ML22230A160
| ML22230A160 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/31/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780531 | |
| Download: ML22230A160 (1) | |
Text
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DISCUSSION OF UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS' PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION (Open to Public Attenda~ce)
May 31, 1978 Pages 1 - 51 Prepared by:
C.H. Brown Office of the Secretary
1 1 *uNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 .NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 5 DISCUSSiqN OF UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS,, '
6 PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION 7
8 (Open to Public Attendance) 9 10 Commissioners' Conference Ro0m 11 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N.W.
12 Washington, D. C.
13 Wedn~sday, May 31,, 1978 14 The Commission met pursuant to notice at 3:15 p.m.,
15 Joseph Hendrie, Chairman, presiding.
16
.17 PRESENT:
18 Chairman Hendrie Commissioner Gilinsky 19 Commissioner Kennedy Commissioner.Bradford 20 ALSO PRESENT:
21 L. Gossick 22
- s. Chilk H. Shapar J. Kelley 23 K. Pederson B. Snyder 24 E. Case R. Mattson 25 J. Scinto J. Fitzgerald
- w. Shields
2 1 P R O C E E D I N G S.
2 *cHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Could we come to order.
3 The subject this afternoon is Discussion of Union 4 of Concerned Scientists' Petition for Reconsideration. '
5 The Commission. published:. a Memorandum and Order c°n, .the original 6 Petition in* this* case, the 13th of April. We now have* OCS 7 Petition dated May 2nd.
8 Mr. Pederson and Mr. Kelley have a joint memorandum 9 to the Commission.outlining various matters. Jim, I take 10 i t you will represent OGC. Somewhere between the two o-f you, 11 would you bare to take up the discussion and outline the 12 proposition for us, please.*
13 .MR. PEDERSON: I ' l l start off~
14 You have in your hands a memo'jointly prepared by 15 OGC and OPE, as you note. This memo attempts to provide* you 16 with a series of procedural decisions that we.think need to be taken as soon as possible.
17 Before I start, I would like to make. one slight 18 correction, because I don't want to do a disservice to UCS or 19 to the Commission in terms of the reading of this memo.
20 On page 2 at the top there is a sentence*that says:
21 "No emergency or immediate.actions seem necessary, nor are 22 any requested ~y UCS." I think in the sense that UCS's Petitio 23 24 is not titled as the earlier one was in a request**'*t°or*-¢me.fgency action, nor does i t end in any specific request for emergency 25 action. I think that is a fair statement.
3 1
On the other hand I would note that on page,12 2
of their Petition for Reconsideration, at the bottom, they 3.
do reiterate their desire that the plants, in this *case 4 th~ operating plants in t~e discussipn should be.orde~ed ihut
- 5. down until compliance with these regulations has peen 6' demonstrated.
7 Now, although this statement appears only once* and 8 it is in the middle of the text as.opposed to being a specific 9 request at the end. of. the Petition. It does have the;appearance 10 in the context of a request for some immediate action. So I 11 want to clarify that that statement at the top bf page 2, to 12 be completely accurate, should probably be modified somewhat.
13 No specific emergency action or at least as titled as such 14 is requested. But I think it is fair to say that UCS at one 15 point in their Petition does reiterate their request for the 16 plants to be shut down.
17 Having said that, then I would like to briefly discuss 18 with you the three decisions that we think need to be made 19 now and outline them for you.
20 The f;i.rst is whether or not you should seek further 21 input or formally request a review of the Petition.by* the variou 22 line offices that are involved. In the Petition for Reconsider-23 ation the actions of certain line offices and staff is criticized 24 and i's brought into question. Particularly NRR., Research and IE.
25 The original Memorandum and Order which was drafted for and
4
. \
I issued by the Commission was ba.sed to a:iarge extent on papers 2
provided to you by the line offices, put in the,'Pµblic 3.
Document Room arid $0. fort:q~,
4 ~~-~ .-,
It s~ems to us, o~c and OPE, only fair and proper.
5 ' .
. tha,t the line staff be asked to provide. you comm~nts, analysis 6
and their* conclusions and recm:nmendations as app:to:priate *on 7 ,.1' ,, '
this lates't Petition for Reconsideratiqn. We have recommended 8
that you so formally ~equest and that you* ask them to provide 9
you with a detailed analysis within, one month:~s time.
- 10. '
Nqw, let me say* that in my mind one 'month seems 11 reasonable based on the complexity of the issue and ba.sed on 12 our experience.in the first Memorandum and.Order. However, 13 I cannot and will not say to you that the .one. month \:s based 14 *on any.magic formula. It. seemed to us what appeared reasonable.
15 I think .i t requires a judgment by, you a.s to the urgericy ~f the 16 situation here and what is reasonable to ask of the staff.
17 Secondly, the question is raised whether public 18 comment should be invited. We asked for public comment on the 19 first Petition. Seeking public comment is a more or less 20 standard procedure with regard to petitions. We had fairly 21 active comments the last time, I be'iieve* 46 comments were 22 received fr6m various individualsir~rgAni~Ations and so on.
23 We think that since this can be done c.oncurrently with 24 the staff review, if Y.ou choose to ask for such, a staff review, 25 that i t would not represent a critical path item nor would it
5 1 represent necessarily a delaying factor and that it is in 2 keeping with good practice and with normal practice on the 3 part of the Commission. So we recommend that the public 4 comments be. solicited. Here, we recommend again a one-month
- , turnaround that is' to be concurrent with the staff review.
6 Again, th.at figure* is not. som~thing tha.t I would. want to 7 fall on my sword over. It seems reasonable.
8 All of these; by the way, are predicated on the assumpti n 9 that you choose to take up ..:this Petition for Reconsideration.
10 You, of dourse, have the option of not taking up the Petition.
11 The third issue.was how should the Petition for 12 Reconsideration be reviewed at the Commission level? As you kno, 13 the Commission chose to take the original Petition up unto 14 itself and to deal with it on a first order basis. This 15 appears to argue.for having the re-review done at the 16 Commission level in some way or other. We ha.ve recommended 17 to you. that OPE and OGC jointly review, analyze and draft 18 for Commission consideration an opinion, based of course, 19 in part upon the information we would be getting or input we 20 would be getting from the staff and their analysis as w~ll as 21 public comments, as well as, of course, the comments and concerns of the CommissiOn.
22 23 This does have some downsides and we reccignize that in taking this into ~onsideration. OPE and OGC had the lead 24 role in this similar situation on the original Memorandum and 25
6 1
Order, to the extent that tha.t Memorandum and Order is being 2
questioned he~e* and. its completeness and so forth is*being 3
- brought under scrutiny. An argument could be made that *it 4
would b~ impioper to have OPE and OGC play that role agai~,
5 even though we would obviously be doing so under.the scrutiny 6
of the Commissio*n.
7 We thirik that thi~ is not unlike, however, that it 8.
is not a conflict of interest here, and:.it"' is. not unlike having 9
_a judge' s,:law clerk or even the judge himself consider a 10 Petition for Reh~aring or a new t~ial even wh~n h~ in fact was 11 the judge that sat in that trial.
12 But, nonetheless, we did consider some other alter-13 natives. which we li~t there including an independ~nt review 14 by your own assistants-or a task*force of your own assistants 15 of some sort, or convening an ACRS panel or a st~ff panel 16 of some s6rt. For various reasons we felt these were not the 17 best choices and we list some of the concerns there and I would 18 be more than happy to go into them in more detail if you wish 19 to discuss that.
20 Final*ly,
- I would note that in their Letter of 21 Transmittal to you, UCS suggested that the Commission might 22 profit from an informal roundtable discussion of the issues 23 raised here.
24 We have briefly reviewed the Petition and in our 25 judgment the issues are clearly stated by ucs. And their
7 1 concerns are adequately documented. We seeimo benefit right' 2 now, ne*cessari~y at having a round table at.:this::. time and would
.. 3 suggest that yob defer a decision on having*such,a discussion.
4 In your considerations of this, if you choose*to 5 consider such a discussion .with them now yo'll: mi*g1:J.t want to 6 . take* into your thinking some of the things that you thought 7 about in your first go arourtd o~ this Petition.
8 First, if UCS is entitled to participation in some 9 sort of round.table with you, ::_it would seem that both the 10 stalf and. previous comme;*ters
- on
- the original Petition would 11 have to be given the sam'e opportunity.
