ML22230A074
| ML22230A074 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/29/1977 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M771229 | |
| Download: ML22230A074 (61) | |
Text
- ,
- RETURN TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS
(
(
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meetin~ of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on Dec~ ~, 1977 in the Commission's offices at 1717 H Street, N. w.;-washington, o_ C. The rneeti ng \vas open to public attendance ~1d observa_ti on. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
(_ As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addfessed to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize .
1 C:R, *59-28 1 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATO~Y COMMISSION
( . of ~
tr nscriptsf OPEN MEETING OF THE COMMISSIONERS THORPE/blt All 3 POLICY SESSION 77-62
- 4 5
6 SECY-77-600 AND SECY-77-b00A, FY 78 DOMESTIC SAFEGUARDS T~CHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND RESEARCH CONTRACTUAL PROJECTS-Thursday, 29 December 1977 7
1:45 p.m.
8 9 Commissioners' Conference Room 1717 H Street, N. W.
10 Washington, D. C.
11 COMMISSIONERS PRESEN'l':
12 JOSEPH M. HENDRIE; Chairman
- 13 14 15 VICTOR GILINSKY RICHARDT. KENNEDY OTHER STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
16 SAMUEL CHILK, Secretary to the Commission 17 THOMAS ENGELHARDT 18 R. BURNETT 19 DR. CLIFFORD SMITH 20 LEE GOSSICK, Executive Director of Operations 21 WILLIAM DIRCKS 22
- 23 Ace-*I Reporters, ~n~.
KENNETH PEDERSEN J. KELLEY J. MAYNARD (ELD)
OFFICIAL USE ONLY
..Ac..~gJeraf /eportm, 25 U4 N. Capitol Street (Suiie luu, J. MILLER (NRR) 1 Washington, D. c. 20001
1-A
- b. 2 D. CHAPELL (IE)
- o. CHAMBERS (IE)
- 3 E. PERCHONAK (NMSS) 4 R. PAGE (NMSS) 5 T. SHERR (NMSS) 6 p. BAKER (NMSS) 7 s. LEVINE (RES) 8 F. ARSENAULT (RES) 9 w. MURPHY (RES) 10 R. MINOGUE (SD-)
11 w. BROWN (SD) 12 C. BECKWITH (CON)
- 13 14 15 E. TRINER (CON) 16 17 18 19 20 21
- 22 23
- 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25
2 CR 5928 P R O C E E D I N G S TH./
bl. 11 2 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Could we come to order. We're 3 meeting this afternoon to go over safeguards technical assist-
- 4 5
6 ance and research contractual projects in compliance with the 1978, fiscal year '78, Authorization Act. We're required to publish a statement supporting the need for contracts for 7 research studies and technical assistance on dom~stic safeguird 8 matters.
9 I hope in future years we'll be able to do this at 10 a time a little more compatible with the budget cycle, but 11 this year seems to have caught us a little bit behind the times.
There was a previous staff presentation on the 12 subject several weeks ago. The staf~ had presented lists of 13 1
the projects which they felt ought to be funded in fiscal 78.
14 These were arranged primarily by the office supporting the 15 particular piece of work, and the Commission found it a trifle 16 awkward to digest in that form and asked the staff to please 17 do some crosscut analysis and some grouping by types of safe-18 guards, research or technical assistance work, as an aid to 19 the Commission in considering the matter and as an aid in 20 allowing the Commission to deal on a somewhat broader basis 21 with work areas rather tha.n fifty-eight or however many pro-22 Ace-23 24 Reporters, Inc.
posed individual contr~cts.
So with that introduction, and after I ask my colleagues if they have additional comment to make here, I 25
3 would ask the Executive Director, whom we welcome back from 2 leave, and his staff to please go ahead and tell us what they 3 have here.
4 MR. SOSSICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
5 To sum up the background on this matter~ we've 6 had several sessions in the staff in the process of putting 7 the paper together that we sent down to you on the 21st. I 8 believe.that with that I'll ju~t,go ahead and ask Dr. Smith 9 to go ahead and get right into the description of what we have 10 here and address the various areas in an effort to summarize 11 that paper.
12 DR. SMITH: Thank you, Lee.
- 13 14 15 Commissioners, what you have in the package in front of you is a proposed Federal Register Notice. You also have a list of the fiscal '78 proposed technical assistance and research projects which we presented to you last time.
16 One change that we have made in those projects is 17 that you will note that in the upper righthand margin of each 18 sheet we have coded those as to whether or not they are NMSS 19 or Research or what-have-you.
20 Third in your package is a summary listing of the 21 fiscal '78 projects, which gives you the code. In other words, 22 it tells you whether or not that project is in the area of 23
- 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 material accountability dr fuel cycle or physical protection for reactors.
4 Then the fourth item that's in the package is the 2 briefing sheets or briefing charts, which contain the various 3 cuts, both in activity areas and also in breakout of fuel cycle 4 and safeguards, which I'd like to now go through with you.
5 Then I thought after we got through that if you 6 had some spe~ific questions. in addition on individual projects 7 we'd be pleased to try to answer those.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: All right. And I notice we
~hould note that there is a draft of a Federal Register Notice 9
10 for ,~onsideration ~
11 DR. SMITH: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Hopefully after discussion and 12
- 13 14 15 consideration of these matters.
you.
DR. SMITH: Fine. I forgot to mention that. Thank Could I have the first chart, please, Ben?
16 (Slide.)
17 This is just a summary of what we have. There are 18 basically fifty-eight projects that are included in that pack-19 age that you have. Ten of those projects are Research projects, 20 that is, they're sponsored by the Office of Research, The 21 other forty-eight are Technical Assistance projects.
22 We show the major offices, the dollar value of 23 the defined projects being $13 million. In other words~ that
- 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. $13 million is ag~inst the fifty-eight projects.
25
5 Still pending evaluation in our STAR group with 2 respect to its applicability and whether or not it makes sense, 3 whether or not there is some further need to better define 4 the project, is the $1.5 million worth of projects. That's 5 basically eight projects that are still hanging to be defined.
6 Ohe is a Research project, and seven are Technical Assistance 7 projects *.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: May I ask a question? How 8
9 do these projects as a whole differ from what., say, DOE is 10 doing? They have a_Safeguards Division that funds probably more work than we do.
11 DR. SMITH: They fund significantly much more work 12
- 13 14 15 than we do ..
I can't answer that specifically. In fact, we're sitting down next week with Harvey Lyons, who's corning over to go over in detail his proposed budget, and we're going to go 16 over ours.
17 In the Fast there has not been a rather rigid 18 coordination between the two but rather periodic meetings, 19 about twice a year, to make sure that we weren't seriously 20 overlapping or duplicating.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Do we draw any benefit from 22 what they do?
23 DR. SMITH: Oh, yes, we do, very much so.
MR. BURNETT: To a great extent. Of course, they are
6 by law authorized to develop equipment where we are not, so 2 we derive a great deal of help there.
DR. SMITH: Maybe Frank Arsenault from the Office 3
of Research could address that.
4 MR. ARSENAULT: Thank you.
5 In the area of research at least, we have had 6
regular interaction with the Division of Safeguards and 7
Security in ERDA and now DOE, and the difference between the 8
research projects in NRC and the research and development in 9
DOE we characterize as follows:
10 Reflecting our regulatory function, our research 11 is focused largely on developing the capability to evaluate 12
- 13 14 15 safeguard systems, where their research is primarily focused on developing components and systems whereby regulatory require ments could be implemented.
I should point out also that, si_nce they have both 16 the regulatory and implementation functions within the 17 Government operated facilities, they have an interest also in 18 the evaluation method. Basically they've left the bulk of 19 t~a~ type of research to us and contented themselves with adapt-20 ing and modifying those methods for application.
21 The coordination has been along those lines, and 22 while it has not been rigid it has been rather thorough and 23 frequent, I think.
Ace-~I Reporters, 7n~. COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Do they respond to us in the 25
7 6 development of their programs for systems development in
.lt 2 terms of requirements that we see?
3 MR. ARSENAULT: They have been responsive in their 4 technology development to the evolving regulatory requirements, 5 yes.
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: How do we make them known 7 to them? How do we make our needs known to them?
8 MR. ARSENAULT: Let me clarify the point. It 9 isn't the NRC needs which they are responding to; it's 10 really an industry need resulting from NRC regulations to 11 which they respond.
