ML22230A168
| ML22230A168 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/16/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780316 | |
| Download: ML22230A168 (1) | |
Text
RETURN TO ~ECRETARIAT RECORDS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
DISCUSSION OF NRDC PETITION ON TARAPUR EXPORT LICENSE Place - Washington, D. C.
Cate - Thursday, 16 March 1978 Pages 1 - 29 Telephone:
(202 ) 3.4.7-3700 ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Official Reponen 444 North Capitol Street Washington , D.C. 20001 NATlONWIDE COVERAGE* DAILY
(
OISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript :offl_ me~ting of the U?d States*
Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on <...,,r/ n~ l6 1 l9LL in the * *~
Commission's offices at 1717 H Street, N. w:, Washingtdn, 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 informational purposes ..
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of theforrnal or informal
- record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations ot belief~. No pleading or other paper may be filed with th~ Commission in.**
any proceeding as the result of or addressed to an,Y statement or arg~rment contained herein, except as the Commission m_ay authorize.
I
1 CR 6793 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY Cm.'.lMISS ION 3 DISCUSSION OF NRDC PETITION ON TARAPUR EXPORT LICENSE
- 4 5
6 7 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N.W.
8 Washington, D.C.
9 Thursday, 16 March 1978 10 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 10:45 11 a .m.,
12 BEFORE:
- 13 14 15 VICTOR GILINSKY, Acting Chairman PETER BRADFORD, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:
16 T. ROTHSCHILD
- s. CHILK
. 17 J. BECKER M. GUBIN 18 J. DEVINE J. KELLEY 19 20 21 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25
2 P R O C E E D r-N GS 2 (10:45 a.m.)
3 .COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let's proceed.
4 Trip, are you going to handle this?r 5 MR. ROTHSCHILD: I will start on this, with the 6 assi*tance of Jim Devine today.
7 We have before us today a February 13th petition 8 from NRCD,*Union of Concerned Scientists and the Sierra Club, 9 requesting that the Commission reopen the hearings that it 10 held in July 1976 on exports to Tarapur.
11 The Commission issued an opinion in the spring 12 of 1976 saying NRDC was not entitled to hearings on the 13 Tarapur as* a matter of right, that if<:*any hearings were to 14 be held, it would be on the matter of Commission discretion.
15 And that's where we stand right now. We are talk-16 ing about whether this hearing should be held as a matter of 17 Commission discretion.
18 The NRDC petition basically had four major con-19 -tentions, there were four areas they wished to explore in 20 public hearings.
21 One, they were concerned that there was no im-22 mediate need for the fuel in India and that the Commission 23 could withhold action for several months on application, 24 XSNM-1060, which is now before the ,Commission.
- Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Secondly, they were concerned about the adequacy
3 of IAEA safeguards that would be applied at the Tarapur fac-2 ility.
3 Three, they had concerns about the adequacy of 4 India's assurances that they will not use United States 5 supplied material for nuclear explosive devices of any: kind 6 or any research or any research for nuclear explosive pur-7 poses.
8 And fourth, they wished for a progress report on 9 what had occurred during the past 18 months regarding neg-10 otiations on the return of spent fuel from Tarapur to the 11 United States.
12 This issue was discussed at_ great length in the 13 July 1976 hearings. *Ano. they wanted to know where we were at 14 with that regard.
15 They also in that same petition requested that the 16 Commission consolidate consideration of XSNM:".il060, the*
17 license is presently before the Commission, which we have 18 received Executive Branch .and Staff views on, with considera-19 tion of XSNM-1222. That is an application that we have not 20 yet received Executive Branch views on, and therefore, we 21 have not received Staff vi*ews on.
22 Earlier this month the Commission met on that sub-23 ject and issued an order on consolidating consideration of 24 those two applications, although we explicitly stated in that Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 order that we res~rve the right to act upon those two
4 applications at different times.
2 The Department of State responded to the NRDC 3 motion first by sending a letter stating that the Commiss'ion 4 should act prompty on XSNM-1060, that India needed this fuel 5 in February.
6 Secondly, they stated that they were not~in favor 7 of public hearings. I gathered from their pleading they were 8 not in favor of public hearings either now or at some later 9 date.