12 Secondly, in your Memorandum and Order you.:made 13
- an expressed statement to indicate .that earlier participation 14 by UCS in the form* o:f Mr. Pollard meeting with you.
- and making 15 a presentation*was not to be construed as a precedent. This.
16 was written in* the Memorandum and Order because of the 17 concern that you had. I. leave it .to your judgment as to whether 18 a second meeting along these lines would serve to weaken that 19 concern about limiting or walling off prec,edents. here, bu't..
- it certainly is a .factor that I would want to ~all t~ your 20 attention.-
21 Finally, I would make one more statement that is 22 not in the p~per. This Petition for Reconsideration arrived, 23 or at least was dated, I *see the Secretary stamp is May 3rd.
24
- 25 Our memorandum to you is dated May 25th. That's approximately
8 1
three weeks. t think that it is a fair question to ask:
2 is ihat too lorig to take action on this Petition even though
~*
it wa*s not titled a Pet.1.tion for Emergency Action?
4 r_think one of the problems_here is that we had no guidelines 5
on how*to deal with this kind of Petition~
6 It came into the Secretariat, to the best cf my 7
knowledge it was*not suspensed, it was not sent to anyone for 8
action. L.have hot be able to find that it was in any case.
9 OPE had it, OGC had it, the Commissioners had it.
10 I had a concern that since we had been involved in the 11 original Memorandum and Order and since this was a Petition for 12
- Reconsideration of that, I wasn't sure that it was appropriate 13
.for us to take it up on our own initiative. Nonetheless, I 14 think that it is something that you might want to consider 15 even though this is somewhat unique in two senses. That the 16 Commission took up.the original Petition itself to begin with, 17 and secondly, a Petition for a Reconsideration both of which 18 are somewhat rare events; nonetheless you may want to think 19 about some kind of guidelines in this regard in terms of 20 more expeditiou~ handling if iou feel that this was not handled 21 rapidly enough. I'm not sure that three weeks is necessarily -*-'.
22 unreasonable, but on the other hand, I think that had there 23 been clear guidelines as to who should have done this and what 24 time frame it mi~ht have been done more rapidly and I take 25 some of the blame for that.
9 1
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: On *what basis did you. take 2 this up?.
3 MR. PEDERSON: Did we finally write a memo?
4 I had talked to several Cornmissoners informally, 5 met 'them in the hall. and said, *you know*, we have this 6 P~tition* in-house arid somethirig really ought to be done with 7 it. Then I believe,.and_ Bernie may want to fill this in 8 further, I believe that Cow.missioner Bradford's office called 9 us within approximately a week or a week and a half after the 10 Petition was received ~nd asked us, "Whit's going to happen?
11 What are we going to do on this?" We then had a staff 12 meeting and I said, well, we really ought to prepare a paper 13' and tel.l the Commissioners it is in-house and here are some 14 options as to what to do 'with it.
15 So I guess I would have to give the credit to 16 Commissioner Bradford's of.fice in a way, although even at that 17 point it wasn't clear to me that I was the appropriate office 18 as.I was not given that formal assignment or that OGC and OPE 19 were the appropriate offices, but that's how thi~~.actually 20 happened.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And you invited OGC to 22 participate?
24 MR. FITZGERALD: We were getting paralleled.
25 MR. PEDERSON: They were getting paralleled.
,10 1 , Commissioner Bradford is an equal opportunity 2 telephoner and they were getting the same. message. Also,*
3 .*. we had jointly .done the original memo. Our', concern was that 4 if I took the* lead in a memo
- or:Lif we took the lead in a 5 Peti tio~
- for Reconsideration about a Memoral'l;dum and Order .*that
- 6 .we had been actively 1:ngaged in originally dr~ft_ing, r myself 7 was'n It sure how appropriate that looked. ' So I am anticipating' a* that one of you may have a question.about _why did it take -so 9
- long and Ililiope I have anticipated the question. I maybe have 10* not answered i t to your satisfaction,.but I_assuril.ed that i t migh
- 11. be. a question on your collective minqs.
12 I have nothing more to add, Mr .. Cha.irman.
- CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Thank you Ken. Jim, from the 14 counsel's side do you have anything: that*-~ou _would like to add or subtract?
15 16 MR. FITZGERALD: I second*. :Keil I i:f.,presentation:;.:~:
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Peter, do you-~-.
18 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Well, .how do you want to 19 proceed on it, Joe? I do have a couple of questions and a*
couple of points.
20 CHAIRMA.N HENDRIE: Why don ,1 t you go ahead and 21 exercise them and then we will see, other Commissioners may 22 chime in or have their own line of inquiry_ to follow.
23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: I pave. gathered* from the 24 sentence at the top of page 3 that as to the Petition it~elf
11 .
1 .you are*recommending that we the phrase is*~consider it".
I' gu:es~ ,I'm not clear myself on what t~e term of ar.t is for 3 a Petition for R~consid~ration. If j6ii reconsider it, ~re 4 yo~ in effect granting the Petiticin to *jeconsider w~thout 5, *piejudice, to, your end result or are* yoµ_' taking some
' ' . ' . 1', .
- 6 . preliminary ,step'a~4 is' granting the: Petition to Reconsider 7 something th.at, happens at the end?
8 MR. 'PEDERSQN: I think, Commissioner, that that 9 more appropriately ::::,-.,nwell, what you are saying is that we 10 think that the 'peti:tionuhas sufficient merit that i t deserves 11 for you to assign staff to it, to have i t analyzed .and then 12 on. the basis of that analysis make a decisiort *.
13 It is not clear ~n6ugh on the* fact that.we can 14 recommend *to you that you simply deny i t out of hand. So it 15 was meant to i~ply that we find sufficient merit there or 16 ke believe that ther~ is suffici~nt merit that you may want to 17 in fact look into it. I don't think i t presupposes the 18 result of your cbnsideration to go either way. That was what the intent was.
19 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: But just as a procedural 20 matter, this. is probably more for* the lawyers than you.
21
. .- r "!
When one considers recon'sidering is that the same 22 as re:consideting? In other words, if the *Court grants a 23 Petition to Reconsider. something and then goes ahead and 24 reaches the same ,results is i t deemed to have reconsidered it or 25
12 l
is it deemed to have denied the Petition for Reconsideration?
2 MR. FITZGERALD: I think whe:h a court gets a 3
Petition for Reconsideration, and they do g~t these things 4
with some frequency either for a panel or en bane, that they 5
make an initial decision as to whether they are going to.
6 . '
e~en entertain i t -- a discretionary act of whether they 7
want to take it up again. Once they determine that they will take i t up again, they, -- regardless of what the ultimate 9
results will be, either because some novel or intriging argu-10 ment is made on this Petition for Reconsideration, they 11 then invite briefs and actually take up the merits.
12 As to what goes on in the first instance in the 13 judge's chambers, I don't know, but 14 COMMISSIONER BFAD.FORD: ..But when it issues that first 15 order does.it say Petition for Reconsideration grarited?
16 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't know tha.t.
17 MR. KELLEY: I don't think you need a vote at this 18 juncture. They .just say look at i t and they look at it and 19 do whatever you are going to do" 20 COMMrSSIONER BRADFORD: I asked it because we have 21 had one cornrnuni.cation recently, not from UCS, but a curve 22 suggesting that we have a habit of doing a de *facto granting 23 petitions, but then at the end of the proceeding saying that 24 now that everything the ;petition has asked for is done, we 25 will deny the Petition. And I wanted:to avoid that type of
13 1
suggestion here~
2 MR~ PEDERSON: 'I'his is a little unique,.,. Usually 3.
your Petition is to ask you to take certain specific actions.
4
.This Petition is a Petition to R~consider.and in a way, by 5
agreeing t6 look into this you are reconsidering. I see the 6
thrust of your' question. It is not clear -- they.are also 7
asking you to iecon~ider your decisiort iri the earlier Memorandum 8
and Order, ahd I .think you are not at the stage you want to 9
grant that.
10 COMM.ISSIONER' BRADFORD:
0 No, I understand, Obviously,,
11 the Commission hasn't r*eached that stage. I am just wondering 12 what this first step technically is.
