ML22230A177
| ML22230A177 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/05/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780605 | |
| Download: ML22230A177 (1) | |
Text
RETURN TO SECRETA~'/\\T RECORDS N U CLE A R R E G U l Ai O R Y CO MM I S S I o* N IN THE MATTER OF:
DISCUSSION OF DRAFT TESTIMONY ON WASTE MANAGEMENT LEGISLATION Place
- Date
- Washington, D. C.
- Monday, 5 June 1978 A.CE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
OfficiJl.J Reporten
.i4A North Ccpirol Street Washington, D.C.20001 NATlONWIDE COVERAGE* DAILY Pages 1-110 Telephone:
(202 ) 3.J.7-3700
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on
- Monday, June 5, 1978 in the Cammi ss ion I s o.ffi ces at 1717 H Street, N. l*I. ~ \\*lash i ngton, D. -C.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This trar:s.cript*
1 has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intenqed solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the fanna1 or informal
- record of decision of the matters dis_cussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessari1y reflect final determinations or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or arg:.1ment contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
CR 7792 LEONE:dic erm 2
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25 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION PUBLIC MEETING DISCUSSION OF DRAFT TESTIMONY ON WASTE.MANAGEMENT LEGISLATION Conference Room (1130) 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
Monday.,_ 5 *June 1978 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at l:'45 p.m.
BEFORE:
DR. JOSEPH M. HENDRIE, Chairman PETER A. BRADFORD, Commissioner VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner RICHARDT. KENNEDY, Commissioner PRESENT:
SAMUEL CHILK, Secretary
- c. STOIBER D. RATHBURN L. GOSSICK
- s. MEYERS M..MALSH L. $LAGGIE H. SHAPAR
- s. TRUBATCH 1-A
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2 P R O C E E D I N G S C0MMISSIDNER HENDRIE: Commission will come to o.rder.
3 I think we ought to go ahead, as Commissioner 4
Bradford will Join us in a moment.
5 Subject at hand is discussion of testimony 6
Cammi ss ion,wi 11 give on June 14th _in particular.
This may 7
turn out to be.one of thos.e pieces,of testimony of mutual use, 8
also, so it.might be given in other places as w.eJl.
9 We have a draft at hand, first draft in hand from 10
~ounselJs offi~e.
We had last week discussion of the sta.ff
.11 paper on waste management, and in particular, on.what might 12 be appropriate in the staffJs view, modiLication of the 13 1-4 present statute in that area.
!,think our aim this afternoon is to go as far J 5 _ _.fo_rward as we can toward producing the Commi..ss ion--' s co.11 egi al 16 testimony.
The tfme schedul.e is not a..11 that generous.
We 17 will hav.e to complete this testimony by.a.week from today.
18 And there have been seve.ral other o.ccasions allowed during l 9 the.w;eek to work further on it.
20 In other words, if we. were successful in ge.tting
.21 through it this afternoon, why, that would be very desirable.
22 And indeed, it seems.to me that as long as the Commission 23 seems to be working usefully forward on the testimony, I 24 propose to sacri f Lee. th.e other meeting that has been 25 scheduled this aftern.oon in order to be able to keep going as
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long as the Commissioners-can stay with the.meeting.
Carl, you seem to be the drafter of the thing at 3
hand.
Would you like to say a thing -0r two about it?
4 MR. SIOIBER:
Perhaps just a brief introduction.
5
.IJd like to say that we did attempt to reflect in the 6
ini~ial draft some of the thoughts that came out of the 7
discussion o.f last Thursday.
We have, since the time the 8
draft.was cir.culated, received additional thoughts from the 9
staff offices, from ELD, which I think can carefully be 10 incorporated, also *
.ll L think it-'s basically a document for discussion and 12
- e donJt take any particular pride of authorship in it.
In 13 fact, the next time, we-'11 attempt to get your name spalled 14
.correctly, Mr. Chairman.
15 And there are a variety of other stylistic things 16
,whlch need to be cleared up.
l7 18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Details, details, details.
MR. STOIBER:
It is probably~over-long and can stand 19 some cutting, and~therefore we.would be interested in th9se 20 areas which you think we.need to address, as.well as omissions
.21 in the testimony that we have, that.we have missed.
22 I might go briefly over the structure of the 23 testimo.ny to give you an idea of how.we framed it.* We fram.ed 24 it into basica 11 y four par.ts.
25 The f.irst is a brief introduction on page I and 2,
2 4
talking about the need for a revision in the statutory framework.for the handling of waste management regulation.
3 And we do support the notion that legislation would be 4
desirable in this regard.
5 The second portion, on page 2 through 6, is a brief 6
prospective review of what we view to be the present NRC 7
statutory authority in the waste management area.
8 After Me ~omplete that, we move into ths main body of 9
the te,st imo ny on pag.e s 6 through 14, where,we try to frame a 10 statement in the Commi.ssion-' s views about.what it felt was
.11 the ~proper.sc.op.e1 o.f NRC jurisdictic:,n-o,ver.waste management 12
.issuest identi.fying,,first of all, areas in which our 13 jurisdiction £ould be properly expanded; and identifying also, 14 areas in present bills before the Committee which are 15
_ scheduled for inclusion in NRC-'s jurisdiction,.which w.e 16 thought would not be useful.
17 Basically, w.e involved in that discussion.existing 18 Department of Energy facilities, future Department of Energy 19 research and development facilities, mill tailings, and.then, 20 a discussion at the end about a proposal for a presidential 21 exemption.for csrtain facilities from NRC regulation.
22 Th.e final or.fourth portion of the paper was 23 something of a grab-bag section, in which we idantifisd 24 three -- what we regard to be important issues, that we 25 address.ad separately.
Those.were:
the role of the stat.e
2 5
governments in the process; the Lssue of handling alternative sites; and-the question of ~hether or not the NRC should 3
engage in study and report on basic waste management 4
questions.
5 The a pp.roach he r.e was not to burrow into the 6
statutory language of any of the proposals currently before 7
the Commission, before the Commi~tee; but, to attempt to deal 8
with g.eneral issues and to state a philosophical point of view 9
on.each of th.e issues.
JO The.way the Commission has often dealt with JI legislative proposals in the past is to issue a general set of 12 testimony describing its approach to issues, and,then 13 including, as an attachment to that, a dstailed section by 14 section analysis or drafting suggestions on specific 15 proposals.
I would think that perhaps th is is the approach 16 which might be fruitful here, also.
17 So we offer this as a document for discussion, and 18 would be m.ost anxious to have your comments upon it.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Why don--'t.we start at the 20 b.eginning and progress to the rear of the document?
The
-21 Phoenician method.
22 23 MR. STOIBER.:
I might say, in th.e introduction, one th.ought.
Th.e staff paper, as it came up, sought, with 2A variable success, to Jidentify a unifying principle or concept 25 to guide. th.e Congr.ess in the regulation of this area.
The
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principle that.was offer.ed was one o_f equivalency, or that equivalently dangerous.wastes should be related in an 3
equi;vaLent fashion.
Howev.er, our perc.eption.of the Commission 4
discussion of, this issue led us to believe that it was 5
extre.mely hard to reatly place all the kinds of activities 6
that we were talking about,within the scope of this uni.tying 7
principle.
8 We canvassed our thoughts on that again, in an 9
attempt to do som.ething of that nature, and have to concede 10
_failure.
So the testimony as.written now doe.s not appeal to
.II any sort of general philosophical concept of that time.
If 12 there are such critters running around that the Commission can 13
_focus on, th.at might be a desirable effort, also.
But.we 14 found it extremely hard to do that, and that is the 15 "perspecti,ve that w.e wrote th.e testimony from.
16 COMM I SSIDNER GI LINSKY:
This is.w.ri tten on your 17 perception of the previous discussion?
18 19 MR. STOIBER:
Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let's see.
In the first thr_ee 20 paragraphs, pages l and the top paragraph of pag.e 2, there is 21
., this general introduction.
22 The only substantive question that I can really 23 2-4 25 re.call is whether we agree that the present statutory frame.work for regulating the waste disposal matters could stand some imp.rovement.
And unless we, you know, are firm of
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7 ths opinion that it1 s splendid as it is, why, it seems to me the thrust her.a is reasonable.
I think what.we.might do is 3
just take out indi vidua.l.cuts at the words in those sect ions,
-4 and.th.en do some !iterating, and maybe if we ne.ed to come back 5
and sit over them lat.er.on, I don 1 t --
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
There1 s only one thought that 7
I had here.
We 1 re not trying.to set a statutory framework for*
8 regulating waste management policy.
9 MR. STOIBER.:
That*'s right.
We caught that JO over-reaching, L think.
That is correct.
- 1 1 12 13 14 15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
It-"s a g..ood try.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
Regulating nuclea.r pow.er waste management?
MR. STOIBER:
Right.
We-'ve also used the adj.ectives "disjointed" and 16
- 11 inadequate~* to describe the curr_ent system.
That may warrant 17 a little toning down.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
I prefer to put it in a more 19 positi:ve sens_e.
For. things like that,.why don-'t the people 20 make individual_whittles, and then lst 1 s circulate, and they 21 maybe we 1 ll settle down with some differences on the.whLttl.es 22 and ha:ve to meet later.
But.why.don 1 t we not.word anything 23 2-4 25 here on that stuff coilectively at this point.
Starting, theA,.with the. sec.and paragraph on page 2,
.we pr..oceed to bri..efly review three pages.
The present I
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8 regulatory authority in the waste arsa.
2 On the assumption that counsel-'s o.ffice is qualifi.ed 3
as the next man to read the Energy Reorganization Act of prior 4
statutes, why, I would suggest here again, that w.e simply 5
individually scan it and --
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I have a question more than 7
anything on page 3 -- long paragraph, about the,middle of the 8
page.
It says, "Storage of spent fuel involves the same 9
techni.cal problems and level of hazard as the storage of 10 high-level waste.ff I-'m not sure that that-'s technically
. I 1 accurate, 1 s it?
12 13 problems.
There may be similarities, but they-'re.not the 14 same p.robl.ems.
One thing to deal.with, for example, the 15 transurani.cs, the high-level materiaL which has been here 16 li.qu.efied or solidified.
It-'s been s.eparated already.
That-'s 17 one character of the problem, I think is a rather different 18 problem than might be involved in storing spent.fuel, which 19 has a particular character of its own.
And I. think that may 20 be a.mi s.leadi.ng sentence.
I don*'t th ink it-' s an accurate one.
.21 MR. STOIBER:
We can leave th.e same thought by saying 22 they-'re equally di.fferent or *--
23 24 25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Why don*'t you say "similar"?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
Involves -- y.es, similar technical Problems and levels of hazard as the storage.
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9 COMM.ISSIONER KENNEDY:
It-'s the level of radiation hazard, is n*' t it ?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
Y.es.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Again, the hazards are 5
different, too.
You're not 6
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If you say similar levels of 7
haZard,.why --
8 COMMISSH>NER GILINSKY:
You mean you're talking about 9
as compared to the liquid?
10 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Yes.
See,.we-'_re dealing with
.11 a host of different possible storage situations, given the 12
~ondi+/-ion of that waste that ~e're talking about.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I was saying, it.was 14
~omparable to solidLfying.
15 16 17 COMMISS.IONER KENNEDY:
Yes, that-'s probably true.
COMM ISSI.ONER GILINSKY:
We-11, that can be fixed up.
COMM! SSJONER KENNEDY:
Y.es.
I"m just suggesting that 18 it needs to be fixed.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I would drop the second 20 paragraph on page 5.
21 22 23 2-4 25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Page 5.
MR. STOIBER:
.. This,.we basically took from the DOE memorandum.
COMMISSI.ONER GI LINSKY-=
What iL do.es, it s.ets up the argument for not.messing with the existing DOE waste, you
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know.
So we donJt have the luxury of starting with a clean slate and a..11 that sort of business, not looking for a 3
philosophical ideal.
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COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What was your point again?
COMM ISSI.ONER GI LINSKY:
We 11, I don-'t think it*' s 6
necsssary at this point.
There are differences in existencs 7
With n.ew facilities and.existing _facilities.
But this just 8
takes a poin,t of vtew that,we oughtn*'t to, you kno.w, m.ess with 9
What is.
And unless that is the point of visw you want to JO adopt --
,11 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
You don't need to do that 12 here, in any event.
13 C.OMMJSSIONER GILINSKY.:
You don't need to do that 14 here in any event, right.
15 16 accura.cy.
17 18 19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Okay.
Page 6, a small.point of COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Did w.e comment on the --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE I The Domenic i ma-tters?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
We. just provided language,,we 20 didnJt comment.
21 22 23 here.
24 MR. STOIBER:
That*' s right.
COMMISSH>NER KENNEDY:
It.;,s just a languag..e point
,MR. MEYERS:
The le.tters we provide.d are letters to 25 the Congress c.omm.enting o.n those bi...lls.
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.1 l 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2-4 25 J l COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
This implies that.we-'ve already commented in r,esponse to your -
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE~
Where is that?
COMM.ISSI0NER KENNEDY:
It say.s licensing of.waste, DOE h.as already commented.
MR. STOIBER:
W.e could p.robably remove that last phrase there, take th.e licensing of existing facilities.
I think also, as a fourth builet there, ~e should include mLlL tailing, since,we hav.e made much of that in the later portion of the paper.
MR. SHAPAR.:
The R&D exc2ptlon is now in the Act.
I sn*'t that som.et.hing that should be regulated, as I read. the thrust of the other testimony?
C0MMISSI.ONER KENNEDY:
The quest ion is, should it be a matter for discussion?
Also in that catsgory, an item that-'s potentially
.waste.
And fina..Uy, the short-term exc.eption in 202 for whether or not that-'s something you ail want to l icens.e.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
At the start, Carl, you said you didnJt have any --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
Hang on.
Let.me go back and see where weJre going with_this.
~ WeJ ve d.i.tched the phras.e "on which the Commission has already commented.in responding to Senato.r Domenic i."
We will
.add buUet four, licensing of mi.ll tailings.
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- ;. c 12 Carl, I assume you can --
MR. STOIBER-:
Right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
draft a suitable phrass to cm,er the. thing.
Now, Howard, you had additional things that ought to
.be additional bullets?
I*'m flagging them as potential bullets.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
These are,ma.-tters that are discussed later.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I.,m just saying it as a question
- Numb.er one, the R&D exc.eption.
Do you want to remove that or not?
Numb.er t.wo, the sho.rt~ter:m stuff.
That., s no.w not
.covered.under the Energy Reorganization Act in 202(4), I
_think.
And finally, lo.w-level wastes,_.which the Deutch
.r:.eport from DOE indicates they.,re prepar.ed to hazi.re licensed.
COMMISSI.ONER GILINSKY:
We.11, these com.e up.
MR. STOIBER:
Exc.ept for the low-,level.wastes.
COMMISSI.ONER GILINSKY:
You"re sugg.esting.. __
MR. SHAPAR.:
If you"r.e inclined to feel that they should.be l ic.ensed --
MR. GOSSICK.:
Of course.
