ML22230A101
| ML22230A101 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 07/30/1979 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M790730 | |
| Download: ML22230A101 (105) | |
Text
RETURN TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMfSSJON I
IN THE MATTER OF:
PUBLIC MEETING BUDGET PRESENTATION Place - Washington, D. C.
Date - Monday , 30 Ju ly 1979 Poges 1 - 103 Te lephone:
( 202 ) 3A7-3700
- ACE* FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC .
Official Reporters 444 North Capitol Street Washington, D.C. 20001 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE* DAILY
1 CR6200 DISCLAI?-IBR This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on Monday, 30 July 1979 in the Cornmissions's offices at 1717 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for **general informa tiqnal 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 addressed.
to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize .
2 CR6200 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 PUBLIC MEETING 5 :*_BUDGET~ P.RESENTAT LON 6
7 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N. W.
8 Washington, D. C.
Monday, 30 July 1979 9 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m.
10 BEFORE:
I! !i ii DR. JOSEPH M. HENDRIE, Chairman i
12 ! JOHN F . AHEARNE, Commissioner 131! ALSO PRESEWT ,
l1 1,..I IiIi Messrs. Chilk, Dircks, Gossick, Donoghue, En~lehardt~
15 Barry, Haller, Cunningham, Burnett, and Martin.
16 18 20 !!
!i I 21 I 22 2Ll Ace-* - era: Reporters, Inc.
25
CR 6200 3 JWBeach P R O C E E D I N G S
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CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: If we could come to order, the Commission meets this afternoon to hear from the Office
- 4 5
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards as to budget requests, supplemental for '80, budget for '81.
6 I think we're it for this afternoon, John.
7, COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Vic isn't coming?
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: No.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEAR~E: GreatA I'll move over to 10 this side.
11 CHAIR.Jv".LAN HENDRIE: It certainly will give us 12 lots of room.
- 13 14 15 Well, when we went to those long shee,ts, why they're incompatible with the space available for a fJ11 Commission sitting.
16 (Laughter.)
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I keep flipping my off-page 18 over Vic's on-page.
19 (Laughter.)
20 I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I thought that was deliberate.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You thought that was deliberate?
- 22 23 24 (Laughter.)
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
MR. GOSSICK:
Okay, Lee, kick it off.
Okay, sir, we're set here today to Ace.ral Reporters, Inc.
25 consider the requests by NMSS. They briefed Commissioners
jwb 4
Gilinsky and Bradford, as you know, last week, since they 2 couldn't be here today.
3 Bill, go ahead.
4 MR. DIRCKS: At the outset, I want to make it 5 clear --
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I might comment, Bill, that 7 I thought it was a pretty good move, putting the Agency seal 8 on the first page of the briefing package.
91 What do you think, John? That ought to be worth 10 two slots.
11 (Laughter.)
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And a million dollars, anyway.
- 13 14 15 it.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
MR. DIRCKS:
That's if you like to see It's our test pattern.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You couldn't get it in color?
17 (Laughter.)
18 MR. DIRCKS: We put it up there as a test signal.
19 We're not making an appeal against EDO's wallet 20 today. We're here basically to defend what the EDO has given 21 us, and we are also making an attempt to present a recommended 22 FY 1980 supplemental at the same time as the '81 presentation.
23 The supplemental would add a total of 23 additional staff and $2.2 million to the FY '80 budget, making a total Ace.ral Reporters, ~n~.
25 '80 program of 320 people and $18 million in program dollars.
jwb 5 COMMISSIO_NER AHEARNE: Now you make a point, do you
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not, taking exception to the EDO mark.
'81 and the supplemental?
Is that both in the
- 4 5
MR. DIRCKS: We're not taking -- we're not contesting anything the EDO has given us in* the '80-'81 budget 6 except for one minor little thing, which we regard as a 7 definition of "setasides," and I think we've discussed this 8 point once before -- one area.
9 They thought a "setaside" was a drop off of the 10 resources they gave us in '80. They gave us the special 11 supplemental in '80. They thought that was a one-time 12 injection of work, and that it would no longer be around .
- 13 14 15 Our view is it 1 s*a continuation of that program.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But in general you aren't taking exception to the dollar reduction in supplemental?
16 MR. DIRCKS: We're not taking an exception.
17 The 'Bl budget request is for 337 people and 18 $23 million in program support dollars. When we get into 19 it, we would like to see that 7 setaside in the '81 budget, 20 what we call a "contingency planning category" be macie part 21 of the base '81 program.
- 22 23 The increase in resources that we're asking for today reflects where we're placing our priorities in '80 and
'81, and I think you can see that quite clearly. The waste Ace.ral Reporters, ~n~.
25 management program is recommended to increase by 59 people
jwb 6 between fiscal '79 and fiscal '81. The increase of program 2 support funds for the waste management program would be about
- 3 $9.5 million during that same period.
4 Offsetting that increase in people in the waste 5 management program is the decrease that you see in the 6 safeguards program, which is slated *to go down by 14 slots 7 between '79 and '81.
8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: What are you at at the 9 present time?
10 MR. DIRCKS: In safeguards, we're at 107 people 11 in safeguards. We want that -- we'r~ asking 12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, I can see that that's I 13 the FY 1 79 current, bu~ do you mean as of today?
14 MR. DIRCKS: In terms of people on board?
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
16 MR. DIRCKS: No. We've been holding that down, 17 in view of the '80.
18 CO~.MISSIONER AHEARNE: That was my question.
19 MR. DIRCKS: I think we're about 99, 98. Is that 20 right, Bob?
21 MR. BURNETT: About 95 to 97, somewhere in that
- 22 23 area.
MR. DIRCKS: 95 to 97, in terms of people actually
- 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 on the rolls.
them.
We have vacancies, but we're not filling
jwb 7 (Slide.)
2 The Fuel Cycle Division remains essentially 3 stable in terms of numbers, except for this supplemental 4 increase of 7 positions in fiscal '80, which we'd like to 5 see continued in fiscal '81.
6 The Fuel Cycle Division, although it's stable in 7 terms of numbers, we are making some program adjustments 8 within that program, which we'll get to 9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, let's see now. Let 10 me ask you a question on that. You say you'd like to see the ll increase of 7 continued into '81. So what is the number 12 that you're really looking for?
13 MR. DIRCKS: We're looking for, in 'Sl, 111 people.'
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Where was this?
15 MR. DIRCKS: This is in the Fuel Cycle Division.
16 We're at 103 now. We could go up to 110. With the supplement 17 in fiscal '80, we'd like to keep that program at 111 in 18 fiscal '81.
19 COI'1MISSI0NER AHEARNE: That's the exception you 20 meant?
21 MR. DIRCKS: Yes. And that's been carried as a 22 setaside in your books up to now. We'd like to see it pulled 23 out of setaside.
24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, it's not listed as a Ace
- ral Reporters, Inc.
25 setaside there.
jwb 8 MR. DIRCKS: It really is.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Let's see --
3 MR. DIRCKS: It's in the -- see the 22 positions 4 in Fuel Cycle Division? It's in that 22 in fiscal '81, the 5 last column; it's in there.
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So that -- but that is, or 7 is not, the 7 that's listed in the '80 supplemental?
8 MR. DIRCKS: We've got 9 COMMISSIONER AHEAR.~E: In the FY '80 supplemental, 10 you've got 7 people.
11 MR. DIRCKS: Sure. What we want to do is to 12 continue th~t increase over into fiscal .'81.
13 MR. GOSSICK:* Anct those 7 ar& in the 22.
14 MR. DtRCKS: They are in the 22. We want them 15 pulled out of the setaside and put in the increase we're 16 asking for.
17 And I don't think we made our case that clearly 18 to the BRG the first time around. I think in subsequent 19 discussions I think we're coming -- we're getting better.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Okay.
21 MR. DIRCKS: What I'd like to do now is to go 22 into each program. I'll do it briefly by giving an overview 23 of the program and looking at each decision unit, highlighting 24 any problems we think where any special problems may exist.
Ace
- _ral Reporters, Inc.
25 Then I,11 address the setaside. And then I'll show you overall
jwb 9 what the whole program can accomplish or cannot accomplish 2 within the mark, and then make a special pitch for the 3 setasides.
4 As I go through it, I'll have each of the 5 program directors sitting up next to me here. Dick Cunningham 6 is the first.
7 (Slide.)
8 The first chart is the Fuel Cycle Program. There 9 are three decision units in that program.
10 The Fuel Cycle Program is the basic licensing ll program within the Office of NMSS. During the past year, we 12 transferred the Uranium Mill Licensing Program from the Fuel 13 Cycle Program over to the Waste Management Division. So in 14 the area of Uranium Fuel Cycle, when we get to Waste 15 Management, Jack and I will cover that point.
16 Here is the area we're asking for this supplemental 17 increase of 7 people and $400,000 in fiscal '80. This would 18 give us an '80 program of 110 people, and the program support 19 funds of about $3.3 million.
20 The '81 program approved by the EDO is for 104 21 people and $3.9 million. The EDO setaside, as I mentioned, 22 has 22 people and $680,000 in it awaiting your policy 23 decisions. We're requesting that we take those 7 people out 24 of the 22, and I'll make a special pitch for that.
Ace* ral Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Just as a matter -- and I
jwb 10 realize they are small numbers, but I would like to try to 2 keep track of them. You have just identified the 7 as being 3 the setaside that you had hoped to continue on, and as part 4 of the 22. But if I look across that line, I find that the 5 7 has 5 set aside and not 7.
6 MR. DIRCKS: In the Fuel Cycle Licensing, when we 7 get to it, there are actually 3 in the special 7 setaside.
8 There are 3 in Fuel Cycle Licensing, 1 in Transportation 9 Certification, and 3 in Radioisotopes. What happened there 10 is the 7 in 1 80 was lumped all against the Fuel Cycle 11 Licensing 12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Although they should be?
13 MR. DIRCKS: They shouldn't be. Essentially, they 14 shouldn't be. And what we did ~n 1 81 is to put them back into 15 the three decision units.
16 Now the argument can be made on the other side.
17 The '80 effort is really sort of looking at the program 18 across the board, looking at contingency planning, and I like 19 to call it "emergency hazards evaluation" during the licensing 20 process.
21 The '80 effort is to gather up our efforts and
- 22 23 24 lay out a logical program. What we want to do then is to take these 7 people and spread them into the licensing efforts of each of these three decision units.
Ace.ral Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: In the '79, did you have
jwb 11 Uranium Licensing included in your '79 current?
2 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So the 45 includes Uranium 4 Licensing.
5 MR. DIRCKS: Oh, wait a minute. No, I'm sorry.
6 No. Uranium Licensing has been taken out and put back into 7 the Uranium program.
8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It has been taken out.
9 MR. DIRCKS: Yes. I'm sorry.
10 COlf.!MISSIONER AHEARNE: Okay.
11 MR. DIRCKS: Okay, could I have the next slide.
12 (Slide. )
- 13 14 15 This is the Fuel Cycle Licensing effort.
lays out the basic principal activities of.this decision It just unit, and again lays out what we've asked for, and where we 16 want the setasides.
17 As we go through this, you'll see "develop 18 radiological contingency plan$,": and that will be almost in 19 every one of the three decision units I'm talking about.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Does the office request then 21 now stand at 43 -- 47?
- 22 23 24 47.
MR. DIRCKS:
Yes, sir.
It stands at 44 plus 3, which is For this decision unit.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes.
Ace.ral Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DIRCKS: The Transportation program would be for
jwb 12 17 plus 1, being 18; and for the radioisotopes licensing 2 we're asking for 46.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: In your base.
4 MR. DIRCKS: In the base.
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Is this for S-3?
6 MR. DIRCKS: This is in -- the next slide, please.
7 (Slide.)
8 What we've done -- and we may be throwing too 9 much detail at you than you want, but we've taken each one 10 of these decision units, shown the major objective and 11 planned accomplishment, and the resources we intend to put 12 against that accomplishment; and also what the technical 13 assistance money would be used for.
14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Your major licensing 15 actions in this area would be what?
16 MR. DIRCKS: These are fuel cycle plants, fuel 17 fabrication plants.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But are they new plants 19 corning on?
20 MR. DIRCKS: No, they're basically --
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Or renewal of licenses?
22 MR. DIRCKS: Renewal -- I think there's only one 23 major new plant corning on line; that's the Westinghouse plant I 24 Ace- ederal Reporters, Inc.
25 in Alabama, but essentially this is all renewal work MR. CUNNINGHAM: And major amendments.
jwb 13 MR. DIRCKS: And major amendments, right.
2 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Substantial plant expansions.
3 MR. DIRCKS: Included in that first one, "Casework 4 Licensing," we have West Valley, which includes about 6 people 5 in that area. And those people are being used right now to 6 review the existing facility up there, carry out specific 7 safety studies, and we're assuming in the 1 81 program, the 8 beginning of a licensing action, either to terminate the 9 license that's in effect up there, or to participate in a licensing of any cleanup activities that DOE may be authorized 11 to carry out.
12 Just to give you some idea of what the '80 program 13 with the supp~ement is, in '80 we had about 23-1/2 people 14 budgeted against this figure, which is now going up to 27.
15 The bulk of that increase is in the West Valley area; and 16 secondly in what we call increasing the depth of the licensing 17 review.
18 I want to mention this one as a specific point.
19 What we are intending to do is to look with much more care 20 at establishing -- I hope, Dick, this is right -- quantitative 21 numerical limits on our various fuel cycle licensees. We want 22 to do that here, and in the radioisotope area.
23 Number two, or major objective two, "Studies on 24 Specific Problems," that's where the S-3 issue comes in. I Ace* eral Reporters, Inc.
25 was surprised to see S-3 continuing through '81. I didn't
jwb 14 know it was going to last that long, but it's still with us.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I thought it was a 3 continuous 4 MR. DIRCKS: It's an ever-running show, I guess.
5 We had about 8 people in this area under number two 6 in fiscal '80. With the supplement that's going down to 7 5-1/2. The 11 2 11 people in parentheses there are listed on the 8 chart for the setaside item, which is the start of generic 9 environmental impact statement on alternate fuel cycles.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That would be assuming that 11 we choose some alternative fu~l cycles? Or NSJ, or NASAP.
12 MR. DIRCKS: Corning out of interest in NASAP, DOE initiatives, is*sorne ~iternpt to develop a variation on the 14 , lightwater reactor fuel cycle.
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: A variation other than the 16 ones that, for example, the gas reactor?