13 It seemed to .me* that I r,emembered some time when 14 the question of whom we should and shouldn't meet with on 15 pending petitions and a rulemaking proceeding*came up, that 16 Jerry Nelson, at least, was very strongly of the opinion that 17
.the Commission could meet with whomever it wanted to meet with 18 in a rulemaking proceeding, and that while obviously it should 19 as it would in any matter endeavor to be fair, there were no 20 due process retjuirements or.legal requirements that i t had 21 to meet with anybody.or everybody or any combination thereof.
22 Is *that a fair statement of the OGC position?
23 MR. FITZGERALD: My recollection when this came up 24 in the first instance in the previous,incarnation of the UCS 25 Petition that we were, and Jerry included, pursuaded by
14 1 Mr. Connqr!s'..argument ,_that, as a matter of 'elemental* fairness
,2 ' ' '
the other.. side, to \yi,t, tp.e people-,1;who coro.ment~d and who
- 3 0
' .* repre. se~ted. 'licens~s .that might*. 'be . i:i;i j_eopardy, that they 4 should.be given some* t'ime .too.* I think he was p~rsuaded,by s* I
- that* fundamental fair.I1,.ess argument. that Mr.* Cohno*r* aqvanced.
- * ,: I ,-
/ '
- I
- 6
- COMMISSI~N:isR ~RADFORD~*.:. ~here do.es this' stop
,* ! j 7 any :way_, *if you. have* 40* comrtte:ntators db you hear* from all 8 40* o:fi them if you hear from one?
9 MR. FITZGERALD: They *way that it was~*agreed. to 10* and- set 'it up in.- the past was th.at *the. commenters were to be 11 accord.ed the same amount of time as -had been accorded to the 12 UCS, and we encour:aged, I ,believe under* your di_rec:tion. *_o:r:
13 Chairman Hendrie~s. dir,ection that the 4p folks strive to 14 consolidate their* presentations, if any there wer,e, to _maximize
- 15. the 4 5 minutes or whatever. that would be accorded them. *And I
'i 16 that message ~id go forth to those.parties ~rid they ultimately I 17 did . get together _and decide not to take up the Commission's
' ~
18 kind offer. But.that ty,pe of inform9,tion was ~iv.en out to 19 them. Otherwise, if they. exerci~ed -their _ip.dependen_t and 20 individua;L righf they would ha.:ve each gotten about 45 seconds C.
21 or the equivalent.
22 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: That is of some relief to me.
23 I did in fact mee.t wi*th the UCS people between our Memorandum 24 and Order and their filing the Petition for Reconsideration 25 before, in fact, we knew any such petition would be forthcoming,
15 1 but it is a relief to know that that meeting which lasted an 2 hour or an hour and a half will not requ:i.re.me*to *spend an 3 hour and a half with* 45 additional peti~ioners one at a time.
4 Ken, what do you see as likely to be forthcoming*
5 from pub~ic commenters .on the_ typ~s ..*of:'-+/-ssues. {ha~ you. s~e:
6.' that is.raised here.: ii~ ~e just iort of ~oirig through the 7 motions on.that?
8 MR .. PEDERSON: Obviously,*commissioner, I can't say 9 with *certainty! I certainly.wouldn't want to sa~ we are*
10 merely going _through the motions.
11 My guess . is',~ based on the fact that my preliminary:
12 review of the Petition for Reconsider~tion is it raises and 13 advances many of_the same issues, that the comments that you 14 g~t from the public may be* very similar in that regard t.o the 15 kinds of comments you got earlier.
16 On the other hand we have advanced somewhat since the Memorandum and Order was issued. Some things ha.ve 17 transp~red and taken place and these are alluded to in some 18
- cases by UCS and I would suspect that there is the pos-sibility
- 19 that you may get some public comment oh 'these events on 20 progress or lack thereof, that is a.lleged by UCS eve.n s.ince 21 the Memorandum and Order ~ame out that*might shed additional 22 light.
23 I simply can't say for sure~ I would expect that 24 it would parallel with the comments we got earlier, however.
25
16 1
But since UCS does address some things and specifically 2
since UCS talks . about . things
. that were*not*in the Memorandum 3 ,*
and Or_der or thing~ that were left out .of the Memorandum and 4
Order there may be some public comment on that may be' 'of 5,
some value, you .know, just that, the quality o.f the_ Memorandum 6
a,nd Orde.r. in terms*. of, subs tan ti ve* quality. or its compl:ete11;~ss 7
or whatever.
8 Moreover, I gl:less :i; feel tha.t if you_ choose to foliow 9
this path, in other*wo:rds; if you choose to also ask the 1,0 Bethesda staff to.make a formal submission to you, I'don't 11 see that going out for public comment would result in a 12 delay and I guess I have always.felt that where you are 1~
not talking about a critical path item, public com~ent is 14 proba.bly
- a good way to proce,ed. In some* cases even when you 15 are talking about del~y it is a good way to proceed.
16 I can't find a good strong reason aga'inst it, I guess 17 is what I'm saying, Commissioner.
18 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Are there particular items 19 among the seven that you picked out, I had somehow only counted 20 six in the UCS Petition itself, but obviously ~ou~are just, 21 breaking them down beca:use they are all*t!Jere; that seem more 22 compelling tha.n others?
23 MR. PEDERSON: I would like to ask Bernie Snyder 24 to respond to that, he has done the detailed review.
25 MR. SNYDER: This is as far as the public comment goes, your question is in that context?
17 1 COMMISSIONER BFADFORD: No,_ I'm sorry, I meant just 2 in terms of your analysis~ In terms of y_our recommendation 3 that we should consider .this Petition, tha.t goes to all of 4 the point in it, that recommendation?
5 MR. SNYDER: Yes~., yes. I. think the whole think s,hould 6 be ~onsidered.
- I think the staff should have the opportunity 7 to'commen:t.
8 MR. PEDERSON_; Were you ask{ng, Commissioner;, were 9 some of the points raised b~ use, in our judgment, were they 10 stronger, more compelling, more convincing?
11 COMMISSIONER BFADFORD: Yes, well 12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: More deserving of consider-13 ations than others?
14 MR. PEDERSON: Yes, was that your question?
15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: On the one end of the scale, 16 I suppose one could ask are there those that you could simply 17 drop further consideration, and are there: _any that are 18 deserving of special consider~tion?
19 MR. SNYDER: _ Well, we have only made a preliminary 20 review of this Petition from ucs and in my judgment, I 21 couldn't rank them in an order that one*rnight suggest.
22 :t would say that the points that they have raised ought to be addre_ssed a.nd I don't know any that ought to he ignored or 23 24 dismissed out of hand, you know that they aren't pertinent.
25 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: The problem is -- and granted
18 l
there was a lot of material involved -- I guess the reason
.2 this i's here is that they feel we have already ignored them 3,
once and one of the things I take it that is part of the 4
recommendation is the jud.gment that we were somehow -- that 5
our original order was somehow deficient in not picking*these*
6 points**up and. dea.ling with them.*
7 MR. PEDERSON: On the contrary, Commissioner, I think 8
our feeling is quite strong that all of these points, including 9
~he ones UCS specifically feels were not given adequate 10 treatment were in fact covered. Now the judgment of 11 adequacyyis a judgmental matter and I think that's one of the 12 things this review would want to look at.
13 I wouldn't want to imply that by suggesting this*
14 be rereviewed that we are Suggestirtg that the+/-r allegatiops 15 or concerns are valid in terms of these things being overlooked 16 or not treated. I think in this case where you are talking 17 about the kinds of charges they are making, you are talking 18 about serious staff deficiencies, you are talking about the 19 Commission letting things happen that are a direct contravention 20 of its own regulations and so on,that there may be some value, 21 if you judge it,*to go back over this and convince ourselves, 22 convince you, convince the public that in fact these points 23 were adequately looked at. It is our judgment that in fact 24 none of these points were given cavalier treatment or were 25 left unaddressed. So I wouldn;t want to leave that impression
19 .
1 with you. In fact, we have mentioned in our memo very 2
specifically that we do not s.~e any riew. substantive issues 3
that have been raised by ucs~
4 So I think in.your judgment as to whether to-take 5 'I
- I this Petition up, .I want to make 'it clear that in. doing _so 6
. we. are .no.t. recommending that the UCS Pet,ition has* merit--ih 7 ,
terms of ~aving fou;nd.the Memorandum.and Order*that you issued 8
to be grossly defective. The question is: do you feel that 9
public confidence, *that your sup.port for y~ur earlier _Memorandum 10 and Order warrants this kind of investigat'ion, that you 11 have nothing, one would hope, to hide,and are willing to 12 ' '
undergo this; arid the resources* that i t would :,entail. That is 13 a j udcp:nen:t tha.t you have to make.
