities they're working on, any issues that they're having. And I do review 7 those Condition Reports on a weekly or biweekly basis so I have initial 8 indications if theres something that I want to go out and see. Any my 9 management is very supportive if I say, Hey, theres something going on. I 10 want to get out to the site sooner than I had planned. And we make it 11 happen.
12 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thats great. Thank you very, very 13 much for that. I really appreciate hearing that. The last one of these is 14 kind of out of left field a little bit. This is a questions for John and Ashley.
15 The Department of Energy recently finalized its interpretation of the definition 16 of high level waste and I know that the discussion this morning is really on 17 decommissioning and low level waste, but the Department of Energys taken 18 moves under its authority under the Atomic Energy Act to potentially change 19 its interpretation about what goes in the high level waste bucket and what 20 goes in the low level waste bucket. And I guess I am just interested to hear 21 what implications that has for us for the waste incidental to reprocessing 22 determinations, for our authorities and equities under the Atomic Energy Act, 23 as well as the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. I wondered if one or both of you 24 could talk about that for a minute.
25 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you, Chairman. John Lubinski 26 here. I'll take that one. I appreciate the question.
50 1 And as you said, when you start to think high-level waste, 2 you think other programs. But when DOE was looking at the definition of 3 high-level waste, it definitely separates out into low-level waste, which is part 4 of this program, and is there an impact?
5 So, let me start with, most recently, the Department of 6 Energy did an affirmation of their definition, which was just issued in 7 December. There were no changes from the criteria on which we had been 8 engaging with DOE. DOE issued its original definition in 2019. NRC did 9 provide comments on that, and we appreciate that DOE did accept and 10 address our comments.
11 In providing comments, we also worked closely with the 12 Agreement States because they have authority for licensing the low-level 13 waste sites, which could be impacted by this.
14 As you said, the comments were focused on reprocessing 15 waste, and the majority of which were focused on waste incidental to 16 reprocessing.
17 With respect to the disposal itself, we generally agree with 18 DOE that we appreciate their considerations of taking risk significance into 19 consideration in making those determinations. And we believe they've done 20 that in an adequate way.
21 We also appreciate the definitions that they had for 22 material that is not high-level waste. That is with respect to reprocessing, 23 and it made it clear that that would be, definitions would be that it's not 24 greater than Class C waste, and that it would need to meet the 25 requirements, the performance objectives, for a disposal facility, which in our 26 case would be 10 CFR Part 61. So, from a safety standpoint, it's very clear
51 1 that they would be meeting the adequate standards that we already have for 2 low-level waste.
3 Finally, as you know, and I mentioned earlier, we do have 4 a role with respect to an oversight function for DOE with respect to waste 5 incidental to reprocessing. We have done an evaluation of that program 6 recently to make sure that it is effective and incorporating lessons learned.
7 And we continue to work effectively with DOE on the implementation of that 8 program.
9 Finally, DOE did commit to us, as they continue to work 10 through this, that they'll continue to keep us, the NRC, involved in their 11 determinations about specific waste that meets this definition. So, I think 12 we're in a really good place with DOE on this definition.
13 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thanks, John. That's really 14 helpful. I appreciate the clarification on that this morning.
15 With that, I think my questions are ended. I think, for our 16 first panel, this is a very, very good discussion. We touched on a lot of 17 topics that are really important to the public:
18 NRC's organizational capacity going forward to oversee 19 our licensees and their decommissioning and low-level waste activities; 20 financial assurance of our licensees to be able to complete the work that's 21 set before them; how those sites are evaluated and, ultimately, released for 22 unrestricted use going forward.
23 I want to thank the staff this morning for your insights and 24 your comments, and I'll thank my fellow Commissioners as well for the very 25 robust and excellent discussion.
26 With that, we're going to take a few minutes break, and we
52 1 will reconvene at around 10:30.
2 Thanks very much, everybody.
3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 4 at 10:23 a.m. and resumed at 10:31 a.m.)
5 CHAIRMAN HANSON: OK, welcome back everyone.
6 We're going to start off here with our next panel on the Nuclear Materials 7 Users Business Line. With that, I am going to hand it over to Cathy Haney 8 to get us started. Cathy.
9 MS. HANEY: Well, hello again, Chairman and the 10 Commissioners. So our second panel this morning features our Nuclear 11 Materials Users, or NMU Business Line. This Business Line participates 12 with our Agreement State partners in the National Materials Program.
13 The Business Line is adapting to workload drivers 14 including rapidly developing new technologies in a medical area and is 15 making sure that we have the skills and expertise to ensure safety and 16 source security for a wide range of regulated activities.
17 Next slide, please. For this morning's panel Rob Lewis, 18 the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Deputy Director, will 19 provide an overview of the Business Line.
20 Theresa Clark, the Deputy Director of the Division of 21 Material Safety, Security, State, and Tribal Programs, will present on key 22 successes and challenges for the NRC and the National Materials Program, 23 how we are transforming our hiring strategies for health physicists and how 24 we are using data in our daily work.
25 Maryann Ayoade, Medical Physicist in NMSS, will present 26 on changes to our emerging medical technologies review processes and
53 1 how we interact with stakeholders to identify new technologies.
2 Finally, James Thompson, Senior Health Physicist in 3 Region IV, will discuss how we are redesigning our materials oversight 4 program for the future and how we are working together across regional 5 boundaries to meet challenges of our evolving workload.
6 This concludes my opening remarks and I will now turn it 7 over to Rob.
8 MR. LEWIS: Good morning. Good morning, Chairman.
9 Good morning, Commissioners. Nice to see you all again.
10 It has been my pleasure to serve as the Deputy Director of 11 NMSS since June 2019 and I am always grateful to have an opportunity like 12 this to highlight our Business Line team's great accomplishments, as well as 13 some of the things we'll be focusing upon.
14 I actually would like to start with the latter, our focus areas.
15 So said simply, in the coming year we want to focus on increasing the use 16 of data in our decisions.
17 We want to focus on recruiting, developing, and retaining 18 our workforce and we want to complete several projects that will standardize 19 and optimize several of our processes in this Business Line and across 20 NMSS Business Lines.
21 Our panelists will cover each of these focus areas. Just 22 like with the last panel the upper-right of today's slides show the focus area 23 applicable to that slide's content.
24 So can I have Slide 33, please? A little bit about us for 25 the audience, the Nuclear Materials Users Business Line broadly covers all 26 industrial, medical, academic, and research uses of radioactive materials.
54 1 Together with our regional office, NMSS regulates nearly 2 2,300 licensees. We also work with 39 Agreement State programs which 3 regulate another 16,500 licensees.
4 I would also like to highlight three attributes of the Nuclear 5 Materials Users Business Line that distinguish it amongst NRC's other 6 Business Lines.
7 First, we have 40 regulators operating in a partnership.
8 Second, we have a very wide range of regulated activities with strong 9 interstate and international nature to them. And, third, the activities we 10 regulate are and have for some time been rapidly evolving. For example, 11 medical therapies used today are much different than those that were 12 available ten years ago.
13 With respect to our partnership of co-regulators the NRC 14 and the 39 Agreement States coordinate the regulation of radioactive 15 materials throughout our National Materials Program.
16 Agreement State regulations on radioactive materials 17 follow the same standards as NRC regulations, though specific requirements 18 may differ somewhat.
19 The NRC retains a leadership and oversight role of the 20 National Materials Program through the Integrated Material Performance 21 Evaluation Process, or IMPEP, which we use to ensure nationwide 22 uniformity of regulation, and we review all of our programs, NRC included, in 23 the States under a common set of performance criteria.