12 The way that this has been made known to them is
- 13 14 15 through various contacts, including a group, possibly mis-named the Technical Advisory Committee. It in fact is a periodic briefing of staff, principally from the Office of 16 Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards but other offices in 17 NRC as well, and the Division of Safeguards and Security in 18 DOE, and it frequently involves -contractors in industry.
19 DR. SMITH: Ben, could we have Chart 2, please?
20 (Slide.)
21 *All of the ten Research projects that are listed
- 22 here are based on user needs. Also, as you can see, all the 23 Technical Assistance projects are established by the sponsorin(J
- 24 offices. All fifty-eight projects have been reviewed by the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 STAR group, which is the Safeguards Technical Assistance and
8 1 RE;:!Search Group, for duplication;:_ Q~e-rlap and~ categorization,
- .7 - - .,,/_. - -
2 and by that we mean whether or not the ~roject has application 3 in the area of fuel cycle or reactors, and also the projects 4 have been reviewed for applicability,-in which we are referring 5 to the six major activity areas, which you will see on the 6 next chart.
7 It has been -- I might mention that the STAR team 8 has been composed of NMSS, Paul Baker, Dr. Baker is the 9 chairman; Frank Arsenault from Research; Chuck Beckwith from 10 the Comptroller's Office has worked with us right along; 11 Owen Chambers from I&E; Ralph Jones from Standards; Tom 12 MCKenna from NRR, with a lot of*participation on this last
- 13 14 15 exercise with Jim Miller of NRR.
Chart 3, Ben, please.
(Slide.)
16 MR. PEDERSEN: Could I ask a question on that*chart, 17 please; Cliff, on that first point?
18 You say all *is supported by user needs, all the 0
19 Research projects. What percent of those is*Research the 20 user, or are you saying they're all supported by user needs outside of Research?
21
- 22 DR. SMITH: Outside of Research.
23 MR. PEDERSEN: There is an office outside of Research supporting the requirement?
- 24 Ace- cl Reporters, Inc.
25 DR. SMITH: That's right. We'll get into that,
9 becAuse there are some things that I have to clarify by who
- 8 2 iS sponsoring what and who is asking what, if I could just 3 defer that a couple of charts. That subject came up last 4 time.
5 MR. PEDERSEN: Sure.
6 DR. SMITH: The next chart just shows the safe-7 guards activity areas against which we tried to categorize 8 most of the Research -- all of the fifty-eight projects that 9 we have.
10 Then, Ben, if we might move to the*other charts 11 rather quickly.
12 (Slide.)
- 13 14 15 These charts are simply a description of what we mean by material accountability, and we list for you the major fiscal year '78 activities in terms of bullets.
16 I might mention that th9se bullets are primarily 17 a summary of the major thrusts for fiscal 1 78 projects in this 18 area. We tried to summarize in four or five bullets the 19 major thrusts in each of those are~s, and we have one of those, 20 of cause, for each of the major activity areas. I'm sure that 21 ELD will discuss that a little bit when they talk about the 22 23 24 proposed Federal Register Notice, because we have used some of ~that language.
That would bring us to the first chart, Ben, which Ace-F al Reporters, Inc.
25 would be Number 10, on the breakdown, which you asked us for
10 l last time .
- 9 2 (Slide.)
We first have characterized these charts by appli-3 4 cability, and what we mean here is that very simply some 5 projects are applicable to more than one activity area, so 6 that we're saying that out of the fifty-eight projects_that 7 are in the package in the area of material accountability 8 there are twenty-four projects which have some application 9 to th~ material accountability area. Some might be 100 per-10 cent; others may be only 10 or 15 percent. That's why you 11 will see more applicability areas than you do projects.
12 The next chart, Number.11 --
- 13 14 15 (Slide.)
is.the first comprehensive overview chart of the total NRC
'78 Technical Assistance and Research budget. We broke this 16 dOWn so you could see for each-of the activity areas those 17 dollars that are being spent in the area of fuel cycle:abd* the 18 dollars that are being spent in the area of reactors.
19 As you can see, we're talking about $13 million at 20 the present time. Those are the projects that have been defined.
21 Let me try to clarify the asterisk that you see 22 with the notation at the bottom. It says that the values 23 represent the sponsoring office breakout. When we were looking
- 24 Ace- al Reporters, Inc.
at our projects, the problem arose of trying to allocate how 25
11 much of the project would benefit fuel cycle and how much
.10 2 would benefit reactors. There was not a unanimity of agree-ment, and so what was agreed to is that the office that was 3
4 sponsoring the work -- that is, if it was a Research project, 5 Research would make the breakdown as to how much was fuel 6 cycle and how much was reactors, and the same for any Tech 7 Assistance project.
8 You will note down at the bottom -- and I'll be 9 able to elaborate a little later on that point ~s we go 10 along -- that Research is indicating that they are sponsoring 11 only $2.5 million of the work. That is, if you were to add 12 up those three figures with the a~terisks, they would add up
- 13 14 15 to some $3.3 million. Research is sponsoring $2.5 million of that,-and NRR is endorsing through user request only a millio~.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Of the 3.3?
16 DR. SMITH: No, of the 2.5.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Then where is the other 17 gOO?
18 DR. SMITH: Well, some of it could be Tech 19 20 Assistance. In other words, if you add up the 2,946, the 266 and the 120, that is both Tech Assistance and Research.
21 Further charts will elaborate on that.
22 Mr. Case isn't here, but Mr. Miller is here repre-23 senting him. With respect to what NRR means, I talked to Ed
- 24 Ace-Fe Reporters, Inc.
yesterday to make sure I could represent the viewpoint, and 25
12 bl.l Jim can amplify.
2 What NRR is basically saying is that they did not 3 request the project;. (2) they don't think they need the pro-4 ject to the extent that they are willing to sponsor it or 5 make a user request for the. project; and point (3), any infor-6 mation, however, that did come out of the research that was 7 applicable to reactors and made sense, they would obviously 8 use it.
9 That's why we have this asterisk here. When I get 10 to the chart on Research and ori NRR, you can begin to be 11 clear. And Mr. Miller is here, and Mr. Arsenault and Mr.
12 Levine are here.
- 13 14 15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE; Let's postpone the discussion*
to that point where it's made clear.
DR. SMITH: All right.
16 Let's go to Chart 12, then, please.
(Slide.)
17 We also, for your ease in looking at this, broke 18 these numbers down into percentages. Those percentages, as 19 we indicated at the bottom, are based on sponsoring offi.ce 20 breakout, again for the same reason. The sponsoring office 21 broke out the dollars against fuel cycle and research, and 22 they simply converted those to percent.
23 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Is someone going to explain
- 24 Ace-F Reporters, Inc.
why the percentage devoted'1,tb(.physical protection is so high 25
13 12 at this point?
~ 2 DR. SMITH: Yes.
If we can go to Chart 13, please.
3 4 (Slide.)
we now are breaking out against the six activity 5
areas the amount of money spent in the fuel cycle area and 6
7 reactors. As you can see, some $9.6 million or 74 percent or the total R~search/Tech Assistance NRC budget is logged against 8
the fuel cycle. On the reactor side, 26 percent; however, 9
again NRR's point being that they are endorsing only $1.08 10 million of that particular amount. Those are the same figures 11 that you saw before.
12
- 13 14 15 of the 2.5?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
DR. SMITH:
Let's see.
That's right ..
You said 1.08 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And then there'* s another 16
.8 that is approved?
17 DR._ SMITH: Yes, but if you take that first figure, 18 the 2,946, that's really comprised of -- Standards has a pro-19 ject in there, NRR has a project in there, and Research has 20 2.238. So if you add those three up, you get the 2.9. If 21 you move to the 266, that*~ comprised of Research and Standards, 22 23 24 and the 120 is Research.
So if you were to take those and break them down Ace- al Reporters, Inc. as to how much of that was Research -- in other words, of the 25
14 3.332, how much was actually from the Office of Research? It bl.3 2 would be the 2.531 that is logged against reactors. Reactors are saying they're only willing to support 1 million of that.
3 4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: So there is about a million 5 and a half about which there is not unanimous agreement?