14 I would not want it to' be read as me saying,
- 15 I Commissioner, that we have read this and
- ucs nas::rea.Ll:y 16 raised some serious defects.in your earlier Memorandum and 17 Order. That is simply not our judgment at this time.
18 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:* Well,_ for example, at the 19 beginning of the Petition they say that, "The Staff has 20 eventually admitted tb~you in these p~oceedings that UCS was 21 66rrect that, as to at least som~ presently operating ~lants, ,,.
2.2 a fire could hoday .have the same effect." And that 23 refers back to the Browhs Ferry *fire. Is that i*n fact, a 24 fair statement?
25 MR. SNYDER: Yes, as far as it being fair, they
20 1*
have made the statement before and in their submission in 2 i Januari of. ~he bioposed ~emorandum and,Order as you recall,*
1 I'* .
3 . .
the~ade t.hat contention bef~r~. It was discussed in one of 4
the subsequent Comm~ssion:~meetings.
5 ' '
We.have not gone into that question.in detaii;*but 6
we ii.av*~ reviewed i t a bit. My understanding' is that ,of all
- 7 the plants that have now sent in.their fire protection plans 8
and review by the staff in every c~se there are modifications 9
that are needed ..
- So i t 'i,sn' t one or two or a few plants,* and
- steps are underway to modify them., There are alternative 11 approaches to make the fixes as needed. And in ~he meantime 12 there a::i::-e many compensatory measures that are be,tng taken*
13 to ins~re that ~ntil these modifications are made that we 14 are Under safe conditioris.
15 I think the staff can give better detail on i t 16 than I can, but basi_cally I understand fromL:the revi*ew of this 17 that there are -- there is no one or two-or a few plants 18
.involved. S0.they asked the question, "Why didn't you ask 19 which ones are they?" and we answered that question., :( b.elieve, 20 as all. There ~re modifications required for all.
21 COMM.ISSIONER BRADFORD: And this a fundamentally 22 different type of situation from the one ~e discussed 2.3 yesterday with regard to .:theUMark::.L~containments?
24 MR. CASE: I don't. think so.
25 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
- It is that same zone between
21 l
what is required for licensing and what is required for 2
contiriued ope~a~idn and the need for sta~dards and defiriitions 3
for this type.thi~gs?
4 (Mr. Case nods in the affirmative.)
5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: .* Let me ask you, you are 6 ,'
suggesting tha~ the staff have a chance to resporid to this 7
Petition you would simply turn the F*eti tion over to the staff?
8 MR. PEDERSON: No, no. Not at all.
9 Your earlier Memorandum and Order, in the process 10 of developing it, on several occasions, I couldn't even count 11 actually, yori:formally wrote to the staff and asked them to 12 supply information about the Peiition, to provide their 13 response to that earlier Petition and allegations made in it.
14 All we are doing here is recommending that with regard to 15 this Petition for Reconsideration that you keep it to yourself, 16 'just*as you did the first Petition, but that you formally 17 request from the staff, a response or their analysis of this 18 Petition, their response. They themselves in here are 19 criticized in many cases fairly strongly and I would think 20 you would want to have that.
21 Now, the alternative is for us in OGC to go for them 22 and ask them for it. I think it is better, I think it is more 23 proper and I think in terms of documentation, it is better 24 that you ask them formally for this analysis. But they would 25 not be doing your Memorandum and Order for you.
22 1 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: No, no. I understand that.
2 So you would be *just ---
3 MR. PEDERSON: Consistent with what you did on the 4 first Petition.
5 COJ),W'lISSIONER GI.LINSKY: -- turning the . Petition over 6 for their response.
7 MR. PEDE~SON: That's dorrect.
8 COMMISSIONER GI*LINSKY: Is i t clear to you what is 9 being asked of this hearing?
10 MR. PEDERSON: W~ll~ they are suggesting -- first 11 they are asking us to reconsider your earlier decision. Now 12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And to shut down the plant.
13 MR. PEDERSON: Yes. On p~ge 12, as I mentioned
- 14. at the outset, On page 12 in the middle of th~ text' unlike 15 most Petitions this doesn't end with a specific set of 16 requ~sts of you. There is only one place ---
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, there are six points.
18 MR. PEDERSON: Yes, and we have detailed those.
19 But these are -- what you are being asked to do 20 is to say you made. a series of statements in_ ::'fOUr Memorandum artd Order that you issued, and they want-you, as I read~it, 21 in addition to reconsidering your deci~ion not to shut them 22 down, to reconsider your reasoning and whether in fact*your 23 reasoning was sound; whether the information yo had at ha.nd 24 25 was complete, adequate and proper. There is a series of things
23
\
\
1 they are asking you to do over and above these specific 2 issues.
- 3. COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:, Yes, I mean, ,it goes b,eyond 4 .the operc;ltion of these *plants. It-:hs1s to dm,wi th -~-
5 . MR. *'PEDERSON: Yes, Bernie .reminds me* of one Qther 6 ,i thing. And whether we adequate*ly considered* their. input qr 7 USC Is' ~a:r;-ious' documents they pro~Tided. That Is' another question 8 they have raised.
9 Particularly their draft Memorandum and Order that 10 they supplied us. Whether. that was given. adequate attention.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, that's point number 12 one that* UCS' s draft Memorandum and Order was virtually.
13 ignored.
MR. PEDERSON: Yes, bu't I'm saying that that.doesn't appear in the bullets as--'- on the first page of their 16 contentions. Those go to the --- in our memo those.gO to the 17 specific technical contentions that they say were not correctly 18 .peal t with, but over and beyond that there are these 19 broader questions, one of which is did we give adequate attentio 20 a_nd, I suspect one would say credit in some cases, to ucs.' s .
submissions.
21 22* . COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well; obviously there are two kinds of . i terns here, and in a* way we. are being asked< to
- 23 rethink, as I recall, our regulatory doctiine.
24 MR. PEDERSON: You were asked to do that in the first 25
24 1 Petition too, Commissioner.
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I guess we are being 3 asked to rethink it again.
4 MR. PEDERSON: Yes.*
5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And also, there are a number 6 of specific matters. I don*~.kndw th~t they are really 7 specified in your mem~ here.
8 .MR. SNYDER: We didn't attempt to track their 9 specific six points. There was no attempt on our part to do
.10 that .
11 MR. PEDERSON: Commissioner, the prima.ry purpose of 12 our memo was to ~riggest basically ways of proceeding. We
.13 didn't attempt .to give you ih.the memo an analysis of the 14 Petition. Those bullets on the first page were an attempt 15 to give you a sense of the kinds of things they were r~ising.
16 But you are correct, our memo is not exhaustive in terms of
- 17 detailing the issues that are raised.
18 If your decision might be or if you want to consider 19 dividing the Petition up with the possibility of considering portions of it and. not considering others or something, then 20 I think it would be appropriate to be more specific. But that 21 was not our intent in this memo.
22 I might also say, Commissioner, that my reading of 23 the Petition of these various issues, both the broader ones 24 in terms of how we proceed in our philosophy and the specific 25
25 1 technical oneS", are in some cases so inextricably* intertwined,.
- 2. it is difficult to look at treatment of sin~le failure 3 criterion without getting into the whole* qu~stion or our 4 philosophy of regulations. It is very difficult to separate
,5 those things . out ..
6 COMMISSIONER BRAD.FQRD: There is also a refe.rence .
7 _on page 4 which*states the Commission shouid adopt the relief
'8 requested by UCS as detailed in their draft Memorandum and 9 Order of July 9,which does contain the kind of relief 10 paragraphs at*the end that you said aren't pre~ent here.
11 MR. PEDERSON: rhat's correct. If you.wish to go 12 back and make the judgment that what they asked for in their 13 draft Memorandum and Order was what they are now asking for 14 in a way here, then, yes, that is correct.
15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Yes, that seems to be what 16 it says.
17 MR. PEDERSON: But that requested.relief, of cour~e; 18 very closely parallels with what they ask for in there, in the initial Petition.
19 I mean, .if it is not co'mpletely clear what UCS 20 wants, one could always solicit further information from them, 21 I suppose, but i t is not:clear in this Petition for 22 Reconsideration, precisely what they are asking for other 23 than their request to shut down the plants, on page 12.