24 A final note about us, our Business Line is also the home 25 to NRC's Tribal Liaison Program. Our intergovernmental liaison project 26 managers ensure that NRC communicates effectively with over 500 tribal
55 1 governments on all aspects of NRC's reactor, materials, and waste 2 programs.
3 Next slide, please. In the last year and for the coming 4 year the Nuclear Materials Users Program has a conscious focus on 5 knowledge management and staff development and growth. Investing in 6 staff development and growth is particularly important for NMU because we 7 have many different types of regulated activities and because of the pace of 8 change we see in uses of radioactive material.
9 During the last year we have both seen turnover of staff in 10 specialized areas, like materials engineers, project managers, and health 11 physicists. We actually had 12 retirements in NMSS over the last four 12 months. For a bit of perspective, NRC has about 300 people.
13 In the last year we invested in 68 rotational assignments 14 for career growth and we took 79 external training classes. These are 15 classes outside of what is offered through NRC's great Technical Training 16 Center Program.
17 We also processed 25 promotions and 17 external hires.
18 Note these statistics are not Nuclear Materials Business Line, it's all of 19 NMSS. This year our goal is 30 external hires, but I think all of this 20 illustrates our commitment to recruiting and developing and retaining a 21 world-class team.
22 With attrition and retirements, having a healthy knowledge 23 management function is very important for us. It will help us make better 24 informed and more efficient future decisions.
25 So to that end, we have been actively using Nuclepedia as 26 a knowledge management tool. It's an internal version of Wikipedia. On
56 1 this slide you see Taylor Lamb interviewing Duncan White for an 11-episode 2 podcast series related to the National Material Program history and key 3 issues. Duncan is one of our most experienced people when it comes to 4 partnering with Agreement States.
5 Also on this slide you see Dr. Donna Beth Howe, who 6 retired in December with 44 years of medical regulatory experience. In fact, 7 she was a mentor for me when I used to work on medical regulation in the 8 '90s and 2000s. Before she left she was gracious enough to share her 9 experience and expertise through these ten knowledge management videos.
10 We are going to share all of these knowledge management videos with the 11 public through our state communications portal in the near future.
12 Next slide, please. From John and my position, we are 13 very proud of the way the Nuclear Materials Users Business Line adapted to 14 the COVID pandemic, with such a strong commitment by everyone to our 15 licensing and inspection mission.
16 Our operational decisions not only had to consider NRC, 17 but the 39 Agreement State Agency's approaches, and the situation and 18 needs of some of our licensees, such as hospitals, that were on the front 19 lines dealing with the public health response.
20 The feedback we have gotten both internally and externally 21 indicated our situational awareness and our increased communications 22 posture all worked very well and led us to sound regulatory decisions.
23 Today I wanted to highlight that our ongoing look at the 24 pandemic is a great example of our commitment to learning and being 25 receptive to new information, as we take what we learned during the 26 pandemic forward. In the last year a working group collected and evaluated
57 1 lessons from the pandemic for our oversight activities and developed 2 proposed recommendations.
3 The working group held public meetings in 2021 and 4 meetings with the Agreement States. In November 2021, the working group 5 published its proposed recommendations. It also asked for alignment 6 meetings before decisions are made or actions assigned related to those 7 recommendations. The first of those alignment meetings is coming up on 8 February 9th with John and myself.
9 As was discussed in the first panel, among 10 recommendations is one that the majority of routine inspection activities 11 return to being performed through direct onsite inspection with some 12 case-by-case considerations.
13 Just a thought, if I may, on the dialogue that occurred in 14 the first panel. I am quite like-minded to Katherine. I think you will hear 15 later from James that he is in the same group. In-person inspection of 16 operations is best wherever it's practicable.
17 I would just offer that for this Business Line, for radioactive 18 source licensees in particular, it's not always possible to be there to directly 19 observe operations, like radiography field operations, medical procedures.
20 We try to do it when we can, but we can't always be there. So in addition, 21 our inspection manual does reflect conditions for telephone contact for some 22 very low-risk activities, like gas chromatographs or leak testing service 23 licensees.
24 The key I think to all of this is being open to using all of the 25 tools available to collect information that maintains our ongoing reasonable 26 assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety and us doing
58 1 our mission.
2 I would say for our pandemic lessons learned we are 3 coordinating our lessons with the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. We 4 actually offered a person from our group to support their work.
5 That concludes my remarks. Thank you for the 6 opportunity to highlight some of the work and dedication to public service of 7 our regulatory experts across the Nuclear Materials Users Business Line.
8 I did want to take one moment to especially thank Celimar 9 Valentin-Rodriguez from NMSS. She project managed the preparation of 10 myself and the entire panel today for this meeting and it was exceptional.
11 So the rest of our panel, starting now with Theresa Clark, 12 is designed to complement the focus areas I introduced. I thank you for 13 your attention.
14 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Rob. Good morning, Chairman 15 and Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be with you this morning to 16 showcase three topics for the Nuclear Materials Users Business Line.
17 How we are weaving new ideas into our mission work, how 18 we are making sure we have the expertise we need for the future, and how 19 we are making the most of data in our decision-making.
20 Next slide, please. This is the first of several slides on 21 how we are being open to new ideas as we meet our everyday mission.
22 In 2021, we conducted the NRC's Integrated Materials 23 Performance Evaluation Program, or IMPEP review, as Rob mentioned, as 24 one agency for the first time.
25 In the past each regional office and NMSS received 26 separate IMPEP reviews. This change came from a 2018 self-assessment
59 1 and it means that we now look at the NRC like how we would look at large 2 States with multiple agencies involved in radioactive material safety and 3 security.
4 We took extra measures to make sure that the review was 5 independent and safely performed. The team was nearly half Agreement 6 State staff. We also adapted to the pandemic with a hybrid approach. The 7 review itself was done remotely, but eight of the ten inspector 8 accompaniments were done in person. I am happy to report that the NRC 9 received the highest scores from the team in all review areas and there were 10 no recommendations for improvement.
11 Next slide, please. Rulemaking is a mission-critical work 12 area for our Agency and it includes essential process steps to make sure we 13 get input from the public and then we develop a sound regulatory basis for 14 the rule. Within these bounds, our rulemaking team has truly embraced 15 innovation.
16 For example, this month you authorized us to start a 17 rulemaking on emerging medical technologies. This rule will streamline the 18 approval pathway for medical technologies that used to be new but are now 19 licensed routinely. It will also provide for reliable and clear regulation in 20 licensing of rubidium-82 generators.
21 We also piloted an approach for faster and better 22 integrated decision-making when we look at petitions for rulemaking.
23 During last year's Innovate-a-thon we challenged the whole Agency to come 24 up with ideas and IdeaScale about how we could apply agile project 25 management concepts more broadly.
26 Then we used these ideas to review a petition for
60 1 rulemaking on whether we should require event reports from nuclear 2 medicine injection extravasations. The review of this petition presented 3 particular challenges for us, as we had already started on an independent 4 evaluation and there was high public interest with a large number of petition 5 comments. During this pilot we identified several best practices. It's good 6 to form small cross-functional development teams that have the right 7 background to evaluate the petition.
8 It's helpful to break up the work into monthly sprints that 9 help the team properly react to evolving information. And finally, it's best to 10 have a single project sponsor who can give high-level oversight and help 11 minimize redirection. We are planning to use what we learned on a second 12 pilot petition to make sure we have the process right.
13 Next slide, please. We continue to look for ways to better 14 gather perspectives from outside the NRC, and particularly from Agreement 15 States on how best to base our challenges.
16 We have held several topical meetings with the States 17 recently and hot topics included fusion reactor licensing and how we have 18 operated during COVID.
19 Our National Materials Program co-champions were 20 Duncan White of the NRC and Terry Durst in a Pennsylvania's regulator, 21 continue to lead the way on collaboration across the National Materials 22 Program.