10 *The NRC Staff also responded to this motion. They 11 recommended that XSNM-1060 be issued promptly without the 12 Commission holding discretionary public hearings first.
13 The Staff did not explicitly address the issue of 14 whether . they would favor hearing if the Commission were:*.to 15 act upon XSNM-1060 now, and then hold a hearing thereafter, 16 on the generic issue of future exports to~**Tarapur. They did 17 not explicitly address that.
18 The State Department also recently, March 6th, 19 filed a memorandum with the Commission supplementing the 20 public record on development since the last Tarapur*hearing.
21 They tried to address each of the concerns that the NRDC 22 petition had raised, and you have got that before you; SECY-23 78-l0SA.
24 You also have before yo.u a memorandum from the Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 Office of Policy Evaluation on whether a hearing should be
5 held. -
2 And that is basically where we are at procedurally.
3 As far as alternatives for the Commission, there 4 are several possible alternatives that we can consider. These 5 were basically outlined at the last public *meeting *that-**we 6 held earl:ier--this month.
7 One would be to determine that the legislative.
8 type hearing would be contrary to public interest. You could 9 just say: No further public proceedings required. We would 10 issue an order explaining why the Commission felt it had 11 adequate information to act upon licenses to India without 12 further hearings, and we would explain why a public hearing
- 13 14 15 would be contrary to the public interest..
A second alternative would be to order an oral legislative type hearing. The Comrriissi'on has taken the 16 position that adjudicatory hearings are not required in ex-17 port licensing proceedings. *,And the new regulations, the 18 new Part 10 which will go into effect 6n May 3rd, specifically 19 does not provide for adjudicatory hearings.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Are you going to deal with 21 the scope separately.
22 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes, we will deal with the scope 23 of the hearing separately.
24 Let me just go through some alternatives.
Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 A third alternative would be to not order a
6 legislative type hearing immediately. We could order further 2 written comments. And perhaps on the basis of written com-3 ments, if you wanted to convene a legislative type hearing, 4 you could, of course, do so.
5 A fourth alternative would be to deny a hearing 6 on license number XSNM-1O60 and act.'upon that license applica-7 tion now, which is -- this is a course which is favored by 8 both the NRC Staff and the Department of State.
9 And then we could decide what to do with the hear-10 ing now or at a later date. One option would be to go ahead 11 *and issue 1060 or to deny 1060, and then order public hearings 12 to be held in we will say approximately six years or four 13 weeks, how ever long it would the Commission to issue an order 14 and schedule public hearing.
15 That hearing, of course, would not be on XSNM-1060, 16 but that would be on the generic issue of exports to Tarapur.
17 The Commission in the past has not held export license hear-18 ings on specific license applications. Our original Tarapur 19 hearings were not tied to specific.*.application. They were on 20 the exports to Tarapur generically, and we specifically re-21 serve the right in our May 6, 1976 opinion to issue licenses 22 pending before the Commission if we felt the circumstances 23 warranted it.
24 Under this course, the Commission could act upon Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 1060 and the order a public hearing, which could be held in
7 approximately four to six weeks.
2 Another option before the Commission would be to 3 deny a hearing on 1060 and defer decision on whether a hearing
- 4 5
6 should be held at some later date.
We haven't received Executive Branch views on XSNM-1222 and the Commission may wait to see those views be-7 fore they ordered a public hearing.
8 I think those are.the basic options before the 9 Commission.
10 If the Commission wished to hold a public hearing, 11 whether it be a written hearing or whether it be an oral 12 legislative type hearing, the Commission could shape the 13 issues as they saw fit..
14 If the Commission wanted to hear about the ade-15 quacy of safeguards, they could limit the hearing to just 16 that issue. If they wished to have it address each of the 17 issues that NRDC .raised or any other issue that any member 18 of the public would like to raise, they can do that.
19 We would set forth the scope of any such hearing 20 in the order that we would issue.designating a hearing 7 if it 21 is the desire of the Commission to hold a hearing.
. 22 I think another point that needs to be brought up 23 today is the fact that although the new regulations do not 24 go into effect until May 3rd, at the last *Commission meeting, Ace-Federal Repo"ers, Inc.