24 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, there are some points 25
26 raised about the confirmatory as*sessment
- program, after 2 _bein,g checked. -
3 MR. PEDERSON: . Yes*"' But th'ey ,areri It. nicely 4, itemized, one has to*go through there 'to pick them out and 5 you can get . .7 dr 8 o~ 9, depending,,,on how count and how you divide~.
- 7 MR- SNYDER: If I ~ay on that point, th~y have 8 raised a few questions that I _think probably if you. decided 9 to take this little thing, are. wbrthy;of clarific~tion~
10 . The~e is some confusio,:n-;*On *.that part_icu'lar item, lI that is the rerun of the Sandia tests. Tha.t could be 12_ clarif i,ed. I must say, what the staff is planning to do 13 on that and i t told you this in a recent memo the first part_
14 1 of the month, covers,-both ends of.the spectrum, both the_ '71 15 qualified components and the '74 qualified components. We 16 didri't ask for the '71.
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You did not?
18 MR~ $NYDER: We did not in the decision you made._
19 That's what 'I mean, that's the point at which some clarification ought -"::.cinlght be made profitably. It has to 20 be made in another formal decision, but 21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Well, isn't the problem there 22 in part that it is not all clear, that there are components 23 qualified to the '74 standard instailed in p1ants?.
24 MR. SNYDER: Except for some of those that replaced 25
27 1
components that were found not to be qualified during this 2
whole process.
3 COMM.ISSI.ONER BRADFORD: But there is not much point 4
in testing those?
- 5 MIL SNYDER: No, the:i have already* been tested.
6 The reason for the '74 requE:st*was that the Sandia 7
tests were a total failure. And they were intendep to test 8
for the '74 components, the latest version on the standard.
9 That's the way the tests were .set up. Essentially your 10 request .was to do i t over again.
11 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: It is not clear whether 12 the tests were a failure or the components were a failure.
13 MR. SNYDER: Well, th'e tests were inconclusive.
14 because the components failed, right. But i t is true that 15 there are no operating plants today except for these few 16 isolated replacement piecE=s where there are anJthing other 17 than '71 components to-the '71 standard at most. Some of 18 the older plants, of course, predate even that.
19 MR. FITZGERALD: Bernie, just as a point of 20 clarification, 'didn't the Corrimis:sion' s paper or Order direct 21 that these tests .on the co~ponents were to also* use a 22 representative sampJ.e of those in use in nuc.lear power 23 reactor safety systems?
24 MR. SNYDER: That's the poi~t of confusion. That 25 probably could have been worded more clearly. That i~ exactly
28 1
f.hei*:p6int at which I would suggest that a clarification be 2
made.
3 I must say the staff. seems to be proceeding to 4
cover both sides of the question.
5.
CHAIRMAN:'iH:ENDRIE: Peter., do you have. other things 6
you would like to exercise at this time on the matter?
7 CO.MMISSIONER*BRADFORD: No.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, in. the discussion of the.
9 UCS Petition there is a certain amount of procedural matter 10 of discussion with the limited amount of discussion of the 11 one points or another, I think there are certain procedural 12 matters to decide.
13
- These appear to array themselves to me as follows*:
14 I think the memorandum that OPE and OGC got up is helpful in 15 this context. I suggest to you as *,first:_*a basic question 16 before the Commission of whether to consider the Petition or 17 simply to deny i t out of hand. It seems to. me that we might 18 well come to a decision on that this afternoon if you felt 19 ready ~nd able to come .up to i t .. On the other hand we could 20 also postpone ~t.
21 It seems to me that following that, unless the 22 Petition is denied out of hand, then the three questions raised 23 in the OPE memorandum are useful things to consider. Whether 24 further input from the NRC line offices on the merits that the 25 UCS Petition should be sought, whether public comment should be
29 1
invited, and finally, the question of who should review the 2
material thus gathered.
3 In the first instance their recommeridation is that 4
OPE and OGC undertake this. I'm glad they have volunte~red.
5 I must say we tend to run out of bodies to'review things, it 6
becomes impractical to fir;id at each round a*new and previously 7
uninvo.lved group of capable people to gather up and summarize 8
the material for the Commission.
9'*
So there are sort 6f fou~ questionSj a principal one 10 a.nd then those three to follow, i t seems to me. How d_o you 11 feel on the question of considering the Petition matters 12 further or denying outright?
13 If I call for a vote, will I be hustled out of the 14 room in outrage, or do people feel ready to vote?
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I think, you know, I 16 regard this as UGS engaging us in a dialogue and I think 17 is a useful exercise. I willing to go forward.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I detect a willingness to vote, 19 at least.
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I vote to consider, to have 21 the staff comment, to hav_e. public comment, have OGC and OPE 22 review the matter and defer any decision as to whether we should 23 have a roundtable discussion with UCS and other parties.
24 CHAIRMAN HENDRI'Efr° Okay. As a matter of fact, I 25 neglected that last point. I'm glad you:b~ought i t up.
30 1
Okai, I've got registered "yes~ vote down the li~e.
2 H6w about the rest of you on consideration of the matier; 3 a reques*t that you are simply denying the Petition.
4 (Co:qunissioner Gilinsky nods affirmativel.)
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I got a nod here., .. Peter?
6 .COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: I will vote ,the same way.
7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay;* '.so 'we will consider the 8 matter.
9 Now, on the question of sho.uld we ask the staff for 10 comments. on the. matters raised in the Petition for Reconsider-11 ation.
12 .I have a "yes" from Commissioner Kennedy. I. will 13 vote "yes" on it.
14 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: I.would certainly also vote 15 yes. What do you have in mind for a vehicle, that is, some 16 sort of separate-~ there is the Order here which sort of is 17 a general request for comment.
18 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: It directs the staff to 19 evaluate issues and provide a detailed report to the Commission, 20 at the bottom of the page.
21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Yes, r guess I am ju'st trying 22 to avoid that and then further questions from us on the basis 23 that issues* that we thought were important weren_' t addressed, 24 and I wonder if there is anything that could be said for being 25 more specific as to the questions on we would like to staff to
31 1 to take. I suppose in any case there is no difficulty with
- 2 havi~g thi~ Order go out and .there are certai~.specific
.3 qrie~tions that we need addressed it can be sent along afterwards 4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We can request the staff to
'5 evaluate the ~pecific issues raised i~ the Petition foi 6 Reconsideration. If there are .other ~aids or additional 7 words.that 8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Your concern is points are 9 going to get missed or they won't be focusing on.
10 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Ah 11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I guess I would be more 12 concerned about the latter.
13 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Well, I was just trying to 14 avoid a point where in 30 days from now we get the documents 15 ha.ck and it_would seem to us to miss important points that we 16 wanted the staffs to point out and then ask for further comment 17 on those. I think the answer to that is going to be that, I 18 know I have a couple in mind and I will just see whether it 19 would be worth putting them together and forming a memo saying 20 please particularly address the following.
21 MR. PEDERSON: Commissioner, I could add something slightly to that.
22 23 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: That's the __ way it ought to be. If we have any such thoughts, provide them and the 24 Chairman can send a letter on behalf of the Commission 25
32 .*
1 requesting staff's 2
MR. PEDERSON: Also in dealing with the. first 3
Petiti0n~ ~s w~ were going along ~ew ~uestiqns inevitably 4
e:merged. O:PE and OGC, if you d~cide .* the q.ti.estion that you 5 ' ! .
have to .be decided, to have.us do this, ,we*would .be doing our 6
initial work concurrent with. comme~ts being gott.en.
from the 7
public and the staff. And d'll.ring the last go. around several 8
questions from ourselves :.:.and including fo.llo~-up questions 9
from the Commissioners were sent to the staff, I. believe via 10 . ' : . '
communication from the Secretary. So there are ample ways 11 0£: do'ing this. You have by *the Chairman, by the Secretary, 12 whatever. I think there is a certain evcilutionary'process 13 to this and I think it is *inevitable.
14 Questions are going to be raise*¢]. 'by the very act 15 cif analysisi ~to~a.certain extent.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay, we will ~ertainly ask the 17 staff for comments~* P.il:bld:c:~comments, Coro.missioner Kennedy, I 18 think people commented before, I think :i..t is a reasonable 19 *proposition and I will vote for that too.