23 They have held multiple Champions Chats which have 24 high participation by NRC and State regulators. The most recent ones have 25 been on remote inspections, as we discussed a lot today, the future of the 26 IMPEP Program, and misplaced radioactive shipments in transit.
61 1 These chats give us an open forum on topics of mutual 2 interest and it's part of that partnership that we treasure as part of the 3 National Materials Program. The chats also allow our newer staff to learn 4 from the knowledge and experience of our senior regulators, like Duncan 5 who was introduced earlier.
6 Next slide, please. Connecticut and Indiana recently 7 declared their intent to become the 40th and 41st Agreement States and we 8 are currently in the application process for that. This development 9 prompted us to ask ourselves how we should best shape a vibrant and 10 effective National Materials Program as Agreement States continue to 11 oversee a greater and greater proportion of the materials licenses in the 12 United States.
13 We are asking questions like what would our program look 14 like if there are 50 Agreement States? What risks do we foresee? What 15 would we need to do? What decisions do we need to make to address 16 them? To this end, we have established a working group with the 17 Agreement States to help identify and answer these questions, and that 18 group should have its report done by the end of 2022.
19 Next slide, please. I want to turn now to how we are 20 focusing on our people and our future using strategic workforce planning.
21 Through our review of projected work and attrition we 22 knew there would be an Agency-wide gap in health physics expertise if we 23 didn't act. To mitigate this risk we took a three-pronged approach of 24 pipeline, development, and community. First, we are building the pipeline of 25 health physicists that we can hire. We are working to increase awareness 26 and profile the NRC among universities and professional societies. We
62 1 highly emphasized our grants program this year, that provides scholarships 2 and fellowships to students and we added health physics detail to the 3 solicitation.
4 We have also increased our outreach to the universities 5 with big health physics programs, like Colorado State and Oregon State. In 6 fact, one of the professors from Colorado State is on a health physics panel 7 discussion that I am moderating at the Regulatory Information Conference 8 this Spring.
9 Next, we are developing our staff to meet future needs.
10 We are increasing ways that our existing health physicists can use their 11 skills in new ways. One exciting example is that we have recently chartered 12 a joint working group with the Conference of Radiation Control program 13 directors that will pave the way for more developmental rotations of NRC 14 Staff and States, and vice versa.
15 Joe Nick, a manger in Region III, is the NRC's co-chair.
16 We also expect the Health Physics Society and the Organization of 17 Agreement States to participate.
18 Finally, we are keeping a sense of community that is so 19 important in retaining our talented staff. To that end, we recently created a 20 Health Physicists Community of Practice. This is a staff-led group that 21 meets monthly and discusses work of interest across the NRC. For 22 example, they are teaming up to create a study group that will help people 23 prepare for the Certified Health Physicist examination. This is a grassroots 24 effort that was inspired by a similar activity at EPA.
25 Next slide, please. Finally, I want to spend some time on 26 how we are optimizing by using data.
63 1 In 2021, our office established the Data Foundation, so 2 named because we want data to be at the foundation of the decisions we 3 make and the strategies that we take across the office and with our other 4 partners.
5 The first tools from this effort are in place and our change 6 management strategy emphasizes having visible near-term successes that 7 will get people excited about these new methods.
8 This year we'll use those capabilities to reduce the burden 9 of data gathering and reporting to provide consistent and rapid information to 10 decision makers and to manage workload better.
11 My next two slides illustrate the work of the Data 12 Foundation to create tools for both widespread and specialized use.
13 Next slide, please. This slide shows a snapshot of our 14 Materials Inspection Timeliness dashboard, displaying Region I's routine 15 inspections from the last fiscal year. It uses data directly from web-based 16 licensing to show how we are doing both on specific inspections and on the 17 overall timeliness metric that we report to Congress.
18 We can spot issues early with this tool and we can address 19 coming challenges. The dashboard also, by the way, shows the number of 20 remote inspections, which was a feature that we added during the pandemic.
21 In conjunction with other dashboards we are developing on 22 how we plan inspections and which inspections are in progress, this suite of 23 tools is going to be widely used across the Regions by inspection planners, 24 as well as regional managers. It will also save us about 15 hours1.736111e-4 days <br />0.00417 hours <br />2.480159e-5 weeks <br />5.7075e-6 months <br /> a quarter 25 by automatically calculating those metrics without the need to run manual 26 reports.
64 1 Next slide, please. This slide shows a specialty 2 dashboard that is very important to one branch in my Division.
3 Every January, licensees need to do an inventory 4 reconciliation to compare the radioactive sources that they have with the 5 inventory that is located in the National Source Tracking System. This new 6 dashboard was created to help our source management staff monitor the 7 status of this annual requirement by pulling data directly from the National 8 Source Tracking System.
9 The snapshot shown on the slide shows that last year we 10 reconciled the inventory data for all of our NRC licensees and we also 11 resolved all of the escalations, which by whom we get unexpected 12 information.
13 This year, we are using this new dashboard as a one stop 14 shop for information related to the reconciliation. As a result, our analysts 15 are saving time on searching databases and consolidating data to give 16 updates on the status of the task. This is an example of a quick win that 17 builds excitement about how these tools can make our lives easier. This 18 concludes my remarks. I will now turn it over to Maryann Ayoade. Next 19 slide, please.
20 MS. AYOADE: Thank you, Theresa. Good morning, 21 Chairman and Commissioners. My name is Maryann Ayoade and I am 22 currently a medical physicist in NMSS. I was formerly a materials inspector 23 and license reviewer in Region I and I have been with the NRC for over 12 24 years.
25 My presentation will cover the update on the emerging 26 medical technologies review process and how we are leveraging external
65 1 partnerships to identify new technologies.
2 Next slide, please. 10 CFR 35.1000 was added to the 3 medical use regulations in Part 35 in 2002 to capture the new and emerging 4 medical uses and technologies that are not specifically addressed in the 5 current regulatory framework because of their unique characteristics.
6 35.1000 is a one-of-a-kind flexible approach within the 7 NRC's medical use regulations for the licensing of new emerging medical 8 technologies while continuing to provide and assure safety for patients, for 9 medical workers, and for members of the public.
10 The creation of 35.1000 and its 20 years of use it reflects 11 favorably on NRC's ability to provide for safety while adapting to the rapidly 12 changing pace of development of often life-saving new medical technologies 13 that are essential to patient care.
14 Next slide, please. Each emerging medical technology is 15 valuated on a case-by-case basis by NRC and Agreement States and we 16 develop licensing guidance with input from the Advisory Committee on the 17 Medical Uses of Isotopes, the developers of the new technology, the Food 18 and Drug Administration, or the FDA, and the medical community, all to 19 determine the risks and the appropriate regulatory requirements for each 20 technology.
21 Timely development of licensing guidance from emerging 22 technologies is essential so that we do not limit patient care and so that 23 medical professionals can use these technologies safely.
24 Now, to date, we have issued ten licensing guidance 25 documents under the 35.1000 framework, including some of the 26 technologies that you see on this slide, like the NorthStar and RadioMedix
66 1 radionuclide generator systems that produce radiopharmaceuticals, which 2 are then used for different medical procedures, and, also, the Gamma 3 Stereotactic RadioSurgery units that use many precisely focused radiation 4 beams for treatment. We have also licensed Yttrium-90 microspheres 5 which are used to treat liver cancer and is the most used technology under 6 35.1000.
7 Next slide, please. We are currently piloting a new 8 licensing guidance development process for emerging medical technologies 9 that streamlines and provides consistency to the existing process by 10 incorporating stakeholder feedback early in the technology review process.