6 DR. SMITH: Thatls right.
7 In Chart 14 8 (Slide.)
9 -- we have shown the number of applications for the project, 10 and this is for the Office of Research now. As you can see, 11 the total Office of Research budget for safeguards for fiscal 12 1 78 is $7.5 million roughly. Sixty-six peicent of their
- 13 14 15 activities would be in the fuel cycle area and 34 percent in the reactor area. Again, of course, we have the asterisk.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Could I ask how you make 16 these allocations? I notice the ~ontingency planning show$
17 173 thousand. Presumably that was something that was cut in 18 19 MR. ARSENAULT: As Cliff mentioned, these alloca-20 tions were made by the Office of Research. In answering the 21 question you asked, I'd like to ~oint out that allocations are 22 23 24 made on the basis of applicability .of the research. Endorse-ment indicates a formal user request for some specific research The research that's being done in response to, or will be Ace- al Reporters, Inc.
25 done in response to, the NRR requests total about $1 million
15
- tl4 80 thousand .
2 In the physical protection column, a total of 3 2,238 well, one has to take all three aspects. Of the 4 total 2,531, $1,080,000 is requested by NRR. The bulk of the 5 remainder has been requested by NMSS, with. some small portion 6 being requested by I&E.
7 I think I mentioned earlier that it's difficult 8 when you take a project which is devoted to evaluation of 9 physical protection --
10 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY; Fran~, excuse me. I don't understand. You said NRR of the 2.5 reque~ted 1.08.
11 MR. ARSENAULT: Yes.
12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And you sai:.d the bulk of 13 the remainder is taken up by NMSS ._ Why would NMSS be con.,..
14 cerned with physical protection of reactors?
15 MR. ARSENAULT: I believe the answer to that is 16 present in the comment I was going to make. If I may continue, 17 I'll be happy to come back to that.
18 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: All right.
19 MR. ARSENAULT: The NMSS requested a research to 20 develop efforts for evaluating the effectiveness of physical 21 protection safeguard systems. Physical protection does not 22 23 24 differ greatly except in some specifics with the type of plant at which it is implemented, so that the method for evaluating Ace cl Reporters, Inc. for evaluating physical protection is essentially equally 25
16
. l t 15 appli~able to a reactor or to a reprocessing plant or to a 2 fuel fabrication plant.
3 When asked to allocate the funds associated with 4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Frank, do the Reactor 5 people agree with that?
6 MR. ARSENAULT: I think they agree that they are 7 equally applicable. Their disagreement is with. :tes.pE§ct :to pri-8 orities. They would choose not to endorse the one that we're 9 doing. They do accept that if it is successful it would be 10 applicable to the reactors.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I guess what I was trying 12 to get at is it's understandable that things are applied to
- 13 14 15 various kinds of facilities. What I'm a~king you is did you arrive at these divisions by looking at the fraction of facilities that are fuel cycle facilities, or what?
16 MR. ARSENAULT: No. Basically I said this project 17 is almost entirely applicable to both facilities; therefore, 18 roughly a 50-50 split would be appropriate.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I see.
20 MR. ARSENAULT: It's rather an arbitrary split. I 21 would have preferred to apply 100 percent of the budget to 22 23 24 both types 0£ facilities, but because of this type of breakout and crosscut was appropriate for all of the Technical Assist-ance half, I followed along with it and made th.is arbitrary Ace-F I Reporters, Inc.
25 division.
17
.16 I 1
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
planning is sort of 50-50?
So that's why contingency 3 MR. ARSENAULT: Yes. In fact, in the task directed 4 for evaluation of physical protection I allocated 10 percent 5 of that task to contingency planning, because a portion of 6 contingency planning deals with facility responses to emergency 7
implementat,ion. It was a rational rather t;han a highly 8 structured allocation.
9 Does that answer your question?
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: That answers it.
11 DR. SMITH: Could we have Chart 15, Ben?
12 (Slide.)
- 13 14 15 and The previous one was for the Office of Research, this is for my office, NMSS Tech Assistance.
can see, the total contractual effort is 2.5 million.
As you And, 16 of course, it's 100 percent against the fuel cycle.
17 We did, in going through and looking at the break~
0 18 out, feel that there was some work that we were doing in the 19 area of contingency planning that might have applicability to 20 reactors, but we just decided to lump it all against the fuel 21 cycle since there obviously wasn 1 t agreement on that point.
22 23 24 do?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: How does the work that you do differ from the work that Research does or wants to I Ace-Fe I Reporters, Inc.
25 DR. SMITH: You mean in terms of the difference
18
.t 17 2
between Tech Assistance and Research?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, you've got 450 thousand in contingency planning. How does that differ from 3
4 the 173 thousand the Research people have?
5 DR. SMITH: Well, I can talk to the 450, or Bob.
6 I'd ask Frank to address the 173.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I just used that as an 8 example.
9 DR. SMITH: In general, on the Tech Assistance projects what we are really doing is going out and contracting 10 11 with people to provide us information or to use their exper-12 tise because we don't have it in_bouse. Also, it might be
- 13 14 15 that-we want.to put together some teaching aids *in the area of contingency planning or have some meetings .. :. *rt- ,would be in that area.
In Research they're. looking at much more sophisti-16 cated approaches and models as to how to approach it.
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why do you need this 18 173 thousand worth of contingency planning in Research?
19 20 DR. SMITH: It's double that. I'd have to go back and look at what that particular project is.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I'm just using that as 22 23 an example. I don't know anything about that particular one.
MR. ARSENAULT: If I could speak to that, the
- 24 Ace-F I Reporters, Inc.
dollars allocated on the Research slide to contingency 25
19 18 planning consist of two parts.
2 A portion of it -- and I've forgotten exactly what 3 the dollar value was 4 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: One hundred seventy-three 5 thousand.
6 DR. SMITH: It was double. It*s 346 thousand.
7 MR. ARSENAULT: Approximately half of the Research dollars allocated to contingency planning were allocated from 8
9 the projects on evaluation of physical protection, which I 10 mentioned a moment ago and explained. A portion of physical 11 protection is facility response to an attempt. That portion 12 is synonomous with that portion ot contingency planning which
- 13 14 15 deals with that kind of response, so I allocated the physical protebtion or 10 percent of the physical protection project to that.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY~ Just arb.:,i:_trarily?
MR. ARSENAULT: Pardon?
17 18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Arbitrarily?
19 MR. ARSENAULT: Well, as I said 20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: In your best judgement.
MR. ARSENAULT: Yes. I tried to do it on a 21 rational basis. It was an.arbitrary structure to which I was 22 working. I tried to make the allocation to that.
23 The remaining portion of the Research dollars that
- 24 Ace-F Reporters, Inc.
were allocated to contingency planning are ~ore directly 25
20 related to contingency planning, and a significant fraction 2 iS directed, for example, to developing methods for responding 3 to communicated threats, assessment of the validity and import 4 o,t communicated threats. This is in response to specific re-5 quests by the Office of Nuclear Material Safety* and Safeguards.
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why isn't that just _in-7 cluded in NMSS Technical Assistance?
8 MR. ARSENAULT: Because it's research. I think 9 you could divide Research and Technical Assistance basically 10 on the basis of the following definition, which is not in-11 tended to be rigorous or artificial.
12 Where a requirement exists for the development of
- 13 14 15 new data or making new measurements or for the development of new methodologies, then we generally find it convenient to dO it as a Research program. In fact it is research.
16 Where a requirement-is for the assimilation and 17 perhaps operating on existing data, then it isnit really 18 Research; it's a Technical Assistance problem.
0 And where it 19 is the application or the application with higher modifications 20 of existing methods, then it is convenient to do it as a 21 Technical Assistance pr6ject.
- 22 There are a number of reasons for this definition 23 this division, but i think most of the Technical Assistance and Research projects would meet that definition.
- 24 Ace-F Reporters, Inc.
25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And there's a further aspect, I
2 think,* which certainly was true on the reactor side in the b.2 2 years when I was dealing with those budgets, and that was that 3 Technical Assistance work tended to be much more closely keyed 4 to the analysis and licensing activities of the staff, NMSS 5 0 r NRR, than a Research project, which would be sort of a step 6 more remote from the line activity.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I think that's true, 8 but at the same time you were working with much smaller 9 Technical Assistance budgets, I think, at that time.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I can remember arguing for more 11 money.
12 COMMISSIONER GlLINSKY: .. I can remember that, too.
- 13 14 15 clearer:
(Laughte*r.)