Of course.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
The introductory phrase says the Comm*ission *has..,identified_ specific areas.which it believes
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13 r.equi.re clear regulatory authority by the NRC.
MR. SHAPAR.:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
And I-'m not sure that 4
conclusion is reached.
5 COMMISSIDNER GILINSKY.:
Well, not in this draft, but 6
it-'s a conclusion that could be reached by the Commissi()n.
7 COMMISSIDNER KENNEDY.:
If it is reached, then it 8
makes sense.
9 MR. SHAPAR:
It-'s an important point that I. think JO
.will £olor the rest of the testimony in the event that you
.1 I dee id.e you want a l i c.ensing.
12 1.3 14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
The Lo.w-le:veL stuff does not turn up later on.?
MR. STOIBER:
No.
We really haven-'t discussed t.hat 15 in any length.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let-'s see.
There"s a paragraph on 17 page,11 on mi 11 tailings that might move forward if you make 18 a bullst on.mLll tailings.
True?
19 20 MR. STOIBER..:
Right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Make a note on that.
Is it mor.e 21 than a.. bu_llet, or. do.es that include other things?
22 23 24.,
25 MR. STOIBER:
We actually go on for about three pag.es on discussing,mi 11 tailings.
That-'s another issue, whether or not,.by virtue of the fact that you,wi 11 be subm i.tting a separate proposal, if you want to merely if you want to
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if you want to inc..! ude that extensive a discussion
.here, as you have.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I.want the extensive discussion because the mill tailings bill is not in hand.
It is not up there yet and -
MR. SHAPAR:
It raises a further question as to whether or not you,want.to push this bill in that testimony.
MR. STOIBER.:
We have given it a slight push.
MR. SHAPAR:
Right.
Push, yes9 MR. STOIBER:
Not particularly -- not exclusion of what is in this bill.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
You obviously ha;ve to balance the extent as tci how you push with ths B£tual state of play.
It.,s going to be some time before it gets up there.
You don't
,want to se.11 it as though it.,s already on th.e platter.
MR. SHAPAR:
No.
I think the predicate would be that i t.,s gone.
COMMI SS !ONER KENNEDY:
That., s right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
It.,s not clear that..it.will, in fact, be at hand by the 14th.
MR. SHAPAR.:
Okay.
CHAIRMAN.HENDRIE:
Let*'s s_ee.
Well, if this is to be a list of all of the areas in which the Commission believes it r.equires.n.ew or,clarified regulatory authority, then indeed, it.ought to include a..11 of thes.e things as to the extent we
11902.]
j.wb 2
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I think you went further upstream than my headwaters.
Howe-ver, the qu.estion of 3
solidification f_acilities raised by the staff is an 4
interesting one.
5 I don-'t know whether it di scu.sses it in the context 6
in _this testimony or not, I must say.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: "Well, it depends on how 8
you come out on some of the other issues.
If you basicaily 9
.. think that NRC ought to be regulating government wasts 10 activities, then you come out saying that part of it ought to J l be regulated, too.
12 13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE1 Weil, but there might be -- I
.might come down differently on a waste solidification -- I 14 guess, not necessarily.
I don-'t know.
15 Let-'s put solidification with a question mark 16 beside it.
As.we go on through these other items, I suppose 17 if we develop as we make decisions, why.we-',11 want bullets; 18 okay?
19 20 MR. STOIBER:
Right.
CHAJRMAN HENDRIE:
What it suggests to me, from a 21 format standpoint, is that each bullet and where it-'s 22 discussed in the subsequent text could stand a lLttle heading, 23 24 25 though you-'v.e got to list the bullets and go back in the text to find headings according to ea~h one of those.
Okay?
Onc.e.we get beyond the bullets, we*'-11 need some
2 16 sort of a further general _heading that says J'Other Matters, 11 or.whatever.
And then again, to list the subh_eadings so that 3
people have some chance of perc.ei ving the -- where.weJre going 4
with the testimony.
5 So ths b~llsts would include the present three 6 -
miil tailings.
Anybody got any objection to "low-level waste 7
rsgula ting*"
I am not -- "the material"?
I think -- it 8
seems to me.weJve been fairly well agreed on that point.
9 Peter, any difference there?
10 JI 12 13 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
No.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Okay.
MR. SHAPAR:
There is a slight anomaly.
Apparently it might g.et at the OE-produced -- accelerator-produced 14 isotopes and naturally occurring isotopes, but not regulate 15 the private sector.
16 It raises a question, at least.
17 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
In a 11 the university 18 re.sear,ch facilities which might be producing the same material?
19 MR. SHAPARJ We wouldnJt be extending our authority 20 into the private sector at a,11 in connection with those two 21 items.
But, by one construction of the bill, we might be 22 g_e+/-ting at DOE.
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Hang onto it and remember it for 24 a time when _we come up with DOE-facility language.
Let me see 25 if I can get b.eyond page 6.
I I 11902.. 3 jwb 2
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Can I comment on that?
1-'m instructed that there isn-'t any principle here 3
for the criterion for deciding what it makes sense to regulate 4
and.what it doesn-'t.
I thought the staff-'s criterion.was a 5
pretty reasonable one.
6 You may want to have another condition that 7
indicates what sort of exceptions you-'d make from that.
But 8
otherwise, you're left with a bunch of patches or bandaides 9
with no particular rati-onale.
It looks to me like we*'re 10 simply -- or at least this draft is suggesting that NRC expand
.I 1 in a numb.er of areas.
12 1 think every one Qf them is an area that DOE has 1.3 in some way suggested that it would be okay for us to regulate.
14 I don-'t see any other unifying principles.
15 MR. STOIBERJ Well, I think in our floundering to 16 identify _one, I think I agr.ee with you that the concept the 17 staff presented that equi va 1 entl y hazardous was.te should be 18 regulated equivalantly is correct.
But, you need a sort of 19 a ~orollary.
And I guess th.e coroilary that would apply to 20
,What we*'v.e done he re is that y.ou do not, however, need to 21 license wastes_which are being adequately handled by another 22 government agency.
23 And then, there-'s a time factor which comes in 24 here.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, that's fine.
We can
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18 argue about what the right constraints is, and you can say equi-valent hazards should be equivalently regulated.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
You could say there"s a 4
general principle, but that does not go to say that, 5
nec.essarily, that only is that possible if a single agency 6
does +/-he regulating.
7 It is possible.
Two agencies ~ould regulate on 8
_identical.criteria! bases.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I think you do need some 10 kind of principle that, you.know, provides a criterion for J l deciding whether or not it" s useful for NRC to expand this 12 authority or not.
13 MR. SHAPAR:
If y-au go to the 11hazard" rationale, 14 it takes you immediately beyond 11 waste, 11 doesn-'t it?
15 C.OMMI SSIONER GILI NSKY.:
Yes; but I mean, we-'re 16 de.aling.with waste today.
I mean, we can-'t deal with 17 ev.erything.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We,.,11 propose a somewhat 19 different basis for NRC,.,s.waste management regulation.
That 20 is: that it*'s the primary objective of_ this agency to deal 21
.wi+/-h the commercial nuclear enterprise.
You regulate so as to 22 se.e that the public heal th and safety is protected, and so 23 24 25 forth.
It s.eems to me, therefore, th.at i.f the primary thrust of our initiative should be toward maintaining the
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19 c.ornrnission"'s authority to regulate products in the commercial nuclear enterprise,w.e cover tolerably we.11, and imposi-ng to 3
prove somewhat frontend; and the backend,would also be covered 4
tolerably.we.11, and there may be som.e improvements.
5 Now in addition to that, and.for reasons best known 6
by the drafters of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1 74, NRC 7
was also told overs~~~ waste and long-term waste storage 8
facilities, that other portions of the government might want 9
to put in place to handle their high-level waste.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, I mean, that1 s a
.11
.differ.ent point of vie.w.
12 13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Just so --
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
And I think it can be 14 useful to expr.ess any point of v;ie.w here, one or another, in 15 that one records the regulation o~ government activity as 16 basically.anomalous.
And I ~ean, by exception bases.
17 18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yes.
MR. STOIBER:
I. think there may be another concept 19 Which mediates betKeen the two points of view.
And that is:
20 That for activities or for wastes.which can be expected to 21 have a lifs much beyond the regular institutional life of 22 another government agency, these are the kinds of things this 23 Congress.wanted us to become involved in.
24 However, if these activities are of a short-range 25 nature, connected with a specific facility, and would not
2 20 continue over a lengthy period of time, then these_ought to be
_reserved from the 0th.er agencies, like the Department of 3
Energy.
4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I~m not sure.
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Of course, the.re is a 6
possibility of laying out two different approaches as different 7
choices, since both of them <would become what Congress intends 8
of us an~way.
9 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What you intend to regulate, JO wastes ---.here-'s how to do that, if the intention is to do JI it commercially..
And if you intend us to go beyond that, the 12 additionaL things would b.e required to do it -- not only the 13 14 15 cost-benefit of doing that.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
It seems to me, L think that 16 would be a.useful approach test imonia lly, any.way.
And_ then 17 how we conclude is something else again.
But I_think that 18 that kind of exposition*-- and it need not be a lengthy one 19 would be a_useful one to put on the record, to start with.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If it~s agreeable, I think that 21 may be a more agreeabLe proposition.
You know, the fact that 22 we come hen~ to discuss, it seems to me, the r.oot question in 23
.. this testmony,,whether it needs the Commission to support the 24 thrust, to extend Commission authority over all of the DOE 25 facilities past, present, and in the future.
Dr, whether
21 2
w.e-'.11 suggest to the Congre.ss that. this is more likely to paralyze us than anything else, and that Me are advising 3
against it.
4 It seems to be fair enough to say -- and I do 5
indeed helieve --- that these products that have approximately 6
similar forms and hazards inevitab.ly have to be treated in 7
ways which proNide comparable levels of public p~otection.
8 That do.esn-'t necessarily seem to me to require 9
that everything be regulated by NRC.
But r.ather, agr.eement on JO protection level standards for various classes of waste.
J l And if you phrase the philosop.hy that way -
that 12 comparable wastes ought to be treated in a way.which provides 13 comparable levels of protection to the public then I don-'t 14 think it gives you that.
And it doesn-'t seem to me to giv.e 15 You any great guiding principle which allows us to go down 16 the lin.e and say:
Okay, this is NRC-'s, and. this is somebody 17 else -- NRC, DOE, or.whatever.
18 So I know, having stated it, I have no objection 19 to repeating that principle in the testimony.
But see, I 20 don-'t know that it gets you, then, ~o a place where, on that 21 basis, you can make decisions on down the line as to whether 22 these. things -- given things -- should o.r should not be under 23 NRC authority.
24 C.OMMISSIONER BRADFORD-:
The Commission do.esn-'t 25 r.ea.lly, either.
The power plant *-
2 22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE,:
No.
No.
These purposes -- it's quite clear that we"'ve long since decided how to treat our 3
generating machines owned b~ the government through an 4
instrumentality like EVA.
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD-:
But then, what do you do 6
with enrichment?
7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
How do you.mean?
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: -Well, a government facility 9
that.makes urani.um fuel and sells it to private utilities.
10 It-'s not a very differ.ent commercial feature.
.I I CHAIRMAN HENDRIE,:
That"'s true.
But we don"'t 12 regulate the enrichmsnt plants.
L3 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
We do regulate fuel 14 _ 1abrication plants.
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
And_the power-producing.machines 16 are inciuded in the Atomic Energy Act.
So, sort of that 17 division was made by the Congress in drafting that legislation 18 long ago.
19 I agree that the instrumentalities involved have 20 the same kind of an aspect as does the government.
21 C.OMMI SSIONER GI LINSKY:
As Howard pointed out the 22 other day on the Energy Act, it didn"'t draw the line between 23
<lOVernment facilities and private ones.
It dr.ew it betw.een 24 the ARC-'s own facilities and other go-vernment _facilities 25 excepting the weapons +/-acilities.
But other governmental
2 23 nonweapons-related facilities.were regulated roughly in the same manner as commercial facilities.
3 So itJs ~erfectly consistent with the original Act 4
to have DOE 1acilities regulated by NRG now that there is a 5
split bet~een -
now that theyJre no longer joined in the 6
same agency.
7 So -- WeJl, at any rate, at a minimum, one could 8
simply lay out two approaches to it and suggest that -- decide 9
on how one,wants to come down at the end.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We can try -- if the drafters
.11 want to -- try some language that might do that, but I have a J 2 notion that whichever way you phrase it you won"t find either 13 general.principle all that great a proposition for deter.mining 14 how we com.e down on the indiYidual items as.we go on through.
15 I think dealing with those items will get us there 16 a little faster.
17 MR. SHAPAR.:
One other approach which is more of 18 a -- I gue.ss I ca.11 it a strictly pragmatic approach.
I would 19
~think, based on pr.evious discussion, when a license WOOF'S.
20 no matter what goes in there, at least based on what anybody 21 has discussed about whatJs going in there, is a mixed bag.
22 They put fuel elements in there, and the high-level 23 military.
So, you know, that*'s one facility, no matter.how 24 they mix it up.
At least based on prior discussions, I would 25 assume youJd.want a lic.. ense.
77.02.10 jwb 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 JO
,.11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 24 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
That--'s to the quest ion of whether yoLt're licensing on a materials basis or on a --
MR. SHAPAR:
That can be either way.
I-'m just
.looking at the materials waste; and similarily, I suppose, you could bas.e some decisions on low-leveJ burial grounds, just looking at it as.a "facility" a_nd just deciding -- any other facility beyond W.PPSS *- and lo.w-lev.eJ burial grounds, if you want to lic.ense low-.level burial grounds, that you would want to llcense and regulate, this.doesn-'t give you any
_ philosophical premis.e whatever.
But I--'m just pointing out that you can approach the problems in terms of the actual.waste burial and storage facilities themsel¥es -
based on facilities, you know, that are going to come intQ existence in the next 10 years, or what~s now in existence that you think you might want to regulate.
It--'s a completely empirical approach, as contrasted with trying to develop a philosophical rationale which I agree ~1th Carl, it--'s going to be extremely hard to come by.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Look,.we--'ve haggled some about philosophy, and if the drafters feel brave and capable, why, I*'d be glad to encourage them to try a couple paragraphs of
.. philosophy, one way or the 0th.er.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY.:
Dick was suggesting something beyond that, as I understand,what he said-:
That if
2 3
25 you go one way, you.want to license.facilities; and if you go the other way, it-'s a different set of facilities.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
My idea was:
If you-'re 4
going to con.fin.e yourself in some way to the strictly 5*
commercial sector -- and to understand it,. this would require 6
you to follow in sequenc.e; if, in addition to that, you were 7
to add these types of facilities-:--.for examp1e, low-level 8 ~*
facili ttes which are now operated by the DOE on a strictly 9
commercial basis, al though they have some co.mmercial aspects.
JO In fact, some. of them, to.my understanding, are actua.lly
.ti acc.epting for burial commercially generated material coming 12 out nf some of the hospital research facilities.
13 Now if you.want to g.et into that, then it,will take 14 addi ti.anal steps of the following kind, and there wi..11 be 15 respur.ces associated with these tnings which e:verybody ought 16 to_understand.