11 This new review process involves using a Standing 12 Committee that includes NRC and Agreement State staff with experience in 13 medical licensing, oversight, and emerging technologies.
14 The Standing Committee's role is to provide feedback and 15 to vote on the Staff's recommended licensing determination, and also to 16 review the proposed licensing guidance developed by Staff to ensure that it 17 is adequate and addresses all of the necessary radiation safety 18 considerations.
19 NRC and Agreement States regulatory expertise is 20 supplemented by the ACMUI's medical expertise during the review process 21 and the ACMUI provides us with practical use and medical feedback on 22 these technologies and they also form subcommittees to review our 23 proposed licensing guidance and make recommendations.
24 Next slide, please. With our new process we are ensuring 25 that we have the key players involved in the review process early so that we 26 can take advantage of their expertise as we review and develop guidance for
67 1 these new technologies.
2 Furthermore, we are being proactive in identifying and 3 addressing any regulatory challenges so we can be ahead of the game and 4 ensure medical licensees and patients have access to safe new 5 technologies in a timely manner.
6 The Standing Committee has been meeting regularly since 7 November of 2020 and we have evaluated three technologies using this new 8 process since the committee's inception. Alpha DaRT is the first manual 9 brachytherapy therapy device that uses alpha-emitting radiation for 10 treatment of superficial solid tumors. We also have the Liberty Vision, 11 which is a new brachytherapy source for eye treatments. That last picture 12 to your right is the CivaDerm, which is a temporary brachytherapy devices 13 that uses gamma-emitting radiation for surface application treatment of skin 14 cancer.
15 To date, the Standing Committee has approved the Staff 16 recommendation for two of these technologies to be licensed under 35.1000 17 and for the third technology to be licensed under 10 CFR 35.400.
18 We are also currently reviewing and evaluating two 19 additional technologies for possible licensing under 35.1000 and the 20 recommendations from the reviews will be provided to the Standing 21 Committee for their approval soon.
22 Next slide, please. Recognizing the ever-changing 23 landscape for therapeutic and diagnostic medical uses of radioactive 24 materials, we do devote significant time to staying well-informed of the 25 external environment to collect insights on how it might affect our workload 26 and workforce expertise needs.
68 1 We continue to engage and communicate with different 2 external stakeholders to identify new technologies and understand their 3 technology-specific radiation safety considerations.
4 The ACMUI continues to serve as a useful resource of 5 information by giving presentations on new technologies and subcommittee 6 recommendations on the staff licensing guidance documents for new 7 technologies.
8 The ACMUI is instrumental in also helping the NRC 9 prepare for future challenges. In 2021, the ACMUI formed a subcommittee 10 to outline the knowledge, specific practice requirements, and safety 11 considerations for emerging radiopharmaceuticals in theranostics. Now, 12 that subcommittee presented their work and recommendations during the 13 ACMUI's Commission meeting last October.
14 In 2020 the ACMUI recommended the need for additional 15 expertise and intervention radiology and Yttrium-90 microspheres on the 16 committee. The Yttrium-90 microsphere administrations are the most 17 commonly performed medical procedure that are licensed under 35.1000.
18 In 2021, the NMSS Office Director appointed Dr. John Fritz Angle as a 19 medical consultant at NRC to assist with this need.
20 The Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA, is another 21 resource for information and NRC Staff continues to engage with the FDA 22 and relevant information on new technologies is shared under the NRC/FDA 23 Memorandum of Understanding.
24 Since October of 2020, the NRC and FDA have co-hosted 25 two joint workshops that are open and accessible to the public to discuss 26 topics of mutual interest related to new technologies. The workshops
69 1 focused on how to enhance the development of new radiopharmaceutical 2 and radiological devices and on the development and regulation of new 3 alpha-emitting radiopharmaceuticals. Both workshops were widely attended 4 with over 550 participants in each workshop.
5 Next slide, please. The NRC Staff also continued to 6 engage with the Agreement States via different avenues, such as our 7 monthly calls, also through the Agreement State representatives that serve 8 on the ACMUI and the Agreement State members of the Emerging Medical 9 Technology Standing Committee.
10 We also have opportunities for engagement with different 11 medical professional societies. These medical professional societies 12 continue to share new information and any updates that are related to new 13 technologies directly with the NRC.
14 They also share information on any new or developing 15 standards for different technologies. NRC Staff also interfaces with these 16 stakeholders in their roles as NRC liaisons on several professional society 17 committees and attend professional society meetings throughout the year.
18 We also do hear from the technology manufacturers.
19 These manufacturers share relevant information with NRC directly or during 20 the professional society meetings on new technologies and any updates to 21 existing technologies.
22 This concludes my presentation. I will now direct your 23 attention to James Thompson.
24 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Maryann. Good morning, 25 Chairman and Commissioners. I am James Thompson, Senior Health 26 Physicist in Region IV, and have been a materials inspector for just over 20
70 1 years.
2 Today I am pleased to be talking with you about recent 3 oversight programmatic enhancements undertaken by the Nuclear Materials 4 Users Business Line in today's dynamic environment, as well as our 5 continuing cross-regional support efforts.
6 Next slide, please. In 2020, the Staff began an effort to 7 review and revise the materials inspection procedures to modernize them 8 and incorporate additional risk and performance insights. A working group 9 of NMSS and regional experts as well as our Agreement State partners have 10 been reviewing 20 procedures and prioritizing their finalization based on 11 potential safety significance, impacts to the program, such as number of 12 affected licenses and inspections, and time since last revision.
13 Our new approach adopts a new concept of risk modules.
14 Our past inspection procedures had the same focus areas for all types of 15 licensees regardless of whether they are industrial or medical licensees, or 16 whether they are licensees in broad scope or limited scope.
17 As part of incorporating more risk insights into our 18 oversight program we created tailored risk modules which should focus the 19 inspector's attention to the areas of a licensee's safety program that have the 20 greatest potential to impact public health and safety and the safety of the 21 workers, such as the use of license material at temporary job sites.
22 We also created new instruction procedures so that these 23 risk modules could be further tailored to the unique risks of specific license 24 activities. For example, we split the existing inspection procedure for 25 industrial, academic, and research programs into six inspection procedures, 26 which will focus on specific activities.
71 1 Some examples of these new inspection procedures are 2 broad scope academic and R&D programs, self-shielded irradiator and 3 calibrator devices, and veterinary use programs.
4 Next slide, please. Over the past year and a half, we 5 have been performing many routine materials inspections remotely, 6 reflecting appropriate pandemic controls, while at the same time meeting our 7 important public health and safety mission.
8 We used all available tools to adapt to the pandemic by 9 performing materials inspections using email, telephone, and video 10 conferencing, aware that the use of these tools was not standard practice for 11 performing routine materials inspection.
12 We used resources such as box and document encryption 13 to exchange security related information with licensees where necessary.
14 Note that even at the height of pandemic restrictions, our approach did not 15 preclude NRC traveling to a particular licensee site for an inspection or event 16 response should that be deemed critical for accomplishing our mission.
17 After travel restrictions lightened, we resumed performing 18 onsite inspections as our normal approach, although these inspections had 19 been announced to ensure that we could comply with any COVID-related 20 protocols. In some circumstances, these onsite inspections could not be 21 performed as initially planned due to circumstances directly related to the 22 pandemic and had to either be postponed or performed remotely instead.
23 In May of 2020, two months into the pandemic, we began a 24 self-assessment of oversight activities during COVID-19. In interviews 25 conducted as part of the self-assessment, Staff were concerned about how 26 the pandemic might shape how we perform inspections in the future.
72 1 Early in the self-assessment we realized that remote 2 inspections were a valuable tool for us and could be performed on a 3 case-by-case basis, but that these remote inspections were not the preferred 4 inspection method during normal operations.