MR. BURNETT: One other fact, to get this definition A lot of programs in our shop are being carried out 16 on an in-house basis, and then-once we have it in hand and 17 ready to go we want to test it. We usually test that using 18 the vehicle of-Technical Assistance dollars.
19 Also, like on the upgrades rule that's coming down 20 the pike, we are doing some programs on how to implement that 21 in the regulatory methods, and that would be handled on TA rather than more generic.
22 23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, let me ask you. For example, take the material acco~ntability or physical protec-
- 24 Ace-F I Reporters, Inc.
tion. Are those closely related to specific facilities?
25
22
.t 21 2
MR. BURNETT: Some are. Some material accountabilit that we're doing is evaluation of the gain theory, for 3 instance.
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, but that's a little 5 different. I think the Chairman is thinking more about having 6 outsiders do the seismic analysis, something like that.
7 DR. SMITH: I would say in general that our Tech 8 Assistance projects in the area of material accountability 9 would have applicability to the problem, would have applica-10 r,Jility if successful across the spectrum of all of our 11 facilities.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: . Well then, i t doesn't fall
- 13 14 15 into that specific category.
DR. SMITH: Well, if we look at the activity area
/MR. BURNETT: Not in the area of reactors, of course.
16 DR. SMITH: No, no. I'~ t~lkin~ about)hh~ufuel 17 cycle.
18 MR. BURNETT: Sure, it would hit them all. I 19 agree with that.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I think the Chairman 21 made the remark that Technical Assistance was more closely 22 tied to the reviews of specific facilities. I think that's 23 right, but it looks as if the line has blurred a bit since
- 24 Ace- al Reporters, Inc.
then. Much of what you do is really generally applicable and 25
23
.t 22 2
it seems to me doesn't differ all that much from what goes on in Research.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Even in the great days when we 3
4 presumably knew what we were doing, you'd have Technical 5 A~sistance work which would have a generic character in the 6 sense that it would be applicable to a number of facilities.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: *rt was answering a specific 8 regulatory question.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Typically, yes.
10 COMMTSSIONER KENNEDY: That is the case. It's my 1* 1 understanding that that's the case here.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: But_ I do want to add that by
- 13 14 15 the remark I made I don't want to imply that that sort of condition overrides the definition which Frank gave earlier, that where you're developing new methodology or new data that 16 typically has a research charaGter to it it's handled by Research versus reworking existing methods or applying them 17 18 using the data~and so on, which is more likely to be Technical 19 Assistance. I in fact agree that that is as a general thrust the operative definition of the separation between the two 20 kinds of work.
21 My remark was more of a gratuitous add-on than 22 anything intended to override and be controlling.
23 DR. SMITH: Ben, could I have Chart 16?
- 24 Ace rol Reporters, Inc.
(Slide.)
25
24 23 This is for the Office of NRR. As you can see, 2 they have only $600 thousand in Tech Assistance, and that's 3 in the area of physical protection.
4 On Chart 17 --
5 (Slide.)
6 for I&E Tech Assistance 7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY; Could you give me sort of 8 a flavor of that work? In other words, that is directed 9 toward what? Developing something or reviewing something?
10 DR. SMITH: The 600 thousand?
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
12 DR. SMITH: Jim, would_you speak to that?
- 13 14 15 MR. MILLER: The 600 thousand, the largest portion of th~t is to find technical experts to assist us in reviewing 7355 plants.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: These are the Sandi.a people?
16 MR. MILLER: These are the Los Alamos people.
17 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Los Alamos, yes.
18 MR. MILLER: It directly ties in to the case work.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Good.
20 DR. SMITH: Chart 17, Ben.
21 (Slide.)
22 For I&E there is approximately $1 million lodged 23 against material accountability for the fuel cycle. That '-s
- 24 Ace-F I Reporters, Inc.
primarily to support their nondestructive analysis band. I 25
25
.24 1 2
believe that's when they have to go out and verify that this material that they say is there, is there.
I think, Commissioner Kennedy, you asked a question 3
4 earlier about why the figure was so high against material 5 accountability?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: No, no. That was for 6
7 MR. BURNETT: I have that here. Do you want to 8
go ahead and address that?
9 DR. SMITH: Do you want to move into that? Okay.
10 If you'll notice, there was approximately $5 11 million.
12
- 13 14 15 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
percentage chart.
I was looking b.ack at the It shows 39 percent f6~ physical protection.
MR. BURNETT: The chart before that shows the two totalling $5.26 million. Of that $5 million, 2.7 million 16 is for modeling and doing research, so that's more than half 17 of that budget~ One million of it is NRR supported research 18 for physical protection.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Say the last one again.
20 MR. BURNETT: The 2.763 is supporting modeling in 21 research.
22 23 24 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
MR. BURNETT:
What are they modeling?
Physical protection*, fixed site Ace- al Reporters, Inc.
protection. They're looking at route analysis, vulnerability 25
26 b.5 2 analysis by computer modeling, diversion paths, this type of thing.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And you said $1 million --
3 4 MR. BURNETT: The $1.080 million is reactor physical 5 security work.
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY; Is it part of the 2.76?
7 MR. BURNETT: No, sir; it's not.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: It'* s independent of that?
8 9
MR. BURNETT: It's independent of that, yes. My 10 office has .616 for physical security work.
11 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: What is the 1.08?
- 12 MR. MILLER: A million dollars of it is a study
- 13 14 15 that we have asked Research to do looking at p1ant designs to decrease vulnerability by the design factors.*
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: That sounds somewhat li.ke the modeling work that was just described in the 2.76.
16 MR. ARSENAULT: No. The so-called modeling work 17 is actually a project to develop the capability to evaluate 18 the effectivenesq of safeguards as designed and implemented at 19 a facility. The facility is presumed at a fixed design. Some 20 of the techniques involved in that effectiveness ~valuation 21 method involve modeling the plant, and as such those techniques 22 can be applied to examining the improvement of or the reduction 23 of vulnerability as the result of design innovations, design
- 24 Ace-Fe Reporters, Inc.
features.
25
27 So out of the effectiveness evaluation research blt 26 are coming models and techniques that may be applied to this 2
other project which was requested by Reactors, which is to 3
examine and to in effect *discover or identify design features, 4
design criteria, which would reduce the vulnerability of the 5
reactors to sabotage.
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: **. So there is a* relationship.'
7 MR. ARSENAULT: There is definitely an inter-8 action.
9 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: The first one is producing 10 a data base from which one can move into the second one?
11 MR. ARSENAULT: And tools.
12 DR. SMITH: In the evaluation tools you hold the 13 plant-constant, and in the second study you vary the plant.
14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Against the model?
15 DR. SMITH: Against_the model, yes.
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Okay.
17 MR.JBURNETT: Of course that gets right to the 18 heart of the NRR problem in that they l*re supporting the 19 1 million but not the 2.7.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Is the 1.5 that they're 21 disputing in the 2.7?
Ace-F 22 23 24 Reporters, Inc.
MR. BURNETT:
DR. SMITH:
Yes.
Yes.
MR. BURNETT: That's exactly it. I could go on 25
blt 27 further, but there is roughly .4 NMSS is carrying out. And NRR of course has another 600 thousand, which is identified 2
as TA money, and SD has 167 thousand of. TA money. That 3
4 accounts for the 39 percent. Approximately half is modeling.
DR. SMITH: The last one is Standards.
5 MR. BURNETT: Of Standards. I said SD.
6 7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Is this work ongoing and assigned, or is it to be assigned, all this modeling?
8 DR. SMITH: We'll_get to that in just- a minute.
9 Ben, could I get Chart 18 up, please? We have just 10 two more.
11 (Slide.)'
12
- 13 14 15 This is the Office of Standards Technical Assist-ance.* As you can see, the total contractual effort is 1.2 million, with a million against fuel cycle and 200 thousand against reactors.
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: They've: got a million dollars 17 in Technical A9 sistance against the fuel cycle. Now, how does 18 that differ from the Technical .Assistance on the fuel cycle 19 which you in NMSS would be expected to do?
20 DR. SMITH: Mr. Minogue, would you like to discuss 21 that?
22 23 24 MR. MINOGUE: I could speak to what it is. rather than the exact question as worded.
Ace-F I Reporters, Inc.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Well, we will, I hope, come 25
29 blt 28 back to the way my question was worded at some point.