17 And if you go on further than that, the question J.8 is:
Wher.e do you want. this to go?
And-one of the ways to 19 define that out is to sequentially add on the kinds of stuff 20 tha.t you may take to what is already clearly a responsibility 21
.which is being dis.charged now, which is the full commercial 22 s.ector.
23 I. think that comes out about where you.were.
It 24 also raises the question, at each step of the way, of the 25 philosophy, if you will, the rationale for doing it.
What do
.11902. t 2 jwb -
le I
I 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 to J 1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 26 you get that you don-'t already have or couldn 1 t a~hieve in some other way, given the fact we-'re dealing with another governm.ental agency?
MR. STOIBER:
Of course, I have to say, as the one who-'s going to have to put this tog.ether, it-~s going to*come out looking rather strange to take that viewpoint, because you inevitably get into things like-'.:'" if you-'re talking about c.onfining the Gomm.ission1 s activities in strictly commercial areas -- then you-'re talking about a repeal of Section 202(4) of the Energy Reorganization Act.
And nobody, I. think, really is offering that as a--
MR. SHAPARi In other words, it-'s very difficult to determine a.. philosophical rationale supporting the.way the Reorganization Act is.now structured.
If you try to work out a philosophy supporting that, you-'d find it very di_fficult to do.
And you-'re so trappBd by history -- because as Carl says, no one-'s suggesting you back o.ff from.what-'s now in the Reorganization Act.
It-'s a question of going beyond it.
20 21 MR. RATHBURN:
Alternatives are options of _going beyond.what is the.re today.
That-'s the point.
It-'s pretty 22.... straightforward.
But L think the di ff icu.l ty the re is the 23 *J.de.finition of "benefits."
2'4 In other words, the cost coul~ be laid out for 25 resourcBs *. lf you do this, then there-'s this; if you do that, I
L
77.02.13 jwb
~
- 2 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 JO
.11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2-4 25 27 it-'s the same kind of definition o.f what you get.f.or going beyond.
2 28 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
But that, of course, -would be essentially, I think, the heart o~ the testimony.
3 We.,.11 try to explain what the members of Congress 4
are going to have to think about, incidants on which they can 5
make their deci.sions.
They should at least have some 6
judgments there.
7 MR. SHAPAR:
Since there is the alternative Hart 8
bi 11.befor.e. the Congress.when you testify, I suppose you-'r.e 9
goi.ng to be asked to justify where you-'re going for something JO Less than that, if you are going for something less than that,
,1 I since the Hart bill covers just about.everything.
12 13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I don-'t foresee at the moment
,ho.w to dev,elop a line of testimony, at least very easily out JA of, w.hat is at hand right here along that line.
15 MR. SHAPAR,:
But isn" t it going to be a question, 16 anyway?
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
There are a number of specific 18 areas of.which extensions of the present authorities are under 19 con§ideration.
I think we have to speak to those one way or 20 the other *
. 21 It seems to me that some of those areas are areas 22
.which for whatever or however you come at some overall 23 Philosophy, I guess, ther.e are some of those areas.which I 2-4
_ think we.,re pretty.well in agreement ought to be 1 icensed and 25 dealt with by NRC in full measure.
2 29 On others, I think thereJs some question, and I
~ould hope we ~ould move forward and then we get to pick those 3
up and develop the points of view on those.
4
. If we look for a philosophical principle here, why, 5
it does seem to me that one that we could agree on is the 6
proposition that wastes of comparable properties and hazard 7
levels indeed nught to be dealt with in ways that offer 8
comparabl.e levels of protection.
And that seems to be notably 9
unexceptional.
JO As I said once before, IJm not sure it gives me
,11 very.much guidanc.e,. then, on where to go,with regard to the 12 specific p.rovisions.
But it maybe needs some help there.
13
.. No.w, with regard to th.e specific items that are 14 raised, starting down -
ones +/-hat are listed here are raised 15 in the Hart bill, the WlPP licensing.
16 I think weJve already gone up and told Congress in 17 several forms that we*'re ready, willing, and able to, and that 18 We probably ought to.
It ssems to me that it 1 s very unlikely 19 that we back away from this at this point.
20 If I-'m wrong,.why, please, somebody shout out.
21 The away-from-reactor storage facilities.
I can't 22
.imagine that we,wouldn-'t think thos.e are, you know, a 23 2-4 25 nacsssary part of the chain of licensing.
COMMISSIONER GIL1NSKY:
Whether or not they-'re government-owned or -operated?
2 30 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Whether or not theyJre government-owned or -operated, simply because they are an 3
essential part of the commercial -- from my standpoint, 4
-' hecause they are a part of the commercial cycle, they*"'re like 5
spent fuel pools.
We regulate those and reactors.
6 So, from the comparability standard, you get the 7
same standard.
8 The transuranics, DOE disposal.facilitie.s, from 9
transuranics.
I have always been a 1 Lttle puzzl.ed at the JO separation that.was made in the Energy Reorganization Act JJ between the high-level wastes and the transuranic ~astes.
12 Anyway, does anybody know what the basis for that 13 14
.was?
MR. SHAPAR-=
Transuranics are not singLed for 15 treatment.
You probably donJt have authority under the Act 16
.no.w to regulate DOE transurani.cs bet ween long. term and short 17 te.rm.and., the commercial sector and the noncommercial sector.
18 As far as the present structure of the Act is 19 concerned, it just wasnJt focused on mhen the Act was written.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Wait a minute.
You just lost 21 me.
22 MR. *sHAPAR:
Transuranics are not mentioned 23 speci.fically in the Reorganization Act.
24 25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
But it talks about --
MR. SHAPARJ High-level waste and long term.
Those
111903.4 pv -
2 3
-4 5
6 7
8 9
10 31 are the two concepts.
And.the military and the commercial se.ctor and.the noncommercial sector.
For example, high -
military, high-le~,el.waste.
High wastes are subject to licensing.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yes.
And,the transuranics slip out or are indefinite, because they--.re.what --- not regarded as high leve.l under the *--
MR. MEYERS:
TheyJre not mentioned at all.
MR. SHAPAR:
TheyJre not mentioned at ail, and.they probably slipped out as not being a high-level --
J 1 CHA IR MAN HENDRIE:
We 11, then,,we apparent 1 y 12.... decided that.we probably donJt have authority.
13 14 MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We de.cided it on some basis, and 15
_the basis is they don~+/- fit the definition of high level?
16 17 MR. MALSCH:
In fact, for years, they ~ere treated 18 as low level.
There xas no special treatment for transuranic 19 wastes.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I see.
ThatJs why some of that
.21
. stuff is in the low-level dumps?
.22 23 MR. MALSCH:
Right.
And in fact, the rulemaking proceeding instituted some years ago to treat them separately 24 has never been completed.
ItJs been molded into the overall 25 Part 60.
32 In the meantime, no onBJs doing any bearing on the 2
. stuff, anyway.
It k i.nd of got pushed a.way.
3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Is there any question betw_een us 4
on the transuranics?
5 6
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
No.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We-1,ve already,de.cided. the mill 7
tailings.
I donJt have to ask.
I know your.what your opinion 8
is.
9 L think we Bil agree on low~level facilities.
10 So, this gets us a list of things fo~ which, JI Mhatever the individual philosophical approaches Me come to on 12 the spec.if ic i terns.enumerated in. the bi 11, we come to a L3 unanimous agreem.ent.
That suggests to me that any statement 14 on philosophy ~ught to be rather broadly couched.
15 Now, at the bottom of page 6, where do you mean "I 16 shal.l re.turn to these three topics shortly"?
You then go o.ff 17 in.anothar direction?
18 MR. STOIBER.:
Bas i ca 11 y, I think that.we should 19 just scratch that out.
20 21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Giv.en the number of topics.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let alone shorten.
Okay.
22 S. 3146, I take it, is Senator HartJs bill, and 23 2804 is Senator Domenici1 s proposal?
24 25 MR. STOIBER.:
Right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Would go beyond -
I guess you
2 33 put in a blank there.
It remains to be s.een, areas mentioned abov.e and would broadly expand.
Okay.
3 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: _This is th.e first point at 4
whi Ch the phrase Jt short-term storageJ' appears.
5 Does it mean the same_thing all the way through, or 6
is it also synonymous with "temporary storage"?
7 MR. STOIBER:
I think there*' s some ambiguity the re 8
_which should rightly be cleared up.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Shelly, you,want to make a 10 comment?
J l MR. MEYERS:
W.e have an agr.eement,with DOE, and 12
.. anything below 20 years is she.rt term and abov.e that is long l3 14 15 16 term.
We-'ve nev.er addressed the issue of temporary storag.e.
17 y.ears?
18 19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Verbaily?
MR. MEYERS:
I don-'t think it-'s verbal or written.
COMM! SSIONER GI LINSKY:
Did that refer to the 20 MR. SHAPAR:
I think it did.
MR. STOIBER:
And the Commi.ssion didn-'t adopt any 20 year guidelines in.its decision on the Hanford and other 21 tanks, and have declined to adopt a particular number.
22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
And.when do you start to 23 account the 20 years?
I mean, some of the stuff has been 24 there for 20 years, hasn-'t it?
25 MR. SHAPAR: Yes.
2 34 MR. MALSCH:
The issue camB up with the NRDC petition that dealt with new tanks, not counting from day one 3
but ---
4 MR. MEYERS:
You pick onJo~e of the problems.
5 MR. SHAPAR:
W.e.11, !_think you asked, She"lly, about 6
the agr.eement.
L think.what h.e--'s ref.err.ing to is the 7
correspondenc.e in connection with the, new Hanford tanks.
8 9
10 years ago.
J l COMM! SSIONER BRADFORD.:
Wh.en was that?
MR. SHAPAR:
That was about a year Bnd a half, 2 MR. MALSCH:
J_think the court decision also 12 d.eclined to adopt a year _figure as the boundary line bet.ween l3 14 long and short term.
COMMISS.IONER GILINSKY:
This all stems from reports 15 speaking in terms of tens of years?
16 MR. SHAPAR.:
But the Commission didn't use that as J7 the main buttrass of its decision.
I think it relied mainly 18 on the commLttee report appropriating or authorizing the funds 19 for ERDA or DOE.
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Refresh my memory.
What was 2 I its importance?
22 MR. SHAPAR:
The authorization they got, language, 23 they got the Jolnt committee to put in language to the e_ffect 24 that these were to be considered not long term.
Something 25 like that.
Whatever the words were in the statute, to mesh
35
.with it.
2 And as I recall, the Commission decision, instead 3
of focusing on the 20 years, they put most of their support on 4
th.e language in the commLttee report.
5 MR. MEYERS.i _ One.of the interesting features of 6
Senator HartJs bill is that he defines short term by 7
r.egulations within a period of time after the.act is passed.
8 9
JO COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
How is it defined in 2804?
MR. MEYERS1 I believe itJs 20 years.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
And in, let*'s see *-- 31 4.6 -- it J J says.*"define short term. 11 12 13 MR. MEYERS:
By regulation.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.i No, no.
Wait.
ThereJs some 14 language in there that says --
15 16 MR. MEYERS.:
It should be less than 6 months.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Now, wait a minute.
It 17 shouldnJt be *-
18 MR. MEYERS.:
ThereJs something in there about 6 19 months.
IJve forg.otten the exact line.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Thi£ definition shall not 21 provide a lower limit for.what constitutes sho.rt-term storage 22 of longer than 6 months.
Now, wait a minute --
23 MR. TRUBATCH.:
That seems to be trying to get at 24 the temporary in-process material, that if it.was in a plant 25 being processed, then 6 months would be long.enough to come
2 36 through that plant.
And we shouldn1 t try to exclude our authority by making that in-process time too long.
3 MR. MALSCH1 It1 s as if it tries to divide ways 4
into three categories.
Short short-term, which it ~ould 5
defin.e, and it wouldnJt be licensable at all.
Short-term, 6
which ~ould be licensable.
And long-term, which ~ould be 7
licensable.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
And. the di vision between short 9
short and short?
10
.,11 MR. MALSCHj Is no longer than 6 months.
MR. MEYERS:
Well, the point is, it1 s a g_ood way of 12 attacking the problem by regulation.
13 Perhaps Me ought to recommend to Senato~ Hart some J.4 clarifying language.
15 MR. SHAPAR:
J_ think thatJs technical comments on 16 the Hart bill, as contrasted to the objections.
17 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Since 1945, try to conjure 18 up a rationaleF definition of short term that has to do ~ith 19 keeping Your hands off the Hanford tanks and, simply, youJre 20 after a number that described either the advantage of having 21 to license stuff_ which.was r_eaJly just transient from one p.ool 22 to another for some rsason.
23 24 What.would he a ballpark estimate of that number?
MR. MEYERS~
Remember, that was a time when 25 reproc-essing,was in the scenario.
And if one had reprocessing
end#3 2
37 plants in place and ws were Just concerned about transferring fuel to a plant, ge.tting it reproce.ss.ed and then taking that 3
.r.eprocessed.waste and solidifying it, it shouldn-'t be 20 4
years, for sure.
5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY"1 What is the reLevance of 6
the reproc.e.ssing plants?
We-'re talking about government 7
facilities here, and.we do have reproce.ssing plants.
8 MR. MEYERS:
I thought you were trying to get at 9
what period of time.would make sense.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Even in the government-'s cycle,
.I 1 material moves into th.e front-end pools and sometimes it-' 11 12 come early or relative1y early against a reprocessing schedule 13 for reasons in clearing it out of the last place.
And it may 14 VBry well sit in those front-end p.ools for a couple of years.
15 So, I.would ha¥e guessed that sometime shorter than 16 20, but long.er than 6 months, would have been appropriate.
17 And I d.on*'t kno.w, 2, 3 ye.a rs probably would have J 8 be.en a reasonabl.e sort of a number,,would be my --
19 MR. MEYERS:
There-'s an advantage from the 20 standpoint of.. the K, the activity you would haYe to deal with 21 22 23
.24 25 in the 2-year period you are talking about.
2 38 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
IJm assuming it doesnJt move out of the react,or or reactor storag.e pools for some years, 3
an~way, and not including that as part of_this consideration.
4 But ones it ~omes out of the reactor pools or wherever the 5
storag.e p.ool s are, it beg ins to move into the proc.e.ss ing 6
chain.
It still may, from time to time, people _want to ship 7
it sooner.for assorted reasons, and then, Just let it roost 8
there in a front-and pool.
9 My guess.would be more like two, three years, than 10 six months.
But again, whether that is also a sort of a JI rational~ number here -
12 COMMISSI.ONER BRADFORD:
That would be the kind of 13 number you might expect to come out of a rulemaking on 14 short-term versus long-term.
)5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, let-' s see.
If a legislation 16 says +/-hat it can-'t be longer than six months, it could be l 7 shorter, but it can't be longer than six months --- but is that 18,
Mhat it says?
Does not provide a lower level of longer than 19 six months.
Lthink that~s.what it says.
20 Then you-'d expect a rul emaking to be de.cided.wher.e, 21 between zero and six months, is the right plac.e.
I*'ll bet 22 your c...ookie the rulemaker comes out on six months.