5 Additionally, many of the Staff agreed, including myself, 6 that under normal operations we should continue to perform announced 7 inspections as much as possible. For a small subset of licensees or during 8 pandemic conditions, announcing inspections may make it easier for the 9 inspector to coordinate with licensees on their licensed activities, especially 10 in scheduling temporary job site inspections.
11 Next slide, please. The Staff continues to assure our 12 safety and security mission by engaging efforts to strengthen our partnering 13 and share expertise and resources across regional boundaries to ensure 14 effective oversight activities of both materials licensing and inspection.
15 Given the wide scale and range of regulated activities in 16 industrial medical uses, it makes sense that individual staff experts in 17 different regions will have greater experience and expertise for specific 18 areas and the use of all of our organizational resources best serves public 19 safety.
20 One example of this cross-regional support was the 21 inclusion of inspectors and license reviewers from each materials region, as 22 well as from NMSS Program Office on multiple team inspections. These 23 team inspections were performed either in response to reported events 24 involving radioactive contamination at facilities or for broad scope licensees 25 with multiple licenses that were involved in previous escalated enforcement 26 actions.
73 1 These team inspections successfully provided licensee 2 with insights to improve the safety at their facilities and in their radiation 3 safety programs. Those successes can be attributed to the continued 4 inclusion of Agency experts from across the regions and NRC Headquarters 5 on team inspections.
6 The picture on the slide shows the inspection team for an 7 inspection at Idaho State University in early March 2020, which reviewed the 8 use of license material for research and academic purposes. The team 9 included staff from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, the Technical 10 Training Center, the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, 11 Region I, and Region IV.
12 Next slide, please. Another example of these 13 cross-regional support efforts was to share resources across regional 14 boundaries to assist in the processing licensing actions and performing 15 inspections.
16 The picture on the slide shows a Region III inspector 17 performing an assist inspection for Region IV in October 2021 at the Sanford 18 Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, when onsite 19 inspections had resumed.
20 At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were 21 forced to quickly adapt our licensing and inspection processes to fully 22 remote. We also had to figure out how to provide the appropriate temporary 23 regulatory relief to our licensees that requested it and process these 24 requests from our licensees in a timely manner. This caused us to get 25 behind on some of our licensing and inspection work. We were resilient, 26 however, and showed our commitment to the NRC mission by working as
74 1 one NRC and we are now back on track.
2 We are now looking closely at how we can continue to 3 work together to train and qualify new inspectors and license reviewers to 4 ensure that we can meet future staffing needs.
5 This ends my presentation. I will turn the meeting now 6 back over to Cathy.
7 MS. HANEY: Thank you, James. And thanks for all of 8 the panelists for their presentation. Also, I'd like to thank all the Staff who 9 supported the development of the presentations this afternoon.
10 I'd also like to thank all the NRC headquarters and regional 11 staff and our Agreement State staff that support and make the national 12 materials program assistance. Their hard work and commitment help us to 13 successfully fulfill our important safety and security mission for the American 14 people.
15 This concludes my remarks, and now we will answer any 16 questions you may have. Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thanks, Cathy, and thanks to the 18 staff panel. We're going to start our questions again for the second panel 19 with Commissioner Baran.
20 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks. Well thank you all 21 for your work with the National Materials Program.
22 James, I'd like to start by asking about inspections. On 23 the first panel, Katherine discussed the value of in-person inspections. We 24 had a good discussion of it then. Rob talked about it earlier on this panel, 25 too.
26 You've been a material inspector for 20 years, what do you
75 1 think about the value and effectiveness of in-person inspections compared to 2 remote inspections?
3 MR. THOMPSON: That's a good question, 4 Commissioner. And I'd like to start out by saying, I believe that remote 5 inspections served a very valuable purpose during the pandemic.
6 We were faced with an opportunity, with a fact that we 7 could not travel out to the licensee's facilities and we needed to find a way 8 that we could still support our health and safety mission. And I think the 9 performance of remote inspections, during that time, was very valuable.
10 And I'm glad that we did it.
11 Some of the ways that it was successful was through video 12 conferencing. We had some opportunities to observe some license 13 activities. It is difficult to do, but we were able to in some certain 14 circumstances. And some of those opportunities ended up in violations 15 being identified.
16 And that said, if it's a comparison that you're looking for, I, 17 like Katherine, also believe that onsite inspections are always a better 18 indicator of licensed activities, whether they perform safely as opposed to 19 remote. Some of the limitations of the remote inspections are, for instance, 20 performance of independent radiation surveys. It's very difficult to do that 21 remotely.
22 And so there are some things that cannot be performed 23 remotely, such as, it was alluded to earlier, observation of license activities.
24 In some certain circumstances, those can be observed, but not very often.
25 So the value of onsite inspections is very high as compared to remote 26 inspections.
76 1 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. And you mentioned in 2 your presentation the importance of unannounced inspections. Can you 3 talk a little bit about why that is and whether that's practical to conduct 4 unannounced inspections remotely?
5 MR. THOMPSON: Yes, I would be happy to. So, in 6 announcing, or trying to perform inspections unannounced, we're attempting 7 to see what the licensee is doing when we're not there. That's our attempt.
8 And it serves a very valuable purpose, especially if you're 9 able to observe activities at temporary job sites. It's very valuable to show 10 up unannounced in those circumstances so you can just watch them operate 11 and see how they interact, especially with maybe members of the public that 12 may be around the licensed activities, how they're interacting with them. If 13 they're maintaining security and surveillance. And in my opinion, that's best 14 performed, at least at first, on an unannounced basis.
15 I think some of the unattended consequences of 16 performing announced inspections, that I really wasn't aware of until we 17 started announcing a lot of these inspections due to COVID, was the fact 18 that it also has some unintended consequences. And the fact that 19 licensees, they, if you announce the inspection, I've had it told to me by 20 licensees that they prefer actually unannounced inspections, which I 21 wouldn't have thought that they would have ever thought that, but they did.
22 And it was because the fact that we didn't want, we spent the two weeks 23 waiting, worrying about it, we would prefer that you would have just showed 24 up unannounced.
25 And also I think, one of the things that I identified and I 26 noticed was the fact that when we announce inspections sometimes the
77 1 licensee, a lot of times the licensee, there will be no licensed activities 2 ongoing during the time of that announced inspection.
3 And I think that's one of the things that is an unattended 4 consequence because I had actually one facility, it was actually a medical 5 facility, that it actually cleared the calendar for the day of the inspection to 6 make sure that they could accommodate the inspection. And as you well 7 know, we try to do performance-based inspections. And if they're not 8 performing licensed activities, it makes it very difficult to actually get a 9 performance-based inspection done.
10 So, I think unannounced, and I think a lot of inspectors 11 would agree, unannounced inspections are a better approach than 12 announcing our inspections.
13 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Well thanks, James, I 14 appreciate it.
15 Rob, the staff and Agreement States are in the midst of 16 Phase 3 of the update to the materials inspection procedures. In the past, 17 there was talk about leveraging remote inspections in the inspection 18 procedures. It sounds like there is a consensus among the staff that 19 in-person inspections should be the norm. Is that what we're going to see in 20 the updated inspection procedures?
21 MR. LEWIS: Yes, thanks for asking me that, 22 Commissioner. I, short answer is, I believe that will be reflected in the 23 inspection procedures, as we talked about in the past panel. We do have in 24 receipt the pandemic recommendations. And their recommendation is, as 25 we heard, that routine implementation should be done in-person. Onsite 26 inspection is favored.
78 1 However, there is case-by-case basis. Some of the 2 examples James was just saying where the inspector needs some 3 adjustment and we need a process to get that adjustment approved for that 4 particular inspection.