17 MR. DIRCKS: That's right.
18 And when we get the setasides.-- I'm not making 19 a big pitch for this thing one way or the other -- that's just 20 identified in case you feel as though such activities would 21 be likely to be needed.
- 22 23 24 The three and four are reiated, in a sense.
is on activities looking at the old docket files, licensee files, looking at surveying them, and then coming up for One Ace.ral Reporters, Inc.
25 additional sites for evaluation. And I think you're aware
1 jwb 15 of many of these sites which we're uncovering almost on a 2 day-by-day basis.
3 The "DOE Remedial Actions," this is the beginning 4 of that 22-site cleanup program. We intend to take on 5 sites 5 in fiscal '81 and start the review.
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: None of these are mill 7 sites, or at least not ours?
8 MR. DIRCKS: No, they're not ours. These are under 9 the Uranium Mill Tailings ~ct.
10 The. "Implementation of New Regulations," we have 11 1-1/2 people set against that goal in '81; we have the same 12 number in '80. The principal activity there would be the 13 beginning, I guess, ,of the ineorporation of the various EPA 14 regs into our own regulation format, and the transferral of 15 such regulations into the licensing process.
16 Major Objective six is the "Technical Base 17 Refinement," and this is standards research and revision of 18 regulations.
19 Dick, you might want to mention what we have in 20 mind for the revi*sion of regulations. We've talked about that, 21 but I think you have a clearer idea of what's involved there.
22 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Well, in a very broad context, 23 the existing regulations have their origin back in the early 24 '50s, maybe even the '40s, and the distinction made in 30, Ace-* era I Reporters, Inc.
25 40, and 70 licenses was strictly a legal distinction of source
jwb 16 material, special nuclear material. Basically we feel we 2 should be going forward with regulation --
3 MR. DIRCKS: Dick, we can't hear you. Is your 4 mike on?
5 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I think so.
6 Basically we feel that we should be looking at 7 regulations in terms of the categorizing of regulations in 8 terms of types of hazards you would find in plants, and you 9 could recategorize the regulations to deal with plants of 10 similar hazards.
11 Now there are a lot of ways to slice that --
12 whether it's off-gas treatment systems, total plants, or 13 what have you -- but there is a better technical way to do 14 this.
15 In addition to that,-- that's a very broad 16 context -- we're trying to get some handle on that. It needs 17 to be done sometime. There are a lot of things coming up 18 that we've got to deal with on a day-by-day basis.
19 For example, the quality factors for alpha emitters 20 are changing by a factor of 2. Well, while the limits for 21 doses off-site might remain the same if you change the quality 22 factor by 2, you're really cutting in half the amount of 23 radioactive materials you can release to get the same dose.
24 There are problems like that that we need to deal with every Ace-* eral Reporters, Inc.
25 day.
jwb 17 Another example of this type of thing is the use 2 of new lung models for dose determination. We've got to take 3 into account new solubility data, which can change the dose 4 factors to something between 2 and 20.
5 We've got to go into -- we're breaking down now 6 doses. Before we used to just consider dose to a man,or a 7 person, now we'll have to -- we're considering dividing it 8 into adults, to teenagers, to children, to infants, just 9 based on different metabolic rates.
10 All these things need to be incorporated into the 11 regulations and treated. So there is just a broad base of 12 activity that needs to be undertaken.
13 MR. DIRCKS: Okay, the major objective** nUt"TLber 14 seven, "Radiological Contingency Planning," this is essentially 15 the item where we had 7 in the '80 supplement_. We'd li~e that 16 program to continue in '81.
17 Essentially we've identified it here separately, 18 but in '81, if the Commission approves it, in the following 19 years I'll throw that back into Major Casework Licensing 20 because it really is a deepening of the licensing review 21 process and a separate line item.
22 The origins of what we call this "radiological 23 contingency planning" -- and we.have a contest.on now for I
Ace-24 oeral Reporters, Inc.
25 another title -- is, I guess, what we regard as some of the lessons learned from Three Mile Island. Everyone is learning
jwb 18 lessons, I think. We're going back and*reviewing where we 2 could tighten up things a bit. This is to take a look at 3 each ohe of the major fuel cycle plants and radioisotope plants 4 and reviewing those plants from the point of view of what 5 would dur reaction be if there were a major accident at those 6 plants today?
7 The problem is, there's a variety of materials 8 being run through those plants. There are a number of 9 processes being used in those plants. The combination of 10 processes and material gives us some severe problems in 11 coping with various types of emergencies when they arise 12 fires, criticality accidents, and so forth.
-* 13 14 15 What we want to do is establish essentially a base file on each one of those plants, keep it up to dat~, review the license each year from the point of view of what's going 16 on in those plants, and be prepared to cope with people and 17 resources in case there were accidents or major hazards in 18 those areas. We just have a pretty shaky idea today of what 19 to do, and we hope to get our act pulled together starting 20 now and continuing in **so and make it a regular part of the 21 licensing process in 'Sl.
- - 22 23 24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
let me ask you about number three.
There's 22, you say?
Before you leave that, About how many sites?
Ace--ral Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DIRCKS: There are Part 30 sites and Part -- Oh,
jwb 19 you're talking about "former licensing sites"?
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
3 MR. DIRCKS: We're looking -- let's see. We have 4 reviewed 9500 Part 40 and 70 docket files to date. Is that 5 right, Dick?
6 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes.
7 MR. DIRCKS: And we've identified 225 sites for 8 further sort of field evaluation. We have reviewed 5000 9 Part 30 docket files -- no, we have yet to review the 5000 10 Part 30 docket files, to identify sites for further future 11 field evaluation.
12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Is one person and $400,000 13 really enough to do a .survey of all those sites that you have 14 now identified?
15 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I guess I'm sort of at fault 16 for keeping the numbers down. Dick pleaded for more, but --
17 Dick, do you want to plead for more here today?
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, let me see if I can't 19 get the question focused.
20 I would think that we either say: Here is what 21 we have to do, and here's the amount of people to do it. Or 22 else we say: We don't think that's really worth doing.
23 I'm just wondering whether this is a token coverage 24 of that.
Ace-* eral Reporters, Inc, 25 MR. DIRCKS: No, I think it's not token. We've
jwb 20 done a lot of it already. The real consumer of resources will 2 be once we go out for the field evaluation.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Right. And it sounds like you have one person and $400,000 to do that.
5 MR. DIRCKS: It's true, we're tight. We're 6 usually behind the eight ball. We've been hauled up to 7 Congress many times to explain to the various people up 8 there why we 1 re not moving faster.
9 I think all we've done here it's not token.
10 We think it's needed, but we've just sort of got a lid on i1 things, if we haven't confirmed more resources.
12 MR. GOSSICK: Do the I&E people help you out on 13 ' this front, Bill?
14- MR. DIRCKS: These are former licenses. So they're 15 not involved, I don't think, Dick, in this operation?
16 MR. CUNNINGHAM: No, they aren't.
17 MR. DIRCKS: We're just going back to old 18 licenses.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: They've got 146 more?
20 MR. DIRCKS: Well, we'd like to make an unsolicited 21 pitch for I&E and their materials licensing program. They're 22 spread very thin even with the current licenses. I guess 23 I've talked to most of the Commissioners on that.
24 In the area of mills, they're very short-handed Ace-F erBI Reporters, Inc.
25 to do all inspections. In the area of looking at hospitals
jwb 21 and waste generators, they're very short-handed. They 2 don't have -- even with their great new budget initiatives, 3 they're not really putting a lot of resources into straight 4* 1 materials licensing.
Ii 5 i COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes. Which, as an aside,
!I 6 II could you give me -- what is your asse*ssment. They have I
I 7 resident inspectors at two field~facilities.
s MR. DIRCKS: They are basically safeguards
- 1 9, inspectors; they're not health and safety inspectors.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Should they be?
11 MR. DIRCKS: For health and safety of fuel cycle 12 licensees, I don't think you need resident inspectors at the 13 plant, but I do think you need more inspection: I've talkec.'l.
to Dick 6n this, and he know's the problems, and he I s working 14 15 on it and developing it, but in reviewing the I&E portion of 16 the budget that you have, they're coming in for an increase 17 in materials licensing -- materials inspection, but I think 18 that a lot of that materials inspection is devoted toward 19 health physics work at reactors.
') Ii
.<.V iII COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It is.
21 MR. DIRCKS: It's not helping us that much. We're 22 getting to be rather an unwelcome guest pounding on I&E 1 s 23 door saying, "go for more, and we'll support you for more, I
t>.ce-24 era! Reporters, Inc.
25 whatever good our support will do," but we think they should get some more help on the materials side.
jwb 22 (Slide.)
2 The next slide, please, is the Transportation 3 Certification Decision Unit. The principal activities are listed there.
We're asking for an increase in this area of 17 -- 3 additional over the 'BO program; 2 additional over the '79 program; and we're asking for some increase in dollars.
This is another area in '81 where we are asking that one of those setasides be pulled up and treated as a 10 base, part of the base. So in the EDO recommendation of 17 li COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That's, again, the contingency plan?
13 MR.. DIRCKS': Yes.
14 (Slide.)
15 Could I have the decision-unit slide, please.
16 In this area, some explanation is needed of 17 I particularly the titles.
is Ii When we look at "Package Certification," we have 19 also in our agenda for '81 some review of not just the 20 packages that we certify today, but we do want to take a 21 look to see if we can to improve some of the areas of say e* 22 materials being shipped in Type A LSA containers, and maybe 23 review the design -- and maybe this is something between a 24 Type A LSA package and a Type B type of container. We want Ace
- era I Reporters, Inc.
25 to get involved in that area. We think the traffic is going
jwb 23 to increase tremendously in succeeding years, and we do want 2 to be sort of on top of that area.
COMMISSIONER JI.HEARNE: 'What impact, if the Schmitt bill were to pass?
r: H MR. DIRCKS: Well, the impact would be I guess we would have to back away, to some extent, and negotiate with DOT on how we handle this.
E: As you know, DOT is agreeable to taking DOT regulations and incorporating them into our --
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, I understand that, but my question --
CHAIR.Iv.LAN HENDRIE: I think it would depenp very
.e *1 t 1:
H much, John, on whet:her -- you kn<?w, DOT in their s::;omments 1: has suggested that if you want to go ahead, the cen*tral ii
- i 5 f[ thrust of the Schmitt bill would be helpful if there was some ii 16 i 1
, language in there that would allow the Secretary to carry out 1-,
i!"l I
his responsibilities in effect using NRC -- not using those words. Jl..nd then we might end up agreeing with Jim Palmer and company to keep on doing the number of things we're doing.
But without that language, it would be much less 21 clear that there was a statutory basis for them to bring us 22 in to do some of the things we're doing. And indeed, of 23 course if there were any inclination on their part to strike for a staff of their own to do it, why we would have no leg to stand on; we'd be backed out of it.
jwb 24 MR. DIRCKS: The first item, "Package Certification" 2 is basically a workload item, but we did want to mention that 3 we would try, within this workload item, to look at this issue i
4 I of something less than Type B containers.
I II II s II*1 Under "Special Projects," there's one point I 6 wanted to mention, and that's that Modal Study. We have one manyear assigned to it. The dollars for that project are essentially in Research's program, under an agreement I think last year was it, Learned, the research would be carried out 10 by Research, but we would carry one person here because we're
]1 I concerned about getting the results of that study and I
,., i 1L incorporating them into the program.
I 13 Sa~l will be making a pitch ~or that one, but I 14 do want to add some words in support of it. The basic design iS criteria for many of these packages were for highway and rail 16 transportation and were made back in the late '50s, with 17 much input coming from IAEA, a lot of health physics input.
18 We think that the whole thing should be rechecked i9 again. Not that we're saying that there are any great 20 deficiencies, but we would feel more comfortable if we took 21 these things -- highway movement, rail movement of the casks, 22 and subjected them to another review.
23 The Modal Study has been carried on the books as a proposal for a number of years, and it has yet to get off the 25 ground. We would like to see it get moving in '81.
jwb 25 The item number three, "Develop Radiological 2 Contingency Plan," that shows one person there as a setaside, 3 and that's the one we're asking for.
if 4 I! The "Space Mission" work is carried as a setaside, II II s H11 and I'll sum up on all the setasides when we get to the bottom 6 of the list.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I do want to ask: a question, 8 though.
9 MR. DIRCKS: Sure.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Your description, both here 1i and then in the ERG, is to conduct independent evaluations.
12 Joe, I know I agreed with you, and I thought 13 Bud Kennedy also did--. I thought we agreed as sort of a 14 Commission decision not to go for that independent review.
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So I'm a little confused as 17 to why --
18 MR. DIRCKS: I think the budget was put together 19 before the agreements had been reached. I know I've seen the 20 notes passed back and forth. I've thrown that in there 21 it's been carried, and I'm just throwing it in for the 22 Commission's views.
23 co~~1ISSIONER AHEARNE: But you see my question If, as I think we have, already reached a decision 25 as to how it ought to be done, then what would be the manyears
jwb 26 appropriate to that decision? As opposed to having us look 2 again at the issue which we've already looked at?
3 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I think in coming up with an 4 estimate of 2 and $320,000, we were not when we're looking 5 at an independent review, we're looking at an independent 6 review, we certainly weren't going to talk about a full-scale 7 licensing review.
8 I think what we're talking about is having the 9 people sort of take documentation, review it, subject it to 10 some technical assistance --
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, Bill, but I think what 12 I'm really asking is: Since we had a proposal phrased just 1211 like that.to which the Commission, said, "no, we don't want 14 Ii to do that, 11 there are some smaller number of peopie that 15 would then track with what the Commission said they were 16 going to do, and do you wish it to be zero, or something non-17 zero?
18 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I --
19 MR. GOSSICK: Less than one.
20 (Laughter.)
21 MR. DIRCKS: You can see I'm not making a big 22 pitch for it, one way or the other. I'm not quite sure what 23 emphasis or effort you want to put into it, and anything you want to throw in there, why take it.
25 (Laughter.)
jwb 27
- 2 3
MR. GOSSICK: What he 1 s saying is, he'll do it out of his skin if the memo that we've seen prevails.
don't have any direction on the staff.
We
,i :
- 1I MR. DIRCKS: But in the order of where it falls, ii s II I think they have -- they do have some experts over there ii i'-" i
!1 in those agencies already. I'm trying to figure out what Ii 71 exactly the product we could deliver is.
I 8 !. (Slide.)