And if 23 that limit were two years, it,would be two years.
24 Well, the testimony smacks o:ff a batch of bullets 25
,which say th.at is wher.e,we think we ought to be.
We ought to
77.04.2 mte 2
39 have authority either sstablished or clarified.
And there would be at least five or more itsms in there.
And then, it 3
goes on to begin to deal immediately.with the gre-ater breadth 4
of Senator HartJs draft legislation.
5 What do we.~think about the short-term.facilities?
6 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD.:
These are now the under 20 7
years short-term.
I do think ~e need a couple of sentencss in 8
here.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yes.
We need to de t.ermine what w.e 10 mean by short-term in this testimony.
I take it to mean --
J l C0MMISSIDNER GILINSKY:
We.11, I.wonder whether you 12 oughtnJt to discuss the.specific facilities in question, 13 because otherwise you get into big arguments whether the 14 Hanford facilities are meant for 20 years or IDO years, and so 15 on.
And we take peopleJs ~ords for it that theyJre only going 16 to use them for 19 years and 6 months, and so on.
17 L think.we ought to discuss the various types of 18 facilities.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
Are we capable of enumerating 20 them?
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY.:
There are only a couple of 22 them, re.ally.
I mean, you know, the existing,waste tanks, 23 both the ones in existence now and;the ones that might be 24 built of a similar type.
There are the facilities that 25 proce.ss that waste.
And then, thereJs the general
77.04.3 mte -
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.1 l 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 40 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
They process it in,what regard, solidification, some problems of that kind?
COMMI SS H>NER GILI NSKY:
Yes.
COMM.ISSIONER KENNEDY,:
What about the facilities that got it that way in the first place?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY.:
Pardon m.e?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What about the _facilities that put it in its present state?
COMMJSSLONER GILINSKY.:
You mean the.r.ep.rocessing plant?
Weil, you have to decide, you know, if youJre inclined to look at it seriously from a point of view of regulation,
.where you want to draw the line b,etween.what you can call national sscurity facilities and non-national security f ac i 1 it i.e s.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
That-'s precisely the point.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If we take the point of view of short-tsrm and R&D, including ail the existing stuff, there ar,e quite a batch of these things.
An estimate of a number?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
YouJr.e lumping in all the R&D facilities?
- I.was going to make a s.eparate category, and those clearly.are of many different types.
And it~s hard to generalize.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
That,was considered, but take out
41 the R&D stuff.
Try to.,distinguish betw_een p.ermane.nt and 2
very -- at least *.very, very long-term storage.
And what.we-'ve 3
been regarding as -- and e:verything else, so far, short-term.
4 Are we do.wn to a few categories?
5 MR. MEYERS: They try to differentiate between 6
storage and disposal because so far, there are no disposal 7
facilities in terms of something that is an ultimate solution 8
to ge~ting rid of the waste.
9 JO CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Right.
MR. MEYERS:
That-'s presumably a WIYP or commercial Jt depository.
Up til now,.we-'ve had everything in some form of 12 storage.
13 14 15 16 17 18 CHAIRMAN HENDR I E-.1 Yes.
MR. MEYERS.:
Short-ter.m and long-term.
MR. MALSCH:
Except for lower-level.
MR. SHAPAR:
Low-.level has been disposed of?
MR. MALSCH:
Low-level ess.entially has been disposed.
MR. MEYERS:
And some transuranics as,w.e-11.
19 As far as high-levels go, it-'s essentially been in 20 storage.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
And if I take away the R&D 22 facilitiss, am I left.with a limited number of catsgories?
23 MR. MEYERS:
Essentially, the output of the 24 reprocsssing plants ~o spent fuel.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
WeJl, the spent fuei,.we-':ve
2 3
42 also put aside.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
Yes.
COMM! SSIDNER GILINSKY,:
We-'ve agreed that that 4
subject ought to be a subject and it is no.w.
5 6
MR. SHAPAR:
I think it is now, ought to be now.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
So we"'re talking about the 7
output of the reprocassing plant.
8 9
10
.I I COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Talking about the tank farms.
MR. SHAPAR:
In terms o.f high-level.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
What--'s the feeling?
COMMISSH)NER GILINSKY.:
I th.ink it ought to be J 2 regulated, y.es.
1.3 14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIEJ Full commercial license?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I tell you,what I would do.
15 I. think, ob*:viously, you canft.feed-them th.e same.way that you 16
.do new facilities.
And L think the id.ea of going through 17 li.c.ensing proceedings doesn*'t make a lot of sense.
I mean, l 8 what.happ.e ns if they don--'t make it?
They-'re sti.11 there.
But 19 I.think that --
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Suppose you find an alternate 21 site?
22 COMMISSI.ONER GILINSKY:
I think the Commission*'s 23 decision on sum costs ought to do something about ito I think 24 it-' s useful to have them regulated.
The license is not so 25 important.
You can Just gi v.e
- them --
2 3
43 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
Regulating is one thing.
Licensing is another.
COMMISSIDNER GILINSKY.:
I think you can just give 4
th.em the license.
They po.ssess the damn stuff.
The po-1nt is, 5
,what the rules are.or. how the stuff is handled and how often 6
itJs inspected and so on.
And I think it.Mould be very-useful 7
to have this supervised by NRC, just as itJs usaful in the 8
commercial s~ctor, just as itJs useful to have that done in 9
West.Valley.
JO COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
You don.1t."think. they.can do it JI themselves?
12 13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
We.11, I.. think there is value
~n the NRC doing it.
I mean, I think there would be a benefit 14 of health and safety to the public.
I think, just as 15 regulating TVA reacto.rs is a g,ood :cidea.
IJm not singling them J 6 out for exemption.
17 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:~ If that-'s true, why.wouldn't 18 it be true of the production reactors?
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I _think the problem there is 20 that w.eJre ge,tting into the -- closer to a classified military 21 activity..
There*'s nothing classified about these tanks.
And 22 just as we.wouldnJt propose to regulate nuclear submarines 23 2-4 25 or --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
Or the contents.
COMM ISSI ONER GIL I NSKY.:
We.ll, production rates and so
77.04. 7 mte on.
2 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Classified, I.would think, to the 3
extent you can go back to production rates, classify them.
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Let me say, those DOE 5
activities that are e.ssentia_lly simple in character donJt 6
directly relate to weapons activity, L think ought to be 7
regulated.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
What,was the staff proposal, 9
SheJ.ley?
JO MR. MEYERS:
That we review the existing _facilittes, J 1 provide comments as to remedia.l action, which _is similar to 12 what youJre talking about.
1.3 COMMISSIONER GI LINSKY:
Why did you take the vi e.w 1-4 that in this area the staf_f ought to only comment on DOE 15 plants, but when you dealt with mills, you thought the staff 16 ought to have concurrence, which is a good deal stronger?
17 MR. MEYERS:
For one thing, we didn1 t have a fix on 18 what we were talking about.
We didnJt limit it, as we just 19
- now did, to a high-level.
We talked about a-11 existing 20 facilities and felt that, you know, without knowing what we 21 were talking about, we1 d be entering into a rather vast 22 forest.
23 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Does that suggest now that 2-4 there is some clarification and your view would be different?
25 MR. MEYERS:
I can1 t respond with a y.es or no, but
45 it-'s something that.would cause me, persona.Hy, to reopen my 2
.. thinking.
3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
What do you think it-'s practical 4
to do with r.egard to an NRC overview on those tank farms?
5 MR. MEYERS:
1 think Commissioner Gilinsky is 6
correct, that there is.value to having an independent 7
over:v:ie.w.
Self-regul.ation has nev.er been anything advertised 8
as.the b.est way to go.
9 We do havs aw.ell-defined procedure that is clear.
10 Pe.ople.may not like.it, but it-'s clear and they understand it.
JI It does invoJve the public.
It-~s an open forum for.which 12 things can be discussed.
If remedial action is necessary, we 13 can recommend it.
And if we could, indeed, take that last 14 step and require that we concur in the remedial action 15 MR. SHAPAR:
I would say in today-'s political 16 climate, that the recommendation would have the effect of a J 7
.command.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
What do you do if they don-'t do 19 it?
20 MR. MEYERS:
Under ths scheme we proposed before, it
.21 would end the.re.
I think we would bank on.what Howard is 22 sugg.esting, the publ.ic visibility of it.
And I agree.with 23 Howard that it shoul.d.not be discounted.
2-4 MR. SHAPAR:..The DOE has av.er.sight.commLttees, too.
25 COMMISSI.ONER GILINSKY:
I understand what you-'re
2 3
4 saying, but the quest.ion is,. this.is different I.f you shut down a reactor --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Suppose they say,
. recommended a lot of great things here and we 46 than a reactor.
g.ood
- You don-'t have the 5
money.
The Congress hasn-'t given us the money.
So.we can-'t 6
do it.
So what do we do?
Take away the~r license?
Get your 7
.material, put it here right at H StrBet?
We can-'t do that.
8 C0MMISSIDNER KENNEDY.:
They-' 11 go to the public 9
ser¥ice commission and get a rate increase.
10 MR. MEYERS:
If they indeed don*'t have the money and JI agree that what we-'re recommending is something that should 12 be done, and go back to their committ:ees and say, NRC is 1.3 recommending c.erta.in action.
We agree th.at involves X mi.llion 14 dollars, and we -.want you to appropriate it.
If they don-'t,.we 15 ar.e up a tree.
16 MR. SHAPAR.:
In the situation where they don-'t agree 17 and.: they-'re just not about to do it, that-'s a different kind 18 of si+/-uation.
And I guess the one that worries Vic.
19 C0MMISSIDNER GILINSKY.:
What-'s the answer to that 20 one?
21 MR. SHAPAR:
There isn-'t an answer.
I think i t-'s the 22 conservativ.e position usually prevailing.
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
No, but in what sort of a 24 frame.work, I guess is.what we-'re asking for?
In.what sort of 25 a framework is it reasonable to Look at all these things?
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47 must say, I 1 m not enthused about acquiring responsibility for the Commission on,waste tanks and talk about r.egulating them.
Why, the first thing you know, we1 d be issuing up licenses, I-'m afraid.
And I do.n.,t know.what it.means to issue licenses to a thing whe.re you really don*'t, at r_oot, have much that you
.can do about it.
2 48 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.1 As the full panoply of the pro_c.edural aspects of the Commtss ion-' s licensing proc..edure, 3
would it be applicabls?
4 5
MR. SHAPAR:
It depends on how you,write the statute.
MR. STOIBER:
By rsading the Hart bLll, it probably 6
would be.
ThereJs an internal step, also one that has a 7
rev-iew to the Commission, that it would report to the Congress 8
recomm.ending additional appropriations or.whatever it took to 9
get it in shape.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
That~s.why I prefer the word
.11
- "regulationJ' to *"lic.ensing. 11 12 13 14 them.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
I am unabLe to draw a line b.etween COMMISSIDNER GILINSKY-:
Well, I think as a practical 15 ma_tter, they possess the mat.erial.
ThatJs it.
I.mean, you 16 just giVe them a license.
They po.ssess it.
17 The question is, ar.e they going to meet the 18 provisions on that license?
19 MR. SHAPAR:
You get a pre-review before you i.ssue a 20 piece of paper called a license.
There would be no pre-revie,w 21 here in the sense they-'re already constructed and now holding 22 wastes.
But there would be no new tanks, of co~rse.
23 COMMISSIONER KENNEOYJ As contrasted.with licensing, 2-4 you are establishing a set of standards, criterion against 25 which their effsctivenass would be measured.
But that
2 49 doesn-'t imply that you.woul.d be licensing nece.ssarily.
You would, in fact, be advising them.whether, in fact, they have 3
,met the requirements.
4 5
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If youJre doing -- what is it?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Regula ting as contrasted to 6
licensing.
7 You're quite _right.
What d*o you do.when you revoke 8
the license?
9 10 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
How is that different?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
NothingJs.different.
The JI stu.ff is still in the tank and-the tank is still where it was.
12 13 COMM I SS IONE R BRADFORD.:
How is that different from West Valley?
Supposing we decide that the material was being 14 somewhat unsatisfactorily handled, there.
Same problem you 15 get.
16 MR. MEYERS.:
The difference is 6D0,0.O0 gallons versus 17 several million.
18 19 MR. SHAPAR:
No, but.the theory is sti.11 there.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Points out special character 20 of the material.
21 MR. MEYERS:
If our review were limited to determine 22 the. adequacy of the health and, safety protection and we found 23 it to be adequate, there.would be no second staf..f.
If, in our 2A review,.we found som.ething that ought to be oorrected, I find 25 it difficult to believe that DOE would not be willing to
7 50 correct it.
2 COMMISSLONER GILINSKY:
Suppose these tanks weren-'t 3
being inspected as frequently as they-'re being inspected no.w, 4
or soms stamps were to be taken at some time or other, and 5
recommended procEdures or required procedures were different 6
than those that are being fo.llowed.no.w?
I mean, those can be 7
very important.
8 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: _ Which has nothing to do with 9
licensing.
10 COMMISSIDNER GILINSKY.:
That-'s why I wanted to get
.11 away from licens.ing it.
Because I think it-'s a practical 12 ma+/-ter.
I don-~t think it makes any sense on proceeding on 13 14 15 16 that fa.ct.
MR. SHAPAR:
For existing or future ones?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
On existing ones.
CHAIRMAN.HENDRIE-:
Would you issue a license for an 17 existing tank without an environmental impact statement?
18 MR. SHAPAR:
I. think you may very weJ.l have to.write 19 one.
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Haven-'t th.ey already done an 21 environmental impact statement?
22 23 MR. SHAPAR:
The courts said_ they did have to.
COMMISSIDNER GILINSKY:
Presumably. th.e.law could Just 24 define their status.
25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
How do we get this limited version I
177.05.4 I
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51 enunciated?
Got any.idea what you-'d try as language?
MR. STOIBER:
Weil, I have difficulty articulating what the limits of it are.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
What the limits of what are?
MR. STOIBER.:
The principle of the review,would be.
6 I mean, what 7
MR. MEYERS:
On.e approach that might be feasible 8
would be to define from regulation what.existing.faciliti.es, 9
if any, we would lnok at.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY-:
Gi*v.en th.e fact of what"s at JI issue here, i t*'s essentially a broadening of the Commission"s 12 area of responsibility, as contrasted with the.existing law.
13 At least our understanding of it. It woulrl seem to me useful 14 that the law say ~hat those facilities would be, rather than 15 to say the Commission should decide what they should be.
16 MR. STOIBER-:
We-'re talking about licensing, 17 regulations short of licensing, or existing -- what is the 18 bundle of.things that it"s --
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Right now,.we"re talking 20 about the Hanford and other tank farms.
21 MR. SHAPAR:
Number one, they sha 11 give us such 22 information as.we shall request from time to time; and, number 23 two, they shall comply with such standards and instructions as 24
.we may issue from time to time.
I think those t.wo elements 25 would be the fabric of a regulatory regime without licsnsing.
J
I I
177.05.5 I
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2 52 If,what you"'ve asked is.what the language would look like if you wanted to regulate instead of license, in £ompliance with 3
such standards and instructions that we may issue from time 4
to time.