20 On the next item, which is to accept'the recommen-21 dation of the Counsel's office a.rid Policy Evaluation that 22 they jointly take up the staffing burdens.on the matter, the 23 law clerk's burdens. I recommend approval since I don't seem 24 to have anyone else at hand. I don't propose that our assistant 25 be told to do it.
l COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: May 1 ask one question of the 2 s-taff that I*sho.uld have-asked sooner.
3 CHAIID'IAN HENDRIE: *All right, ask it an¢]. then* I will 4 come back and pick up *the rest of it.
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Joe, picking up on Ed's 6 agreeme11-t that this wasn '.t fundamentally different from the 7 Ma.r)c 1 problems of yesterday, what is the* legal status of 8 the plants that there is general agreement to me~t the changes 9 in the fire .protectionj that is, is a waiver in order in that 10 situation for the same reasons it would ha:ve,been in order 11 yesterday?
12 MR. SC.INTO: I think in our lJecember 15 memorandum, we 13 went into some,discussion on that and felt that with the more 14 general terms of General Design Criterion* 3. applicable to fire 15 protection, that one could consider, and this is what we did 16 consider that the present status with the administrative control 17 the higher degree of manual fire protection.to minimumally 18 satisfy that G~neral Design Criterion 3 requir~ment.
On the other hand, the long term adequacy of 19 protection we did_ not want to rely on, personnel and these 20 type of administrative procedures, but we would want them wired 21 in to hard systems to saiisfy more than mini~al General Design 22 Criterion~J, 'just satisfy the General D~sign Criterion 3 without 2-3 question. That is discussed at .some length in our December 24 15th memorandum.
25
34 1* -COMMISSION:E:R BRADFORD:.'. J\.nd how is i t that the
. *,,, 2 .Maik 1 situation +/-s different?
3* MR. SCINTO: .The* Mark 1, the there was some 4 discussion about whether* it was debatabl'e, '2s I recall.
- I,' But wi,th respect to . the, .Mark 1, *.the requirement of.* that regulation by i:~p~ica ti9n, by incoi-pora tion.
- of the codes
,7 called for a_ margin. No~,.. this c~~. be considered a~*
~ ... a 8 deviation with respect to* the cause':'portion or the- effect 9 portion.* '!;hat is, _the code talking about *what the stresses.
10 on the 'loads can be. It c~n be an:*exemption from 'that.
11 We thought' i t m~re properly that- i t was an error in the loa.d 12 calculation, the lo~d calculation is covered by General*
13 Des~gn-Crite.rion 50, which again, _uses* the same ~ind of general 14 words*, sufficient margin,.but by**Ii.istory, b.y high tradition, 15 by practice, sufficient margin has me:t:.:the .*:code requirement.
16 We haveD:'t doll;e thi~ distinction between short terms and *long*
17 terms over history.
18 That's why I said, in this case irttlboked: like what 19' we were. sq.yin~ is this did -not meet what we thought to be the 20 requirments of what we had always meant by suffi_cient margins.
21 And that is an exemption*.
22 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: So it is *that difference 23 between 3 and *4 times that existed in the code and was-a hard
~umerical standard and the absense of any*comparable standard 24 25
35 1 backing up .the General Design Criterion 3?,
2 MR. SCINTO: Ye~, General Design Criterion 3 does 3 not have an external place to go to to give you.more substance 4 for what is quote "adequate fire protection." That has been 5 historical development.'. We ;_have been d~veloping tha.t over*
6 'a course of time. The exterrt~l place th~t puts in substance 7 on General Design Criterion :3, unfortunately.was* Browns Ferry.
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: There isn't an IEEE standard 9 that keys into General Design Crit~rion 3?
10 MR. SCINTO: There are IEEE sta~dards w~ich are 11 related to it, but I don't think there is any set of 12 industrial standards that you can establish which we would 13 characterize as* of themselves, providing the.kinds of 14 protection that we think are required in light of the experience 15 at Browns Ferry. We might have before Browns Ferry, but* the 16 Browns Ferry experience was a rapid step-wise increase in 17 knowledge.
18 MR. SNYDER: I believe there are ANSI standards 19 under development though. Correct me if I'm wrong Roger, as 20 the result of that. Is that correct?
MR. MATTSON: Yes.
21 MR. SHAPAR: You are perhaps- asking_for further 22 rulemaking.
23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Not yet.
24 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let me hustle us back to the 25
,36 1 Petition for Reconsideration-matters.
2 It seems to me that we have*agreed then, with th_e 3 recommendations of. 'OPE and I wonder then, as a general proposi tio~ the d:i::af t Or~er la_ng'uage isn't a fair represen-5 .
- ta'tion o~ where we want* _to go. I would ask* if you would* not 6 also concur*in the decision.to defer the*question of 7 roundtable discussion.
- I I .
It doe$ seem to b~ premature at *this 8 time, L*believe.
9 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Ther~ may be some slight 10 addition of lang_uage needed in tha.t Footnote to refl~ct the 11 OGC position we are talking about as. sort of an equal time 12 to the parties rather than allowing the same privilege to 13 anyone who might ask -for the same. But other *'than thatr_---
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: All right, would you undertake 15 to fix that Jim?
16 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.
17 CHAIRMA.N HENDRIE: Would you like to see the Order 18 and think.about it further, or is the language here -- has 19 everybody looked at it and not found much difficulty with it.
20 COMM~SSIQNER KENNEDY: I agree with it.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: For myself,* I will just simply 22 ask OGC to fix the Footnote, as you indicated, Pet~r; and ask 23 that i t not come back to me, at least. If you would like to 24 see it, why py all means.
25 COMM'.ISSIONER BRADFORD: That's all right, if you would
37 1 show it,to Tom for review.
2 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Vic, . I don't know if you want to 3 see.'.it? Check with Peter.
4 Okay.
5 MR. CASE: .Could* I comment on this 30. days in there.
6 CHA.IRMAN HENDRIE: Al~ right~
7 MR. CASE: It* is doab.le, but only at the expense.
8 of other high prior.i ty matters. I think 60 days would be more 9 appropriate.
10 MR. MATTSON:* We can throw away the analysis of 11 the public comments, which you will probably ask us for any how 12 like you did last time.
13 COMMISSIONER K~NNEDY: What other high priorify 14 projects?
15 MR. MATTSON: Generic Tqsk A-24, 16 Qualification of Class 1-E Electrical Equipment. I .. have to 17 essentially take the resources *off that generic task and put
-18 them on this task. It means the industry has no definitive 19 guidance on what our current thinking is for the implementation of 32371 or 74.
20 21 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: How is that going to change 22 if you stretch it out to 60 days?
23 MR. MATTSON: .I have got an interim taks force approach to Generic Task A-24 which begins on Monday and ends 24 six weeks from Monday, whidh is tailored to pro~ide some 25
38 1 interim statement of our current requirements on qualification 2 pr:osedures.
3 COMMISSIONER KEN.NEDY: Therefore, if you need 60 4 days instead of 30, you could do the job in two weeks? So M~. MATTSON:* No,*: that's no_t quite *_right.
Th~re is some* fro~t~end lo_ad.ing on tha'l:=- six~week 7 effort where, I could get the technical people in ahd out in the 8' first three or four weeks. and then get them *on to the Petition.
9 Sixty days is a much more reasdnable tim~.. It would, also allow 10 us to consider the public comm*ents which will be received in 30 days and factor those into our .thinking .as we prepare our 12 analysis.
13 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Roger, which of.these points 14 is i t that is going to require~a lot of technical man hours?
15 MR. MATTSON: There is a lot of -- as Joe ha.s. just 16 characterized in my ear -- who shot John arguments in the 17 Petition*for Reconsideration. I think we wotild ltke to go 18 through those.
19 The full documentation of environmental qualification 20 for plants now _going into operation, I think' D.* c. Cook was 21 _a case at point raised in the Petition f-or Reconsideration 22 and I would like to go through that in some detail and explain 23 what were the facts of the D.C. Cook instance.
24 The treatment of the single failure criterion and whether i t was correct or incorrect, we have made a considerable 25
- 39 1 filing on that subject .:j_n the course of the first Petition.
Evidently::w:t *+/-s:1.hotc,a:dequate *and>we will have to .go back* and go through that again .
4 .COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Well, 'I'm not *sure that 5 that's the case . . To the ext~~t '. *,
.'that you all fee'l*tha.t you have 6 given*comprehensi:ve a:nsw~rs on these points, it' is not my 7 feeling in any case that you* have* ,, got 'to '
go ba.ck and redo, 8 reword and switch the paragraphs around.