9 This is the Radioisotope Decision Unit. It's 10 highly manpower intensive. We asked for -- We have a base
.. 1 1
program for '79 of 43. 80 is 43. There was a request of 12 61 in the '81 program, but of that increase of going from
- 13 14 15 43 to 61, 14 of tl1.ose slots were in -- 11--was in the regionalization program,'
which was a Commission initiative, and that's~ setaside~
16 In addition to that, in that 14 setaside slots 17 are these 3 positions that we're asking for for the 18 radiological contingency planning for radioisotope plant 19 facilities.
20 CHAIR.Iv.JAN HENDRIE: I'm lost.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Let me -- I can go back and --
- 22 23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: If I take Lee's -- I'm sorry.
I'll lose it if I don't go back to transportation. I'm having
- 24
"--,,-F2Jeral Reporters, Inc.
25 a *slow start this afternoon.
If I take the EDO's 17 manyears, you want to add 1 t
jwb 28 that.*
2 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: For what?
iff 4 MR. DIRCKS: That 1 s contingency planning.
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Contingency planning. The 6 space nuclear stuff was on the setaside, in any event?
7 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Now the dollar setaside in 9 fact corresponds to the -- the $320 million appears above 10 and appears below, but the 2 people above became 3 below.
1i COMMISSIONERi:AHEARNE: Because there 1 s 1 above.
12 Right above that.
- i3 14 the one.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Oh, yes. 'Okay. Gobd. That 1 s 15 MR. DIRCKS: Now we --
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That 1 s the number three 17 that you were really asking be included in the base.
18 MR. DIRCKS: That 1 s right.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay. Sorry. Onward. Back 20 to rµdioisotopes.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Okay, this is unfortunately, we 1 ve
- 22 23 24 got nine major objectives on this, so it spills over into two charts.
Of the 43 positions -- actually 43, plus 4, 47
'~-~-*ml Reporters, Inc.
25 that we 1 re asking for --
jwb 29 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I thought it was 46.
2 MR. DIRCKS: Oh, 46. I'm sorry. I was trying to 3 cheat you out of one there. It's 4 6.
4 (Laughter.)
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You've got to watch them like a 6 hawk. They slide them by ones and twos and the first thing 7 you know 8 (Laughter.)
9 MR. DIRCKS: Again, this is the licensing effort.
I 10 This is where we have the masses in licenses actions. The i1 objective and the accomplishment is to review the approximately 12 4800 material license applications and make some decisions on 13 them during this fiscal year '81.
14 I might add, our goal is to get the turnaround time 15 down to 30 or 45 days.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: For which?
17 MR. DIRCKS: On the review of the material license 18 applications. It's approximately 60 days now.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Since you raised that data, 20 in reviewing the operating plant, I note that it takes 21 approximately 150 days to process a license renewal, and 22 45 to 60 days to process a new application.
23 MR. DIRCKS: Well, the reason --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Which suggests that the way to 25 make a big saving is not to have renewable licenses.
jwb 30 (Laughter.)
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Is this the timely renewal issue?
3 MR. DIRCKS: It's the timely renewal issue.
/I II 5 ,,11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So that you don't -- the i
6 !I people doing the renewals, because that stays in effect.
11 1 MR. DIRCKS: Given a stable man policy of increasing Ii R ii licensing timely renewals is something we're going to get v i,,
9 to.
10 Now many of those timely renewals, when you throw 11 them into that category, you're dealing with very small-scale 12 materials licenses. We don't intend to have any timely 13 renewals -- I think this is Dick's policy, too~- dealing with 14 facilities and plants.
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: What would happen if the 16 Congress of the Commission were to pass a law or a regulation 17 that there be no more timely renewals?
18 MR. DIRCKS: What we'd do then is just to put the 19 emphasis on the ongoing licenses, and let the people who want 20 new licenses wait on line.
21 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Well, except that if you did away 22 with the timely renewals, you mean the license would expire 23 if it weren't renewed.
24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
~ ~,:,--re! Reps'.'lrters, Inc.
25 MR. CUNNINGHAM: That means one of two things:
jwb 31 The license people would not be able to use licenses if they 2 sent in a renewal and it wasn't issued, which could severely 3 impact hospitals and what have you, unless we had the 4
I resources to --
.I 11 5 MR. DIRCKS: No, no, Dick, I think the thing is 6 that for people who have licenses who are already op.erating, 7 they'd get on ahead first in the line. Those people who are 8 newcomers to the line would get on the end of the line.
9 I think that's woven through a lot of the ways 10 we're treating some of the other licensing agents. Operating 1i mills get first attention. New mills get on the end of the 12 line, and we'll see that when we get to Jack's program.
13 CHAIRJ.v.tAN HENDR~E: Let's see. Do I remember 14 correctly. Is the timely renewal in the Atomic Energy Act?
15 Or is that elsewhere in the structure?
16 MR. DIRCKS: It's in the regulation.
17 MR. ENGLEHARDT: It's in the regulation.
I 18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It is Commission Regulation?
19 MR. ENGLEHARDT: Yes.
20 MR. CUNNINGHAM: We did send to the Commission 21 about last March or so a study on the timely renewals, or 22 the renewal time period 23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
- ' ,:;.,al Reporters, ~n~.
25 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
-- and explored the reasons for --
Some of them were very long.
jwb 32 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes.
2 MR. DIRCKS: The only other items I wanted to raise, as you can see, most of this is base program level 3
4 of effort.
5 The regionalization program, which is a setaside, 6 there's a big number there, 11. It's the increment to the 7 existing program. If the Commission wanted a regionalization 8 program, we would move some existing people out of headquarters 9 to the regions. This is essentially the additional staff it 10 would take to broaden the program.
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Your conclusion is, that 12 to go to the regionalization program for those three regions, 13 I, II, and III, it would take 11 people in addition to all 14 the people that are now 15 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So that you could continue 17 the current program, and I assume you' re s.aying there would 18 be no significant difference in the responsiveness of the 19 program?
20 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I think there may be some 21 qualitative improvements to the program by region, and we've 22 found that out in the operation of the program thus far, and 23 I think the productivity increases somewhat because when you transfer people to regional offices to work on licenses, that's what they work on.
jwb 33 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: How many people would you
- 2 have in the headquarters working on it?
3 MR. DIRCKS: I think i
/, 11 MR. CUNNINGH}1*.M: It seems to me -- I'm trying to
~ II 5 Ii recall the numbers -- we have about 13 reviewers in head-6 quarters now, and we would transfer out something like 7 to 10, 7 so there would be maybe 3 or 4 at headquarters to handle 8 specialized cases.
i 9 II
!I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: If you'd transfer out 7 to ii 10 10 -- how many do you have in Region III now?
11 MR. CUNNINGHAM: 3 technical people.
1,,:_
'") COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: 3?
.--- 13 14 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes ..
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And transfer out 7 to 10 --
15 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Somewhere in that -- it depends 16 on the 17 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And hire 11 people more of 18 which 8 would be reviewers?
1('
I / MR. CUNNINGHAM: Clerical.
20 MR. DIRCKS: You see, right now we're living off 21 I&E's clerical support. If you wanted to go to a regional
- 22 23 24 program, I don't think I&E would be that tolerant of taking the administrative clerical support out of their hide. They would want some support in that program from here.
-~,-::-i.,B! Ficp:::irters, Inc, 25 MR. CUNNINGHAM: You see, there are certain
jwb 34 functions when you go to regions, that you have to do, no 2 matter how big or how small the program is. You need certain 3 base technical support for files, secretaries --
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But you're saying these 5 11 would not primarily be technical?
6 MR. CUNNINGHAM: That's correct. The technical 7 people that are doing the licensing casework would be the 8 ones transferred.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: The ones transferred.
10 All right, how many clerical people do you reduce 1i in headquarters?
12 MR. CUNNINGHAM: That would take about the same
,,..," number of people. I think you would reduce one or two. I 14 don't have that number in my head, now.
15 COMMISS.IONER AHEARNE: I mean there has to be, 16 at some point where -- what's astonishing about the number, 17 that there doesn't seem to be any give.
18 MR. DIRCKS: I think we could give you some more 10 I /
information -- you see, the headquarters also operates the 20 complete docket file for the whole outfit. I'm sure we're 21 going to have to maintain those files here, as well as in the 22 region, so there's going to be duplication of clerical work 23 not only here in this area, but in the technical work, too .
.~.:--c*.-1s: Reporters, ~n~. So there's duplication of resources and that's what you 25 usually find when you regionalize a program.
jwb 35 It comes at a cost because of this duplicative 2 factor. It comes with some benefits, too, but I'm not quite 3 sure what they would cost.
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Could you quantify the 5 benefits?
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
. Well, go ahead and do that.
7 MR. DIRCKS: I think we have found out -- and I 8 don't know whether we have the numbers -- that the productivity 9 is probably higher for people out there writing licenses than 10 i t is back here. One of the reasons is that's all they do.
i1 If they're here in headquarters, they get stuck 12 with other jobs. They get pulled off some licensing actions.
13 They're asked to write responses to Cong+/-ess, and consti-14 tuents, and so on. There's a net gain because you're putting 15 people on specializing in licenses.
16 Do you have those numbers?
17 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I don't have those numbers here.
18 MR. DIRCKS: I think we can get them.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But if you're transferring 20 the technical people out, it doesn't sound like you're -- you'r 21 either then working off the backlog faster, om you're not 22 counting on the productivity gain. It's just puzzling.
23 MR. DIRCKS: Well, you have to have a set of
- 24 certain --
.~ ~-.:e-de,ai Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Because clearly we've seen
jwb 36 this. You did provide an interim report. We saw that. It 2 was a very positive report, but it was more subjective.
3 MR. CUNNINGHAM: We have an outline now to try to make it more quantitative for the final report. We are trying to make it quantitative. I think that, as near as we can tell right now, if you separate out the types of things we have to do in headquarters 1 you don't have to do in the field -- the letters, the special studies -- the actual time it takes to sI ii 9 get out a license is about the same, the same type of 10 license. There is some advantage -- there are tradeoffs 11 there is some advantage to being near where some of the 12 licensees are, especially if the bulk of the licenses are 13 , concentrated in the metropolitan cente~_Jike Chicago, where 14 the l~censee can'drop by the office fairly easily. That has 15 some benefit.
16 There are other benefits, of being near the 17 inspection group, I think, just in talking to the inspectors, 18 just being closer to the inspection part.
19 You're trading that o£f against all the administra-20 II tive overhead you have of running the program in the fields.
I I
21 There's duplication of effort in the sense that you have to 22 keep licensing files at headquarters, plus licensing files 23 in the field; you have to have computer terminals here and there; you have to have a certain amount of supervisory 25 overhead that will take up a disproportionate share of the
jwb 37 people if you have supervisors in the field and supervisors 2 here.
3 So it's a question of economies of scale.
4 MR. DIRCKS: Okay, would you put the next one on, 5 please.
6 (Slide.)
7 What we have done here is to take the fuel cycle 8 I program across the board, and list essentially the major i1 9 accomplishments that we intend to carry out through the EDO 10 mark in a summary fashion. I think we've covered most of 1i I those items during the review of the decision units themselves.
12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Do you assume that BOE will 13 iake over West Valley in your bu~get?
14 MR. DIRCKS: We're assuming that the Lundine bill 15 will pass, which embarks the Federal Government on a program 16 to do something with West Valley and solidify the waste, get 17 more off the site eventually, decontaminate the structures, 18 probably looking at such things as the spent fuel pool, iO
'; low-level waste burial grounds. So there will be a number of 20 actions there that we're assuming we'll be involved in.
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And do you assume that you 22 will have some AFRs to license?
23 MR. DIRCKS: Yes, we are. We've built that in,
-~~*9:rai Reporters, ~n~. because that's the general -- I think we' re working on the 25 possibility of one AFR in 1981. Is that right, Dick?
jwb 38 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes.
2 (Slide.)
3 MR. DIRCKS: Okay, the next slide is the principal 4 impacts of "the EDO mark, and here is just a general slicing 5 off of some of the nice-to-do things. We're not making any 6 bitter cries here.
7 (Slide.)
8 The next slide is the setasides.
9 I've covered the "radiological contingency planning" 10 thing. I guess I've beate_n that one down into the ground ..
11 I don't think I need to do anymore.
11 12 GEIS for alternate fuel cycles, 11 that one is 13 really tossed qver to the Commission.
14 '!'he two the space shots, I don't know what to -
15 say.
16 And finally, the regionallzation.
17 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I noticed that.
18 (Laughter.)
19 CHAIR.Iv.LAN HENDRIE: '\\Tell, there I s some guidance 20 around on the space shots of at .least a technical nature.
21 We haven't, I would say, come final on the Commission decision, 22 but it's clear that at least as it stands now the majority of 23 the Commissioners think a sort of reduced scope that I've outlined in my memorandum awhile back was the appropriate level.
jwb 39 The alternate fuel cycles, I am hesitant at this
- #2 2
3 point.
And the regionalization continues to puzzle me 4 because there is less of a conservation of mass and energy 5 than I would have guessed. Granted even a certain amount of 6 duplication and so on, limited regionalized is a head-7 scratcher.
8 COJ\11'-USSIONER AHEARNE: I imagine that some -- you 9 can even crack back at some point in history and find that 10 some of that stuff was oeing .done in the region, and that 11 there was a saving in headquarters. There may be a hysteresis 12 effect, though, I'm not sure.
1':l MR. GOSSICK: Were they were down in the field, 14 Dick?
15 MR. CUNNINGHAM: No, I don't think so.
16 MR. DIRCKS: I don't know on that.
17 MR. CUNNINGHAM: No, the licensing was never done 18 in the field.
19 MR. GOSSICK: Wasn't it done at Oak Ridge at one 20 time?
21 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes, but that was the whole
- 22 23 licensing program.
correct.
They brought it up as a unit.
Well, it's correct in the sense it was once located at Oak Ridge, but it was never regionalized.
That's It
.'. *::=*~el Reporters, ~n~.
25 was brought up as a unit.
jwb 40 MR. DIRCKS: The point I'm making on the setasides, 2 the one I'm making a strong pitch for is the 7 people and 3 dollars for the radiological contingency planning.
4 CO:MMISSIONER AHEARNE: hThy should that be viewed 5 differently than the other emergency 6 MR. DIRCKS: Well, if you go along with the 7 supplement '80, that blip is not going to go away in 1
- 81. We 8 !I want to continue the program. We want to deepen the licensing
!I;,
,i
, Ii' review process to take into account these factors which we 0
10 think have not been adequately covered up to now.
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Aren't those the same words 12 that NRR will use, for example, for its emergency planning?