5 MR. SHAPAR:
If we assume that another agency is 6
going to violate the law, I guess it would be unenfor£eable.
7 8
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Coming back and_thinking --
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
That-'s unen.for.ceable.
There-'s 9
no.way, if they don-'t.have the money to do it, they can't do 10 it.
It-'s not as though they can go to the public service
.JI commLssion or the publLc and say, here,.we ne.ed another 20 12 cents a k i lo.wa.tt.
There-' s no.way to get it.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
How is it different from the 14
.. high-level waste disposal facility?
I mean, presumably, we 15 would regulate that beyond initial 1 icensing.
And you-'d g.et 16 yourself into the same irnpass, conceivably.
17 MR. SHAPAR:
What the license adds is a pre-revi.ew, 18 which says they can-'t go ahead and do 1+/- until you issue the 19 1 icense.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY.:
They-'ve done it in.this case, 21 got the jump on us in 1945.
22 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Otherwise, we-'d still be 23 _ debating. this.
There.wouldn-'t be any n.eed for SALT talks.
2A 25 MR. MALSCH:
0th.er agencies have and statutes ha-ve provided you can-'t refine, unless you can show you have been
I 2
3 53 showed the appropriations.and bee.n denied the.m.
So this is not a unique problem.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Yes.
It would require them to 4
request these funds.
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
What has ~this regimen 6
contemplated with future storage facilitiss?
7 MR. SHAPAR:
I think Vic.said he.wasnJt sure, but he 8
is proposing a license for new facilities.
There, the 9
difference would be, they couldn 1 t start to do i+/- until they 10 had the license J 1 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I presumed they couldn-' t go 12 on adding.waste to any faciliti,es if it were in som.e way in 1.3 14 violation MR. SHAPAR:
Depending on what licensing conditions 15 you put in.
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY,:
The same purpose could be 17 s.erved to gain by lic.ensi.ng, if in fact the<la.w simply 18 specifies.that, prior to engaging in dev.elopment of new 19 facilities of this kind, they shall refer their plans to the 20 NRC for its concurrence.
21 MR. SHAPAR:
Concurrence is an approval, which is a 22 license.
You just said it in different words.
23 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY,:
.WeJ.l, except that *-- weJ.l, 2-4 they accomplish the same purpose, I suppose, by saying all of 25 the.normal panoply of procedural rights, etcetera, associated
2 54 with licsnsing and processing, as we understand it, would not necessarily bs applied to GO through the technical reviews.
3 That would be that.
That-'s what I thought you sort of had in 4
mind in the first place.
Is that.what you-'re talking about?
5 That.would be that.
That-'s what I thought you sort of had in 6
mind in the first place.
7 Is that what youJre talking about?
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY.:
For the existing ones.
And I 9
didnJt take a firm. view on the other ones.
1 O I think IJm inclined to proceedings o.f one kind or JI another.
12 13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
On new ones?
COMMISSIONER GILINSK.Y:
Yes.
But at any rate, if you 14 buy the regulation of the liquid waste in the tanks, then I 15 think it--' s natural that the step between the tanks and~ the 16 final repository would also be regulated.
17 CO MMI SS I ONER KENNEDY:
Let me just suggest o.ne, or 18 ask a question about one aspect of this whole thing that could 19
.be troubling._ If one is looking at either the existing or the 20 new ones, one is ta! king about proceedings.
It J s co nee i vable 21 that proceedings might lead to a conclusion in which the i.ssue 22 would be whether you should have tanks at all or not.
23 Now, that, you see, goes to a rather broad.. question.
24 And that is.:
Do you have a continuing weapons program or not?
25 And I gu.ess that-'s not the business th.at this.. agency-'s in.
It
I-2 3
55 seems to me we-'ve got to be very cBreful that our logic doesn-'t take us there.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
We--11, that-'s why I.was a 4
little cautious of taking a firm position on that.
But 5
assuming one could work it out in a way that would not get as 6
directly involved in national se~urity decisions, I think it 7
ought to be licensed.
8 MR. MALSCH:
Don-'t you get involved in that anyway?
9 Supposing an appl.ication for W.PPSS.was filed and the proposal 10 was to have defense.wastes stored, and W.PPSS was denied the JI application.
DOE says, oh, no, you can-'t do that.
Our 12 pre sent tank farms can-'t handl..e that.
If you don.J>t 1 icense 13 1 4 WPPSS, w.e*' 11 have to shut do.wn the defense program.
CHAIRMAN HENFRKG.:
We get the sam.e problem,with new 15 tanks.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY,:
That-'s right.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Unle.ss your author.ity is an 18 advisory one.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY.:
On the other hand, it may not 20 be a real proble~.
These things may get built in plenty of 21 time or w.e-"' 11 simply encourage the government to supply ptenty 22 of capa~ity in advance.
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
In advance of the passage of the 24 legislation?
If you-'re going to license the darned things, 25 once it-"'s passed,.why, that cuts off the preparation of that j
56 capacity until itJs authorized.
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
So you have to decide where 3
you're going to draw the line.
You know, these are details.
4 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
This is a detail, though, that 5
goes to the heart of the whole question, it seems to me.
6 ThatJs a practical maxter.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Not to the regulation, but to 8
the licsnsing.
9 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Yes, thatJs right.
WeJr.e 10 talking of the regulation being essentially something.which J l says youJv.e got standards.
We*'re in the busine.ss of 12 establishing those standards.
WeJre in the businass of seeing 13 that those standards are met...Now, guys are goi.ng to build, 14 have them built to that standard.
Now, they,, therefore, if 15 the law says that when theyJre going to build the next one, 16 they go in and get the money to build_the next one according 17 to that standard.
18 And if theyJre building it according to that 19 standard, there isnJt any question about whether itJs going to 20 be built or not.
ItJs going to be built.
21 Now, that dossnJt trouble me.
But if there is 22 another step in this chain which in e+/-fect establishes 23 procedural discussion or procedural involvement which could 24 say, aside from those standards, maybe the question is.whether 25 itJs going to be built at ail or not,. then, I think we have
77-05. JO mte j
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3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 J I 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 57 inevitably become inv.oJved in what our.national security
_ decisions, through a procedural mschanism, which I just_think
.w.e must avoid.
COMMISSIDNER GILINSKY.:
Just the way we license containe.rs, we could b.e licensing standardized.waste tanks.
I*"rn just talking off the top of my h.ead her.e, and we-"re dealing in the absencs of detailsd information.
But it could be that if you-"re using an approved design, you can put it anYwhere within a certain area.
You know, this i*s a.11 speculative, and ---
MR. STOIBER:
We.ll, there.., s an answer of some sort in the Hart bill, in the form of the.prssidential waiver exempt ion.
You can dee ide if that"' s adequate or inadequate.
.One.would presume that this would not be exercised lightly, but as w.e have seen it, when provided by statute, it does get used.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let"'s talk a minute about the R&D facilities,,which are the other side of the DOE array of things.
2 58 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Could I just make a couple of notes about p*age 7, aside from this fundamental question?
3 There ar.e a couple of other things.
4 It seems to me that points that are being made, I 1 m 5
not sure theyJre being made quite as sharply in the way itJs 6
being drafted now.
7 It seems to me the last sentence af the paragraph 8
at the top, it goes to som.e of the things we were talking 9
about right,no.w.
The point isn1 t made very sharply, is what JO th.e impl.ications are.
And I _think that's sort of com.e out *
.11 At the bottom of the page here, it s..eems to me, the 12 real point is, of that sentence, is the public, Hartwell, 13 expects.,that it will undergo an independent review.
And it 14 deserves it.
15 So, it seems to me that thatJs what weJre talking 16 about, and I would think that that point could.be made more 17 sharply.
18 19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Where are you?
COMMLSSIONER KENNEDY:
The bo,ttom of the page, very 20 last sentencs.
21 MR. STOIBER:
I think another idea is to provide 22 the Commission with crucial experience in regulating this kind 23 24 25 of activity,.which it can use in the future, also.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Sure.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I was a little bit bothered
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4 5
6 7
8 9
59 by that senten~e, because it suggests that we may be o,ve.rr.eacting here, that w.e hav.e a kind of a PR role.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:. Yes.
That-'s what bothers me, yes.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
It seems to me our rasponsibility is to the health and safety of the public.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
That-'s right.
The public exPects --- and has every right to expect -- an i.ndependent review of... this.
And that-'s justif.ication. e.nough for us to be JO do.ing it.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Okay.
But we oughtn't be J 1 12 doing things just because there-'s it-'s gotten into the 13 newspapers and --
14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Oh, that-'s right.
You mean 15 because of public concern?
Indeed, we should have been doing 16 it as a means of avoiding the public concern, in the first 17 place.
18 No, I agree with that.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE,:
What do we_ think about R&D 20 facilities?
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I-"m not clear just what 22 kind of activities and facilities are involved here.
I 23
~magine there-'s a vast variety of them in ail sizes and 24 shapes.
25 MR. MEYERS:
One of the topmost ones is the W.PP
77.06.3 pv 2
3 60 facility.
ItJs been prop.osed as a sort of demonstration facility for spent fuel.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY~
But when you said.there 4
were hundreds of facilities, what did you mean by that?
Are 5
there a whole bunch i.n every one.o.f the national labs?
Is 6
that what you-' r.e talking about?
7 8
MR. MEYERS:
Essentially.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
And what are they?
Are 9
these places where.waste exists or is buried?
MR. MEYERS:
Waste is being generated.
Some cases,
.11 stored.
Some cases, buried.
12 13 14 15 One of the concerns is you get into regulating the
- kind o.f research that.J's being done.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Was that an issue?
MR. MEYERS:
It was an issue, if you want to make 16 an issue, if youJre not careful what you mean by "research and 17 development facilities.n 18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
When we indicate there-'s 19 some number of DOE low-level waste burial grounds, do these 20 include burials that, say, the national labs, they are 21 inc.l uded.:
22 23 24 25 MR. MEYERS:
Yes.
I believe there are some 16 of those burial grounds across the country, and.national labs.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Do we hav.e any listing of these?
2 3
61 MR. MEYERS:
We could get them, yes, of those low-level.waste _faciliti.es.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
N.o, no.
Now, when you say 4
there are several hundred --
5 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I don't know precisely what 6
these other activities might be.
7 MR. GOSSICK:
The statement here is R&D facilities, 8
whether waste or not.
Does this include_things like lost or 9
FFTF nr anything thatJs using liquid matarials?
10 MR. MEYERS:
Weil, what we had in mind were various JI experiments that the labs run in situ testing, checking for 12
.leach breaks, th.e various kinds of p.rograms that one would 1.3 expect the Department of Energy to do, to come up with a 14 national waste-management program.
15 TheyJre running various experiments across the 16 country.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
This would suggest we 18 would license, though?
19 MR. MEYERS:
No, no.
ThatJs the problem.
You 20 woul dn*' t want to 1 ic ense those.
21 22 23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
The bill says license them.
MR. MEYERS:
Well, thatJs the problem we have with it. _Wide range of activities that could be construed to fit 24 under that.
25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
IJJl give you an example.
A
77-06.5 pv I
2 62 couple of years ago.we got a ca_ll from EPA on the west coast, and they said, "Listen, w.e,d like to_ ship you a couple of 3
barr.els.we dug up out of the P.acLfic down here, and cut them 4
up and one thing or another.
We*'d like to see how some of the 5
o.ld ocean dumps,.lo.w-.level burial, concrete-in-barrel sort of 6
waste, how itJs holding up, what service levels are, and 7
things like that."'
8 Like good feilows, we said yes, weJve got some 9
facilities and a manner to ship them on out.
And J_think they JO did.
I think it still may be going on at a low level, and I
.11 think subsequently they came out on the Atlantic side and 12 wanted to fish some barrels out of the Atlantic drops.
13 What the bill proposes is that that operation, that 14 little experimental program.which amounts to about a couple of 15 people full ti.me in the laboratories, is to be licensed.
16 MR. MEYERS:
That's another example of ~hat we were 17 talking about ~hen we said several hundred.
We were guessing.
18 We know various kinds of experimental,work that,s going on to 19 dev.elop the national waste-management program for DOE.
20 Y9u just hit nne part of it.
21 From our point of view, it does not make sense to 22 license.
But the other end of that spectrum is something like 23 24 25 the WPP facility, what you a.11 agree should be licensed.
Now, where do you draw the line?
Where do you cut it off so as not to inhibit the development of the national
77.06.6 pv 63 waste program?
2 MR. MALSCH:
Incidentally, we don1 t have any 3
authority at a_ll.over ocean disposal of radioacti v.e wastes.
4 It1 s all in EPA.
5 6
7 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD.:
Is it still going on?
MR. MALSCH:
Not in this country.
There 1 s also an ocean dumping bill which gives the 8
rssponsibility to EPA.
Marine Protections Research and 9
Sanctuaries Act of 1972.
10 12 13 l4 MR. SHAPAR:
And.we had a moratorium on it, _anyway.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
When was that?
MR. MALSCH:
The Act.was in *'72.
We hav.e had a
.moratorium in effect since *'62.
MR. STOIBER:
We1 re also signatory to an 15 international convention that prohibits that.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
I 1 m going to propose to the 17 Commi.ssion that this testimony.reflect a belief th.at it's 18 simply impractical for the Commission to regulate all of those 19 R&D activities.
20 Clearly, a thing like the ~pp comes at a size and 21 in the cont.ext that makes licsnsi.ng a reasonable proposition.
22 But a sweep across the.whole Departmect of Energy and so on is 23 24 25 Just an enormous one.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Is it not possible to someMhat define, however, the scope of thosa things which
2 64 would be considered reasonably to be e.xpected within our authorities than those which presumably would not be, in order 3
+/-hat WeJre not empowered, as the price of language on. this 4
paragraph suggests, to just decide in the absence of any kind 5
of st a.ff?
6 MR. MALSCH:
You could pick a quantity limit, if 7
you ~anted to.
8 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
There ought to be some kind 9
of a threshold --
10 J 1 MR. MALSCH:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
-- within which.we could 12 dee ide.
It s.eems to me to be.worth_ thinking about it.
13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
LetJs see.
There was some 14 language that the staff had in mind.
15 MR. STOIBER.:
That*' s e sse nt ia.lly what we.were 16 trying to get out of the last sentence there, talking about 17 doing it by r.egulation.
18 WeJre saying weJre citing that threshold by 19 regulati.on, but we put it in the statute, also.
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What JJm suggesting is that 21 the threshold ought to be set, and within that threshold, 22
£ertainly anything beyond the threshold is just not for 23 consideration.
But within the threshold, something else might 24 not be appropriate, either.
Something that we could ascertain 25 and ~e ought to have some flexibility there.
pv I 1e I
I I
I 2
3 4
5 6
65 MR. SHAPAR:
I think it would be most desirable for the statute to be as specific as possible; and to the extent that the statute would grant us authority to license facilities or activities undefined by the standards, the criteria ought to be spelled out in the statute.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
It seems to me that the R&D 7
sorts of facilities whi.ch one w.ould want to look at in regards 8
to licensing are those which are intended for long-term 9
storage or disposal wastes.