25 we discussed whether we should in effect treat these
8 regulations as effective with respect to the- issue of --
2 CON.MISSIONER .GILINSKY: Well, I think it is clear 3 that we are running under-the current regulations, and I think 4 what ever decision we take will be taken by all Commi$sioners.
5 MR. ROTHSCHI~D: And as we said in our*memo, if
\
6 two Commissioners want a hearing, we understand that 7 Chairman Hendrie and Commissioner Kennedy said they would vote 8 for a hearing, if there were two votes for a hearing, to get 9 us over any type procedural obstacle.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I think the decision will 11 simply be taken by all the Commissioners together.
12 MR. ROTHSCHILD: And I would now like to turn this 13 thing over to Jim Devine. I think he is going to discuss 14 some of the policy options behind each of these various op-15 tions and some of the pros and cons for the Commission to 16 consider.
17 MR. DEVINE: OPE reels that irespective of your 18 decision on a hearing, which I will treat a little later, that 19 there is a persuasive case for issuance of this license.
20 It was approved by the highest levels of the 21 Executive Branch. I 1;:hink there is -- the larger nonprolif-22 eration objectives would be served by issuance of this license 23 And I think failure to issue would have an adverse 24 impact on our efforts to secure, for example, full-scope Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 safeguards in India~.
9 1 Looking at the new criteria in the bill, we be-2 lieve that this case meets the new six new export criteria.
\
)
3 The important thing here is that by issuing this
- 4 5
6 license, you would not prejudice action either on 1222, which is still pending, or your option to conduct a generic hearing on our supply relationship with India.
7 The Executive Branch treated in its latest sub-8 mission,the four concerns of the petitioners. They reviewed, 9 for example, the question of disposition of taps feel. The 10 Executive Branch did undertake to explore this with the
\
11 Indian government after the last hearing. The Indians were 12 -- did agree in principle to such a buy-back scheme as was 13 discussed at the last hearing, but after studying the question 14 more extensively, under the _umbrella of the NSC ad hoc**
15 group, it was concluded that extraordinary effort would be 16 required and at least six years before fuel could be returned 17 to the United States at a cost of .several million dollars.
18 They then embarked on a course under which they 19 provided consultants to the Indian government, and they now 20 have concluded that reracking is feasible in India at the 21 existing spent fuel ponds, which would carry them through the 22 early 1980s.
23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Is there something unique 24 about Indian spent fuel, or is that true all over the world?
Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 MR. DEVINE: As I understand it, the storage arrays
10 1 in India- are unique in that they are six-by-six; Mike; as 2 opposed to the standard seven-by-seven.
3 MR.GUHIN: In terms of the assemblies themselves.
- 4 5
6 There are also specific circumstances surrounding a situation which would be associated with return, which may or may not exist elsewhere, in terms of their cranes and their capabil..:.'-
7 ties, in terms of shipping from --
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You are talking about the 9 local situation?
10 MR. GUHIN: The local situation itself, in terms 11 of transport and these kinds of considerations.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINKSY: I remember a point was
- 13 14 15 made about the lack of containers and so on.
MR. DEVINE: Casks.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
,. Casks. Is this because 16 of the special nature of the fuel? A great deal of fuel is 17 being moved around the world. We have retransfer requests 18 coming in here pretty often.
19 MR. GUHIN: That is not related to the nature 20 of the fuel. As far as I understand it, that is just simply 21 due to their -- there happens to be limited cask availability.
22 As you know, there are very few ships which are transporting 23 this, for example, and that these are, as I understand it, 24 if you lobk at it~ at least their contracts, it i~ (inaudi-ce-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 ble).
11 So there is not only the cask availability, but 2 also shipping. But I think that cask was one of the prime 3 limiting factors in terms of their time estimate, as to taking 4 six years.
5 MR. DEVINE: The Executive Branch also reviewed the 6 question of urgency. As was the case in .the earlier export 7 situation, the urgency here relates to the fuel fabrication 8 facility and not directly to the reactor.at Tarapur.