13 M~. DIRCKS: Well, but ~his is not -- I don 1 t know 14 what NRR is doing. This is not connected with the Carter 15 Task Force. This is not connected with the states partici-16 pating in this. This is really taking a look at those plants 17 as public health and safety.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But I think that's in general what the people who are reviewing the reactors are doing, also, so it still seems to be the same character.
21 MR. DIRCKS: It might be. I'll say quite honestly 22 what we will do, because we consider this one as such a 23 high priority item, and I really think it belongs in the
..'*.:-;c*~al Reporters, ~n!. licensing review work that we' re doing, we' 11 probably fold 25 it in there one way or the other.
jwb 41 COMM:ISSIONER AHEARNE: Good enough.
2 MR. DIRCKS: And we'll skimp pack somewhere else.
3 We may take a little longer to review the licenses. We may 4 drop certain other activities off the list.
5 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. There's a little bit of a 6 semantics problem here, also. I think we think of "emergency 7 planning 11 as mainly coordination with the states' evacuation 8 plans and this sort of thing.
9 COI~MISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, part of it.
10 MR. CUNNINGHAM: That's part of it. But what we're 11 mainly using these people for is technical evaluations in 12 plant that have to do with what goes wrong; if something 13 goes w~ong, what can be done about it from within the plant, 14 and that's where we need our strongest data base. And this 15 will become part of the licensing process.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I'm not taking exception to 17 it, it just still sounds a great deal like the same kind of 18 things that are being done by others.
19 MR. DIRCKS: I think we've identified it as some-20 thing this office has nQt done. I think we've learned some 21 lessons about what role the NRC properly should play in one 22 of these accidents. Our concern is, given what we know about 23 some of these facilities, we don't want to play until we've
.'.*-:-,.eral Reporters, ~n~. found out more about what the ground rules are' where the 25 baseline is.
jwb 42 (Slide.)
- 2 The next program area is the Safeguards-Program.
3 And if Bob Burnett will join me up here, the program is 4 107 people and $2.3 million in '79i going down to 95 people 5 and $2.5 million in '80; and going down to 93 people and 6 $1.8 million in '81.
7 Whiilie the total program is going down, we are "0 making adjustments to put some priorities where I think they 9 should be put in the areas of materials control and 10 accounting areas, and I'll cover that when we get into the 1i decisions.
12 Generally, physical security, I feel as though we I~
14 15 have overcome many of.the c?allenges in that area.
getting our regulations in place.
We're Now we have to take a very hard look at materials control and accounting.
16 We are less than fully equipped to deal with the 17 problems at hand today.
18 We have two decision units in this area: Material 19 Control and Accounting; and Physical Security.
20 In '79 we have 40 people in this area, and in 21 '81 we want to go up to 44 people. The dollars will decrease
- 22 23 24 over the number of years, but the people will increase.
(Slide.)
Could I have the next slide, please. There's a
.'.*""**~o:: Reporters, Inc.
25 point I want to mention in the safeguards unit as a whole.
jwb 43 I think you've dealt with it, or you've heard it mentioned 2 many times. On the safeguards side of NRC, especially in the 3 Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, you can A I
.., ii take the 90-some-odd people that we have employed, divide I!,,
5 !! them by 12 fuel cycle plants, and you' 1 1 wind up with,
,**I t II 11 God knows, you've got 7 people in each plant or something
.,I!
/ II like that.
sI As I get into this and I want to pass out a Ii 91 sheet.* which will show that *we do far more than look at the I
10 11 or 12 fuel cycle plants.
li COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I thought you were going 12 to show a new map.
14 15 I~ "I (Laughter.)
MR. DIRCKS: No. New ways of doing it.
The first slide, though, does give you some idea 16 of the accomplishment base that we're doing in the licensing 17 reviews across the board, we do have quite a few actions that 18 we are forced to look at.
19 Would you change that slide please, Dave? 16.
20 (Slide.)
21 Here's another one that continues onto two pages.
- 22 23 24 The area that has picked up some work in the material control and accounting area is in the international safeguards side
~ ::-2-~c:! Reporters, Inc.
of that house. In fiscal '80, we have 11.5 people on major 25 objective two -- no, I'm sorry, 6.6 people, and that's gone
jwb 44 up to 11. 5. So there's been an increase in manpower in this 2 particular area.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: How much of that is 4 associated with the assumption that .the United States/IAEA 5 Agreement will be passed?
6 MR. BURNETT: About all of it.
7 MR. DIRCKS: Bob says, just about all of it.
8, We're counting on about 90 reviews of the Part 75 facility I
9 attachment that's listed here.
10 The only -- I wouldn't say "all" 11 MR. BURNETT: No, there's two in the import-12 export.
- 13 14 15 reviews.
MR. DIRCKS: Two'people.we use in*import-export The item number three I think is an area we're 16 putting some emphasis on, although it doesn't really show 17 up in people, or changes in people. We -- neither Bob nor 18 I are satisfied that we're getting accurate, timely, and 19 complete information on inventories and materials in process.
20 I think we have to do a lot more in this area.
21 Material Control a.nd Accounting Task Force made 22 a whole series of recommendations. Much of our program in 23 this area is dedicated to getting out the Material Control 24 and Accounting Upgrade Rule. In the meantime, we're putting
_,:,_,*
- rel Reporters, Inc.
25 extra emphasis on field visits and field evaluation of
jwb 45 facilities.
2 The situation is not encouraging. We've got one 3 or two plants that we just can't seem to get a handle on.
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes. And that brings you
\
5 I! back to the question -- I'm surprised to hear you say that 6 you, however, believe that having someone there full-time 7 would not be a help.
8 MR. DIRCKS: Oh, no, I meant in the health and 9 safety side, I'm sorry. I think we should have somebody 10 there on the safeguards sides at these fuel cycle facilities.
1i Safeguards. They're there now. I think it's important to 12 keep them there.
I .) I CO1~1ISSIONER AHEARNE: All "right, you would then --
14 you would not have I&E doing the safeguards function?
15 MR. DIRCKS: No, I think the inspector full-time 16 resident on the scene at one or two of these plants is 17 important, and I'd support it.
18 I'm looking from the point of view of making l9 visits from our outfit to these facilities as a continuation 20 I of the comprehensive evaluation.
I 21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, for example, and 22 without getting into which sites, it appears to me that just 23 as Vic Stello described, that on the reactor side there are
-~-~*:c: Reporters, ~n~. problems sites.
25 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
jwb 46 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And they have concluded 2 that on a problem site, they really have to have someone there.
3 It appears that you've got some sites which are problem sites.
I I
, 11 4 ,,
And I would have thought that you would therefore conclude 11 I,
5 iii that you've really got to have someone there all the time.
I' 6 II MR. DIRCKS: We think I&E should be there.
I 7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Oh, no, I'm not saying II 8 [, 11 you," NMSS, I mean, ttyou," saying I&E ought to have someone.
!I I
ol
, MR. DIRCKS: We'd very strongly -- I&E ought to 10 have somebody there.
1i COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Okay, you realize they're 12 proposing zero?
- i3 14 15 MR. DIRCKS: I didn't realize that.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
MR. BURNETT:
Yes.
That's news to me, also.
16 MR. __ DIRCKS: so* I would recommend against that.
17 I think they should have someone there. I think this 18 represents the next thing we have to worry about.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: You might correspond to --
20 MR. BURNETT: I'd be delighted to.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Yes, would you --
- 22 23 24 MR. BURNETT:
MR. GOSSICK:
proposing to go to zero?
Yes, sir. I was unaware of that.
Would you say that again? They're
/0 c:,;.rai Raporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: On the people at the site.
jwb 47 MR. GOSSICK: They've got two there now, and 2 they're proposing to take them out?
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
3 4 MR. GOSSICK: It's as submitted, or revised?
s 11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes, as submitted.
6 MR. GOSSICK: I didn't list them as fuel cycles.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It's 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, this was in their handout.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: No, it was in yes, it's 10 in their budget.
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes, but it's not in the 12 commitment.
I..)
14 15 it in there.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
1* 1 m not sure. I didn't see I didn't see anything in the 16 decision unit discussion summary.
17 MR. DIRCKS: We've listed almost everything we 18 have --
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Are you going to talk about . '
20 ISIS now, later?
21 MR. DIRCKS: Let me mention ISIS. That's a
- 22 23 24 setaside in the budget of ADNU, but it's for our use.
we very strongly support what we had with ISIS.
And The current NMSS program that we're using at Oak Ridge, we've been having
.' c:E--;a: Reporters, Inc.
25 not a very satisfactory experience with NMSS.
jwb 48 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Why don't you move your mike 2 up a little bit, or talk a little louder.
3 MR. DIRCKS: Let me hold the microphone.
4 NMS has not performed well for us. It 1 s constantly II t; I
- I trying to gerrybuild the thing back up to meet our needs.
6 The data is not designed for what we want, and we're not 7 getting the information when we want it.
8 The ISIS program is designed to accomplish our 9 needs. It would be true, if under our control it would 10 make it easier to deal with, but looking at it from the cost 11 side, NMS keeps escalating in cost. We keep getting charged 12 more and more for that system, and we're getting less and 13 less out. of it. So that's why we've advocated going* to ISIS*.
14 Bo~, do you want to pick up anything else?
15 MR. BURNETT: I don't know what else I could say.
16 I would support Mr. Dircks totally. It's gone up 400 percent 17 in 4 years. I'm utilizing it very heavily right now in the 18 spent fuel arena, because people are always asking: How many 19 spent fuel movements have gone through my state, my county, 20 everything?
21 A typical one, I got .asked: How many spent fuels 22 had gone through North Carolina? I am not entering my second-23 and-a-half week to answer that little, and I haven't got it 24 yet, and that is typical.
6'::'c-- _ era! Reporters, Inc.
25 They 1 re just not programmed to handle what I think
jwb 49 are pragmatic questions.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEAR~E: Lee, why was it set aside?
3 MR. GOSSICK: It's in front of the Commission for a decision.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I see.
II t III MR. GOSSICK: It was put in last year in the '80 budget as a plug, $600,000 pending Commission approval, and Commissioner Gilinsky had a question and that's been answered, and it's out here now awaiting your approval or action.
10 MR. BARRY: If we don't start it in '81, you're 1i not going to have an ISIS on line in '83. That 1 s how far do1/4m-1 12 stream you are. If you start it somehow in 80, we could have
- 13 14 15 I at least the first.modules ready to go probably by the beginning of I 82
- MR. DIRCKS: I might mention there's also one 16 setaside in here which we're not making a huge pitch for, 17 but it's the EDIS on alternate fuel cycles, the safeguards 18 portion of it.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That's the same?
20 I MR. DIRCKS: Yes, the same thing.
I 21 If there are no questions on that area 22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, the ISIS, I think the 23 issue really is at the moment having the Commission address it?
25 MR. DIRCKS: Yes, that is the issue. The paper is
jwb 50 down here. I think it has the full support of the complete
- 3 2 staff.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I guess from my own point
- 4 s I!
i of view, I have been in favor of going out with it, but I still have some questions about the costing side. It still 6 doesn't seem to me to make sense why it wouldn't end up being 7 cheaper for us to end up doing it than to do it with DOE.
n 0
I can recognize the problem of working with DOE 9 and the emphasis on that, but having a cheaper --
10 MR. DIRCKS: Well, wasn't one part of this the 11 fact that DOE is pushing us to pay 'full cost?
12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: To pay full cost.
- 13 14 15 MR. DIRCKS: We're essentially going to pay for the thing one way or the other.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Well, so you'll pay full 16 cost for something that you rent from another government 17 agency, if there is anything to do with economy of scale 18 which we've just been hearing about, if it works in one area, 19 it ought to work in another area.
20 I can remember being in an organization in which 21 we were using someone else's computer, and having extensive
- 22 23 studies done for us to show why it would be always so much cheaper, and much more responsive, to have our own computer.
We ended up that one out of two wasn't bad.
,: c,;,.rn: Reporters, ~n~.
25 (Laughter.)
jwb 51 MR. DIRCKS: Well, we -- Do you have anymore?
- 2 MR. BURNETT: Well, I can't explain it all, except that, you know, when the NMS people decide to buy a 3
4 4 new piece of equipment, it may or may not have anything to 5 do with our area, and we have to carry our fair share of that 6 baggage. And then they have 40 people down there to run it, 7 which may or may not be equitable, shall we say.
8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes. I hear you, Bob, I've 9 just been in* at least three different organizations where the 10 same cycle has occurred, and it always ends up costing more, ll at least the three experiences I have had where this has been 12 done.
- i3 14 15 MR. DIRCKS:
(Laughter.)
(Slide.)
rhis would.be the exception.
- 16 The next slide is the physical security decision i7 unit. We are recommending the staffing of 49 people, and abou i8 $1 million. That's a decrease from 67 to 49 from fiscal '79 19 through '81. There is a decrease in program here, and I think 20 the basic reason for the dec~ease is that we're moving away 21 from developing a regulatory program to implementing the
- 22 23 24 regulatory program and it's taking fewer people and fewer dollars.
The physical security program in '81 will
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25 continue what we call vulnerability assessments, which is
jwb 52 the descendant of the old comprehensive evaluation program.
2 I think that program has proved beneficial, and 3 I would like to continue it. We've built into this budget 4 a continuation of that in slightly a modified form.
5 The sort of a summary sheet I'd like to pass out 6 called "Major Accomplishments within the" --
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Don't -- I want to ask a 8 question about that.
9 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: You've got in your program plan something, a modification here. Your program plans you 12 were talking about conducting visits to 12 and 40 countries, 13 and here you have foreign country evaluations.
14 Are these in-country evaluations you've got 15 listed there, actually you were going to send a team to the 16 country?
17 MR. DIRCKS: This physical security evaluation 18 program that we've been undertaking with DOE. DOE and State 19 makes a tour of countries. They invite us to go along.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But it's not a separate 21 evaluation?
22 MR. DIRCKS: No. It's a member of the team.
23 MR. BURNETT: And it's a single member from my office, no more than two.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So it's at State's or DOE's
jwb 53 initiation?
2 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
3 MR. BUR~ETT: And they have the lead on it.
4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, this has been the pattern 1:
s Ii for --
I 6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes, that one I'm familiar 7 with. I wondered what this was, if it was different.
8 MR. DIRCKS: Establishing touring groups.
(Slide.)
10 The next one is a summary sheet of major 11 accomplishments within the EDO mark. I would like to just 12 give you a sort of a supplement to that, which is essentially those .10 items, but we've put some manyears 14 against them. I guess what we're trying to do here is to' 15 show that we're just not looking at the 12 fuel cycle 16 facilities. We've tried to spread the manpower across the 17 board to give you an idea of the number of activities that 18 bring together all the other units that we've talked about.