10 A staff had some additional.words which could be
.11 converted to long-term storage or disposal.
I-'m not quite 12 sure whether I like that or not.
13 MR. MEYERS:
The.idea there, of course, was -- the 14 intent was to design and build a facility +/-or research and 15 development purposes, but if it was such that after you finish 16 your R&D, you could use it for a long-term storage, we felt,we 17 should license that in the beginning, as.weJl.
18 If one could separate research and development from 19 _~demonstration, it*'s rea.lly the demonstration end that we're 20 interested in.
.2 l CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Facilities intended to 22 demonstrate long-term storage disposal?
23 2-4 25 MR. MEYERS:
That.would be be+/-ter.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD.:
Do we have a common
.understanding of.what we mean by "long-term" in that context?
2 3
.66 Not in the context of the Hart bi.11.
You*-'re talking about a number we define later.
MR. MALSCH:
Actuaily, the Hart bill has its
-4 licens.e for both long and short term, so the issue of long 5
term :versus short term --
6 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD.:
If.this testimony comes 7
back to the commLttee te.lling them this is what, you would 8
,r.ather say -- I see what you,.,re saying.
Even if it turned out 9
to be 6 months, you-'d still be g.etting everything up to 6 10 months.
,11 MR. MALSCH:
Under the Hart biil, that's right.
12 They sort of inc.l uded the issue of long term versus short term 13 by simply having us license both without qualification.
It,.,s 14 only when you.start to draw dividing 1 ines between long and 15 short that you*'re forc.ed to. define what*'s meant by the terms.
16 Lncidentally, the term "research and development" 17 is a hard one to define, also.
The present statute defines it 18 as in.eluding demonstration and not just experimental.
19
.Actually, temporary versus permanent is probably 20 easier to grasp than short versus long *
. 21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Well, yes and no.
That may 22 be more semantically accurate, bu.t until you know where to 23 draw the line, it,.,s somewhat imprecise in numerical terms.
2-4 25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
R&D facilities, in general.
What*'s -
would language along the 1 ine:
uonl y those
77.06. JO pv -
2 3
-4 5
6 7
8 9
10 J 1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
.21 22 23 2-4 25 67 facilities intended to demonstrate long-term storage or disposal*" be too restrictive, from your standpoint?
COMMISS.IONER GILINSKY:
Let-Js see.
The testimony talks.about a rulemaking.
Why do you have to face that right here?
Why do you have to go beyond saying that youJd like some flexibility?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Some flexibility of.what?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Is the paragraph here okay?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
This says.weJre going to have a rulemaking to exempt certain a.ctivities, which means that -- I guess --- the law would have included them all, and wSJve got to decide which ones weJre not going to include.
I guess I donJt think thatJs very wise lawmaking.
It seems to me if thereJs a cla~s or body of such institutions o.r activities which visualized as being inappropriate, the extent which is possibly defined, those that ought to do so in the law, and say Bye as to the others.
The Commissian can
.make its judgments.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I think the phrase in that sentence thatJs causing the trouble is the one 11 to the extent that i tJ s poss ibl.e to do so.-11 We can, between now and_ the time we have to testify, give the.cammittee a definition.we
.could 1 i vs with.
That would be one thing.
If we canJt, then this language is postponing that decision until.weJve gone through
I lend#6 I
68 a pro~sss where.we can decide it for ourselves.
2 MR. MEYERS:
If you turn that around and word it in 3
a way that you will designatB which facilities should be 4
included*-- in other.words, they-"re a,11 exempt unless included 5
-- that allows the rulemaking process to open.to public 6
scruti.ny and be agrued, and you-"re not stuck with anything 7
until you reach an agreement.
8 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I guess you-"re right, but 9
isn-"t that,-then, taking. the language and reversing it 180 10 degrees?
J l MR. MEYERS:
But it gets out of the problem you 12 brought up,.which is you-"re included unless we exclude you.
13 This way, you put o_ff into the future to decide 14 what you will regulate, and it-"s in B public forum that you 15 decide.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I-"11 te_ll you why I*'m 17 having trouble with this.
I don't know exactly what's 18 involved, and it-" s hard to dee ide what to do with these 19 20 21 22 23 2-4 25 facilities when you don*'t even know what they are.
We have some examples.
pv -
69 2
Ml~. RATHBURN:
I think there might be some intermediate ones.
There are a couple -- thr.ee experiments 3
designed to, I guess, demonstrate disposal technology and salt 4
of say, a dozen or half dozen,~WR assemblies, with the theory 5
that it would be recovered after a period of years.
6 And they've even talked in terms of something 7
between, say, the half dozen to dozen 'DWR-type assemblies, but 8
smaller than a WPP, say, a couple hundred DWR assemblies.
9 Again, with retrievability.
10 1here's some larger things in these myriad of 11 laboratory-scale experiments DOE has in mind.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let"s see.
Yes.
In an OPE --
12 13 no.
One of your comments.
The bill is written it gets 14 short-and long-term storage and disposal, high and low level, 15 R&D programs, defense programs, including decommissioned 16 facilities and facilities in existence prior to October of 1 7
'74.
18 And the footnote in the paper Dennis got out, 19 Deutch reports indicates that there are currently over 460 20 surplus facilities, with an additional 100 facilities expected 21 to become excess over the next few years.
22 23 MR. RATHBURN:
From the decommissioning perspective and we did learn of these DOE activities.
A couple of us 24 went ou~ and talked about the R&D aspects.
25 Incidentally, in this regard, there's a slightly
pv -
2 3
70 different treatment between the two bills? 3146 and 2804, with regard to treatment of research and development.
The 3146 would, in effect, be qualified by a 4
presidential exemption.
And Domenici's bill has a qualifier 5
along the lines:
except for short-term storage operations at 6
existing federal installations for high-level radioactive 7
waste generated by activities under the national research and 8
development and defense programs, is a qualifier to the Y
different types. of things that 2804 would strike out from the 10 licensing.
11 12 13 excluded?
CHAIWv'\\AN HENDRIE:
Say it again.
What would be MR. RATHBURN:
It says:
except for short-term 14 storage operations at existing federal installations for 15 high-level radioactive waste generated by activities under 16 national research and develoµnent and defense programs.
17 That's a qualifier attached to each of the four 18 types of activities that the Secretary would license.
19 High-level waste, TRU, low-level waste, and spent fuel.
20 Ha~t doesn't have a counterpart to that.
He just 21 has a presidential exemption on anything that's not.
22 That sentence there might reflect that type of 23 thought.
It's not quite the all inclusive -- we will get 24 cognizance over R&D, in any case.
25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
That covers the short term and
2 71 the R&D aspect.
But doesn't help particularly with some sort of a threshold on quantity, which I think is also essential.
3 I just don't think we can license 460 surplus facilities.
It 4
just exceeds the capacity of the staff or any staff resource 5
which, in my view, could probably be expected.
6 COMMISSIONEI1 KENNEDY:
Moreover, what is the gain 7
to be achieved from doing it, anyway?
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I don't know.
You could then 9
put a 12-inch -- minimum 12-inch stack of paper on top of each 10 ane of those facilities, agonizingly prepared, fought over, 11 and so on.
r~m not sure what -- whatever benefit there may be 12 to be achieved, and it would seem to me to be pretty well 13 achieved by the sort of standard they're writing, their 14 writing activity, and for a larger facility, review and 15 recommendation of remedial measures proposed to the staff.
16 I recommend to the Commission that we go forward 17 with a proposition in this testimony, asking, for pity's sake, 18 take us out of or allow us to opt out of short-term storage 19 connected with R&D and defense programs.
20 And secondly, to set a threshold of quantity, 21 whether it's short term or long term.
22 23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORDg Isn*'t that what this does?
I would change one sentence of this slightly, but 24 the paragraph itself is fine.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Short-term defense-related,
pv -
72 you mean weapons-related, or are you looking to the tanks?
2 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE1 I haven't been thinking about 3
the tanks.
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
You're talking about the 5
labs?
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
"Yes-, but the language would have 7
to be prepared, if you want to treat the tanks separately.
In 8
fact, it might be useful to talk about the tanks separately.
9 They are a great, ugly goober set of objects, there.
And it 10 might be useful to talk about them specifically.
You know, I I de l i cat e ref e re n c e s to short-t e rm DOE f a c i l i t i e s may be a 12 trifle less explicit than we could be when we're thinking 13 about the Hanford tanks and similar places.
So, maybe we 14 could talk about the tanks separately.
15 In this discussion, I'm talking about -- well, the 16 R&D program stuff; and secondly, the defense program-related 17 stuff, other than those tanks.
Because again, I think there's 18 an awful lot of that stuff which, if you say do short-plus 19 long-term storage and disposal, high level, low level, 20 transuranic, R&D and defense-relaxed junk gather in such an 21 immense amount of --
22 23 24 25 COMMLSSIONER GILINSKY:
When you're talking about defense-related activities, what do you have in mind?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
In the waste area, there are all kinds of experimental programs.
2 3
73 COMM I SS IONEF? GIL IN SKY:
Suppose the Army had a program at one point to use waste for their purposes, or -- I don~t know whether they ever did experiments on this or not 4
but suppose the Army were doing these experiments to see 5
whether nuclear waste could be used for resource.
Would that 6
be a licensable activity?
7 MR. SHAPAR:
It might come under 91 (b) of the Act 8
to the extent S&M was involved.
It~s pretty amorphous.
Some 9
are licensed, and some are exempted under 91(b).
10 There's not a clear line to the extent one can 11 12 13 discern a rationale.
It's a closeness with a military activity.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Under this, you know, the 14 language proposed here?
15 MR. SHAPAR:
Language proposed here applies only to 16 DOE, right.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Right -- I don't know.
Does it?
18 MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
So, we're just talking 20 about DOE here?
21 22 23 24 25 done?
MR. SHAPAR:
Right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:. But that's where this work is MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I assume that would cover it and
pv -
7 74 require licensing, too?
2 MR. SHAPAR:
I would, too.
To the extent it was a 3
DOE activity, rather than an Army activity.
If the Army were 4
doing it, itself, it has the possible exemption under 91 (b).
5 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
If the Army was contracting 6
it to a DOE lab, would it still have the exemption?
7 MR. SHAPAR~
That makes it complicated.
I don't 8
know.
I*"' d have to think about that one.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What is the status of the 10 NASA satellites?
11 12 13 14 activity.
15 16 MR. SHAPAR:
They are not licensed.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:.
Why is that?
MfL SHAPAR:
I think i t"s treated as a DOD COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
DOD?
MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
I think so.
Because NASA is 17 subjected to licensing.
Sometime ago, they asked us to 18 prepare legislation that would give them a counterpart 19 exemption to the DOD exemption in 91 (b).
And somehow, that 20 legislation never got pushed
- 21
. COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Is that somehow related to 22 the fact that space facilities used to be in the AEC and it 23 24 was a joint activity?
MR. SHAPAR:
Could have been a joint activi~y, but 25 I know it~s not licensed.
2 3
75 Even though NASA, by itself, is subject to licensing, just like any other agency, except DOE and DOD.
They have no -- unless it's a joint activity.
The 4
joint activity would probably be the explanation.
5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
So, all NASA satellites are 6
treated like military satellites?
7 MR. SHAPAR:
They're not licensed.
That/s all I 8
can say.
MR. MALSCH:
I think AEC can consider to have broad 1 O authority on licensing in some kind of a national interest.
11 They're either exempted by that, or exempted because in each 12 case there was some kind of contract between NASA and AEC.
13 MR. SHAPAR:
I think it was the bipartite or 14 tripartite arrangement between AEC, DOD, and NASA.
15 MR. MALSCH:
There was, in fact, a joint review 16 committee composed of AEC and NASA review of the safety 17 implications.
And final decisions went to the President's 18 C)ffice of Technology Review, and they made the final decisions 19 on whether the missions ought to go forward.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Something like this, with 21 appropriate demarcations -- we want to talk about the tank 22 farms separately,.the high-lr3vel waste, military high-level 23 waste tanks separately, okay?
24 Existing DOE facilities since the tank farms and a 25 number of other things -- unfortunately, a large number of
pv -
76 other things -- listen, Carl, I got a this testimony seems
- 2.
to rotate its dividing plane, its set of dividing planes, as 3
you go down the line.
4 Let's see.
The thrust of the last set of remarks 5
was that, with regard to R&D facilities in DOE, defense 6
related or not, that we need a quantity threshold and the 7
short term, trying to do all at once, carry out some sort of 8
short-term storage where short term would go all the way under 9
the terms of the bill.
6 months is really -- it's.just too 10 much to handle.
Okay.
11 12 L3 Now, ~here's the tank aspects now, we~re going to talk about separately.
Now, we're going to talk about existing DOE 14 facilities.
This is sort of another cut.
This is not a 15 question of whether it's an R&D facility or not an R&D 16 facility.
It's a question of existing or nonexisting.
But it 17 seems to present some of the same arguments with sort of a 18 different twist to the knife, that I'm not sure that things 19 will be as clear.
20 MR. STOIBEFl:
What we were going to do is to 21 restructure this to deal with DOE facilities, period.
Move 22 the R&D facilities back.
Assume that under existing DOE 23 consulting, we're talking about R&D.
Of course, we're talking 24 about existing and future.
25 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Except that the earlier
2 3
4 77 remark on the desirability of a structure which would have side heads corresi:onding to each of the tick marks or bullets on page 3 or whatever it was.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
The further we go, the less 5
likely _that seems.
6 7
8 9
10
.11 12 13 Let's see.
Among the comments you make under existing facili.ties, it says:
The proposal present practical difficulties because of the diverse, among others, difficult set uniform standards, diverse nature of these things.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Does this include the tank farms?
I originally understood that that is. what this section dealt with, and apparently it deals with a lot more than that.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
It talks about diverse things.
14 It has to talk about a lot more than tanks.
15 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
Am I correct, it does deal 16 with tanks, in addition to these other things?
17 MR. STOIBER:
Yes.
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
.I think we've go,t to sort 19 all these out.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Do you see a way to sort?
21 MR. STOIBER:
I think you go back to your 22 suggestion, taking the bullets and going through and 23 24 25 developing them.
That way, we can cut it more easily.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
Isn't i.t true that here, the issue is the tanks?
Qeal with the tanks, and then say, in
pv -
2 78 addition to the tanks, a myriad of other activities might also be considered as coming within the purview of the language of 3
the bill now?
And then, a paragraph saying why that's not a 4
good idea or why it would cause problems.
5 Wouldn't that solve that problem?
6 7
MR. STOIBER:
Sure.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I don"t buy this argument 8
that you have here, that dealing with existing facilities Y
would come close to giving the Commission responsibility of 10 considering technological solutions and so on, and that this 11 then conflicts with our role as a regulatory agency.
12 13 I think you ought to drop all that.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Doesn't that follow from the 14 sentence at the end of the preceding paragraph?
15 COMMISSI.ONEli GILINSKY:
Not necessarily.
I mean, 16 we require -- the same thing applies in regulating reactors.