5 But I will caveat that, as I kind of alluded to in my talk, that 6 we're now in receipt. We got that report November 24th, we're in receipt of 7 their recommendations. They had different views on the working group.
8 And in fact, they also had asked us to, before we decide and take actions 9 based on the recommendations, to have a series of alignment meetings.
10 The first of those alignment meetings is February 9th with John and I.
11 So I don't want to predetermine the outcome, I want to 12 hear it out before we make a decision. But I'm strongly making a vote, as 13 you heard from Katherine and James, I think we're all like-minded. John, I 14 would say the same. When we can go out it's better to go out. And we 15 should have a predisposition to do onsite inspection of operations. And I'm 16 distinguishing between going to the Headquarters office versus going out in 17 the field and seeing the operating whenever they can.
18 I would say also that there is, even before COVID we have 19 a category of radioactive sources where we have the ability to not travel out 20 and do telephone contact with that licensee. We've had that in our program 21 for a while. The working group on pandemic is not recommending revising 22 that at this time, as I understand it, but we'll look at that as well.
23 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Thanks, Rob.
24 Theresa, during your presentation you mentioned Indiana and Connecticut 25 applying to become agreement states. Can you give us just a brief update 26 on the status of those applications and the timeline for review?
79 1 MS. CLARK: Thanks for that question, Commissioner.
2 So we're still in the relatively early stages of those reviews. Connecticut 3 was looking for their agreement by 2025 and Indiana by 2026. So this is a 4 process that involves a lot of back and forth between us and the state for 5 them to develop the legislative needs that they have and their regulatory 6 needs within that.
7 So we've already started engaging with those states to 8 review, for example, draft legislation, to talk with them about their 9 regulations. We've gone out and met with them a number of times so that 10 we understand what each other needs.
11 And we've also, I mentioned WBL in my talk, those states 12 have been engaged in listening to what we're offering states in web-based 13 licensing so that they can possibly begin from the beginning by having all of 14 their information online in web-based licensing. And we're also beginning 15 the outreach process to tribes who are interested in the conversion to an 16 agreement state as well.
17 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. And the Osage 18 Nation has expressed interest in the Indiana application. I know that in the 19 past some tribes have been concerned about other agreement state 20 applications because states don't have the same trust responsibility with the 21 tribe that the federal government does and states don't have the same title 22 consultation responsibilities as NRC under the National Historic Preservation 23 Act.
24 Are we hearing those kinds of concerns for the Indiana and 25 Connecticut applications, and if so, what can we do to address those 26 legitimate concerns?
80 1 MS. CLARK: Thanks for that additional question. This is 2 something that's been very much on our minds because, as you know, we 3 have a trust responsibility with the tribes, and we also have a 4 government-to-government relationship with them as sovereign nations.
5 And so we have heard that feedback in the past about how 6 we handle consultation and historic preservation as we transition from NRC 7 jurisdiction to Agreement State jurisdiction. And one of the ways that we're 8 getting ahead of that for the Connecticut and Indiana agreements is through 9 increased outreach to those tribes.
10 At the outset, when we heard that those states wanted to 11 become Agreement States, we sent out letters to all the interested tribes. I 12 think it was about seven for Connecticut and about 30 for Indiana who had 13 either current or historical ties to those states to explain to them what the 14 process is and to offer our services from an outreach perspective.
15 And you mentioned the Osage Nation, we're actually 16 planning to meet with them this afternoon, to make sure they understand 17 what is and is not part of an Agreement State application and the 18 relationship that we have with them under the tribal policy statement.
19 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay, thanks. Thank you 20 very much, Theresa. Thanks, Chairman.
21 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Baran.
22 Commissioner Wright.
23 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 And that was really good conversation right there.
25 Before I get started, I do want to apologize to the first 26 panel. I had a Microsoft Teams moment, I guess. I called Rich, Leon, I
81 1 believe, and I was looking at the screen where Leon Montgomery's name 2 was up and I made that mistake, and I apologize to Rich, but I think I 3 probably need to apologize to Leon too because I probably scared him to 4 death by calling him out. So I apologize to both guys.
5 I thank each of you for your discussion on this panel here.
6 Theresa, I'm going to come to you.
7 At the May spent fuel storage and transportation business 8 license meeting, I had a discussion with Jessie Quintero and Allan Barker 9 about the tribal liaison programs and methods we've been exploring to 10 increase our outreach, including the examples from the Church Rock project.
11 Can you maybe provide me an update on how we've 12 enhanced tribal engagement and where you see the program going?
13 MS. CLARK: Thanks for providing that. And yes, we, as 14 was mentioned earlier today, the Church Rock outreach was really a novel 15 way of thinking about how we engage with tribes and make sure we 16 understand their needs versus doing business in the way that we've always 17 done it. So that was sort of a marquee accomplishment for us.
18 Tribal is something that we've really increased our focus 19 on over the last year or so, and so we have developed new documents.
20 We've got, you know, the tribal policy statement has been in place for 21 several years now. We have an update to our procedures, so we have a 22 governing management directive about how we do that. And an internal 23 procedure about how we do that work on a kind of a day-to-day basis.
24 But more important than just those procedures is the 25 relationships that we have within the NRC to make sure that the tribal liaison 26 program housed in my division is an asset to the entire agency. That we
82 1 can help people in every corner of the agency enhance their outreach to 2 tribes as they're taking on decisions or reviews that may be of interest to 3 those tribes. And so we've started frequent meetings across the agency for 4 managers to be aware of what we're doing. We have our tribal liaison staff 5 augmented now.
6 And we've been even more engaged in that kind of 7 ongoing outreach. And it's just been something that we have been focusing 8 on significantly over the last couple of years to make our processes even 9 better and more proactive.
10 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you for that. I'm 11 going to stay with you for a second. So, in the first panel, we talked a little 12 bit about the health physicist issue that we got. And again, I'm really 13 pleased to hear about the progress that's being made in NMSS on this. But 14 are there other agencies that have experienced the same issues with 15 recruiting and retaining health physicists as well and have you thought about 16 maybe expanding the developmental rotations or lending of staff from, to 17 other related agencies? From like DOE or NNSA.
18 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Commissioner, that's a great 19 question and a great idea. And so when I was describing the health physics 20 efforts that we've already taken on, those are sort of the first steps. When 21 we started strategizing in this area we had a lot of ideas and so the 22 partnership area was kind of the next area that we wanted to tackle for doing 23 just the sorts of things that you've talked about.
24 There are health physicists that we interface with at the 25 Department of Transportation for transportation of hazardous materials.
26 There's health physicists at EPA, like I mentioned, that we were talking
83 1 about how they have their certified health physics study group. And of 2 course at the agreement states we already have that robust relationship with 3 them.
4 So we're looking to do more of that. In the last year or so 5 we've focused on the quicker wins in the areas that I mentioned earlier.
6 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you so much. I'll 7 shift gears over to Maryann for a minute. Hi, I hope you're doing well today.
8 And thank you for your discussion on EMTs. So the Commission, we 9 recently approved the Staff's plan to initiate a rulemaking that would 10 establish regulatory requirements for well-established EMTs.
11 Given that that rule is, will now include the well-established 12 EMTs, do you anticipate future rulemakings will be needed to incorporate 13 other EMTs into the rules once they are considered well established?
14 MS. AYOADE: Thank you, Commissioner, for your 15 question. And I am doing well. And so, just to repeat your question, you 16 wanted to know if we would anticipate any more rulemakings based on what 17 we're currently seeing for emerging medical technologies.
18 Right now we do not. But, again, as we continue to 19 receive requests for us to license new emerging medical technologies, and 20 as we do that on a case-by-case basis, we will make sure to look at also the 21 new requirements that we have in place to anticipate any, which is what we 22 currently do right now, anticipate any changes that we might need to make 23 for, to the requirements in Part 35.