19 (Pause.)
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: By the way, while we're in this 21 area, how's the Upgrade Rule coming?
22 MR. BURNETT: That piece of paper that we were 23 asked to come back to you on on the changes with a statement of consideration, that piece of paper has been around to the 25 offices, and we are putting it in final memorandum form from
jwb 54 either Mr. Dircks or Mr. Gossick, directed individually to 2 each of the Commissioners, saying: Here is the change. We 3 think this is all right. Can you get back to us by a specific 4 time? Tam assuming that that will be out next week, or 5 it will be moving. It won't be on the street, of course, 6 by next week. You know it takes quite awhile to do that.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Bill, could you tell me 8 what difference it would make in your manpower estimates here "j
9 under one or two cases and unless you know them, you don't 10 have to give them to me off the top of your head, but I'd li like to know by Wednesday -- and the cases would be: If 12 NMSS picked up the safeguards functions of NRR, how many "t':(
lu additional*people would you need?
14 And the second case would be if NRR picked up the 15 safeguards function of NMSS, how many fewer people would you 16 need?
17 MR. BURNETT: (Coughing) What was that last one?
18 (Laughter. )
19 MR. DIRCKS: Well, my own view is 20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, if you think about 21 it, there is a relationship.
22 MR. DIRCKS: If I promote the '80-'81 --
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Don't commit yourself.
MR. DIRCKS: We could get that for you.
25 The next -- if you go down to 23, this is the
I jwb 55 principal impacts of the things that will be delayed, 2 deferred, or just dropped. Most of these will be deferred.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Explain number two, please.
4 MR. DIRCKS: "Will not participate in U.S.
5 action plans for strengthening International Safeguards," I 6 think that's a little bit too strongly worded.
7 (Laughter.)
8 We will participate to the extent that we can.
It is not exactly a high -- we'll do the other things, first.
10 When we can manage it, we will do this.
1i I tried to screen out all things like "will not 12 participate." We'll spread it thin.
COM.MISSIONER AHEARNE: How many people do you now 14 have participating in the act*ion plan*?
15 MR. DIRCKS: I think we have estimated about 16 2- to 2-1/2 people.
17 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Right now.
18 MR. DIRCKS: Well, what's the participation?
19 MR. BURNETT: About 1-1/2 to 2.
20 MR. DIRCKS: 1-1/2 to 2.
21 MR. BURNETT: We asked for 2' and they gave us
- 5.
22 MR. DIRCKS: So there would be a modest 23 participation. Most of these are deferrals, delays.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: When you say the update of the agencywide safeguards program, is that -- by "agencywide,"
jwb 56 do you mean including research in NRR?
2 MR. DIRCKS: Yes, yes. That's being worked on.
3 It hasn't progressed very rapidly, but -- where does it stand now?
4 I l
s I! MR. BURNETT: Well, we put out the first report, I
6 as you know, about eight or nine months ago. The maintenance 7 of that, putting in the changes, kind of like a five-year 8, plan, takes about a half a manyear. We did not get resources I
91 for that this year. So there would be no, or little updating 10 done in this budget, and it would go on to fue following year.
1i COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I&E has -- I guess at the I&E briefing -- mentioned that if the low-level -- I guess that would be a question that would come up later.
14 The route surveys you're talking about are strictly 15 the spent fuel surveys?
16 MR. DIRCKS: Spent fuel. And it's laying up the 17 preapproval.
18 (Slide.)
19 The next chart, briefly, is the ISIS item, which 20 we've covered in the safeguards portion of EDIS, and I think 21 all the issues there. So that completes the safeguards 22 portion of the presentation, and now we get to the heavy 23 headerup. Jack?
This is a program again that shows the most significant increases certainly that have been made in '79.
jwb 57 We're asking for a supplement in fiscal '80, and a continua-2 tion of the growth in fiscal '81.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: How many people do you have 4 up there?
5 MR. MARTIN: At this precise moment,-.:.. .it's 6 changing every day -- I think, counting people on-board, plus people who will be coming on-board in the next couple or 8 three weeks, it's like 71.
9 MR. DIRCKS: We've been authorized to go up to our 10 Presidential ceiling of '80 .. So Jack's not over.
li COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: No, no, I was just 12 wond~ring how difficult it's going to be to get to 121 by 13 the end of '81, which is the additional 50 people.
14 MR'. MARTIN: Well, you might *'notice that I Ive 15 structured this, that it's about 20 percent a year, which, 16 let's see, if we're hiring right now against the fiscal '80 17 ceiling, and we're like, by the end of this fiscal year, I'm 18 hoping to be at the '81, we've structured this at about a 19 20 percent increase because -- and I'm concerned with that, 20 too. That even if you can hire them, I can't integrate them 21 and manage them properly.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: At the end of '80, you'll 23 be at '81?
MR. MARTIN: In that -- yes.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Unless the supplement goes.
jwb 58 MR. GOSSICK: Yes, and it would be 97.
- 2 3
MR. DIRCKS: We're not counting on the supplements right away; we're counting on the '81 Presidential -- the
'80 Presidential.
4 5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But you're really hoping to 6 get to be at khe '80 Presidential ceiling at the beginning of 7 '80.
8 MR. MARTIN: Right. That's what I'm moving against 9 right at this point.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I see.
1i MR. GOSSICK: Well, it's actually mid-year.
12 MR. DIRCKS: For the supplement.
13 MR. GOSSICK:
- F.or the supplement.
14* MR. MARTIN: And then during the year 15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Hoping to get to the 97.
16 MR. MARTIN: Right, during fiscal '80, during that 17 year.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So you're really hoping to 19 be at that at the end of '80.
20 MR. MARTIN: Right.
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: To be at the 97.
22 MR. MARTIN: Well, I'd like to get as.much use out 23 of it, of '80, as possible, but that's about as fast as you can hire and train the people.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It's a very rapid rate of
r, jwb 59 expansion. Do you think you'll be able to handle that?
- 2 MR. MARTIN: 20 percent I think it manageable.
3 That's what I've used to basically limit the program. We've 4 of course made a case that you would really need more than that s to keep pace, but you just can't use it.
6 MR. DIRCKS: Okay, I think well, we'll go 7 through this again by decision unit. I'll just point out we 8 have only one setaside here. That's 3 people and $200,000, 9 in the '80 supplement for the low-level program, and that's 10 on the DOE cooperative consultant program.
li MR. MARTIN: Right.
12 MR. DIRCKS: And we've labeled that as a setaside.
- 13 14 15 (Slide.) .---~
How about the first decision unit, which is ~he "High-Level Waste Program."
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Is that a Congressional -- well, 17 we'll get to the setaside in due time.
18 Go ahead.
I~ MR. DIRCKS: The program here is really budgeted 20 to go from 28 people in fiscal '79 up to 61 people in '81.
21 That is a substantial growth, but as Jack pointed out, we
- 22 23 want to program that through the '80 supplement.
The same thing goes for the dollar requirement,
.._~-.
24 erai Meporters, Inc .
25
$4.3 million in '79 up to $13.4 million in '81, again using the '80 supplement as a branch to get there.
jwb 60 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Now if I were -- Jack, if 2 I were to apply your rule-of-thumb that 20 percent per year 3 is about the most you can really handle.
4 MR. MARTIN: You would do the same in dollars, too.
5 I! Now this is a little misleading in that we have --
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: This would give you a lot 7 more than 20 percent.
8 MR. MARTIN: . Well, let me explain that. We have 9 this is in budget terms, and maybe Len can help me out.
10 During fiscal '79, we: are actually spending like $8.065 million 1i that we scraped up internally, or got reprogrammed from 12 fiscal '78 that we got at the very end-of the year. So if
- 13 14 15 I were to look at ~hat am I actually spending in '79, it's like $8 million.
Likewise, if I look at 1980, it's like $10 million.
16 You know, the $6 and the -- If I count what we expect to get 17 reprogrammed, plus the $1:. 8 million of the EDO recommendation, 18 it comes out $10.15 million and that's roughly 20 percent or 19 so.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: No, I was more looking at 21 people, and your -- applying your rule-of-thumb of 20 percent
- 22 23 24 a year.
1980.
MR. MARTIN: That will be a bigger jump during During 1980, that's a bigger jump.
i -:-s--ernl Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DIRCKS: That's at 16 people.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I'm not saying it isn't 2 needed --
3 MR. DIRCKS: But then if you defer it, and you 4 say we need it, and we pick it up in '81 which would be a 5 pretty massive jump in '81.
6 (Slide.)
7 May I have the next slide, Dave. Again, 8 unfortunately this is two pages.
9 MR. MARTIN: I would like to make one comment on 10 that. On the President's budget of 33, we're neally like at 1i 40. I have taken people from the Low-Level Decision Unit 12 this fiscal year and stuck them in there to get a running
- 13 14 15
£tart, but I have to then gtve back next year -- in terms of real people be,ing managed among these High*-Level Waste Branches, it's like 39, which is still more than 20 percent.
16 MR. DIRCKS: The problem is that we have to pay 17 back the low-level, because we're seeing some other problems 18 in that area. I think the emphasis in this decision unit 19 i is -- we've gone through this, I guess, with all of the 20 Commissioners now. The emphasis we're putting on regulations 21 and the *criteria, and to the extent we can we would not defer 22 any work that we're doing in developing licensing review 23 capabilities or licensing capabilities. We just feel
_as though we have to get up ahead* and get the criteria and 25 standards out. We're seeing this pressure build up each ,day,
jwb 62 and I think both Jack and I are concerned about it, that our 2 program may in effect be looked upon as delaying a part of 3 the whole national program.
4 So we 1 re looking at, in fiscal '81, putting 22 5 I! people to the regulatory guidance program. That's an 6 increase of 4 or 5 people over '80, the supplemented '80.
7 We are also looking to put 4 people into, ,the 8 assessment of the DOE program, and I think we've discussed 9 with you the concepts we have in looking at the site 10 characterization program that DOE will be getting into. It 1i is our feeling that if they go through an extensive site 12 characterization program, looking at the test drilling, test 13 shafts, that w~ ought to have people in very clos~ contact, I
14 very close touch with that program, even to the extent of 15 maybe putting some people on site and providing day-to-day 16 guidance of what we think we need in the licensing process, 17 so we won't be pulling any surprises on anyone during the 18 course of these licensing actions.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: This might be as good a time 20 I as any to ask a couple of questions about what kinds of 21 assumptions you have in here.
- 22 23 Do you have any manyears dedicated in an '81 or in an '80 supplemental to the waste ~anagement proceedings that the Commission is about to embark on?
MR. DIRCKS: Not built into this one. Depending on
jwb 63 the scope and form and how you get into it, what we're going 2 to have to do is look around in the existing program and --
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But the answer is there 4 is nothing here.
s MR. DIRCKS: The answer is "no," there's nothing 6 in here.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Do you have an assumption 8, about when the DOE might be submitting a license application 1.
i!
9 f I
for a high-level site?
10 MR. DIRCKS: We're looking at the Presidential 1i decision memorandum, the last version we saw, looking at the 12 '85-'86 time frame.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEAPNE: That's what _3mderlies the 14 program buildup here, or it would be consistent with 15 MR. MARTIN: It turns out it doesn't make any 16 difference. I mean, either assumption you make, towards the
,' ...I tailend of '81 you -- if you went with the earlier assumption, 18 you would start building up a licensing review team. However, 19 if you went to the later assumption, you would be using that 20 same buildup to look at the multiple site characterization.
21 In '81, it doesn't seem to make that much different.
22 In '82 it starts to make a difference.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So as far as '81 is concerned, it's independent of DOE's license application.
MR. MARTIN: Pretty much, yes. Towards the end,
jwb 64 it would start 2 MR. DIRCKS: I think we're working -- we haven't 3 developed this program taking the prospective DOE date as the ff 4 goal to which we're shooting. We're trying to build up the i
5 I\ program.
6 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: What would happen to the 7 program if the President doesn't make a choice?
8 MR. MARTIN: Nothing. We would continue to work 9 on the criteria as quickly as we could.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So the program is also 11 then independent of the options in the IRG memorandum?
12 MR. MARTIN: That's right. If they picked the
- 13 14 15 Well, if they picked no option.
CO~.iMISSIONER AHEARNE: What I'm really asking is, let's suppose that the President comes up with a whole new 16 option that's not in that memorandum. What I'm really asking, 17 is this program attempt to fit with the IRG recommendations?
18 MR. DIRCKS: No, it 1 s not.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Oh, I see. It's relatively 20 independent.
21 MR. MARTIN: Yes. The only association is the
- 22 23 24 idea that we will develop criteria ahead of developing sites.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
MR. DIRCKS:
Yes.
Well, to that extent
'"*'-?*"'
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Poporters
, Inc.
25 MR. MARTIN: Which is a fundamental change.
jwb 65 MR. DIRCKS: But that underlies the IRG report, 2 too, I think; the fact that criteria and standards must be 3 developed and should precede the actual application.
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Okay, then, speaking about 5 sites, what assumption does it make about WIPP?
6 MR. MARTIN: Nothing. WIPP does not come in.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So that it does not have 8 any resources allocated to the licensing of WIPP, a review 9 of WIPP.
10 MR. DIRCKS: We would*look on WIPP -- and I think ll all along we've been looking on WIPP as a site that if they 12 wanted to they could characterize as one of the 3 to 5 that 13 could eventually become commercial depositories.
14 MR. MARTIN: Certainly in this criteria development 15 we are looking at bedded salt.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It would be -- yes, but as 17 far as manyears devoted to reviewing a WIPP application, 18 this wouldn't be in there.
19 Okay, the last question relates to a comment that 20 Lee made in his mark letter of July 23rd, and its NRR support 21 of NMSS. Are you familiar with that?
22 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: First I just wanted to ask, 24 Lee, the way I read it was that NRR has the resources which
- '" c:,-.era! Rep:lrters, Inc.
25 were available for you through NMSS but weren't fully
jwb 66 utilized.
- 2 MR. GOSSICK: Well, I think there's a question 3 as to the extent that they're utilized, and then also the 4 I request by NRR for the amount of resources, the 26 total
,,I Ii s Ii numbers, in the consideration of their work at the moment, 11 i.
'-' I I think created the question that BRG brought up as to, you 7 know, perhaps this isn't the best place to have these people 8 located. And alsb the question of how much this kind of
? help is required and used by NMSS.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But the issue that I'm 1, 'I trying to get at -- whether there is the implication there
- 13 14 15 available in this area.