9 However, if the fabrication facility is affected, 10 then the Indian practice is to turn down reactor output 11 to make in sync so to speak, with the fuel fabrication 12 facility.
- 13 14 15 So that if this license is not issued on a timely basis, it would have an ultimate effect on the reactor at Tarapur.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What is the supply of 17 fuel at the present time?
18 MR. DEVINE: They have on hand, I think, 140 19 assemblies, on hand.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Just in terms of tons of 21 fuel?
22 MR. DEVINE: What they have on hand?
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
24 MR. GUBIN: I don't know that specifically. We Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 have looked at it really in terms of the operations of the
12 fuel complex facility.
2 The Executive Branch goes through this in detail.
3 It is slightly unclear as to some details of that operation.
- 4 5
6 For example, they mention going into a scrap operation; it is unclear whether this is going on right at this time, or whe-ther it would be part of the -- at a later date, and it is 7 unclear, for example, whether they continue to put scrap back 8 in as they are going with fresh feed.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You are not clear then, 10 in terms of how many years' supply there is at the present 11 time?
- 12 MR. DEVINE: Oh, yes.
13 MR. GUHIN: Yes, for the next -- essentially at 14 least for the next r~load for each of the reactors, is avail-
- 15. able in India.
16 And in fact, the .Executive .Branch memo points out, 17 I think, --there is concern there or at least the idea that 18 they.. wish to go to* a new assembly, and '.*.indeed they are 19 building this amount, with a view to being able to redo a 20 fab operation, and be able to shift over to a new assembly.
21 that they consider would be more efficient.
22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let's go on
- 23 MR. DEVINE: The third point raised by the peti-24 tioners was the_ adequacy or the forum in which the President of .
Ace-Federal Aepo"ers, Inc.
l.,/ 25 India, given the nonproliferation assurances alluded to in
13 original State Department paper.
2 The latest State submission notes that he did have 3 conversations with both President Carter and British Prime
- 4 5
6 Minister Callahan earlier this year and cited various other public pronouncements he has made over the course of the last year in which he indicated that India had no need for an 7 explosive capability, they had no intention of detonating 8 another device.
9 Finally, on the question of safeguards adequacy, 10 the latest State Department submission contained nothing new*~
11 In other words, the issue as it has been presented to you*
12 and several others for us, is still with us. We do not have
- 13 14 15 independent, if you will, verification of the adequacy here.
Now, the question you will have to address is whether you want to tackle this issue in the context of either 16 this license application or in the context of a generic hearin 17 on the Indian nuclear relationship.
18 You have before you sepax-ate from this case a 19 draft action plan that the Staff has been working with the 20 Executive Branch on, various options that NMSS has developed.
21 You will be getting comments from IP on that options paper.
22 It would seem to me that the question of IAEA 23 safeguards adequacy should be addressed in that context 24 rather than a specific license application.
Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 Now, turning to the question of a hearing, as I --
14 I thihk the legislation indicates that you-should have a 2 hearing when it would.provide you 3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let's go back to the 4 license. You mentioned that it complied with the -- that 5 the requirements of the new act have been carefully examined 6 by your office; Michael, your office?
7 MR. GUHIN: We .looked at the question, yes, and 8 in terms of the applicable criteria, of course, the sensitive 9 technology is not applicable because we are not dealing with 10 that. But in terms of the others, we have looked at them 11 and considered that the.assurances in the various categories 12 are consistent with the legislation.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Have you examined that?
14 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes; I think they meet the pre-15 sent criteria.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why don't you go on?
17 MR. DEVINE: It seems to me that hearing is war-18 ranted, perhaps,_under three.conditions.
19 One would be when it would provide you with new 20 information, better information which will enable ¥OU to make 21 a more informed decision.
22 The second would be a hearing, if a hearing were 1-e i 23 justified on the basis of elaborating the public record, I
24 separate a_nd apart from what new information it might bring Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 to you.
15
, And finally, whether a heating might be justified 2 as an end itself, as perhaps an earnest of the Commission's 3 commitment to greater public participation in the export 4 process.
s With respect to the first of these, I rather doubt 6 that a hearing will result in any new information, that could 7 be above-:.and beyond this very voluminous file we have before 8 us.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You are referring to a 10 hearing specifically on this license, or a hearing in general?