MR. MATTSON: But I think you agree w.ith OGC and OPE though, Commissioner, there are rio ne~ ;technical points 11 r:aised in the Petition for Reconsideration, and despite 'that 12, fact and the volumes of material which we supplied on the 13 original Petition, the Commission has decided to grant the 14, request fo£ ~econsideration, sb I would 'think we would want to 15 go back through the thing in some. details and make the arguments specifically tuned to the wording of the Petition.for 16' Reconsideration *. That takes time~ To ask you to corolla:te 17 tl)e Petition for Reconsideration, which is struct.ured 18 differently than all the material :we filed, will not solve 19 your question at this point at all.
20 21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I wonder if we ought not b~ more specific on what ~e are asking.the staff.
22 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: ,I urge that we allow the 23 staff to review this Petition in whatever *detail the staff 24 believe~ is appropriate and necessary to r~soluti6nt6t~the 25
40 1
issues raised in it. Otherwise, we are going to have another 2
Petition indicating, just as this one d~*es, the questions 3
raised in the Petition ~ere n6t adequately discussed.
4 So it seems to.me in fairness to the staff, in 5
fairpess to _the Commission and in fail'.'.n.ess to
- Pe:ti tioner 6
the staff shotild review the matte~ in*a~ exhausted.*detail 7
as is required 'to put.:the ~uestions to rest.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: What about the 60-day question, 9
Feter?
10 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Well, I don't disagree_-with 11 what Dick has just said, but I also don't feel that the staff 12 should feel that it is under any compulsion to.rearrange 13 '
- a:gguments that are already made, that is, it would be fine 14 with me if you really felt it were the case on any One of these 15 points to say this point is fully covered in our submissions 16 of December 15 and whatever the other relevant dates are*,*
17 pages 39 and 43 in one and 46 to 48 in another. We do have 18 all of those things up here, arid, in any case where you feel 19 that the point has*. been completely answered already, I wouldn't 20 feel you ought to take the time to have somebody just 21 rea~range the arguments.
22 MR. MATTSON: We can try that. The difficulty is 23 lacking the description of what causes us to reconsider the 24 information we have already supplied and force us to go back 25 and reconsider the information we have already supplied to
41 1
force us to go back and reconsider theiinformation we h~ve 2
altea.¢iy supplied. to decide whether or not i t addresses the 3*
poiht. That's a fair amount of work.
4 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY; It is to be reca.lled that as 5
. someone read earlier on page 4., I don' *i:_ wan:J:. to beat* this 6
dead horse too much, but L'.don't want to have to go over. the 7
subject again,hopefully. The decision laigely ~gnores.the 8 ' .
series of filings made by the UCS subsequent to*, the filing of 9
the Petition. The UCS draft Memorandum and Order has been 10 v+/-r.tmal;Ly ignored, thus, I can't imagine a statem~nt coming 11 back from the staff saying, nd, that's hot true. Se~ pages 12
- 23. to 27. I would only expect them to receive another 13 comment from the UCS on i t and if I were the lJCS I certainly 14 would make one, saying, we know what we said oh pages 23 _to 27, 15 ..
we read .it. That's why we wrote you this on page 4 of our 16 latest Petition.
17 MR. MATTSON: Well, that's a good c~se in point of 18 the uncertainty that I feel at the moment as to what the 19 Commission is aski.nq me for.
20 The draft Memorandum and Order filed by the Union of 21 Concerned Scientists' was revjewed by the staff'under some.
22 fairly explicit guidance from the Commission, which said if 23 there are new technical points rai~ed in that draft Memorandum 24 and Order,please address them. We did and it was a rather 25 cryptic addressing of the draft Memorandum and Order.
42-l Npw, are you asking me to go back and reconsider 2
,iri a;I.l of its detail, ~he draft Memorandum arid ,o:t'.der, _which 3
you didn't_ ask ~e to do the first time_? or did you review 4
the draf*t Mew.orandum and *order in some detail and OGC and .'
'.' -5 . ' . . .
- GPE -a_rid .make_ -a.~cisions o~ it? If you did, I'm not, _awa_re _of
'6.
them because you didn't ~s-k. me to supply you "input* ~-0 .that 7
- corisid~ration: *That may be* the problem that UCS does not 8
see pape_r* of the sortL:thatl:we filed on the other points on 9
that issue.
l'O CO~I.ssioNER KENNEDY: It seems to me that;~.+/-hat is
.11 precisely the problem. And it is that problem that I would 12 rather hot see cbme back to us again. And I'm sure you wouldn't 13
.either.
14 COl~~SSIONER Gt LINSKY: .Well., . I wond~r- if we really 15 are being. fa.ir to the staff in turning this Petition over to the 16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Well, what it seems may have 17 . '
been the case, we have ha.ve been somewhat less than fair with 18 the staff the 1,ast time. Had we not given them the explicit
- .19
_instructions we might not now be faced with the point raised*
20 with ucs tp.at s.ays, "but you._didn' t. answer our P.eti tion."
.21 So -what I 'in saying i's: I think we ought to. say *to_
22 the staffs, answer the Petition.
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, but. some of it is 24 addressed to us, I mean, it urges us to take certain matters I
25 out of the staff's hands.
43 1
MR. MATTSON: As i t did i'n the first instance.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Ok'c).y, but I don't know--,-,
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: We will take care, of those.
4
- That' s .. n~t_ this point.
5 COMMISSIONER GIL!NSKY: .All right.
6 CO:MMISSIONER*.- KENNEDY:* All I want to be sure of. is 7 ,,
that we don't truncate this procedure in the:~:interest of 8 ' .
hurrying i't alon*g, only to make i t possible . for us to ;reyive it 9
again in an~ther 60 9r 90 days. Because we would be faced with*
10 precisely.the same problem that Roger is* faced with now.
11
.Constantly 'devoting resources to this issue at the cost of 12 something else., I think this issue heeds to be dealt with 13 and should.be dealt .with arid has certainiy right to be dealt 14 with,,. but i t ought *to be dealt with right once and. for all.
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Sure, but I don 1 -t t_hink it. is 16 a matter of just hurrying . it' along. I think i t is a matter of 17 indicating clearly what i t is we expect of them * .
18 MR. MATTSON: Y-es, sir. That would help.
19 COMMISSIONER, KENNEDY: .That's all I expect.
20 MR. MATTSON: One other thought and*:.then -I will 21 retire the discussio"n*.
22 Between Victor Stello and I we probably have six to 23 eight experts in the environmental qualification of electricai 24 equipment on the staff. Those are the people who are making 25 the decisions-~ operating plants, the systematic evaluation
44 1 pro gr am, opera ting. licenses , . construction permits,* standards 2 *.plants, technical act:i.vit:j:es A-24. Those are: the same. 'pe~ple 3 who. will be* wo:r::king on. this Petition. *So that's the resource 4 implication that I feel) 5 . COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I wo,~ld rathet' .have them 6 . ,work on this Petition o~c~ in the depth necessa*ry to dispose 7
- of i t in one:w~y or the other~ once and for all, than to hear 8 you say that to me. again, rightly, by. the way, 90 o.ays from 9 now.
10 MR. MATTSON: That's my point.
11 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: I think i t might be worth 12 taking another day or two to try and see if we can formulate 13 a more deta,iled guidance to the staff on the questions we really 14 would feel. 'are important in disposing of the Petition,, for 15
- Reconsidera.tion than just giving them a list of specific*
16 questions rather than just leaving i t to them to guess what 17 matters to us and ~h~t doesn't.
I don't mind 18 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: In.the first instance, I'm 19 not nearly so concerned as to what matters to me as I am as to 20 21 what matters to ucs a.nd that is fairly clear. I would like the staff's views on thoie matters. Then I can sort out what 22 is of relative- higher or lower importance to me. I.just .do 23 not*think that we are being fair either to the Petitioner or the 24 staff if. we sort out those things from the UCS Petition which 25
45, 1
we propose the staff shall comment on and form the basis, then, 2
for whatever judgments we*may wish to make, becau,se we are 3
going to get back another one. I would certainly urge them 4
to do so, indeed, saying the decision largely ignores*~ series 5
- of filings.'