MR. GOSSICK:
MR. DONOGHUE:
I think to some extent that was --
I think it's more that the resources 16 that NRR has is not being made available to NMSS on the basis 17 on which they need it, and not the implication that it's 18 there but they're not drawing on it.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, so you're saying that 20 you did not in your review find that they were not using 21 what was available; but rather it wasn't available?
- 22 23 MR. DONOGHUE: That's correct.
available on a dependable, reliable basis.
MR. DIRCKS:
It was not I think that's the issue. I think,
,. _ cc--rnl Reporters, ~n~.
25 Jack, you might want to discuss this memorandum that you've
jwb 67 sent over there to NRR. We have asked for 13 -- the equivalent 2 of 13 manyears.
3 MR. MARTIN: Yes, if I -- in May, as part of the i
4 overall budget program plan, I think I laid out where I thoughti i
I I
5 for the whole waste management effort for fiscal 80 and '81 1
I 6 we would need like 14 manyears per year in all areas, half 7 of which is in low-level waste.
8 So I broke it down in terms of high-level, low-level 9 and mill tailings, and I frankly don't know where the 26 came
)0 from. I think that's for all of NMSS, not just waste 11 management. I was never able to resolve that, and we've been 12 through the research and the standards, but I haven't been 13 able to resolve the NRR part qf it.
14 Now in this memo I sent over, it assumed that we 15 would be getting an application in '82. So there were a 16 couple of people in there towards the end of '81, a buildup 17 for a license review.
18 So if I were to look at it again today, I would 19 see it as about 12 people I would need from NRR, and 7 of which is in low-level, and primarily in th8 surface water 21 hydrology,geotechnical, aquatic biology, socioeconomic, all 22 the sorts of things that they're good at doing.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And five of them in high 24 level?
'- ...,ce,c:: Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. MARTIN: Right.
jwb 68 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Now is your 2 MR. MARTIN: And mill tailings.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: -- plan in the proposal 4 that you have here, is that based upon the assumption that 5 !l you will or will not get those people?
6 MR. MARTIN: Yes, sir, I will get them.
71 Now these are the kinds of people that you can i
s ! also con tract for. They' re not unique things, and I think as 9 Dan pointed out, my experience in the three years that I've 10 been here is that it's a very unreliable commodity.
1i When they're there, they're good. When they're 12 not there, we wind up contracbing for them anyway. And I 13 just don't know what to assume, whether they'll be there or 14 not.
15 The arrangement I had made with NRR is that all 16 the surface type things that they could do, and all the 17 geological questions that relate to underground mining and 18 that sort of thing, we would acquire those skills since they 19 aren't readily available.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But where it stands now, 21 neither the money to contract nor the people in your NMSS are
- 22 23 included.
MR. MARTIN: No.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And the assumption is that 25 that effort will come out of NRR.
jwb 69 MR. MARTIN: That's right.
- 2 3
I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
budget makes a similar assumption?
Do you know whether NRR's
!, Ii MR. MARTIN: Well, their budget, as far as I can Iiii tell this is the thing I wasn't able to resolve assumed 5 !!
II C1 II that they would have like 18 people in fiscal '81. It was 1*
_ ll in the crosscut. They had it like 18 people, instead of the
- I!
!I s II 14 I had asked for, and I was never able to ferret that out.
III 9 ! In fiscal '80 they had 27 --
10 COMMISSIONER AHEAR~E: Well, it's obvious though 1i that 18 people though are to support your request. "Spent 12 fuel" may be called "high-level waste. 11
- .---- . 13 14 15 that.
MR. IvlARTIN:
MR. DIRCKS:
I just haven '.t been able to resolve Part of that is the support of what 16 work we may want to do in high-level waste .area. Does 17 somebody want to comment on that?
18 MR. HALLER: My understanding of the NRR budget 10
' ; is that 0£ the 26 people in FY '81, they have 22 for NMSS 20 support. That's based on a factor of about 1.4 multiplied 21 times approximately 16 or 17 people, and that 16 or 17 is
- 22 23 the base number that Jack was talking about. Around 3 of those are for fuel cycle, and the other 13 or 14 are for the waste management part of the thing.
" : ~e! Reporters, ~n~.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So you're saying it is
jwb 70 incorporated in NRR's budget.
2 MR. HALLER:* Yes. And there's about 4 more people that NRR would use for other purposes.
3
.,I i COMMISSIONER AHEAR~E: Thank you.
I I
5[ I (Slide.)
6 MR. DIRCKS: The next area is low-level.
7 Jack, in '79, this is where you borrowed people 8 from low level?
9 MR. MARTIN: Right, 5 of them -- no, 7 of them.
10 MR. DIRCKS: And we're looking for a pay-back in 1i I 80
- 12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: In other words, you have t
- 13 14 15 about 9 people working now.
MR. DIRCKS:
MR. MARTIN:
We have~ pe6ple in fow level.
No, it's about --
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: You have 16 listed.
17 MR. MARTIN: I'm sorry, I borrowed 7 against the 18 'BO budget, which is what we're working towards. So it's 19 like I've got like 18 actually on board working.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Out of curosity, in your 21 hiring, are you bringing people up to strength against the
- 22 23 2
FY 'BO, and the FY '79?
supplement.
MR. DIRCKS: We are. The '80, without the
- ::-c--~a! Reporters, 1n~.
25 MR. DONOGHUE: In the waste management area, I
jwb 71 think they're overhiring, or they have stopped, or ceased 2 hiring in some of the other areas. So as an office they 3 are not -- they are still well below their ceiling.
4 MR. DIRCKS: Remember, we're not --
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: In order to get waste division
....t. up cracking, one of the things we finally did after a lot 7 of grunting and groaning was to uncork the recruiting there 8 and tell them to go to the '80 levels and we would eat the 9 slots elsewhere until October 1st.
10 . MR. DIRCKS: Well, in the low-level area, I think li we might as well turn to chart 30.
12 (Slide.)
- 13 14 15 This lays out the four basic major. objectives.
We'r~ anticipating one application for low-level waste burial site, using that --
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Is that sort of a hypothetical 17 one?
18 MR. DIRCKS: It's hypothetical.
19 MR. MARTIN: Well, we've had some feelers from 20 like TVA. I suspect there will be one in that time frame.
21 MR. DIRCKS: And there are some rumblings in one
- 22 23 of the Agreement States that we would be heavily involved not as a full licenser, but as a carrying horse for the technical burden, I would imagine.
- 'c"c*-~c: 1 Reporters, ~n~.
25 The development of regulations is an area that we
jwb 72 have recognized needs some push. We're sort of dependent now.
2 We don't have a good comprehensive set of low-level waste 3 regulations. I think the governors have pointed that out to 4 us. Jack has gotten steam under that program. He's going to have some draft regs out -- when, the beginning of next year, Jack? -- and then we hope to finalize --
MR. MARTIN: The middle of next year.
MR. DIRCKS: The middle of next year.
9 The fiscal '80 program I guess with the supplemental 10 is 25, and we 1 re looking for a total staffing of 27.
1i COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Would you say a few words
')
about the consultative pilot program? I was surprised to
- 14 15 find it listed as a DOE low-level waste disf30-sal facility 1
consultati ve program focused on. I tried to go back over my memory, and I couldn't find that as being the focus of the 16 consultative program before.
17 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I think for correct me if i8 I'm wrong -- I think we just assumed that there's several-19 parts to that program. There 1 s the consultative program.
20 II There's I guess the assumption that we would be licensing any II 21 new DOE disposal activities.
22 I think what we've done is lump the two things 23 together.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, except the phrase, "consultative pilot program" has a certain character to it
jwb 73 that reflects back to the scope of licensing studies. And I 2 was wondering where the decision had been made, or where even 3 the issue had been raised, that it was going to focus upon a
.1 major DOE low-level waste disposal facility .
fi i
s Ii,, MR. DIRCKS: Jack, do you want to bring me up-to-i date on that one? I just assumed --
6 I 7 i MR. MARTIN: I wasn't a party to those. I was told I
I that was the agreement.
8 i I 0 9 MR
- DIRCKS: I think we've mistitled the thing.
10 It really is a 11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: May I ask, Jack, you were 12 told that the agreement was a major DOE low-level waste 13 facility?
MR. MARTIN: This was in the licensing study 15 which I didn't do. The assumption that I was given to 16 understand was that it would be some sort of a -- either low-17 level, or not intimately connected with the defense effort, 18 like something at Brookhaven or Argon.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Right. I think the decision 20 was for a nondefense DOE waste facility.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Wait. Is this part of the 34-A 22 package?
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yep. That's what this is.
And that's why I was kind of surprised to see it.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Wait. This is the setaside?
jwb 74 MR. MARTIN: *.* Yes.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I'm quoting the BRG 3 description, "was a major DOE low-level waste disposal facility."
MR. DIRCKS: Well, I think in the -- I don't know 6 how we -- did we call it that? Or did we call it "pilot 7 program to assess DOE low-level disposal facilities"?
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It wasn't exactly "low-level" 9 COMMI~SIONER AHEARNE: That's right.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: That I can recall. In fact, 1l I think you --
12 MR. DIRCKS: But I thought in the IRG report it 13 said "low--:level sites."
14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: All I'm saying is the 15 phrase "a pilot program, consultative pilot program" in our 16 NRC budget ought to track to the big study --
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: The 34-A recommendation.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And there was a lot of 19 debate, and a lot of work, on what ought that consultative 20 pilot program be. And those words don't track to it.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Okay, well, I don't know whether I've 22 seen the final product of the Commission's recommendation, but 23 I thought there was a three-part --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: They keep talking about a pilot 25 program to assist DOE_.LLW disposal.
jwb 75 MR. DIRCKS: Right.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And I don't recall that.
3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And if what that means is the 4 pilot program, consultative pilot program under the 34-A.
5 I report, why that's kind of a misnomer.
Ii 6 ! MR. MARTIN: I think that's what it means~ Now I
7 maybe we just assumed, and we should go back and conform 8 that.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes, I would think it would 10 be good.
1i MR. DIRCKS: But I don't -- Well, have we seen the 12 final-version of that? We've been getting communiques, but I.J we haven't seen -- i i
. I 14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But I think you've probably *l 15 seen the version where there is a -- three people on one 16 side, and two on another.
17 (Laughter.)
18 MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And I guess I would like 20 this Board to correspond to what the three decided.
21 (Laughter.)
22 MR. DIRCKS: Well, this is not --
23 MR. MARTIN: But don't --
MR. DIRCKS: I think all we 25 MR. MARTIN: We didn't take that into account.
jwb 76 (Laughter.)
2 MR. DIRCKS: I guess -- maybe I'm getting_..:.. I've 3 seen the daily give-and-take, but I thought in the --
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That's settled down fairly I'
5 I! well.
ii 6 I MR. DIRCKS: Well, let me go back to what I thought 7 everyone was agreeing on, and that was the major thrust of the 8 IRG report, that any future DOE low-level waste disposal 9 activities would be --
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That's "future." This is a 11 consultative pilot program. It's entirely different. The 12 scope of licensing issue was: To what extent ought the NRC's 13 regulation extend lnto the DOE faciliti~s?
14 And we reached the conclusion that we would go for 15 a consultative pilot program.
16 MR. DIRCKS: Which would be consult on low-level 17 waste disposal.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: No.
19 MR. DIRCKS: No low-level?
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It was not on low-level.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It was across the board.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
23 MR. DIRCKS: Oh. I would include low-level waste.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It was to pick up a couple of
- tcse-*ral Reporters, ~n~.
25 DOE facilities.
jwb 77 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That's right.
2 MR. DIRCKS: Concentrating on 3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And leap right in there.
- 4 5
I COMl'-USSIONER AHEARNE: Facilities, across the board, whatever they were there, because the issue was 6 whether we could work out some sort of arrangement that would 7 enable us and DOE to develop a method of approach that would 8 not jeopa~dize national security information. And that was 9 the issue. And this phraseology isn't going to track.
10 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I guess we'll go back and 1i change it. I thought low-level waste disposal was an integral 12 part of whatever consultative agreement you were coming to
. d #2 -13 agree on.
B CH:mte
- 3 fols 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
\-::e-~ai Reporters, ~n~.
25
78 CR 6200 BEACH i t-3 mte 1 ------------------------------ I
.I COMI'USSIONER AHEARNE: In fact, one of the strong ['O ljl.1 ts:
I 2 that was made was that one has to be very careful about 11 3 1 1
low-level waste disposal, because there are certain low-level
. I!
II 4 :1 waste facilities, major low-level waste facilities under DOE,
!i1' r: 1!
.J II which are very obviously security sites .
6 \i MR. DIRCKS: But even Deutch was saying that --
I
?i COMMISSIONER FJIEARNE: And those were the ones he I
8[ said you had to stay away from.
1:
c;- ii..
ii MR. DIRCKS: Commercial low-level wastes.
II,1 1Cl j; ii Ii COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That's right, commercial.
I' l1 i!1' CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Non-defense low-level wastes.
'1'...
l Actually, the set-aside here sounds like something else. But
- 13 11.
,.. i 15
[j II 1*
I 1
it was intended to be the consu.ltative pilot program of 34-A.
realize.
MR. DIRCKS: Yeah. And I think what we ought to 16 I! COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Excuse me for getting intense I!
17 !I I! about it.
18 ! MR. DIRCKS: That's fine. No offense intended.
i I
19 ,:
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You develop a mother's fondness 70 ;*
for these.
(Laughter.)
MR. DIRCKS: Well, whatever it is --
23 ,
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It was a wayward child I just 24 found.
Ace- oeral Reoorrers, Inc ..
25 MR. DIRCKS: I think we just stumbled over our own.
79 mte 2 Whatever it is, it's what you had in mind.
CHAIID'".l.AN HENDRIE: Well, since --
(Laughter.)
- CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: That raises a question. If it isn't very clear what we had in mind, we couldn't get the name right, do the resources have any relationship? Now we have the name right; what about the numbers?
8 MR. DIRCKS: That's why it was a set-aside.
I Q !J (Laughter.)
,,'I li 10 :1,, CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Thank goodness.
MR. DIRCKS: Well, we've gone through that one.
Jack--Dave, if you could move on to uranium.
(Slide.)
Uranium recovery licensing. I think the point here ts :tha:
i!
15;i;; this is almost a straight workload item. We've taken license il 16 J! applications, notify them by the workload factor to get i:
i7!!
j1 licenses out. Essentially, this is what we've come up with.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: What assumption have you made I
lS with regard to the concurrent jurisdiction?