11 MR. DEVINE: A hearing on this license.
12 Sec.o:ndly, I believe. that the latest State Depart-
- 13 14 15 ment submission, including its enclosures, have been placed in the public document room.
Hence, aside from the classified briefings you 16 received over the course of-the last several months, all this 17 irif.orrnation is available to the public. So I do not believe 18 that a hearing would result in a greater elaboration of the 19 public record.
20 Finally, you do have the option of holding hearings 21 as I indicated, if you believe that it would be justified as
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
an end itself.
Now, that is something that I don't think any of us at this side of the table can comment on. It is some-25 thing that you have to consider.
16 But in summary, I do think that irrespective of 2 your decision on a hearing, that this particul.ar~license 3 application should move ahead.
- 4 5
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
with respect to a hearing tied to this license.
And let' see; that was about a broader hearing, or do your comments apply there, Any thoughts 7 equal]::y?
8 MR. DEVINE:.: : I think they probably would apply 9 equally to a broader hearing. That is assuming that you chose 10 to address the safeguards question separate from India or 11 what ever.
12 MR. GUHIN: I would agree with that, but I would 13 like clarify that in the Executive Branch.'.'S submission, of 14 course, in its language it was very specific in opposing a 15 hearing in conjunction with issuance of this license.
16 So, in fact, this is the Staff view, also, which 17 was put forward. And I think that was the issue that was 18 being confronted when looking at the possibility of a generic 19 hearing as was the earlier one, and that in fact there could 20 be a different array.
21 I think OPE's analysis of the basis::i.and aspects 22 for it, I think, are equally valid, but then one could have 23 a differen:t*'-.array of disadvantages or the extent to which 24 identified disadvantages would actually apply.
'Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 And I don't think we have at this stage, at any
17 rate, we have a clear reading on th.at. We have:*.it from -,the 2 Executive Branch as to how they view it. And we have not 3 addressed that question specifically. ~~~
- 4 s
6 On the face of it, there would be far less MR. DEVINE: To elaborate on that, I think clearly the foreign policy implications of a hearing on a subsequent 7 license or generically, would be far, far less than pulling 8 it on this particular license application.
9 So that would be, as Mike pointed out, perhaps 10 I would say a reason for a hearing, but certainly an argument 11 that, you know, the foreign policy implications, the question 12 of-*_urgency would not arise, if you were to order a generic 13 hearing.
14 For example --
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Were there any commitments 16 made by the Commission in a previous round of hearings*:that 17 would bear on this question?
18 MR. ROTHSCHILD: No, there were not.
19 I would like to reiterate that the Commission 20 in its earlier Tarapur ~-:opinion, took the position that if 21 we held public hearings it would not be tied to the applica-
- 22 tion, specific applications.
23 One of the problems is frequently you may get --
24 the hearing process may get delayed :fr6rn-tbe original schedule Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 that you set forth and people may want extensions of tine to file
18 various pleadings, which the Commission may choose to grant if 2 there is time. And sometimes there is a situatiqn where they 3 may be certain foreign policy pressures to act upon a given 4 license.
5 So the Commission has avoided that in the past by 6 saying we are going to hold a heari~g on the generic issues 7 raised by petitions, without tieing it to a specific license 8 application.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What would a hearing 10 entail, can you sketch out what --
11 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Well, basically~-
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: -- sort of schedule would
- 13 14 15 be involved?
MR. -*._ROTHSCHILD: Basically' what would happen' I thihk,,we would need to issue an order setting forth hearing 16 in a Federal Registernnotice. That would prob~bly ~ake~aco~-
17 couple of weeks to get Commission concurrence on.
18 I think it is going to take three Commissioners in 19 a room raising their hands. It may take us a couple of weeks 20 bnti:Lcwe have a quorum again.
21 I think we can have an order ready for you as soon 22 as a quorum is available,-to issue such an order.
23 I think we would probably waht to leave a couple 24 of weeks for any groups who would like.;to submit of Freedom Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 of Information Act requests for information to do so.