2 MR. MINOGUE: These are a number of relatively 3 small projects which are aimed in some specific subarea at 4 laying out in an organized way for the guidance of licensees 5 in a technical report the ~xisting technology that would be 6 applicable in that specific area in meeting regulatory.re-7 quirements.
8 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: So what you're doing here 9 is -- I use the word a little loosely, but it's sort of an 10 editing kind of job or contracting it out.
11 MR. MINOGUE: It's more codifying.
12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: *Okay, codifyin_g. I under-
- 13 14 15 stand that.
MR. MINOGUE: It came out, I think, that there has__ .
been a lot of work done in the DOE laboratories over th~ years 16 in developing the technology to do some of these things. Most 17 bf these contractors are DOE laboratories pulling together in 18 an organized way --
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: They're not doing new work.
20 MR. MINOGUE: There is some new work on research.
21 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I understand.
22 MR. MINOGUE: This is all existing work, existing technology.
23 24 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: All they're doing is pulling Ace-F* I Reporters, Inc.
25 together what exists, codifying it in such a way that whoever
30 129 2 is going to have to use this stuff has it in front of them.
MR. MINOGUE: It's really aimed at licensees.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Sure.
3 4 MR. MINOGUE: The structure of it is more for 5 1icensees.
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: In particular, it's directed, 7 I would assume, at draft Reg. Guides and such things.
8 MR. MINOGUE: At one point that would have been 9 correct. But as Mr. Chapman saw the best way to regulate in 10 this area-- a lot of this is in the material accounting area--
11 he put more emphasis on NUREG, that is, technical reports 12 that would go into more technical .detail and would make a lot
- 13 14 15 of technological options known to licensees and wouldn't have the semimandatory impact bf a Reg. Guide.
- really almost all NUREGs.
These are CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I see.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Wait a minute. Let me 17 understand. This is material which is being done to provide 18 the licensees with information in order to design their plants?
19 MR- MINOGUE: No, no. It's really more subelements 20 of technologies that you might apply to different phases of 21 the material control and accounting program.
22 MR. GOSSICK: Bob, let me interject. Is it not 23 in direct support of a guide or a rule or ~ome p~ece of work
- 24 Ace- al Reporters, Inc.
that you have undertaken at the request of or in agreement 25
31
. l t 30 with NMSS?
2 MR. MINOGUE: Yes. All of these are identified Guide topics, but the form of the product, in line with 3
4 Chapman's views on how it would be done, would be really a 5 NUREG that would not really be massaged much by the staff.
6 we would be inclined to use the product exactly as produced.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: *could you give me an example 8 of some of these?
9 MR. MINOGUE: Some of these relate to -- I can 10 pick some specific ones out of here.
11 DR. SMITH: They're on page 5, Bob.
MR. MINOGUE: Methods of accountability of uranium 12
- 13 14 15 and plutonium in dissoiver solutions is SD-1.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
builder of one of these facilities?
This is for a prospective 16 MR. MINOGUE: The designer of the facility or the operator of the facility in terms of designing or establishing 17 or making use of techniques 6f material c6ntrol and accounting.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It specifically is guidance to 19 applicants and licensees, isn't it, about technological ways 20 of meeting the Commission's regulations?
21 MR. MINOGUE: Yes.
Ace-F 22 23 24 Reporters, Inc.
DR. SMITH: If you look at the description of it in terms of benefit, it says that the document will complete the issuance of a series of accountability publications which 25
32 blt 31 1 present the licensees with the most recent techniques credible 2 for the measurement of and accounting for S&M bearing materials to assist the licensee in developing effective and sensitive 3
4 material measurement systems. So it's to help him understand 5 what it is he's got to do to meet our regulations.
6 MR. MINOGUE: There was a pretty conscious percep-7 tion. This is really a relatively long-term method. It has 8 extended over a period of several years. There were a lot 9 of licensees out there who were not aware of it or did not 10 necessarily have access to some of these techniques that had 11 been developed in the ERDA and now DOE laboratories.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I guess I don't understand
- 13 14 15 why we wo~ld need that kind of activity for DOE.
the sort of thing that they're doing?
tion between DOE and NRC.
Isn't that Someone drew a distinc-MR. MINOGUE: You could draw the line between the 16 two agencies at several places. Most of the areas we're talkin 17 about here, they have developed the technology over the last 18 umpteen years, and we're now asking their contractors and their 19 laboratories to lay this technology out in an organized format, 20 but I think we're better able to understand how that format 21 should be presented to be most useful to the licensees and Ace-F 22 23 24 Reporters, Inc.
to be most consistent with the regulatory program.
we've gone about it the right way.
I think Certainly most of the work has been done by the 25
33
.t 32 2
DOE laboratories. In effect you're performing a technology transfer, if you will, a transfer of the technology from ERDA to the licensees so that it's in a format they can use.
3 4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It sounds like a useful 5 thing to be doing. I guess it's not clear to me that it's 6 0 ur role to do that, but perhaps so.
7 MR. MINOGUE: In addition to this large number of 8 projects, there is another, much smaller group where we're 9 really looking very specifically at a technique to quantify 10 the effectiveness of some elements in security technology, 11 for example the current effort to assess the effectiveness of pat-down searches i~ light of all this.
12
- 13 14
- 15 The *last time we briefed the Commission on that, we talked about a number of studies that were aimed at attempt-ing to quantify some of these subelements so we could cross-compare them. Several of these projects are in that category.
16 These are relatively short-termed assessments of 17 state-of-the-art, just to have a program we bould do in support 18 of staff work on rulemaking actions.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: That's these NUREG type 20 projects, right?
21 MR. MINOGUE: Yes, sir.
22 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Suppose we didn't do that.
23 How else could it be accomplished?
- 24 Ace- ral Reporters, Inc.
MR. MINOGUE: I think it would be very difficult.
25
34 blt 33 because of classification problems and restrictions on access.
- 4 2
3 It would be effectively to deny this technological base or deny these technological transfers.
COMMISSIONER.GILINSKY: Are these classified?
5 MR. MINOGUE: No, sir, these reports are not clas-6 sified. They're very carefully -- that's part of the job, is 7 to put them in a form which is not classified to make the 8 technology available.
9 I think the technology transfer would not really 10 be possible unless somebody pulled it together in this kind 11 of organized way.
12 DR. SMITH: Okay, we'll* go to the last chart and 13 can come back to any details.
14 (Slide.)
15 This shows ,~- it just summarizes what we said at 16 the beginning, that we have about ~-5 million pending evalu-17 ation. One of those is a Research project, and seven are TA.
18 Of the $13 milYion that's represented in the fifty-eight 19 projects in the package that you have, for which the Federal 20 Register Notice is prepared, it just shows you a breakdown of 21 how much of that money is committed and obligated and how much 22 still remains to be committed.
23 Over to the right we're indicating that app:i;.-oximately 24 57 percent of that $13 million is going to DOE labs. The A c e . I Reporters, Inc.
. 25 reason why we're saying f'approximately" is there is one big
35 blt 34 project( about a million dollars, that we're looking at for
- 2 3
going out and getting an RFP; but I think if you'll look back to last year, there has been a decreasing amount of money
- 5 4
6 going to DOE labs. Certainly I know in the area of fuel cycle we're trying to reduce our total dependence on some of those laboratories.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Would you remind me of the 7
difference between "obligated" and "committed"?
8 DR. SMITH: With "committed" what we're really 9
saying is basically that the office has recommended the effort 10 or signed off to the O~fice bf Contracts and requested them to 11 go ahead and do something, or ERD~.
12 When it's obligated is when Contracts comes back 13 and they've actually signed off, or ERDA comes back with a 14 signed agreement and says "Yes, we'll do it," or roughly that's 15 it. If someone is here from Contracts, they might want to 16 add to that.
17 CHAJRMAN HENDRIE: That 57 percent in the national 18 labs, I'm surprised you can find enough competence in the area 19 outside of the labs. What is this? Primarily on the physical 20 protection side? I would think on material accountability you 21 would be hard put to find all that kind of a fraction, nearly 22
- 23 24 A c . a l Reporters, Inc.
half of your effort, of capable people outside of the establish ment that has been, you know, essentially the sole holder of the technology for a couple of generations.