20 !;:, MR. DIRCKS: That is not built into this. That is t!
11 21 not built into this budget --
i!
22 :;
\;
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Which is not?
ij 23 ii MR. DIRCKS: -- proposal. That we have concurrent
,I 2t'. ' 1 or joint jurisdiction.
,:,,ce ceral Reoorters, Inc. ,
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: So the assumption is we do
80 mte 3 not?
- 2 MR. DIRCKS: We do not.
3 I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: During this period'.
I I
41 MR. DIRCKS: We do not.
I I
5 /I Now, I think that this provides an entre, though, i
6 \i to a point I'd like to make. If anything happens on the 711 fragile course of this thing through the legislative process 8 11 and it drops by the wayside and we are forced to pick up 9' concurrent jurisdiction, we have not built resources into any 10 package that we have either now or pending before anybody.
11 I! This is -- we I re going to have to eat it and we I re going to 12 II have
~
15 j1 ii I*
A :.i.
- ...,. I(
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
a rough estimate?'
MR. DIRCKS: Yes.
Would.it be possible to get 16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I mean, we really should at 171 least be going over to 0MB with a number, with two sets of 18 numbers, at best.
(i
]'; MR. DIRCKS: We have all those sets of numbers and 20 ;: we'll get them to you by Wednesday.
2*1 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It ought to be in the form of an
- 22 23 2.1
'80 supplement increment which would be necessary if we are going to in fact have to license those darn things.
MR. GOSSICK: Yes.
Ace* erai Reoorters, Inc ..
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Right.
81 mte 4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: -- the tailing piles for three
- 21:
11 ii years. The *, 81 budget is far enough away so that the resources 3 ;1 you get in '81' --
4 ll COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes, right.
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: youe're going to be dead before 6~ then, if we have to do it.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That's right, yeah.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: What's the present level on 9 :1 uranium recovery? Is the 18 a fair number?
10 MR. MARTIN: Well, here again it's up, the fiscal 11 '8 0 level.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE : . Is it more like 2 3?
- 13 14 15 i MR. MARTIN: Yes.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
We're at the *ceiling now.
How much technical assistance do you plan on providing to the Agreement States as they go 16 down their track of trying to respond to the mill tailings
,I -,I issue?
1o I
- V I I
MR. DIRCKS: We have built into this thing, the i
19 I second page of that -- the next page -- I think we're antici-ii pating the 13 projects completion in fiscal '81. In that area of technical assistance to Agreement States
. -~
- 22 ::
23 :;
21
~ '.;
- i
- I (Slides.)
-- the '8 O budget has about 3-1/2, 3. 2 man-years assigned to it, and we' re budgeting 6. 3 in this.
,..~-era\ Reocrt.rs, In-.. :j 25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And you have not put in a
82 mte 5 supplemental at all for that?
2 MR. DIRCKS: No.
3 MR. MARTIN: We think we're going to get five more.
MR. DIRCKS: Yes, we have asked for we have not requested it in the supplemental, but it's in the '80 budget.
7 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: And that will pick up --
MR. MARTIN: They added five more justcbefore.
MR. DIRCKS: Now, we might while you're in a iO listening mood, on the other subject of the concurrent juris-
'.j 11 !: diction, you might say that we have gotten a more than enthu-H ti 1 'l
~ ~
!!ii siastic response from the states for technical assistance Ii I!
13 "j; help. r.t.r.s more than what we original~y budgeted for. 'And I 1'
1!
i /. 11
- ~ ,,i! think in this paper coming down Wednesda¥, we'll throw that in 15 l!
ii there, too.
Ii 16 Ii COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Separately, though.
J" I:
,I
.MR. DIRCKS: Separately; two parts of the paper.
ib ii
" I also might mention that we have the SECY 79-413
[;
17 pending before the Commission, that lays out how we want to approach the whole licensing process, including the general 21 ii license and so on, and if you have time --
- i Ii 22 I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I've asked for a briefing.
MR. DIRCKS: Yes, okay.
1!
A 2ti' CO¥~1ISSIONER AHEARNE: I'll holler, and if any of
,t,,ce'Weral Reperters, Inc.
25 my fellows --
rote 6 83 MR. DIRCKS: That essentially is the major
- 2 I:
ili COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: How do you, in the Agreement
')
State assistance, enter -- and I'm sorry, this question may 4 i not be asked the right way, because I'm having difficulty I
I 5 dashing from one book to another to another. But in the BRG 6 book they had listed you at 5-1/2 man-years for Agreement 7 State assistance. Is this the technical assistance you were 8 just talking about?
i:
r, 7 ::,,,, MR. DIRCKS: For the whole uranium recovery Ii 10 licensee?
t\
ii
,, 1:
I I i,,,,! COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
!1
~,..,
ll
\l'I MR. DIRCKS: ~hat's dealing with 1 81, fiscal '81?
\1 i!I 13 ,, COM.MISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, it's 1 81, 1 82, '83.
I!
'I l1 14 1! MR. DIRCKS: We were estimating 6.3, which is about 15 .8 man-year. We were estimating 6.3 in this area.
11 16
!1 (Pause.)
Ii 1:
!/
!i I:
MR. DIRCKS: Somehow or another another .8 got in I'
ii
!I 18 1!jl there. But essentially, 6.3.
- I 11 1? ,: COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: How do you coordinate-that
- o i with state programs or Agreement States?
21 MR. DI'RCKS: I guess technically the request for assistance would come through the Agreement States office.
23: They'd come over to us and they'd ask. Practically speaking,
' A 24 '. I guess Jack's people have established a whole network of Ace~eral Reoorrers, Inc. ,
25 working arrangements with the Agreement States. People would
rote 7 84 be coming in directly and we'd be informing the state office when these requests come in.
MR. MARTIN:. We've worked out draft agreements with both Colorado and New Mexico that never actually got signed because of this jurisdictional thing. Well, it was one thing 6
and another -- elections, then this jurisdictional thing. And 7 they've never actually been signed by the governor, but they're; 8 working, in a way. And we just work directly with the state i
- 1 9 :1 people on whatever appears to be the most urgent thing to do.
Iilj 10 :! And it's been working quite well.
1, li I!
ii CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I never did call Lamb, by the way.
1 12 1 I ran down on calling governors.
I I
1_311 (Laughter.)'
I I i4 MR. MARTIN: We may have a whole new set of subjects.:
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We've had a new set of subjects, 16 j and I think we're about to go around again.
17 We had a report from Beatty.
18 '.! MR. MARTIN: From who?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Beatty.
They hauled a truck in from Texas with some liquid.
MR. MARTIN: Another one?
i CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: That's what I hear.
ii 23 :; MR. DIRCKS: What kind of waste?
i'
- 1
- 2,t. CHAIRMAN:: HENDRIE: Low- level .
Ace-t-eceral ReoortNs. Inc. ;
25 !i MR. GOSSICK: Was it leaking?
!I11 I!11 I
I!
II
mte 8 85 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Of course. They always leak.
(Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Have we sent any extensive 11 11 I :1 notices to our licensees?
"' Ii 11 5 !i MR. DIRCKS: Notice is due to go out today.
ii Ji 6 :1I CO.Ml'-USSIONER AHEARNE: We haven't yet?
I 71 MR. DIRCKS: What we want to do is not only send.a I
- i C ::
Ii.,
notice out, but we want to send out the notice is due to 0 :,
go out --we have a due date, I think August 6th. But we can l Ci get it out today. We want to send out a bulletin, too, which ii 1:
11 ii would go under I&E's auspices.
i
!1 1?
. - ,I p We've been having some discussions with I&E about 11 ii I
'.3 ,, the amount of resources we can dev_ote to this that will make 11 *
- i I
- 4 ;: it somewhat similar to the commitments that the Commission had ,
'I 1s lt made to the three governors. They have some real resource I!1:
l'0 ii i1 problems, that they complain that we've overcommitted them in 11 the letter to the three governors.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Who's overcommitted?
I:,.
MR. DIRCKS: I&E claims that they can't do it, that 20 :: they just don't have the resources. And I think what the delay
- I 21 ii has been is we've been trying to encourage them to kind of go 11 Ii
"'-"- ,: to the pole. But the notice will go out this week.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Because at some stage -- you Ac.ceral Reoorters, ~~- :: know, if I were governor, I would be asking if you guys ever ii 25 told the licensees this just isn't going to be tolerated.
rote 9 86 MR. DIRCKS: Well, we've committed to do that and 2 II the action plan commits us to do that by August the 6th. But I
21 we will get it out this week .
il 4 ;i IIi The real issue that we wanted to get down to you on 5 1,',11*
, is the letter that we would like you to sign off on by 1
6 August 1 sending out this action plan. We've assigned certain 7 dates and coverage that we'll be doing, and I&E has committed I
S j itself to do certain things, and the sooner we can sign them o
iiir up the better off we 1 11 be. And that should be down here tl lO :! this afternoon, this action plan going out to the governors.
Ir 1 l ii
! ' (;
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Find out what's going on out
- MR. DIRCKS: All right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We may not want to send that
_letter until we get a better handle on this thing out there, 16 because we're just likely to have a MR. DIRCKS: When did this occur?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I just got word on the way into
... ,... \
17 this room, early warning.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: On the other cases where there:
was stuff leaking, were any penalties, fines, assessed against the shippers?
i'
,...,,... 1!
l.,j :1 MR. DIRCKS: In the sweep that DOT and NRC made,
- 1
-
- 21
- NRC confined itself to its own licensee states. DOD and some Ace-. eceral Meoorrers, Inc. :
of the Agreement States w.ent out to the Agreement States. DOT,
87 mte 10 I think, covered something like four -- they made four inspec-tions, I think, and they found four violations, and they're in the stage of bringing some sort of fine enforcement.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But the two previous problems of leaking, were they MR. DIRCKS: In our case, there's a truck that 7 caught fire, and there was no nothing, no action taken.
8 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Wait a minute. There was no it 1,
9 :II 1 action taken?
- i
- I 10 !i MR. DIRCKS: No.
l 11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Was it our licensee?
- ')
1.t!. MR. DIRCKS: It was an Agreement State licensee from 13 i' California.
i/l I There was the case of the dewatered waste coming 15 i i!
down from Palisades that were found leaking. I think there ii 16 i
- were two deficiencies and something found, and I gather I&E is i
17 !
1 still investigating whether they should levy a fine.
Ii CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It doesn't seem to come up to the .
1-,. threshold.
?n ,* COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
-* .... 'i I
21 II 11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: The problem is people are going Ii[:
I e ?'".\
ii I
to keep -- be allowed to keep that stuff on the home sites if
_._ :* it keeps going.
- r,,
COMMISSIONER ~..HEARNE: That's right.
Ace~eral Reoorters, ~::. :
25 :I MR. DIRCKS: The governor, I guess, expects heavy 1\
11 1:
fl
,I
mte 11 88 fines and punishment.
2 The next chart -- Dave, I guess it's 34.
,,..., (Slide.)
-- basically sums up the waste management program 5 issues. I think we've covered -- these are the problem areas that you may want to keep with you as part of the waste manage-;
ment troubles, troubles and issues. And I think we've talked about them.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Before you get off the program issues, the point paper that you submitted to the ERG seemed to focus upon a lack of coordination, or at least there was a fair 1 amount of lack of coordination. Maybe you didn't submit it, but it was prepared: waste management program, ERG.
MR. DIRCKS: I don't know whether I've seen that.
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: There was stress upon a lack of coordination.
MR. M.P-.RTIN: You mean among offices?
MR. DIRCKS: Among offices?
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes.
MR. DIRCKS: I don't know. I guess that paper might have said it, but I guess there may be something coming it from:
the ACRS which again says a lack of coordination is hampering them.
- '"Ji :l COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Will you speak to that?
Ace-r-ecerai Reoorters. ~;~. ;;
25 MR. DIRCKS: I think the next -- that issue -- it was;'
mte 12 89 in the waste management research area. I said the next time 2 I that came up, I'd like Sol to talk about it. But since I I
3 i discussed it the last time before the hearing, Congressional hearing: We're -- I thought we're making progress along this*
51 line. I've talk~d to Sol lately and he thinks we have, too.
I I 6 'I'1 In the program plan, we have very intimately integrat~d
!I !
7 11 OSD into the plan. I mean, they are side by side partners on Ii
., !I the waste management program plan. We're heavily dependent on, b i c, ** them. They're heavily committed to meeting our dates and 10 I\ schedules, and they' re doing it. We review what work they want.
I\
i, 11 !! done. They sort of lay out a schedule in which they want to do if 12 i!
II it, and then we go ahead and incorporate the plan.
Ii i3 ;1 We have made. the sort of same approach to Resear*ch, l~
14 ;[ and I think we've got a general commitment that they' re going ,
It 15 II to do this and they're working toward that goal. Now, I guess I
16 I when the ACRS takes a look at it, they still don't think that i
17 we have -- that everything' s working toward the same goal.
!i i3 Now, it takes a little longer with Research than it does with
.,1:
1:
17 Standards. But I thought we were working along the same lines.
20 ' I have got to see why the ACRS came up with that 21 conclusion. I know that Sol and I have talked about it, and we're sort of puzzled.
., i 2' ' Jack, do you have --
I 2/2 MR. MARTIN: I think that reflects our priorities.
Ace* .ceral Reoorrers, Inc.
25 I mean, my first priority is to look at the standards and reg
mte 13 90 effort we put together, and we've spent an enormous amount of
- time in the last four or five months coming up with some sort of integrated program, and I fully support the research -- I
- mean the Standards program as submitted, and through that agree; with it, and have the whole thing lined up in great detail.
I haven't been able to do the same thing with the Research program, for a number of reasons. Time is one of them. Secondly, it's very difficult to have a closely inte-s i:
'I grated research program if we're not clear yet on what we want ii 10 :! to do, and that's starting to emerge.
i!
I 11 ii I I ve been meeting with Arsenault and his people for 1 'l IL the last several weeks to line that whole thing out in a 14
~ -:
I' 11 Ji I
I I
framework that*makes some sense. I expect i t ' l l be another several months before we're really satisfied with that. Ba~ed 15 i on what I've seen to date, I don't see that any of the ongoing ii!1 16 11 work is -- are things that shouldn't be done. But i~ there Ii
!I 17 !i some sort of a document or a presentation we can give that
- I
- c, i: maybe puts it all in a comprehensible whole? No, and that's our 1; our next order of business.