19 I think we can handle them fa+/-rly expeditiously 2 on the FOI it'."equests because NRDC requested:'.:i:nconjunction with 3 the last hearing held in the summer of '76:, all information 4 from the United States government that was available at that 5 time, and they got virtually everything, and there has not 6 been that*much new paper generated in the past 18 months that 7 they might wish to see.
8 So I think we can handle FOI requests fairly ex-9 peditiously.
10 I think you are going to want to give them a 11 couple of weeks to use discovery. I think you are going to 12 want to give them a couple of weeks to submit written sub-13 missions to the Commission. I think you are talking about, 14 you could begin a hearing approximately one month after 15 you issue an 6~der, or *a month to six weeks.
16 MR.KELLEY: Would it be under the new rules by 17 then?
18 MR. ROT.HSCHILD: If the hearing were after May 19 3rd, we would have the new rules in effect.
20 The new legislation also provides that if the 21 Commission would like to adopt temporary proceaures that 22 would cover public participation until May 3rd, we are wel-23 come to do so.
24 .And I believe a paper will be prepared for"-::the Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Commission shortly, suggesting such a course of action to the
20 Commission that would allow us to make these rules effective, 2 you know, if we wanted to hold a hearing at the end of April, 3 or something like,*.that.
4 But I think a reasonable time schedule, in order 5 to give people time to prepare would be a hearing toward the 6 end of April or early May..
7 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: How has discovery .been used 8 in NRC hearings of this sort in the past?
9 MR. ROTHSCHILD: -The Commission took the;-:,posi tion 10 in the Tarapur opinion in 1976, the May' '76 opinion, that 11 discovery should be related to Freedom of Information Act 12 requests.
13 And that has been codified in the new regulations, 14 which have not been effective.
15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: You suggested discovery 16 apart from the POI, I thought.
17 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Discovery has been limited to 18 the FOIA. That's what the new regulations call for. We 19 are a little more elaborate in the sense that we also allow 20 participants to submit questions to the Commission, which they 21 may address to the Executive Branch or to the NRC Staff.
./
22 In the last Tarapur hearing, NRDC submitted about 23 110 or 112 questions to the Commission. We deleted a couple 24 of questions as being irrelevant and submitted t:he,..:rest of Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 it to the State Department and asked .,them*':to respond in writin
21 !
to the 110 questions, which is what the State Department did.
2 We have provided for option as well, in our new 3 regulations. So that-::they can seek information through the
- 4 5
6 Freedom of Information Act and secondly, they can submit questions to the Commission which they would like the Com-missioners' discretion to ask to other participants.
7 If the Commission received such questions, we would 8 need to look at the questions and determine whether we would 9 like to ask them either in the oral hearing or whether we 10 would like to submit them to the Department of State to~.*have 11 them respond in writing, or the NRC Staff or anyone else who 12 would like to have them respond to such questions.
13 But we have not provided for formal interrogatories.
14 We have not provided for adjudicatory procedure. We have not 15 provided for subpoena of witnesses, and we have not provided 16 for cross-examination of witnesses.
17 I think a reasonable schedule is four to six 18 weeks after we issue an order, to hold an oral hearing, if 19 you would like to do so.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: If we take that step, we 21 need a quorum of the Commission.
22 MR. ROTHSCHILD: I think to issue a Commission order 23 we would need a quorum.
24 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: We can't do what we did Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 this morning, in other words.
22 MR. KELLEY: I would hesitate to say that*we:*can 2 do it. We did this morning partly because if we didn't do 3 it this morning, then time would have.run on an opinion.
4 And partly because all we -did was extend the time. So the 5 more exigent the circumstances and the more innocuous is 6 what you do;,_ the more likely the chance to do it.
7 I wouldn't want to say that we couldn't issue such 8 an order. But I have asked the question: Assuming that you 9 want to have hearing, do you really have to have an order 10 in the next week or two, and the answer has been no. So:I 11 don't think you ought to try to put out a formal o~der unless 12 there is some real need for it.
13 CQ.MMISSIONER GILINSKY: ~::'For those, ,who are mystified 0
14 by that, we had Chairman Hendrie on the loudspeaker, par-15 ticipating via electronic means.