. 25
36 blt 35 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It's simply to start put-2 ting technical concerns together with other nontechnical con-3 cerns that will be doing security. The labs perhaps are the 4 place to go.
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes, I think that s right.
6 DR. SMITH: Take the area of waste management, for 7 instance. It's been very difficult for us in terms of the BOA approach or the RFP approach, because some of those laboratorie 8
9 can bring together so many different areas of expertise bearing 10 on that problem. The contractors that werre dealing with may 11 have a few of those areas of expe'rtise; but not *all of them.
12 The other thing, of cou_rse ,** that. ;"happens is that
- 13 those labs have a great deal of experience in subcontracting 0 ut and managing those contracts.
14 And I think we all acknowledge that it's been an 15 easy thing for us to do, too; to get a project going with an 16 ERDA lab is much easier than going through that contractual 17 process. We've found out that one has to really think way 18 down the road and get prepared. It takes anywhere from 6, 7 19 or 8 months.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: With all due recognition of my 21 origins and predelictions, J don't find use of the national 22 laboratories in any sense regrettable or reprehensible.
23 They're there to be used. That's what they were formed for, 24 '
A c . a l Reporters, Inc.
and when the Energy Reorganization Act was passed the sponsor
. 25
37 blt 36 of th.at Act had very clearly in mind that this agency would
- 2 3
make major use of those laboratories as a natural and proper function.
- 4 5
6 I think they do indeed hold a special place with regard to providing for us the technical expertise.
DR. SMITH: I think we've gone. through the brief-7 ing charts.
8 Commissioner Gilinsky, you had a question about 9 how much was committed on Exhibit 3.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I was asking about that 11 2.7 or whatever it was.
12 MR. BURNETT: Would yo~ turn to Exhibit 3, which 13 is a summary of proposed Technical Assistance and Research tit 14 projects.
DR. SMITH: That's this little summary listing 15 sheet (displaying).
16 MR. BURNETT: It has several columns. One is the 17 activity area that would benefit by the work; one is the cost; 18 the thi~d is the contractual status. They don't have that 19 on the viewgraph, I'm sorry. It's supplemental data that was 20 supplied to you.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Page which of that?
22
- 23 24 Ace-F. Reporters, Inc.
1istirig.
DR. SMITH: It's the third page of the summary It's this one (displaying).
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I think I've got it.
. 25
38 blt37 MR. BURNETT: This shows contractual status.
- 2 3
Research could give you more up-to-date. This was ih effect as of December 12, when we threw this together.
- 4 5
6 DR. SMITH: But it shows that for all their modeling studies they've committed the money.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: May I see that? What was the 7 page number?
8 DR. SMITH: Actually it's the. third page, RES-1.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay, now I've got it. I was 10 misleading Commissioner Gilinsky.
11 DR. SMITH: He's talking about RES-1 through RES-4.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY,. Oh, I see. That adds up 13 to the -- well, that adds up to more than that.
14 DR. SMITH: It's a little bit more.
Frank, do you have that list? He would like to 15 know which ones pertain to the.modeling. Of course, it shows 16 they're all committed.
17 MR.,ARSENAULT: _RES-1 through -4 are all directed 18 at research on effectiveness evaluation methods. Within each 19 of these there are modeling activities.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Is this an ongoing project?
21 Is it a hew project?
22
- 23 24 A c . a l Reporters, Inc.
MR. ARSENAULT: All of these four...;._ the first three are ongoing projects at DOE laboratories, and the fourth~
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I'm not sure about this
. 25
39 blt 38 distinction. I know what "committed" means. It means.:__ what
- 2 3
4 it is saying, then, is that of ongoing projects, if you were to decide that the project should be terminated, it could be terminated now, that there is no money lost, there is no obligation of these funds to projects yet.
5 DR. SMITH: That is correct.
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: The projects are currently 7
funded under previous appropriations.
8 DR. SMITH: That's correct.
9 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Okay.
10 MR. ARSENAULT: *And I have to point out that 11 that's growing a bit thin right now.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Wait a minute. Is that 13 right; that it's funded* *un*der previous appropriations?
14 DR. SMITH: It's a carryover of '77 money, multi-15 year.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You mean they're now 17 funded, right this minute?
18 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But the 2.7 is new money?
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: All of this 4 million that 21 shows on this is new money~
22 DR. SMITH: The problem is the lab is waiting for 23 an obligation of the money; otherwise-, they're going to be 24 Ac-*al Reporters, Inc. out and then those resources will ge>__ ~o![l_ewhere else.
. 25
40 bl t39_ MR. ARSENAULT: I'd point out that areas 6 and- 10
- 2 3
are the only ones obligated.
the proposal.
They were obligated prior to
-- 4 5
DR. SMITH: Tom, did you want to say something on the proposed Federal Register Notice?
6 Are there any other questions that the Commissioners 7 might have of us?
8 MR. ENGELHARDT: The last attachment to this 9 77-600A contains a proposed form of Federal Register Notice 10 which has been developed in conjunction with the Office of 11 General Counsel and is designed to provide the necessary 12 publication, to satisfy-the necessary publication requirement 13 of the 1978 Appropriations Act -- Authorization Act, I should 14 say.
15 -----
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I take it that both_your office 16 and the General Counsel's Office ~gree that such a notice 17 will satisfy the requirements of the Authorization Act?
18 MR.,ENGELHARDT: We believe that sincerely. The 19 General Counsel isn't here to speak.
MR. BURNETT: There is just one correction.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I thought I saw you making 21 marks in it at the beginning of the meeting. Would you tell 22
- 23 24 Ac~F- Reporters, Inc.
us what you want to do?
DR. SMITH: That was on the. transmi.ttal memo, proposed transmittal memo that we have from Mr. Gossick. to you.
. 25
41 blt 40 On the second page of_that, under "Recommenda-
- 2 3
tions" COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Wfi.ereis this?
- 4 5
6 DR. SMITH: The cover paper. If you turn to the second page, under "Recommendations," Item 2, you will note we used the wording "a list of project titles," and that 1*s not consistent with "a list of work activities." We're going 7
to change to the six work activities. I just wanted to make 8
that point, that that will be corrected in the final form.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Incidentally, this was 10 entitled "Fiscal Year '78, Domestic Safeguards," et cetera.
11 DO we have work ongoing in connection with international safe ....
12 guards?
13 MR. BURNETT: That is budgeted in '78.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Separately from this?
15 MR. BURNETT: That is not part of this.package 16 because of the Federal law on that.
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I understand. And how big 18 is that, roughly?
19
-- MR. BURNETT: About a hundred thousand.
2_0 DR. SMITH: A hundred, hundred and ten.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: So it i*s really pretty minor.
22 MR. BURNETT: In comparison the hundred thousand 23 is minor.
24 A c . a l Reporters, Inc. CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I had a question to ask that I
. 25
42.
blt 41 had forgotten before. Maybe I had better ask .it now or I'll
- 2 3
forget it again.
It seems to me that we're moving toward implemen-
- 4 5
6 tation of IAEA safeguards inspection at a couple of sites in the U.S. sometime in the near future.
right, Jim?
I see a nod out there, 7 Let's see, we have first to agree with the IAEA on 8 a select list of U.S. facilities which are sort of character-9 istic of the run, because they donlt have the capacity to 10 inspect everything so it's going to be done on sort of a 11 prototypical basis to start with. But once that selection 12 is agreed to, presumably we will be moving ahead.
13 will we have expenses connected with that under 14 technical safeguards domestic, domestic safeguards technical assistance work, which are not taken into account here?
15 DR. SMITH: Not in this budget.
16 MR. SHERR: The*answer is yes. We're in the 17 process of trying to estimate exactly what that will require.
18 The State Department has asked us to put together a plan on 19 that to be developed by mid-January.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay .
. 21 MR. SHERR: We have correspondence_ going to other 22 1
- 23 24 A c e -
- Reporters, Inc.
offices to find out how much staff resources they'll have available to contribute. We have some guidance from IAEA to identify how much effort will be required and this type of I . 2s
43 blt 42 thing .
- 2 3
we're going to meet also with the representatives of the agencies on the week of January 3rd to get more infor-
- 4
'5 6
mation.