17 We see a problem, and we go to the licensee and we ask them to 18 propose several solutions.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.:
Here, it says:
If the 20 Commission perceives no satisfactory remedy, then we must 21 specify actions.
Which means that there~s something that 22 hasn"t been developed yet that's going to have to be put on 23 the drawing boards.
That's what I took that to mean.
24 25 COMMISSI.ONER GILINSKY:
I guess I didn't buy that.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Isn't that what the bill
77.08 *. 1 l v
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 L3 14 15 16 17 18 IY 20 21 22 23 24 25 79 says?
We're commenting on what it says
- CHAIRMAN HENDRIE~
I think Vic's right.
I think the si~uation is fairly comparable to the situation we deal with all the time in reactor licensing and in materials licensing now.
We said, 11Gee, that doesn't look very good *.1i You may suggest some i:ossible directions for remedial actions.
Ask the applicant, too.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
They say, "What do you want, 11 and we say --
CHA I RMAN HENDRIE:
11 Let"s see what you got. 11 Yeah.
I think that you could scratch that.
Okay.
Look, we"ve got a list of bullets.
We need a squib for each bullet.
We move on now.
Those bullets either pertain to things where we say, 11 Yes, we want to do that; either give us the authority or clarify the authority. sa Move on to some other matters which are not quite of the same nature.
MR. STOIBER:
Well, there*"s something in the intervening slot, too, that seems to me you either need a squib or some other section dealing wi~h things included in the iegislative proposals before the mission that we decided we don't want.
CHAH?MAN HENDRIE:
Yes.
Yes.
Once you run out of bullets, that's where you are.
Yes.
Yes.
Just exactly so.
77-08. 12 pv -
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
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!Si 20 21 22 23 24 25 80 We want to deal with that, and the R&D things are clearly one of those.
There needs to be a discussion on the tanks specifically, which I wouldn't list as a bullet because, you know, that's what we seem to be headed for, is some sort of an intermediate stage of authority here, rather than the language back here, which was clear regulatory authority~
Okay.
we~d like it to be clear, but maybe it's even regulatory, but it's a little bit different than full licensing on the customary forms existing.
Are you going to run the R&D stuff as a category under existing facilities which will also include the specific discussions of the high-level waste tanks?
MR. STOIBER:
Right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If you could advance us, considering that the hour grows on and spirits flag.
If I could draw on to page 10, comments on the presidential exemption section, which would sBem to me now another item in this series that we now have developed.
Cl)MMI SSIONER GI LINSKY:
I would make it more specific.
Make it clear that this means weapons-related facilities~ national security-related facilities.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
It says 11military waste.*11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIEJ Yes.
COMMISSIONER GIL IN SKY:
Where is that ':1
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10 1 I 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 81 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Down at the bottom
- I guess I sort of liked some of the thought that Vic has there.
Military waste is a rather narrow statemen~ than yours, Vic, and I~m not sure I understand that sentence.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDYg I"m not sure, either.
And I"m not sure what it involves.
I"m not sure what other things are not exempted.
CHA!f~MAN HENDRIE:
Let me go back and direct the Commission's attention and see if, in fact, we have objections to the presidential exemption.
I must say I didn't, and I don't feel the need to narrow it.
The proposed exemption --
well, you start out, the bill says:
Let~s amend section 202 subsection 3 of the act, as follows.
And it~s here that the short term, long term, R&D defenses, high level, low level, and so on, inclusion is made, which sweeps everything under NRC authority.
Then, it goes on in the same subsection.
Says:
Upon a determination published in the Federal Register that such action is in the national security interest of the United States.
And after notice to and a reasonable opportunity for comment by the Commission, the President may exempt any facility subject to the requirement of a license under this section from any condition or requirement of such license or from the license requirement itself.
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23 24 25 82 I thought that, in fact, that it was phrased, in view of the fact that the new subsection sw.eeps such a large volume of stuff in, at least for defense-related matters, it seems ~o me that the exemption was phrased about right -- is in the national security interest.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Suppose one decided to regulate the Hanford tanks?
Could they be exempted?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE~
Yes.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Suppose he decided to regulate the {Yi ti frication facili.ties?
Could they be
\\:,.-*
exempted?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
So 9 you can exempt anything right up to the doorway of the depository?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Provided it was defense related and in the national security interest.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
There's no restriction to military waste. in the present text.
And I think that the thought of submitting it to military is useful, and otherwise, there's no logical difference between that Bnd having presidential exemption to reactor licensing.
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2 83 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
As long as the limitations survive, I don't have a prob_lem with the thought that-' s in the 3
last sentence.
4 I think what it says is that if the state in some 5
way vetoed a facility and the President said that in fact that 6
was going to be exempt from the licensing process, the state 7
detail wouldn't apply either -- which, as I say, is all right 8
with me.
9 If the standard has to do with weapons, WIPP, or 10 waste storage, there is a federal
.11 12 13 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Does that apply to long-term storage of military waste -- the last sentence?
COMMISSIONER BR AD FORD:
The 1 a st sentence, as it 14 runs through here, would limit the waiver to short-term 15 military waste, and that was all right with me.
16 That tied in comfortably enough with me, as long 17 as the limitation were there.
The more one tinkers with the 18 limitation, the more trouble you have with the last sentence.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
But on the other hand, a 20 state veto which only applied to an appropriate number of 21 cases would make impossible long-term storage of military 22 waste, which certainly would be something inconsistent with 23 the national security interests, would it not?
If one carries 24 it back to the beginning, if the stuff was generated?
25 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Well, it would say some
84 interesting things about the national psychology.
2 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I'm not talking about 3
- 11 psychology. 11 I'm talking about the national security 4
interest.
They may be consistent, bu~ they may not be.
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Exactly.
In the event 6
that a contract would ma~e impossible one essential aspect 7
of an activity that they were depending on in some other arena, 8
I would think that that, rather than try and anticipate that y
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 at this point in time, long before the situation for state-by-state vetoes actually arose, the Congress would have an opportunity to confront it again and decide exactly what it wanted to do.
And therefore 9 language that we write in here ought not to be written in regards to that particular hypothetical.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY~
Would it not be well to 17 note that as a cautionary note in the statement, so that in 18 the legislative process, as people -- as they live, begin to 19 adjust language 9 and so on, to keep that in mind and don't 20 make such a standard as to cause some serious difficulties 21 which they haven;t foreseen?
22 23 24 25 Shouldn't we at ieast give them that cautionary note to keep in mind?
COMMISSIDNER BRADFORD:
That would be fine.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Tell me where w~ came out.
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COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I think we came out in favor of a standard narrower than simply national security interests.
And something along the lines of "temporary storage of military or weapons-related waste. 11 And with that limitation in the final sentence, it is all right.
But then also an additional cautionary note to the effect that the Congress may want to take a look at the situation -- the state vetoes -- to foreclose long-term disposal.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDYi It does adversely affect the national security program.
COMMISS LONER GI LINSKY:
11 Would veto a long-term disposal 11 ?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDYg When long-term disposal was essentially in order for the continuance of the program, in order that there be available space for whatever short-term storage disposal was required.
But we've also said that, beyond a certain point, there are no longer short-term storage.
Isn't that right?
Somebody then said:
Being a licensable matter, the tank will have to be licensed as a long-term storage, and B state vetoed that, there would be no judgment in my mind other than that the national security program was being impacted -- and I wouldn't know at this point how
2 86 significantly *. Bu.t that's a possible -- a distinct possibility which at least we ought to tell the Congress about -- to 3
caution the Congress to keep in mind when it's writing its 4
language.
5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We may wan.t to move this set of 6
comments about waivers and vetoes and so forth over to the 7
state program.
8 Well, I take that back.
Forget the comment.
Up to the third sentence in that presidential 10 exemption.
You want the reintroduction of the Executive
.I I Branch into the licensing process to be narrowly limited in 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 order to provide for independent regulation of the U.S.
nuclear i.ndustry.
Bu.t the presidential waiver is concerned with defense-related matters, and not the development of the U.S. nuclear industry.
MR. RATHBURN:
Not as written in the Hart bill.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
That's what we're trying to make it be.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Okay, you're reading is that it could be declared that civilian site activity has an effect on the national security, economic strength, and so on, and so on, and so on.
I see.
Gee, that may be what the drafters intended instead of being "narrowly limited," *"should be limited to defense-related matters."
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2 87 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
"National security.-11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIEg We're worried about whether 3
that's defense-related.
4 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I don't have a problem 5
with *11def ense-related, 11 or 11wea pons-related, u or 6
11mili tary-related. 11 7
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
But the concern here was not 8
that the exemption was too broad, as long as it was a 9
defense-related matter; but rather, the words 11national 10 security interest" might even be stretched to include economic
.11 strength, power supply, and hen.ce the whole civilian side.
12 COMMISSLONER BRADFORD~
That has happened in 13 regards to other statutes.
14 15 would think CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
In that case, I wish Carl and all of you think -- about words other than 16 A1restricted to facilities for the temporary storage of 17 military wastes, 11 which appears to me to come way down in a 18 narrowing sense beyond just making sure that this waiver IY does stick on the defense side.
20 Somehow, it seems to me that II tern porary storage of 21 military waste 11 is a lot narrower than *"please confine the 22 exempt ion to defense-re 1 a ted11 23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What about the 24 vitrification facilities?
It strikes me that it is sort of 25 like exempting reactors.
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2 88 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, let's s_ee: He may exempt any facility subject to the requirements of a license from any 3
condition or requirement of such license or from a license 4
requirement itself. 11 5
Yes, you take the whole thing out, but you may 6
.just take out the piece that said what the -- you kn.ow, that 7
got you enough contents data, or so you can go back to 8
uproduction rate,-11 or whatever -- probably classify that, 9
anyway.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I mean, I would take that
.I I to include, you know, the military-related R&D activities 12 waste associated with them -- and their weapons-related, J3 the President's broad authority to exempt them, but I wouldn~t 14 include the.1*waste tanks 11 in that.
15 16 17 18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Presidential exemptions?
COMMISSIONER GI LINSKY!
Right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I guess I would.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I would, because I think 19 that the exemptions would be used 20 21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
pretty sparingly?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Precisely and sparingly, 22 that's right.
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, except that 24 11 sparingly11 in what sense?
You"re talking about a very large 25 class of facilities right now, roughly comparable by various
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And you;re suggesting that the entire lot can just be written off.
Now it either is a good idea to license or 4
regulate those tanks, or it is~;t.
I think we ought to think 5
about it pretty carefully before passing a law.
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We are already suggesting that 7
the tanks ought to be treated on a basis less than a full 8
commercial-licensing basis.
Even for new ones, there are 9
questions about can you really go the full -- It's clear to 10 me that that's the case.
11 So there~s certain special conditions that we 12 13 agr_ee that you do apply, in any case, to looking at these things.
If we could see how the language in the rewritten 14 section that talks about the waste farms goes, we might then 15 entertain a proposition to put in their comment that its our 16 view that presidential exemption from full review of these 17 facilities either ought not to be authorized or approached, 18 or ought to be approached with great caution, or something I 9 l i l<e t ha t
- 20 Or maybe we decide that piece of language will 21 belong better here, but why don~t we tag it as an item which 22 we will have to settle on?
23 Peter, I never got your inclination out of it.
24 If you"'d prefer not to, we could wait.
25 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Well, let me put Lt this
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It seems to me that the ultimate standard ought to contemplate a finding that in some way 11 national military consideration, 11 for some reason, outweighs the public heal th and safety communications and licensing.
If we're prepared to endorse such a finding endorse a possibility of a presidential exemption based on a finding like that, then I would be -- it doesn~t seem to me that one type of facility or another is placed on the line.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If you put that kind of language in COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
It would apply to whatever facility the President applied it to.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, you're setting up a criterion for that situation?
COMNiISSIONER BRADFORD:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Would you extend it to disposal facilities?
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
The problem is that I haven't seen the criterion language, yet.
I don-'t know whether I would extend it to a disposal facility or not.
In the end, it's a very difficult kind of judgment whether one would be prepared to allow military and defense needs to outweigh public health and safety needs.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
If in fact they are truly incompatible, which may not be the case.
2 91 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
That's right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
1~m not sure that that~s the 3
choice.
There are other aspects of the licensing.
What 4
you're really giving up is the public discussion and 5
independent review by NRC, and the public exposure and testing 6
of the propositions in the public forum.
7 In terms of actual measures -- protective 8
measures -- you may not be giving up anything; but you Y
certainly would be giving up the scrutiny of those measures.
10 Let's see.
The *"mill tailings 11* gets rolled under
.11 the bullet.
It-'s cranked up into the bullet.
I don't know 12 1.3 whether it needs to be this long.
On the other hand, I don't want it to just refer 14 to a draft bill of ours, because I'm not sure where that bill 15 will lie on the 14th.
16 Okay, it should certainly comment that we're in 17 the process of producing have been in the process of 18 producing a draft.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Before we get there, could 20 I just ask the purpose of this last sentence on page 12'?
It 21 sounds as though we are quite dissatisfied with the related 22 legislative proposal by the Department of Energy.
23 Is that true?
And if so, oughtn't we to say so?
24 And why?
25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Does anybody know how the ~lE
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MR. MEYERS:
Yes, we review and concur in accordance with standards and criterion developed by EPA.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What lm trying to say is:
The way it reads right now, it sounds as thought it is~'t consistent.
We're complaining a little bit.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Rather than 11 we have consistently urged," it sounds like we agree with the *"pressing thrust of the bill with remedial action programs will be subject to review.-11 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
On page I 3? it s.ta te s that:
- "The states may exert a degree of control over.tailings piles through their inherent police power."
Are we talking there about the agreement, states program?
MR. MALSCH:
It could be any states.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
It's a kind of control.
That is what the agreement.states.
MR. SHAPAR:
Whether agrsemen.t state or not.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Does that whole piece of three sentences really add anything?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
However this "normal policy power" as applied?
Is that what you mean?
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Yes.
I thought that's from *11 at present*1 down to where we believe you could strike
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COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Well, if you are flagging a new type of preemption that might result from this bill, I think that's worth doing.
MF~. MALSCH:
As presently developed, it_.,s not clear as to what the immeaiate impact would be on states.
COMM I SS !ONER KENNEDY:
That's what the next sentence says.
The sentence up above:
11 The bill does not make clear who shall regulate tailings or what standards shall apply during the transition period while such agreements are being pre pared.
We believe some redrafting would be de si rabl e to provide a smoother or more clearly defined transition period. *i I don't know what went in between; it didn't add very much for me.
MR. STIJIBER:
This is not crucial to the --
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD; What does the phrase
- 11 sue h agr eemen ts 1; mean?
The phrase II sue h agreement sil is about six lines down on page 13.
MR. MALSCH:
It also appears on the middle of page 12, although there's a lot of discussion after that.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD~
It's about six lines down on page --
MR. MALSCH:
Yes.
11Pur suant to a suitable agr.eement,- 11 and so forth.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 94 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY; It needs to be clarified a little bit.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD~
But those 11 agr.eements 11 are different from the agreement states' formulation, in general.