20 MR. DIRCKS: I think close in we've got something 21 going. We've got this Waste Management Review Group, that
'),..,
~,_ it goes at it on a -- sort of on an imminent contract by contract 11 1*
"~ 1!
L.) ii basis. And I think that's working out.
- "j I Li.;
Ace-rer:ieral Reoorters. Inc.
25
- \
'I The further out you go, where they want to initiate I
research on a longer time horizon, I think I keep pointing out
91 mtel4 it hasn't really gotten into that, nor have they gotten their 2 longer-term research folded into it relative to mid to short-term licensing goals. We've got to do more.
fl But I don't agree that the program is severely hampered because we have an uncoordinated, haphazard program.
I think the program is pulling its socks up. I think we've 7 established certain key dates. I think we've gotten OS~-
s Standards Development completely in line with it, much as a 9 project team.
I think Research is in line close-in. I think the 11 further out you go, I think they're in some more. But I think 12 on far-out research, that may be the nature of the beast.
13 II You've got to let that thing roam out in the field a little 14 bit, rather than send people in, ~here people think you should,;
15 and other people think you should let it go further.out.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But you are satisfied?
17 MR. MARTIN: Well, I'm satisfied it's converging, 18 but not satisfied.
1r-17 MR. DIRCKS: We haven't got the answers, but I think
!i 11 20 if we've got the right direction. And I think what we want to do
- I1' I
21 is to use OSD and Research as multipliers to this work. We are,I
'----** 22 :: not all convinced that we need those two.
23 : COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Okay.
I 2'1; MR. DIRCKS: We've hit most of these issues that
- -Gerai Repcrte1s, I r*,c.
Ac.."e**
~,5 :
L j we've gone through. And Mike mentioned the licensing casework
mte 15 92 backlog, .the unacceptable increase in covered backlog.
2 (Slide.)
We thought that the '81 backlog of casework would be i:
4 i around 3 4. It's gone up, almost doubled~ The casework backlog 11 in '81 will probably be 66 instead of the 34.
The next slide --
(Slide.)
is basically what we intend to do under the '80 supplement. We tried to quantify this as much as we can. I
,,II iO
- 1 I hope we makeiall these accomplishments. Again, the program is
- 11 ;;ii .sort of settling down, and we are working are towards some it I'
12 ii 1
, goals. But even here, I'm not quite sure we' re going to pull ii 1i i3 i! off everything.
ii 1'
l*
"i I 1
'"' II (Slide.)
MR. DIRCKS: The next slide is the major accomplish-16 II ments within the '81 EDO mark. And the last -- next to last 11 I'
1, i; item is the impact of the EDO mark. And again, we're -- it's II lb!] a certain slippage in programs, and we're not contesting that.
1:
l; It's very hard to predict when '*.these things are going to come
~0 out. When we talk about '82 and '83, it's years and we just
!i 21 l! can't prepare. So there's no impacts that are critical there.
ll,.
')'"l
,1.,l. '1
!I We will change the title on the next slide and we ii 23 :' will fix up the words. We'.11 cross that out --
i
' "L'~, COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: "Waste management program"
- eceral Reoorters, Inc.
Ace-25 is no problem ..
JWBeach 93 fols rote 15 MR. DIRCKS: We will cross that out.
2 MR'. '.MARTIN: You have to fix up that part.
3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: This is the "consultative" 4 1! MR. DIRCKS: "Consultative program," however it il Ii 5 I! comes out.
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: To --
7 MR. DIRCKS: And however you feel it should come 8 I out, whatever resources you can give -- resources you
'I
!I 9 can give to help us.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: What do I do about the -- that 1i setaside? I don't know whether the 3 manyears and $200K is 12 the right.number, and I don't know whether it ought to be in
- 13 14 15 low-level waste.
COVJMISSIONER AHEARNE:
would go into.
I'm 'not sure what block it 16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, a piece goes into each 17 one. They're going to be high and low, one hopes.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It's just hard to -- I 19 guess in the decision unit structure, you don't have -- well, 20 let's see. Maybe management direction support, special 21 independent technical and management evaluation.
22 MR. MARTIN: Well, we could put it there in the high-level waste . I have a decision unit there for special
.~r;,-~,d Reporters, ~n~. studies, and that sort of thing.
25 MR. DIRCKS: It could go in there.
79 jwb 94 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: That would seem to be a --
- 2 3
rather than trying to figure out it's X percent here.
MR. DIRCKS: That completes the runthrough. We
" 4 5
6 tried to stay within the decision unit.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Hang on. What happened to the- "Management Direction" et cetera, et cetera, down here, 7 now?
8 MR. DIRCKS: There I think there was -- there was 9 another case of the numbers going a bit awry.
iO CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Oh, we haven't gotten there, 11 yet.
12 MR. DIRCKS: Well, we --
- 13 14 15 CHAIRivIAN HENDRIE:
MR. DIRCKS:
going to cover it.
We're about to get there.
Well, I can mention that. I wasn't We're decreasing that management direction 16 and support from 22 in '79 down to 19 in fiscal '80, and 17 continuing it in the out years as 19. I don't know whether 18 you picked that up in your chart --
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Except he's got it coming down 20 from 39 to 19.
21 MR. DIRCKS: Well, 39, I think there was --
- 22 23 24 MR. MARTIN: I don't know where the 39 came from.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
d~vision in there.
Well, we had the waste
- ""E***ral Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. DIRCKS: Len, I think that 39 never existed in
80~jwb 95
- fit Management Direction and Support in Washington. I don't 2 think we've ever carried it as -- I think 19 has been the 3 number.
4 I MR. MARTIN: It's probably just a typo.
5 Ii p
MR. DIRCKS: I think it might have been a typo, I
6 ! because all -- we had 22, we're taking it down to 19.
I 7 I MR. BARRY: I think it was a typo.
ii 8 !\ CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I have to put an asterisk up
!i 9 here now and say "add" -- I don't know what kind of 10 CO~.LMISSIONER AHEARNE: Three probably is reasonable.
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Do we --
12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: No, we never had an 13 estimate.
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We never had an estimate on the 15 kind of program we're talking about, and the estimates that 16 were in there were so far out that they aren't going to be 17 very helpful there.
18 (Pause.)
19 MR. BARRY: Bill, you were going to contemplate 20 putting some of that A-1 into supplemental? Or you were 21 going to address the supplemental?
22 MR. DIRCKS: For '81? You mean the backlog problem?
23 MR. BARRY: Yes. Wasn't that one of the issues
'""**ra! Reporters, ~n~. that they talked about here?
25 MR. DIRCKS: No, we talked about the 1 80, the
81 jwb 96
'80 supplement .
- 2 3
MR. BARRY: That's what I'm saying. Moving either accelerating some of that into -- from '81 into '80.
MR. DIRCKS: Well, we've had two assignments.
One, we point out what the impact of the concurrent jurisdic-6 tion MR. BARRY: Right.
MR. DIRCKS: workload would be if .we are 9 saddled with that thing.
10 MR. BARRY: Right.
11 MR. DIRCKS: The second thing we're going to do --
12 and we offered, gratituously -- to say what*our problems are 1J_ in the underestimation ,of the technical assistance request 14 for getting states, which adds to our backlog. So we're doing 15 a two-part piece of paper on that.
16 MR. ENGLEHARDT: There was a loose end that was 17 left in the safeguards discussion with respect to the number 18 of resident inspectors that I&E proposed. They proposed to 19 have fuel -- their charts that they presented last week 20 indicated that they would have fuel facility inspectors in 21 residence, two of them in '79, 'BO, and '81, but they would 22 drop back to zero in '81 and '83, because they found that the 23 resident inspector was not as efficient as the maintenance of a regionally based group, of which they have over 30.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: But, Tom, they never asked
82 jwb 97 NMSS . I checked that again today.
- 2 MR. ENGLEHARDT: I didn't realize that, but I did want to clarify that .particular point.
3 4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let's see, the total office 5 listing then would come out 344.
6 MR. DIRCKS: Right.
7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Asterisk, add salt and pepper 8 to suit for the consultative pilot program.
9 (Laughter.)
10 CHAIRJl'.lAN HENDRIEE: And that would compare with 11 an 1 80 budget level of 297.
12 MR. DIRCKS: Plus a supplement.
, 13 CHAIRJl'.lAN HENDRIE: The supplement COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: 26.
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: The supplement has yet to be 16 sought for, so it has the same character as the 344. Those 17 are druthers. Our 297 -- is it 297? Or is it getting --
18 no it isn 1 t 297, it 1 s 294.
19 MR. BARRY: It's going to be 294.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, the '80 appropriation is 21 coming down the line pretty well alongsays forget those 22 MR. DIRCKS: 294, right. ')
23 CHAIRJl'.lAN HENDRIE: So the current estimated '1:,:
without supplement is not 297, it's 294. Is the 15,779 25 good? It can't be.
83 jwb 98 MR. BARRY: No, that's going to be about 12, 6 or
- 2 8. It's going to be in program support about 12.
to be --
It's going 3
4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Out of the 363, 340 total?
I sl COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes, but this 15,779, did 6 it make any assumption on the reprogram?
7 MR. DONOGHUE: It assumed --
8 MR. BARRY: No reprogramming.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It assumed that the '79 10 programming would be successful.
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Be successful.
12 CHAIR.l'-1AN HENDRIE: And I believe it is.
- 13 14 15 MR. BARRY: Yes, the '79 figure ,here of 12 --
whatever it is -- 12,995, you have to increase that by 2.1 because that reprogramming will be forthcoming shortly.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Now the '80 -- a projected '80 17 program support number, without the supplement -- this is 18 presupplement, and based on the Appropriation bill of about 19 12.6, is again pre-whatever reprogramming we might judge to 20 do, but it's just based on a cut.
21 Well, the Appropriations bill comes down -- NMSS 22 at 25.943. I need some way to sort out of that the people 23 and nonprogram support.
L'~*ral 24 Reporters, Inc.
25 12
- 2 in I MR. BARRY:
80
- In program support they'll be at about
84 jwb 99 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Based on 25.943, for the
- 2 3
office.
That's almost consistent. Our budget request was 4 29. 605 inr* the office, and the Appropriations Act will be
,:i 5 ii!I coming in at 29.543. So it's down a little less than $4 million.
ii 611,, MR. BARRY: Down $3. 7.
7 CHAIRV.lAN HENDRIE: Yes. But then we will see --
8 you know, we'll see what happens with the supplement, and 9 what reprogramming.
10 So the delta then is 50 and people not adding 11 whatever the pilot program might think appropriate, and 12 about $11 million in program support, a little less than that.
- - 13 14 15 Questions?
(Laughter.)
c61iments?
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: No. Very interesting.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You just made me think of that 17 guy who used to rise up with the German helmet on and said, 18 "Veeery interesting! "
19 (Laughter.)
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I know it's not a safeguards 21 question, and you just gave a list --
- 22 23
_ :--,.;.;'. Reporters, ~n!.
MR. DIRCKS: We'll get you that.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Listen, I found the format, and Lee and Len, please take note, I found the format very 25 useful here.
85 jwb 100 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Yes .
- 2 3
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It starts with the office, and takes a major division at a time, but then it turns very rapidly to a decision unit page, backup sheet or two under
~
the decision unit, next decision unit, and I find that very 6 helpful. Because one of the difficulties that I do have in 7 the office briefing is a little more freer flowing in making 8 a connection to the damn decision unit lines in which these 9 things are laid out. And I think this is about as handy in 10 terms of a briefing document and a supplement to the summary 1i decision unit sheets.
12 So I compliment you on that orderly presentation
- 13 14 15 here.
COMMISSIONER AREARNE:
these that I felt I could really track.
That was the first one of 16 MR. GOSS1CK: We would be very happy to standardize 17 this next year, if we're still around.
18 (Laughter.)
19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: It all depends on whether 20 decisions units are on here.
2i CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes, the first thing is how
- 22 23 useful the decision unit is.
Well, no, wait a minute. We'll be doing next 1,"".rni Reporters, ~n~.
25 year's budget before the Administration is COMI'-1:ISSIONER AHEA&.~E: The decision uni ts have
86 jwb 101 to be the way the budget has to be presented. It's not
- 2 3
obvious:; for our use whether that's the best approach.
unless --
MR. GOSSICK: Well, if you like this, though, 4
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: There's some advantage to 6 approaching it by program that helps me think about it a 7 lot more. My own personal preference is a program approach.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes, but then if you have to 9 make the budget presentation, and you're dealing from then 10 on with 0MB on the decision-unit basis, you've got the 11 conversion.
12 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, I have great confi-
- 13 14 15 dence that the comptroller can do that transition.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
have to go argue for this thing.
Never mind the controller, I It's not the controller I'm 16 worried about, it's the Chairman.
17 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Well, I have great confidence 18 also in your ability.
19 MR. GOSSICK: Is the Congress now asking for it in 20 the decision unit rackup?
21 MR. BARRY: They have not specifically asked for
- 22 23 24 it by decision unit, but last year when we submitted the green books which are more akin to programming, they said, well, we really would like more detail, so also send us your t, -~*ral Reporters, Inc.
25 decision unit breakdown, which we did. So they got both.
87 jwb 102 And we still haven't gotten a reading out of them
- 2 3
for next January, whether they want both, or each.
COlv".J1ISS I ONER AHEARNE: Of course there is also 4 the -- the closer you can make decision units track program.
,I 5 MR. BARRY: Yes.
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes. I think some effort to 7 converge the systems.
8 MR. BARRY: We tried to put the decision units 9 in the programs.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: But in dealing with the decision 11 unit base summary document, why I found this format for 12 the briefing an exceptionally clear one, which has allowed
- 13 14 15 things to go through. So I compliment you_on that.
If we continue to have to review in terms of decision units, why I think it would be worthwhile for people 16 thinking about somethtng close to this as a format, because it 17 does make it easy to move it into the decision unit -- onto 18 the decision.
19 All right --
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Lee, are you getting those 21 cross-cuts?
- 22 23 24 MR. GOSSICK:
those cross-cuts?
MR. HALLER:
Yes, Norm, do you have anything on By tomorrow, as we promised?
We're shooting to be finished by
- '.c:s,.:ai Reporters, Inc, 25 tomorrow night, and depending on how fast we can get them
88 jwb 103 out, it will be probably Wednesday when they get to the 2 Commissioners.
3 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Very good.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Thank you, very much.
5 (Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m~, the meeting was 6 adjourned.)
7 * *
- 8 :!
II 9
10 11 12
- Q 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
- 22 23 24
,_ai***a! Reporters, Inc.
25