We estimate it will probably require on the order of a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for 7 technicai a~~istance support.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay. I would have thought at 9 least that much. I had some informal talks when I was in 10 Vienna a couple of weeks ago with some of our people who are 11 on leave, or whatever the proper status is, and are working 12 as agency
- sta-ff. members. They commented that the program is 13 coming along and was being looked to with great interest by 14 the agencies as well as by the international community to see 15 that in fact the U.S. did a really tip-top job, because we 16 are not reluctant to be critical qf the way safeguards are 17 ctone by other people. If we do a slovenly job of implementing 18 the first couple of facilities to come under IAEA safeguards 19 here, I think there will be a very general feeling throughout 20 the world that we're a set of big mouths and not much on the 21 action side; and I'd certainly hate to have us contribute to 22 any such condition.
- 23 24 A c e - . Reporters, Inc.
So I hope (a) we'll be able to do a good job, and (b) we won't be reluctant to say what we heed in the way of
. 25 resources to do a first-class job.
44 blt 43 The thrust then would be what? Supplemental re-
- 2 3
4 quests? Or would this fall in the '79 budget?
MR. GOSSICK:
MR. PERCHONAK:
It would be a programming problem.
It's included in the '78 budget, but it's not included in this list of items because this 5
6 addresses domestic.
MR. SHERR: The law only requests for domestic 7
safeguards.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And this would fall under the 9
heading of international safeguards?
10 MR. PERCHONAK: In this budget.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: When is the IAEA inspection 12 t:9_ ]?~ ,implemented?
13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, let's see. We're now 14 trying to find out what this agreed list of typical, you know, 15 sort of one of each vendor and.one *of this and one of that, 16 to prov ide an even distribution, both across the manufacturers 1
17 of plants and the types of facilities, and when do we hope 18 to get that in place? I'm not sure who I'm pointing at.
19 MR. SHERR: I think the answer to Commissioner 20 Gilinsky's question is after the Congress ratifies the u.s.-
21 IAEA safeguards agreement, _which is an open question.
22 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: The agreement hasn't been 23 sent up yet.
24 A c e - . Reporters, Inc. MR. SHERR: But people are shooting for the middle
. 25
45 blt 44 of the year, like June or something like that~
- 3 2 CO:MMISSIONER GILINSKY:
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Does Congress ratify this?
The Senate. It's a treaty.
- 4 5
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
it should be noted.
It's a treaty with the agency.
It was never intended to be, It was contemplated in the first instance 7 that it was an executive agreement; but, like all executive 8 agreements these days, some believe they ought to be treated 9 as treaties.
10 I think it was decided a year ago or longer that 11 it would have to be considered in that way and sent up -- no 12 matter what the technicalities --,-.would have to be sent up to 13 the Senate for ratification.
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay, so it's a treaty rather 15 thari an act of Congress.
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And treated as that, that's 17 right, for ratification.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: With advice and consent of the 19 Senate.
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And it will require 21 there's a protocol. Has that been completed, Ted?
MR. SHERR: Th~y've been prepared for -- you know, 22
-Ace-* 23 24 Reporters, Inc.
the protocol is for the eligible facilities and the designated facilities.
things.
They put together the drafts of both of these
. 25
46 blt 45 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Have the drafts now been
- 2 3
agreed to by both sides?
MR. SHERR: I believe substantially.
- 4 5
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: So that it could come within the fiscal year, although if there were difficulties in the ratification it could also not.
7 Okay, good. I'm glad w~*~e on top of things.
8 MR. BURNETT: I have one final point, if we're 9 down to that place.
lb commissioner Gilinsky asked me at a previous 11 meeting of the Commission where we stood on the upgrade rule, 12 and I gave him a small dissertation and at the end of that 13 said that we were going back out to a public hearing after it 14 had gone through the Commission. That was in error. I had used the words "pubJ.-ic hearing,"" and *I had meant to say going 15 16 back out for public comment and discussion. A hearing is an 17 entirely different situation. I meant to say "public comment,"
and I did not.,
18 19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It's a useful distinction to make around this table.
20 MR. BURNETT: Yes, sir, because one has a hearing 21 board and one doesn't.
22
- 23 24 A c e -
- Reporters, Inc.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let me throw the floor open to questions as to specific projects or general matters.,
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: No, I have no more questions,
. 25
47 blt 46 thank you .
- 2 3
4 time.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I don't at this point in I'd like to give some thought to it.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: When do we owe this to the 5 Congress?
6 MR. GOSSICK: Well, the problem is that until we 7 publish it we cannot obligate money.
8 MR. ENGELHARDT: There is no commitment to the 9 Congress to report on this. The commitment is that we may 10 not spend any '78 funds on any of this work until the 11 Commission approves this paper.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Somehow I thought there was a 13 provision in the law that things that had been preobligated 14 before the law was --
MR. GOSSICK: It's the legal finding, Mr. Chairman-:-
15 16 that that work that had already been put on contract prior to the time that this actually became law would be allowed to 17 continue. We do not have to terminate it.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Those are the ones, I 20 assume, listed in here as obligated ..
21 MR. GOSSICK: That's correct.
22
- 23 24 Ace-*I Reporters, Inc.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: But the payment of the services offered under those still had to be done with other funds, pre- 1 78 funds?
. 25
48 blt 47 MR. GOSSICK: No. As long as it was under contract, 1
- 2 3
even with '78 money, prior to the time that this became law we were all right, but we were not to put any more money under
- 4 5
6 contract.
point.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And then there's one other To refresh my memory, I think you said, Frank, that in some instances labs are becoming a little pressed in the 7
sense that they need an obligation in order to maintain the 8
rate of work and continuity of the team in being, whoever it 9
10 COMMISSI0NER GILINSKY: Could you just remind me once again 11 of this difference between NRR and NMSS? NRR is not prepared 12 to request the modeling money, but the million dollars that 13 they are interested in is for what subject, now?
14 MR. MILLER: We have requested research 15 COMMISSIONER GILINS~Y: It's the one to redesign 16 the reactors to be harder at some facilities.
17 MR. MILLER:
0 To make them less vulnerable.
18 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Could I again clarify in 19 my own mind I understood that much of that work will be 20 facilitated by and in fact in part perhaps even rely on the 21 work that's being done und~r the other 2.7 in the modeling 22
- 23 24 Ace-.1 Reporters, Inc.
program.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: There seems to be some question as to whether that is a useful activity.
. 25
49 blt 48 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: But if they don't have it,
- 2 3
what they're trying to do themselves becomes a different order of difficulty, it seems to me. Arn I correct?
- 4 5
6 MR. GOSSICK: You can't tell how effective it might COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: That's right. There won't 7 be the model base_against which to test the work that ~?ey're 8 doing.
9 MR. GOSSICK: Well, the NRR work is the result of 10 the Sandia effort, the Popsicle Theory and all that sort of 11 thing.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
- I have one other area of 13 *questioning.
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: A different one?
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Can I pursue this one before 17 you go on?_
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Sure.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It's also my understanding that 20 the 2.763, which is Research-activity, modeling the effective-21 ness --
22 MR. BURNETT: That was physical security. There
- 23 24 Ac~**I Reporters, Inc.
is some other modeling going on.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It's particularly the physical security modeling I was talking about.
. 25
50 blt 4~ COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Which is the one that relates to the 1 million.
2 CKAI'RMAN' HENDR.I:K: The 2. 763 .bei.ng contracted out 3
4 of the Office of Research in fact is supported by NMSS and other offices, but not NRR, is that correct?
5 DR. SMITH: That's correct. The exact figure in 6
physical protection for the overall office I show against 7
reactors, now. We have it broken out for reactors. In total 8
9 it's some 4 million.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let me summarize in a somewhat 10 broader fashion.
11 First, ail of the Rese~rch projects in the list 12 of fifty-eight have user office support, correct?
13 MR. GOSSICK: Correct.
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Now --
15 DR. SMITH: You have to be careful in terms of 16 Research as a distinction of some of the projects:-- yes, they 17 have user office, that's right. It's only in the breakdown 18 between how much is fuel cycle and reactor that there is a 19 difference.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: What I'm pointing out is that 21 this what appears to be this difficulty, which appears to 22 suggest that there is about a million four or five research 23 work unsupported by user office, that that is not correct, and Ace-.! .
24 Reporters, Inc.
25 that arises from the peculiarity of the Commission's request
51 blt 50 for a crosscut.
- 2 3
DR. SMITH: That's right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Which requires NMSS supported
- 4 5
6 research work to be broken down on whatever bas~s you think iS appropriate between applicability to fuel cycle facilities and reactor facilities.