24 But right now we do not currently anticipate that. We do, 25 we will go through our usual process, which is, as new technologies come in, 26 we do keep track of things in the regulations that may need to be changed.
84 1 Which is how we build over the years enough operational experience, 2 enough just, as we go through the licensing process with these emerging 3 medical technologies. And we realize how much we need to change as we 4 move forward in Part 35.
5 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: All right. So to follow, just 6 to let me probe a little bit more on that.
7 MS. AYOADE: Yes.
8 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So right now I'm hearing you 9 say, I think that you don't have, you don't really see any other challenges 10 right now to licensing or regulating these technologies at the moment? Or 11 do you really anticipate some other challenges?
12 MS. AYOADE: As far as anticipating challenges as it 13 relates to licensing, moving forward after the --
14 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Correct.
15 MS. AYOADE: -- rulemaking process?
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Yes.
17 MS. AYOADE: Not, again, not right now. We believe 18 that this, with this new process that we have, it's going to make things better 19 in terms of things like the different type of microspheres that we get in the 20 future.
21 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay.
22 MS. AYOADE: We'll be able to hopefully incorporate 23 them into being licensed under the rulemaking after it's completed. And 24 also, the bigger technologies where, with the gamma knife units, we 25 anticipate being able to incorporate them into being licensed under the 26 regulations after the rulemaking is completed.
85 1 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: All right. So at the last 2 meeting, the last business line briefing that we had, the staff had just 3 established the emergency medical technology standing committee, right?
4 MS. AYOADE: Yes.
5 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: And so now you've had it 6 mid going, quite a little bit more than a year now. So how is that going and 7 how did the review of the three technologies evaluated by the Standing 8 Committee differ from maybe previous reviews?
9 MS. AYOADE: So, it's been going well so far. The 10 Standing Committee was the big thing that we incorporated into the review 11 process. And it was great because we integrate earlier on, we get feedback 12 from them.
13 The Standing Committee includes members from the 14 Agreement State, from the regions that have medical expertise, also 15 expertise with emerging technologies. And we also have somebody from 16 our legal counsel as well on that committee.
17 And so we're able to get feedback from them earlier on in 18 the process. And so far it's helping to ensure that when we review and 19 evaluate these technologies we're getting earlier feedback that we didn't get 20 before when we had the working group. And it's making it better for a more 21 thorough, a more prompt, and safer product at the end of the day for the 22 licensing guidance documents.
23 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you. So, I 24 appreciate that. So, James, I'm going to end with some questions for you 25 real quick. Or a question.
26 First off, before I ask the question let me just be clear.
86 1 Like Commissioner Baran and like the Chairman, and I believe every other 2 person out there, I don't think anything beats boots on the ground for 3 inspections. And that would be preferred in every scenario, in a perfect 4 world.
5 But I do know that there are, and I agree that there is a 6 place for remote inspections and for doing things a little bit differently.
7 Especially if it's not compromising safety and we're able to accomplish what 8 our mission goals are.
9 And I really appreciated your dialogue with him about the 10 unannounced inspections versus announced inspections. That was 11 interesting.
12 So, you had, you talked about cross-regional support.
13 How, if at all, do inspectors regularly perform cross-regional knowledge 14 management and are there any regular forums like quarterly training or 15 inspector meetings that focus on that?
16 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Commissioner. So, 17 basically I think the question is, for these cross-regional support efforts is 18 there any type of routine training associated with that?
19 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Or anything that, where you 20 can share, especially with the new inspectors, right, where you're sharing, 21 training would be one way to put it, yes. But where you're gathering this 22 knowledge, maybe housing it somewhere and do you have regular forums 23 where you're doing that already?
24 MR. THOMPSON: Well, as far as regular forums, what 25 we do for newer inspectors is, when we have an inspection, especially 26 complex inspections where there are multiple modalities of use involved, we
87 1 always try to bring out the inspectors along on all of those inspections.
2 And the thing is, the important thing to remember is, also, 3 different regions have different types of licensees that other regions may not 4 have. For instance, Region IV has a lot of well-logging licensees. Not, 5 Region III doesn't have that many, Region I probably doesn't have as many 6 as Region IV.
7 So, we like to reach across the regional boundaries and 8 pull in inspectors, and even trainees from the other regions, to assist them in 9 learning about a certain type of licensed activity that may not exist in their 10 region.
11 And additionally, we like to pull inspectors from the 12 different regions for these team inspections. It's a wonderful asset for us to 13 be able to use because of the vast amounts in knowledge and experience 14 that exists across the regional boundaries.
15 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you for that answer, I 16 appreciate it. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Wright, 18 very much. I wanted to start this morning with picking up, actually 19 Commissioner Wright, on a line of question you had about certified health 20 physicists. And this kind of gets back to, I think the previous panel as well.
21 And, Theresa, I really thought your framework for building 22 the pipelines, staff development community was a really interesting one.
23 And yet I'm acutely aware that the NRC is competing for, potentially for 24 CHPs with other elements, right? With industry, with the states. And I 25 worry about that. And so, I'm thinking about that element on the one hand, 26 and on the other hand, we have this opportunity for cross training. Which I
88 1 think was mentioned by Katherine and some other folks in the first panel 2 about taking inspectors in the regions or at Headquarters and teaching them 3 to do different things and whether thats taking formal resident inspectors for 4 sites that have been shut down and reorienting them towards overseeing 5 decommissioning, or providing opportunities for folks to expand their skill 6 set.
7 And so I'm thinking about, in the universe of certified health 8 physicists how to, to quote former President Bush, "how to make the pie 9 higher," if you will. And wondering if what you think about what we might 10 need in terms of additional authorities within human capital, whether or not 11 things like tuition reimbursement or other kinds of staff development might 12 be useful in terms of expanding the total universe of CHPs?
13 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Chairman, for that very 14 thoughtful question. And you raise a number of things that we're already 15 thinking about and talking about amongst the staff.
16 And so, when Commissioner Wright brought up this topic, 17 he mentioned other agencies, and I failed to emphasize. This is a 18 nation-wide, and perhaps a worldwide, challenge.
19 There is only so many programs that are accredited to 20 provide health physic degrees and curricula. And the people who are 21 choosing those degrees, similarly to how we've looked at nuclear engineer in 22 the past, need to see that there is a future for them when they choose that 23 degree.
24 So that really goes into the pipeline piece. And where 25 we're very grateful that the NRC has this grants program that provides for 26 curriculum development, scholarships, and fellowships for students who
89 1 want to go into these fields. It's a number of engineering and science fields, 2 of course, not just health physics.
3 But we've been really amping that up because that will 4 help increase that pipeline, not just for us, but for the entire industry.
5 Because those students who receive the scholarships, they don't commit to 6 the NRC they commit to the nuclear industry. So that's been a, kind of a 7 marketing point for the states when we say, hey, please help us market 8 these grants because you can benefit from this as well.
9 Another point that I think I'll make on the expanding the 10 pie idea is that, yes, there are certified health physicists, but not everybody 11 needs to be a certified health physicist. That requires a certain amount of 12 exams, practical experience, and other exams to do the work that we do.
13 There's a lot of health physicist adjacent fields, if you will, 14 that can be trained to do our work. And one of the things that I was really 15 excited to see as we were going through the hiring process for the next 16 Nuclear Regulator Apprenticeship Network class was that we were able to 17 draw in additional people in these sorts of adjacent fields so that we can 18 train them up on what the NRC needs out of people as a health physicist.
19 And I think the final thing that I'll mention in terms of other 20 authorities or ideas, one thing that has been successful, in some cases in 21 the past, is using the NRC's fellowship program to pay for degrees when we 22 know we need them in specialized areas.