6 MR. GOSSICK; Mr. Chairman, .'.is there. sort of a middle 7
ground here where it would be very helpf~l to the staff if 8
the Commission, OGC, OPE could line out or rule out the things 9
which they will *comment on and the staff is not*being asked 10 to comment on? I think that was part of the problem.
11 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Are there any such?
12 MR. GOSSICK: Well ---
13 MR. PEDERSON: t would be*reluctant to follow that 14 course. I think the staff ought to have the opportunity to 15
'comment on all. Now, what I think could be done is a memo 16 to them that says, you should address all those issues that 17 you feel need to be addiessed and then i t could go on to say, 18 but these should include, and then if there are certain things 19 the Commission really is concerned about not be overlooked, we 20 could do that.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I think that is really 22 putting a burden on them and really giving them an open-ended 23 assignment to the staff. I think we ought to be specific 24 about what it is we want.
25 MR. GOSSICK: Well, if there is a question of
46 1
subsequent filings that the *staff has not seen which OGC and 2 . ,
OPE,: I gather or the Commission. did, I. mean ---
.,3 MR. PEDERSON: No, no.
'4 MR. GOSSICK: That's not the case?
5 MR. PEDERSON: No, no. They saw everything. I'm 6
not aware of any filing 7
MR~ SNYDER: They not only saw everything, they 8
respond~d to everything.
9 fylR. GOSSICK:' Okay.
10*
MR. PEDERSON: So there is a complete documented 1,1 record and it is in the Public Document Room.
12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: If they responded to everything 13 *and yet the UCS is not satisfied with the res~onse, further 14' failure to respond is not going to be helpful to the process.
15 COMMISSIONER.GILINSKY: *well, take point 3 which 16 deals with the use or probabilistic analysis. It seems to 17 me th~t that's something that raises questions that go ieally, 18 to the policy the Commission wants to promulgate.
19 COMMISSIONER.KENNEDY: Of course.
20 .COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And it is not clear to me 21 that the staff is in a position to answer these questions .
. 22 MR. SNYDER: Well on that one, though, I don't think 23 the Commission was promulgating the ucs position that we will 24 use probabilistic analysis. All we were doing. there, Commission r, ,
25 was to cite the histories and how we got to where we were.
47 1 ;In.fact; the Browns Ferry.group did consider and had 2 performed for them by a WASH-1400 .group main probabilistic 3 analysis.
Our citing of that in the Memorandum and Order is
,5 more iii.the way of background than .anything else. We rested 6 our case, on it ..
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, they* are asking the 8 Commission to articulate the pertinance of the quoted 'analysis 9 and so on. Well?
10 MR. SNYDER: I'm not sure.
- That might be one that 11 .only the Commission can answer.
12 MR. SHA.PAR: May I 'point out that page 2 of the
- 13. OGC/OPE Memor~ndum states: "We have conducted only a cursory 14 review of the petition so fai and our preliminary vie~ ds that 15 no new.substantive issues have been raised by UCS.~
16 Following up qn you.r thought and a point made by 17 Commissioner Bradford before, it might be useful, if you are I
18 thinking of giving the staff advice to transmute that cu~sory
. opinion by OGC a~d OPE to tell you whether or not after further 19 look at it, they believe that is their final view. Then the 20 Commissioner would know, at least from the standpoint of OPE and 21 OGC whether or not, indeed, no new sub~tanti~e issues are 22 raised. With that *.kn@wledge, I think you would be in a. better 23 position to formulate any guidance you want to give to the 24 staff. It is an option any way.
25
- 48 1
MR. PEDERSON: The difficulty is that many of the 2
UCS question posed, don't go so much to substantive issues-3 as to how the.staff and the Commission dealt with those 4
substantive issues. *. How adequately, how completely, how 5
.candidly, and these *~end':to:be the questions.
6 COJYiMISSIONER BRADFORD: I think that is certainly 7
true with the characterization of the Petition for Re~onsider-8 ation,:but what underlies that, I think, is the premise that 9
if these issues were*dealt with~full then the.result would have 10 to be different so that the allegations are not dealt with I.l fully which is a gentle way of satisfying the results.
12 MR. PEDERSON: I!m not sure i t is even gentl~. It is 13 clear, but my point, Coriuriissioner, was that our statement that 14 there were no new substantive issues went to the fact that there" 15 no big technicai issues raised. It is really a question of 16 how we dealt with it from the adequacy of our handling the 17 matter.
18 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And that is precisely the 19 impression L-g_ained from reading ~-- the Petition.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, I find a spread in view 21 along this side of the table as to the instruction that .. the 22 staff should have on the matter.
23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Is it more than a day.'*.s
- work 24 to try and draft a.more specific1guidance memo?
25 MR. PEDERSON: (Nods in the negative.)
49 1 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:* You could.probably ---
2 MR. PEDERSON: We co~ld certainly take a crack at it.
3* There is no question about that.
4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: They can:.:cert'ainly take a crack
.5 at it. Are you willing to look at ,the proposition like that?
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I. have. never refused to look 7 at anything.
8 (Laughter) 9 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Far ahead of anyone else ..
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Always editoralizing.
11 Now, Dick's view seems to me to be to say that the 12 staff ought to look at this Petition for Reconsideration and 13 file such remarks to the Commission on i t as it, the staff, 14 deems necessary to cover the full sweep of th~ Petition.
15 And that by issuing either specific questions for the staff to 16 answer or ttfitig~t6 ... ~rovide guidance in limited areas, why 17 that may deter the s~aff, in fact, from speaking to:some area 18 which should be spoken to I don't know.
19 COMM!SSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I think they are fee 20 to add almost a!'.}ything they want to add.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, wj,th that sort of an 22 understanding, eventually, why the probably will in any event.
23 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I would note, however, in 24 answer to that or in addition to that, Roge;r's comment which was: certain of these matters were not dealt with -- they were 25
50 1 dealt with, but dealt with in response to sp~cific instructions 2 from the Commission, precisely the issues that are now being 3 raised in the Petition. So that doesn't help very much.
4 That is'pr~cisely what I want to avoid. I ~nderstand Roger's 5 problem about the uie of his resources. It.doesn't help him 6 in the use of resources to be constantly., every thr~e months 7 'called upon to devote those same *resources again. Nor, 8 indeed, is that fair to the Petitioner who has to be coming 9 back to us asking the same questions over again; nor indeed, 10 is it fair to the 'Commission to be consistently reviewing 11 them. It ought to be done right; done once.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: There may be a combination of 13 these things, recognizing indeed that the staff can always 14 add comments as the see fit.
15 Let me ask the following: Unless, he1.:is going to 16 pull his people off the generic item, he is going to need 60 17 days for staf*f comments compared to 30 for the public comments.
18 Is that all right?
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Well, what I was hoping to 19 do by narrowing focusing the issues and to avoit the 60 day 20 run, what I gathered from our discussion* is that was caused 21 fromcsli;:!:rge:,.part by the fact that he felt he would have to go 22 through it sentence-by-sentence and respond to anything that 23 you felt needed responding to. It seemed *to me that if we 24 could narrow that a little bit, perhaps*you can save the 30 days 25
l COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why don't we defer that decision lin:til we see the memorandum.
COMMISSIONER KENNEo,Y: But* let's be Su're* that tha*t 4 premise is correct, that was not the way I understood what 5 Roger was saying,*which was that he was.beginn~ng, yet. this 6 very' week, I :!:)elieve, ;:a task for,ce effqrt involving t_he very 7 people who .would be involved in dealing with this petition, 8 and _ii;: wot1ld be 3 to. 4 weeks before the engineers would *b_e 9 rel~eved sequentially 'from tha:t process t.o get started at the*
10 petition. Soi~ wofil~rt*t make ariy diff~rence in the first 11 three or four,~eeks.
12 CHA.IRMAN HENDRIE: Well, if we _can knock it something 13 he can do overnilight himself, why that would solve all ou~
14 I?roblems *.
15 (Laughter) 16 MR. MATTSON; We could always do this one first.
17 CHAIRMAN* HENDRIE: And we could always do this_one 18 first. But let's talk about the staff time. We will either 19 incorporate this expanded material in the Order or, refer to it 20 in the.:.~Order and have it appended to th'e memorandum. And we 21 can see at that point whether-in fact we* have made enough 22 of a de*nt so that the time should s'tay the .same. Fair enough?
23 (No response)__
24 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Thank ,1y9u very much.
1 25 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 4:25 p.m.)
I