7 DR. SMITH: Right.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Now, when you make that breakdown 9 then some money flows over on the reactor side. The Reactor 10 people say, "Wait a minute. We didn't ask for that." And 11 that's why there is the asterisk.
12 DR. SMITH: In other words, NMSS has identified a need for a certain work product to Research. Research de-13 14 signed a program to meet that need. In designing that pro-15 gram, certain .information of worK product would apply to 16 reactors.
Now, when we had to break it out they made that 17 distinction, that some would be fuel cycle.
18 19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY; You're saying you support the spending of $2.7 million under this modeling activity.
20 DR. SMITH: No, what we're saying is we support 21 the project to produce the*product. NMSS is not saying that 22
- 23 24 A c . a l Reporters, Inc.
if we had to do the job we would take the same dollars.
did not pass on the dollars.
We We said we need this work pro-duct, and Research said, "All right, it's going to cost this
. . 25
52 blt 51 much to do the job."
- 2 3
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But if there is no dollar sign attached to any of this, why wouldn't everybody support everything? It seems to me at some point you have to con-5 front the dollars.
DR. SMITH: That was the way it was, Commissioner, 6
up until the time that Mr. Gossick sent out a memo asking 7
for much closer coordination on all research. Now the current 8
charter, I'll call it, that we have with the Executive Director 9
the STAR group is looking at the projects, not;only with re-10 spect to what it is they're going to do and "aoes it make 11 sense but with respect to the amount of dolla:ts*tha:t are going 12 to be spent to achieve that.
13 What I'm saying is, though, on the bulk of the 14 fifty-eight projects that you have here -- not the fifty-15 eight, but on the research projects, at least NMSS, we 16 did not get into reviewing how much they said it was going 17 to cost to do ~he job for us.
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But when you support a 19 project, you can't just say, "I think this is interesting 20 information and we'd like to have it." You are in some sense 21 responsible for the spending of so many million dollars.
22
- 23 24 Ace-*I Reporters, Inc.
DR. SMITH:
we support the project.
If you're saying that NMSS would I*' m just simply saying that we haven't reviewed it to see whether or not in our opinion,
. 25
53 blt 52 NMSS, we could achieve that product for a sm~ller amount of
- 3 4
2 money.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But we're not talking about 2 percent or 3 percent; we're talking about 50 percent.
5 DR. SMITH: That's right.
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: So I think that, while 7 _ you're not_ r~sponsible in detail_for the op~ration of tha __
8 project, obviously there is a certain responsibility.
9 When you say that this is a user requirement and 10 you support this project, you can't divorce that from support-11 ing the expenditure of some substantial amount of money. You 12 are responsible. Somebody in the Office of Research will say, 13 "We're doing this because these guys want it. They said it 14 was important,:."
15 -----------DR. SMITH: This is the hiatus we found ourselves 16 in this particular go-around with the '78, and we are moving 17 in another direction now for '79. If it's a project that we've 18 asked for but the Research people may feel that "Look, you've 19 asked us to do a job for you, and in our opinion this is what 20 it's going to cost to do the job," now --
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, there is a certain 22 shared responsibility here.* You don't tell them in detail 23 how to run the project. That's their responsibility. But 24 there is an element of shared responsibility.
Ace-*! Reporters, Inc.
. 25 DR. SMITH: Let me put it another way. *Weare
54 blt 53 taking more the position that it 1 s our responsibility to look
- 2 3
at the dollars, too, so that we could say in the total scope of it that when we support the project we support not only
- 4 5
6 what it's doing but roughly the dollar amount that's being spent, and that we'd be willing to back it.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You had another question, I 7 believe.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes, just a small question.
9 1've lost the place, but there was one item in here that you 10 said was in support of INFC or INF channel.
11 DR. SMITH: International fuel cycles?
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
- Yes, and I just wondered 13 if that is the only one, and is there anyplace where we 14 somehow bring together all the projects that relate to that?
15 MR. GOSSICK: There's one on alternate fuel 16 cycles . .
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I 1 m not quarreling with 18 it being in there.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: There isn 1 t anything in 20 here for INFC, is there?
21 MR. GOSSICK: I don 1 t think there 1 s anything in here for INFC.
22
- 23 24 Ace.,! Reporters, Inc.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
stated as being in support of INFC.
MR. GOSSICK:
Well, it generally was What category was that in?
. 25
55 blt54 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I think it was the
- 4 2
3 alternative fuel cycle.
Fuel Cycles.
MR. BURNETT: I: tn.i_nk it W.a$. called Al terna ti ve MR. GOSSICK: I '*m trying to find the specific 5
reference.
6 DR. SMITH: NMSS-1, Safeguards for Alternative 7
Fuel Cycle.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I think it would be useful 9
if somewhere we had maybe a compendium of the various projects 10 that are applicable to INEC, not only in safeguards but in 11 other areas.
12 MR. BURNETT: That's it.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Is that the only one'?
14 MR. BURNETT: .That's the only one. That's the 15 compendium right there.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Talk about fast service.
17 (Lay.ghter.)
18 It sounds to me, if $116 thousand includes all of 19 the contractual assistance that we're asking for --
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: It's not only INFC; it's 21 NASAP, both.
22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Right, and that sounds very 23 modest to me, perhaps even excessively modest.
24 A c e . I Reporters, Inc. COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It may well be.
. 25
56 blt 55 DR. SMITH: If they hear you saying that they'll
- 2 3
be back for more.
I hope we've given you a crosscut that you wanted
- 4 5
6 on this.
COMMISSIONER GII.INSKY:--I'wouldn't want to pass on it right now.
7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Could I ask, though, that you attempt to close on it? I'm reluctant to let you away from 8
9 the table without some kind of commitment; and the same goes for Commissioner Kennedy, but he's ready to concur on it.
10 Once we get back in our offices, things keep coming along and 11 pushing you away from getting to ~t.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I'd just like to read it, 13
~ 14 at least thumb through the package in the light of what we heard today.
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: All right.
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Maybe what we could do is 17 turn this into_, a Commissioner action thing and sign off on it 18 that way.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We can do that, but wasn't there 20 a concurrence sheet?
21 MR. CHILK: Yes, the Federal Register Notice, 22
- 23 24 Ace-*! Reporters, Inc.
Mr. Chairman.
event.
I think it requires a vote of the Commission.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We'd have to confirm in any
. 25
57 blt 56 I'll tell you what. Because I wasn't sure how
- 2 3
much discussion there would be, we have tentatively put some time next week for discussion of this. If it could be treated
- 4 5
6 as an affirmation item and we just needed an affirmative vote, I don't know if there's any way to leave you my proxy.
will have a quorum next week with Peter.
You Hopefully you could 7 go ahead.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But in any case you would 9 be back several days after that, so we wouldn't need to worry 10 about it.
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It's stretching out. This is 12 the 29th of December, and I may not be back physically in the 13 District until 10 January. A whole quarter has gone by. I've 14 got a notion most of the labs are running at the moment on 15 borrowed funds. That;s the kind of bind where you borrow 16 from other programs on the basis that this will come in and 17 so on.
18 DR. "SMITH: A problem we have is that in many case-s 19 we have talked to them where it's a DOE lab, and they've got a 20 team assembled. They're sitting there ready to go. At some
. 21 point in time they're going to have to break them loose on 22 some other things. We might arrive at the gate with the money 23 24 A c e . I Reporters, Inc.
25 and they can't help us.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let me leave you with a very strong urging that furthermore you're going to get left with
58 blt 57 the gavel, anyway, so I burden you with the responsibility of
- 2 please getting this into the Federal Register next week if you possibly can.
3 4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Okay.
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I want to say to the staff that 6 I felt the crosscutting, aside from the inevitable minor dif-7 ficulty-when NMSS :Segi-ns t0 put things into the Reactor 8 category and vice versa there's a certain amount of cross-9 talk, the crosscut job I thought was excellently done in the 10 briefing.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes, I thought it was very 12 good.
13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Very well handled essentially.
14 I thank you.
DR. SMITH: Thank you.
15 i
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We'll see if we can't get on 16 with the job.
17 (Whereupon, at 3: 10 p ... m., the meeting was 18 adjourned . )
19 20 21 22 23 Ace-*I Reporters, ~n~.
25