23 And one example of that where we don't need a ton of 24 medical physicists, but the ones that we need, we need them to really know 25 their stuff. And we have used the fellowship program in the past to support 26 that activity.
90 1 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Yes, thank you, that's just great.
2 I'm really glad to see that we're kind of thinking creatively about how to use 3 all the tools in the tool box to meet the kind of ongoing and emerging needs.
4 If I can, Theresa, I just wanted to stick with you for a 5 couple more minutes. You mentioned some innovation and some 6 efficiencies around evaluating petitions for rulemaking. And I know we've 7 only done, I guess one agile petition for rulemaking review so far, but have 8 you, what are the lessons learned on kind of that PRM pilot and do you have 9 a sense of kind of the time savings around this and how to maybe apply 10 some of those lessons learned going forward, at least initially?
11 MS. CLARK: Thanks for that question, Chairman. And 12 our rulemaking group has this really good habit of doing small lessons 13 learned activities after many of their projects, so we actually do have some 14 documented lessons learned from that first petition review. And that went 15 into what I was saying earlier.
16 So, some things worked really well in this review. They 17 liked having these monthly check-ins if things weren't languishing. They 18 were able to stay on schedule with the working group and with the process 19 owner who was driving that petition. That was very helpful.
20 Something that they thought they might have gotten to but 21 they weren't able to for this situation was, if there was so much coordination 22 throughout that process through these monthly check-ins, you may not even 23 need the formal petition review board at the end of the petition review, 24 because everyone would have been looped in and it would have just been a 25 formality.
26 They didn't get there in this case just because of the
91 1 complex nature of the petition. And I don't think they achieved a 2 tremendous time savings, but they learned a lot that they want to apply to 3 another pilot where they do see that they might be able to save some time.
4 And also remove some of the process steps that would be a mere formality if 5 everyone is plugging along every month in these sprints.
6 CHAIRMAN HANSON: Thank you, that's super helpful.
7 I'm really, I'll be interested to follow this going forward, right, because we 8 know, just even in my limited tenure on the Commission I can clearly see 9 that sometimes these petitions rulemaking take a long time to process, right?
10 But we'll get a paper on the Commission and we'll say, the 11 petitioner submitted this request for rulemaking like five or six years ago.
12 And certainly, I don't want to short-change the public participation process as 13 part of those because I think that's really important. But if we can have, if 14 we can put in parallel some of review processes and other things so that we 15 can be more responsive, both to the petitioners, and more transparent to the 16 public about how we're reviewing some of these things, I think that's all the 17 better. And I'll be super curious to kind of see if the lessons that you guys 18 are reaping from this can be shared with, say NRR or NSIR or other parts of 19 the organization too. So I'm really looking forward to this. And I appreciate 20 your, I appreciate your remarks this morning.
21 That's really it for me in terms of questions. I want to 22 thank everyone this morning. I think the Nuclear Materials Users business 23 line is really critically important.
24 I know sometimes the operating reactors gets a lot of focus 25 within the agency. We have 94 operating reactors, but we have tens of 26 thousands of materials licensees around the country, and so the breadth of
92 1 work that NMSS does in this area, in partnership with our agreement states, 2 really touches the everyday lives of Americans in an entire myriad of ways 3 and so I want to thank you all for your commitment to public service and to 4 the agency's mission.
5 I want to thank my colleagues, I think, for their comments 6 this morning, for their emphasis on how to strengthen the programs that we 7 have in front of us. I'm sorry, I'm going to take just two minutes here.
8 I did have one last question as I was wrapping up and I 9 just remembered it so I'm going to, I think I had a little bit of time left so I'm 10 going to use my prerogative to do that.
11 I mentioned the emphasis sometimes on operating 12 reactors and we have, there is an emphasis on that internationally, as well in 13 terms of sharing expertise around the world. But we see that countries who 14 may not want to build a reactor still have a need for expertise on materials 15 uses.
16 Countries that want to have medical devices or industrial 17 devices, that they climb the economic and social development ladder. And 18 I'm just, I know we do some of these activities, I'm wondering if Cathy or Rob 19 can just kind of speak to some of our activities in this area and your thoughts 20 about how we may be able to expand those going forward.
21 MS. HANEY: So I'll start, but then I'll turn to Rob for the 22 specifics. So, Chairman, thanks for the question.
23 I think it's very important that we are working 24 internationally, just as well for working domestically with our partners. We 25 do a lot of work through NEA and the International Atomic Energy Agency, 26 as I said, I'll Rob hit on some of the specifics, but I do think it's important that
93 1 we keep up that effort.
2 But we learn a lot. We also contribute a lot. There are 3 several cases where our staff has gone out on a different, providing support 4 to an individual state. And when I say state, another international regulator.
5 And I think the feedback that I've gotten, whether it's been personal 6 feedback or through our Office of International Program, is that the receiving 7 country is very appreciative of the work.
8 We've also hosted individuals from other countries coming 9 in and working with, side-by-side, with the NRC Staff to share that 10 knowledge. So there are formal mechanisms and informal.
11 And, Rob, if you want to touch on any of the specific 12 outreach efforts that would be good.
13 MR. LEWIS: Yes, thanks, Cathy, that was great, a great 14 start. Yes, I would just, we also value our international partnerships. Our 15 licensees appreciate that we value those international partnerships, 16 especially on the medical side and the sources side.
17 They're selling their equipment across the world, so when 18 it's transported across the world, we all try to use the same standards.
19 When it's licensed in individual countries, we want the same foundational 20 standards for, to support that international business provided they provide 21 for safety.
22 So to do that, the, actually, Kevin Williams, the Division 23 Director on Theresa's division, he's a member of the IAEA radiation safety 24 standards committee. They meet twice a year. We participate in their 25 activities and the sub-tier groups that meet the standards and guidance that 26 they developed. We're very active in that program.
94 1 We participated as well in IRS missions for non-nuclear 2 countries. We've had several of our staff do those, including myself. I was 3 team leader for IRS mission to Poland, they're an embarking country but a 4 big part of our review included their nuclear radioactive materials program.
5 And then also in the bilateral support area we work very 6 closely with Nadar Mamish and OIP people. They have a very active 7 assistance program. Many of the countries that we're working on in that 8 assistance program are non-nuclear reactor countries, but they do have a 9 radioactive materials program, medical and industrial uses.
10 And we actually have our staff join Nadars staff and some 11 of the contractors that OIP has on trips to those countries to assist 12 developing the regulatory program. A lot of that recently has been focused 13 on source security.
14 Particularly in the country of Africa. We've done several 15 workshops in that area in the last few months. And theyre remote 16 obviously. But we're a very active participant in those.
17 And the last point I'll make is, it's not just the NRC. I think 18 when we're dealing with countries that are developing a regulatory program 19 for radioactive sources, we partner with the NNSA, the DOE NNSA, and they 20 go as well. And they have a security interest. We have a safety and 21 security interest and I think we complement each other well as we interact 22 internationally.
23 CHAIRMAN HANSON: That's great, Rob, thank you very 24 much. I think you hit on all the right notes.
25 We heard a lot this morning about how our nuclear 26 materials program and the business line today really interacts with both our
95 1 licensees and the Agreement States, and I was glad to end on a note of 2 international cooperation as well.
3 And I certainly appreciate everyone, particularly my 4 colleagues forbearance on my left turn there right at the end. I remembered 5 that I wanted to bring up that point.
6 And again, I want to thank the Staff this morning. I want 7 to thank Commissioner, Baran, Commissioner Wright for a really good 8 discussion. And with that, we are adjourned.
9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 10 at 11:46 a.m.)
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