16 MR. KELLEY: And in talking to Trip, I gather an 17 order would not be just one sentence that said there?*is going 18 t6be hearing on Tarapur. It would lay out various issues 19 and I don't see how we can do that kind of a thing over the 20 phone.
21 MR. ROTHSCHILD: We are talking about the scope of of 22 the hearing, if you would like to narrow some the issues.
23 Secondly, if the Commission were to decide to issue 24 XSNM-1060, or deny it, I think we need an opinion to explain AcesFederal Reponers, Inc.
25 the Commission's action, setting forth, looking at the new
23 export licensing criteria.
2 As you know, last time we issued a C6MM.issIONER GILINSKY: If we have an opinion 4 then, presumably, we need a vote to approve an opinion.
5 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.
6 COMM.ISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, then 7 MR. KELLEY: You can issue now and explain later, 8 can't you?
9 MR. ROTHSCHILD: I suppose you can direct Staff 10 to act upon XSNM-1060 and issue an opinion.
11 COMM.ISS~ONER GILINSKY: So far, no Commissioner 12 has acted on this matter, and I think what we will do is 13 consult with the other two commissioners and deal with that 14 matter.
15 MR. KELLEY: But you don't need a formal vote to 16 approve that license, because the authority to do so has been 17 delegated.
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: To the Staff.
19 MR. KELLEY: Yes, except the concurrence process.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: That is if -- now, let 21 me ask you why you feel that you need an opinion, that an 22 opinion is appropriate.
23 MR. ROTHSCHILD: There are a couple issues. One, 24 if you are talking about the merits of 1060, I think you re-Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 member last time when the Commission issued a license, I guess
24 XSNM 845; NRDC immediately rushed into court seeking to enjoin 2 that shipment of the material.
3 The court enjoined for two days, three days, until 4 we could file a brief. We then filed a brief and the court 5 then removed the injunction. The material was allowed to 6
) 7 This could happen again. We have no idea what 8 NRDC plans to do.
9 I think the Off ice of General Counsel *.-feels more 10 comfortable, if there is going to a court challenge, if we 11 have a written Commission opinion:*j.ustifying our order, 12 particularly since the court has seen several other orders
- 13 14 15 on India, showing every time we have issued a license, we have issued an opinion explaining what we were doing. And I think it makes our action easier to defend in court, if they 16 were to seek an injunction if we.chave a full written Com-17 mission opinion explaining what we were doing, rather than jus 18 informing the court that we issued 1060, because this litiga-19 tion is still pending before the court.
20 We did consolidate, which will allow the 0
Com-21 mission to act upon i060, but we will need to inform the 22 court of our action.
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: The court has had this 24 for quite awhile now.
Ace-Federal Repo"ers, Inc.
25 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes. Unfortunately, there.:.is
25 really no ready mechanism to get the court to move.
2 (Laughter.)
3 As you know, we recently, early this week, filed
- 4 5
6 a motion wi th*~the court, explaining the impact of the new legislation upon that litigation. We took the view that-*.the legislation says that we are not required to hold adjudicatory 7 hearings and informed the court of that.
8 We £eel that effectively resolves one of the 9 issues in the dispute.
10 The standing issue still remains before the court.
11 MR. KELLEY: Isn't one of the contentions --
12 there are various contentions one contention, if you will,
- 13 14 15 is license specific, saying, the questioning the need for this shipment now.
And if they are, isn't it appropriate to at least 16 say why this one is needed now?
17 Some of the others, like the long-term nuclear 18 relationship with India, you can call that more a sort of 19 generic issue, I would think.
20 MR. GUHIN: Would any of these risks that you*.:
21 see, Trip, be mitigated through -- at least to any extent
- 22 by not simply informing the court that it has been issued, 23 but if you will, in effect a brief opinion, if the Commission 24 were to see that necessary, which would also commit them-Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 selves to a full opinion in a short time period?
26 1 I was just wondering if that would at least reduce 2 any of the risks you see.
3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: In any case, an opinion 4 would require a Commission vote. It woula require that s three Commissioners be present.
6 MR . ..ROTHSCHILD: And we are recommending an opinion I
7 in this case.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You are frowning there.
9 MR.KELLEY: I am not sure .it would.
10 The issue in question is this licence; correct?
11 MR. ROTHSCHILD: But you would issue an order to 12 go alo~g with it explaining.
- 13 14 15 MR. KELLEY: Well, maybe we shouldn't debate legal issues at.~:length right now, but my rea.ction is that if the license -- the license itself you can cut loose with 16 no reasons at all, right?
17 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Absolutely.
18 MR. KELLEY: If you can cut a license loose with 19 no reasons at all, why do you need a vote to write an opin,-l 20 ion? I am not so sure you couldn't circulate it and get it 21 approved.
22 Just leave, "it is so order," off the last sen-23 tence.
24 (Laughter.)
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 The license is the operative document, and that is
27 1 gone.
2 So I don't know. We can think about that a little 3 further, but --
4 What do you think, Joanne?
5 MS. BECKER: I tend to agree with you, that there 6 is no need to have a meeting *to consider an* opinion.
7 MR. KELLEY: If we have already let the license 8 MS. BECKER: That's right; sure.
9 MR. GUHIN: . Could I ask one thing here on 10 the -- the Staff has made its view clear publicly that it 11 does not favor delay*:on::the:*_1icense on this because of the 12 hearing matter and it feels that there should hot be,, a hear-
- 13 ing in conjunction with the *license.
14 And this regard and to what Trip had said earlier, 15 I think it should be added if the Commission feels that a 16 generic hearing on continued supplies to India,~or perhaps 17 even a generic hearing on simply some of the issues raised 18 in these mot.ions, would be in order, or was warranted, adding 19 to one of Trip's options here; I don't think in that light, 20 if those issues weren't there, that one need wait at all, 21 for further Executive Branch views on the second pending 22 application, 1222. I think one could proceed, if it is 23 decided to do so, qud:te apart from that, because those may 24 be some time.
Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 As we know, the supply covered by this pending
28 license is estimated to keep the NMC fuel complex in operation 2 for about 18 weeks. The next license is for a substantially 3 longer period of time.
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I think that:" is 5 what Trip was saying, at least, if we not tieing up the 6 licenses.
7 I wonder if you could just clarify one point for 8 me. What does the legislation say about the imposition of 9 a requirement on full safeguards coverage?
10 What are the time limits on that.
11 MR. DEVINE: Unless :the,".cri teria is met; namely~;
12 full-scope safeguards -- and correct me if I:r:i.a.m wrong, 13 Trip -- are in effect after 18 months --
14 COMMISSu:ONER GILINSKY: From the signing of the 15 bill?
16 MR. DEVINE: From the signing of the bill, there 17 shall be no export of any material which how does it 18 read -- is slated to be exported with 24 months.
19 MR. ROTHSCHILD: If an .application is filed 18" 20 months after the bill was signed, full-scope safeguards 21 apply.
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Repo"ers, Inc.
That requirement also will apply if the applica-tion if filed with the Commission within -- before 18 months, but the shipment would not occur until 24 months after the 25 bill has gone into effect.
29 So in other words, if you filed an application at 2 the 16th month, but the shipment isn*'~t going to take place for 3 another year, the full-scope safeguards do apply.
4 COM.MISSIONER GILINSKY: You mean in 26 months?
5 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Yes.
6 MR. GUHIN: Or more 'starkly, ~if we got an applica~
7 tion today which we may well have, but if one came in today 8 which was not to be shipped until 24 months after March 10, 9 1978, then the full-scope would have to apply.
10 MR. KELLEY: Otherwise, i t is just applications 11 that are filed 18 months after the bill is enacted.
12 MR. GUHIN: Even if we acted on it in two months, 13 it would have to apply.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Peter?
15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: No questions.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Unless anybody has any-17 thing else to mention here, I think we will have to discuss 18 this with the other Commissioners, and at least one of them 19 was not here because of unforeseen circumstances.
20 And we will act on the matter then.
21 22 (Whereupon, the hearing in the above-entitled 23 matter was adjourned at 11:16 a.m.)
24 Ace-Federal Reponers, Inc.
25