MR. MALSCH:
No, what happened --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Those agreements would be the ones made pursuant to the amended section, as amended by the Hart bill.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Agreements that these would become part of the agreement states' program.
MR. MALSCHg Right.
MR. SHAPAR:
Exactly.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD~
What the next three sentences say is that the states which are not currently part of the agreement states' program arguably have some jurisdiction over mill tailings, anyway.
MR. MALSCH:
They do, now.
There's a chance they may lose them by virtue of the new addition.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Well, I think the point is w i th st at i n g *11 in some way
- 11 I t may be po s s i b 1 e to make i t a little clearer.
We*'re talking about:
Are there in fact states that regulate mill tailings?
MR. MALSCHi I think there are.
MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
They have greater or lesser detailed programs.
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Doesn*'t *"police power" comment on either -11 agreement11 or "nonagr.eements 11 ?
MR. MALSCH:
Yes.
It doesn't make any diiference.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
So somehow you nEed a new paragraph -- a little help, please *
."Role of state governments. 11
- "State veto.*"
Are we for that, or against it?
This seems to take a cautious view.
It carefully avoids comiQg out foursquare for state vetoes.
On the other hand 1 this doesn*'t come out foursquare against state vetoes.*
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I must say that I think, in testimony before the Congress, I would suggest you drop that phrase.
I don't really think you ought to get into a big constitutional discussion.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
It seems to me the spirit here is about right.
There are some problems connected with this, the states' rights and the propriety, and it's our Act -- the state being d~eply involved in these things.
There's no question about that.
The state veto business?
How about state vetoes on whether airplanes can fly over the.states?
Or state vetoes on whether railroad cars carrying dynamite can go through a state?
There are a number of ways states are constrained from interfering in things which are construed to be on a
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COMMISSIONER BRADFORDz To the extent the states are forbidden by the Constitution, or the commerce laws, from intervening in interstate commerce.
But what is being alluded to here, it 1 s a separate category within the statutory preemption.
I wouldn't want here to take on the question of whether state vetoes over other kinds of NRC licenses are like the absence of people.
I don't have difficulty with that state veto here and I don't have difficulty with saying that it should come toward the end of the process.
It should be done casually.
At the beginning, there may be certain resources involved in that.
Where this section causes a problem for me is in the extent to which it gets us into the waste -- into the state vetoes itself whether it should be done by the Congress or by the President or at all.
I might say, that once a state has undertaken a veto, unless there are national security implications of some sort, that it ought to be incorporated and I think we should be ready to define the "national security 11 part very clearly.
I would think we'd be well advised to stop about where we did on the earlier section, which is just to indicate the role of the state veto, and then to flag the possible problem.
In the event that state vetoes start to cascade,
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97 then Congress will have to come back on it.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I think it's on page 16, that whole long thing starting at the beginning of page 16, which says they may still want to go ahead and stop some license.
And then it starts to discuss.
So at that point, one would simply point out to Congress that it may -- sooner or later it may want to consider whether some review or.whatever o.f state vetoes is n.eede d.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Yes.
I would like also to retest the language at the beginning, a paragraph there
- CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
What direction are you talking about?
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Well, there's a sentence at the end of the -- in addition to the freely exercisable state veto, "could substantially delay the :veto of any national aid program.*"
And it goes back from there.
We seem to be saying that we*'re only willing to have a state veto as long as they don't actually veto waste.
The question of the state veto is a serious sort of governmental political science, federalistic type of question, and one that we're only tangentially equipped to speak to.
We're fairly well equipped to say where a state veto ought to come into NRC processes.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Why don't you try some cuts?
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-"Alternative sites."
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
We're going to drop most of that stuff on page 16?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE~
Yes.
I presume that first long paragraph on page 16 then becomes much reduced; sort of a cautionary note that just, you know, Congress may want to consider possible needs to review state actions.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I presume, Peter, you wanted to take out all this stuff about it 11 may be a signal to the states-11 ?
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Take out, or --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Okay 9 11 alternative sites.-11 Comments to help the draft, or redraft?
The thrust here is just that there-'s already ample authority and precedent for whatever degree of consideration of alternative sites is reasonable in a waste-management facility case.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Well, underneath what we use is an obviously superior art.
We probably ought to at least set that forth here, because I don't know whether Congress -- whether the intent of the committee would be to follow an obviously superior type of analytical framework on alternative sites here, or not.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
My sort of intuitive sense was maybe they weren't.
We're looking for full-length data on a
2 series* of sites.
impracticable.
99 I just have some doubts that it-'s 3
Okay, a little more explanation about.the "obvious 4
super iori ty-11 standard.
5 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
There's a sentence in here 6
that :
11 Ext en s iv e s tat e par ti c i pa t i on i n DOE' s s i t e s e l e c t i on 7
process will ensure the consideration of reasonable 8
al ternati ves.*11 9
Doe..s that describe a DOE.state inventory and 10 program of some sort that I wasn~t aware of?
In other words, II a state participation in NRC processes would involve only the 12 s,tate in which an application is actually being filed.
Where 13 is it that the state participation 14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I assume that's recognizing 15 what's taking place now.
16 17 MR. STOIBER:
Rig ht.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Where every place has in a 18 sense gone out, they've exposed themselves to a local populace 19 and discussed the problem.
20 MR. SHAPAR~
Not always to the full satisfaction 21 of the local populace.
22 23 24 25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Okay, the *"Study and Report-"
section.
What can we say about that?
We.11, the thrust of the draft:
The Commission questions the utility of yet another study.
Cites the previous
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COMMISSIONER GILINSKY~
It takes, I think, a too cheerful view of the situation.
Now I'm just reading Science Magazine I just got today, and it sounds like the Department of Energy's rethinking things.
It cites an OSTP re port that says the knowledge and technology basis of today is not yet sufficient (inaudible), and so on.
I think the language here goes too far.
It also says the last time the NRC staff considered this issue, it had no concern over the soundness of a method proposed by those studies.
Does that really represent our view, Shelly?
MR. MEYERS:
No.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
The Ford-MITRE study, anyway, is really kind of a report of a study group.
It's not a really very deep study in itself.
rm. MEYERS:
The OSTP report -- and there was a recent geological survey report which sort of indicated there's more work that needs to be done -- it wasn't black, but it wasn't by any means white, either.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
They quote that here, too.
So I think actually it would be useful for the Commission to do a study -- not so much that leads to a finding, but to indicate where we think the data is involved, and where we think it would be useful to have work done.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 101 MR. SHAPAR:
The memorandum of understanding, in draft form, between rnlE and NRC calls for the NRC to review --
for DOE to prepare sort of a study, and for NRC to review it and su6plement it as it deems appropriate or necessary.
COMMISSHlNER BRADFORD:
I haven't seen a copy of it.
MR. SHAPAR:
I think they're getting ready to send it over, and I think it'll be substantially unchanged from the version you saw.
I think we ought to check it for consistency with what's being said here.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Since I don't know if I can find my copy -- if I've go,t the last version of that -- would you circulate what you believe to be the --
on it.
study MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
N\\R. STOIBER:
Another question --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
the one with.the latest data MR. STOIBER:
Another important problem of the and I did not include this in the testimony, but I think you may want to consider talking about this issue -- is:
The section written in the Hart bill now, after the study is completed, would mandate that the Commission take certain action if it found that there was not such a possibility of developing a safe program.
And I guess the question is:
Is this, in essence,
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. I I 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 IY 20 21 22 23 24 25 102 mandating a moratorium on all waste activities or other nuclear activities?
The last sentence in the bill would design a plan to generate information within six months of the date of any such negative determination, "and shall take whatever action is necessary to protect the public health and safety until such information is generated."
In the analysis that DOE has pre pared of the bi 11, they mentioned.this moratorium issue.
MR. SHAPAR:
I think we said it **authorized"; it didn't *"compel*" moratorium issues
- MR. STOIBER:
Right.
So I didn't know if you wanted to discuss that or not.
MR. SHAPAR:
It's certainly a very, very important point.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What is the legal effect of those words:
11 take whatever action is necessary to protect the public health and safety," and so on?
MR. SHAPAR:
There could be a moratorium.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, aren't we required to "take whatever actions necessary 11 now COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
-- in any event?
MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY~
-- for the public health and safety?
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 103 MR. SHAPAR:
If you're asking whether we would have authority to propose a moratorium now, I think the answer is 11yes. 11 MR. STOIBER~
I think the legal importance may not be as important as the public effect.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yes.
It seems to me there have been studies of this kind proposed before in legislation, and then requirements that a negative finding requires you to shut all the even-numbered plants down today, and the odd-numbered ones tomorrow, or whatever.
This takes the more reasonable Yiew that you take all action necessary to protect the public health and safety, and so on.
And I would think it almost goes without saying that if you're mandated to make a study of the subject, why then, presumably, when you report your findings, the Commission's then obliged, whether the statue says so specifically here or not, to take indeed any action that it feels is necessary resulting from those findings.
So I don't -- This ensures that you ask the question, but in principle at least the Commission would do what it felt had to be done.
What I'm going to suggest, for drafting purposes, is to take a look at that draft, a MOU sort of thing, and then we will gather around.
I don't know what to recommend to you for new words.
Take out the offending sentence that's already
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 104 been discussed the las+/- time
- COMMISSIONER GI LINSKY g It has some other language in there that would be inconsistent with our role as an independent regulator to study these questions.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIEi Well, it~s an objection to the provision that requires the Cammi ssion to "design a plan to generate such information."
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I see.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
And 1 don't know.
I guess I have less objection to that.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Is it appropriate for us to make an annual appraisal of continuing DOE progress on waste management programs?
Is that an appropriate thing for us to assume as a responsibility?
MR. GOSSICK:
Just in competition with the GAO.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I think it is reasonable for us to look at the programs they have and make suggestions to them.
It says at the bottom of the page there, Vic -- it's a suggestion of the drafters, at the bottom of the page, the last sentence.
That's getting into, it seems to me, an appraisal of their programmatic responsibilities.
And I'm not sure where the people who ought to be doing that make some views on it, but to suggest that we be charged with the responsibility of reporting to Congress on how well DOE is doing its job, I
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 105 think it is not appropriate.
Congress could well ask the DOE to do it themselves.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
There ssem to be objections, in one way or another, to almost everything that's said on pages 18 and 19 of the draft testimony.
Would you like to try again?
Unfortunately, you don't have any guidance whatsoever, except we don*'t 1 i ke this sentence, and that sentence.
I think there are a couple of points.
I think it's -- well, how much manpower's going to go into a study like that?
MR. MEYERS~
A two-year study.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
JJm 9oing to ask you in a minute whether two years is enough.
MR. MEYERS:
We didnJt take a crack at estimating it, but it could be something like a GESMO-kind of finding.
On the other hand, there is a good deal of work going on in this interagency task force now which is supposed to lay out a plan for the President to look at various alternatives, find out where the gaps are, and one could build on that.
My guess is that two years is probably adequate, but at this stage of the game I couldnJt really guess, in terms of the manpower it would take.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Why would it take two years?
Suppose you didn't have to make a grand finding, but
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22 23 end #9 24 25 I 06 suppose you were to indicate which areas require more information -- would require more work?
WhereJs the data involved?
MR. MEYERS:
You could do it in a year.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I would think so.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
But that would be a rather different animal than is proposed in 3104.
MR. MEYERS:
Let's. put it this way:
Whatever manpower it takes at the present time, we obviously have *our manpower developed in the regulatory program.
That would have to be converted.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:. Bu.t the study would presumably be done by contractors?
Or would you contemplate doing it?
MR. MEYERS:
We could have contractors involved, but remember we rely to a large degree today on DOE
~ontractors, DOE national labs, and it would probably be inappropriate to have the DOE National Lab involved in that sort of a determination.
So we would have to go to the competitive bidding process, and it would be a good deal of time.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Where in HeavenJs name would you find somebody?
MR. MEYERS:
MITRE -Corporation, universities --
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107 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
And contracts for_ this study sho~ld not be subject to any present requirements of the federal procurement policy.
Get contracts in a hurry.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
The overa 11 manpower appraisal, in any cas.e, what is the signif.icance of adopting 6
~ake the most -- greatest impact, 3146 in its present form?
7 MR. MEYERS:
Ws did a very rough cut on that, and 8
it was in the paper.
We had --
9 10 JI 12 MR. GOSSICK:
We have 82-1/2 man-years.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
That was fQr your version.
MR. MEYERS:
Right.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If you go to the Hart b Lll and 13 pick up all the R&D stuff on a _fu.11 licensing basis 14 MR. MEYERS:
We did not do an estimate of that 15 manpower, and, as Lee points out, nor did ~e +/-actor out the 16 other part of DOE.
It was rea-1ly spread across.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Look on the study section.
Take 18 a look at the old MOU.
We did look at that fact a couple of 19 times in the fall, and, at least at one point, the Commission 20 thought not tDo bad.
21 There is Vic*'s suggestion that, rather than the 22 2-ye:ar study here with,sp.ecific findings to be made, it rather 23 carefully spells out that a study to identify areas that ought 24 to bs lDoked at harder, you know, much le.ss formal sort of a 25 p.roposi tion. than is possible.
2 108 So, there are these several sort of thoughts ski~ping along, and you might crank up a 1ew paragraphs in 3
favor of each.
We can choose one from column A and one from 4
c.ol umn B.
5 MR. STOIBER:
Without being too cheerful, maybe it 6
coUl~ be said that, considering the manpower aspects of this 7
thinq, whether to get another study would be so beneficial 8
that you could convert resourcss from other programs.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, people might end up IO deciding that. this study is pr.etty important -- I don-'t know
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--- and would be wLlling to see the resources provided and 12 committsd to the study.
13 My concern on resource questions goes more to the 14 broad scope of._things brought in under the Hart bill, and what 15 I suspect is just incapacity to handle it in any adequate way 16 and the paralysis that might result, having to try to chew 17 that: big a bite.
18 MR. SHAPARJ I think we also should mention ~hether 19 we h.ave the staff competence to review this, under our present 20 staff, whether they have the technical competence to review 21 this.
22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
You mean some of the broad-range 23 research, R&D operations?
24 25 MR. SHAPAR:
Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Weil --
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109 MR. MEYERS:
In view of our c.ontra ct ing proce_ss, I certainly.would not tamper with that in 2 years.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What.was that?
MR. MEYERS.:
I said in view of our contractor 5
process, I would not suggest that the study be done in less 6
than 2 years.
7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
He...,d be.wi.lling to say that 8
yours, the mors informal one, he.could do a year from the day 9
he gets his contracts in place.
Okay.
10 Whatever the contracting time is, he.wants a free
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12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
And, indeed, Shelly, 13 wouldn...,t it be -- if I understood you correctly -- a year, 1-4 essentially, building on whatever the date of the completion 15 of the present agency task force exercises?
16 So, ;we-;re talking about 4 or 5 months, and on into 17 the fall, when that.J's supposed to wind up.
Isn...,t that 18 correct?
19 20 MR. MEYERS.:
It-'s supposed to wind up in October.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
So, a year from then, 21 conceivably?
22 23 24 25 MR. MEYERS:
We will have early information from them to allo.w us to start.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE.:
I-'11 tell you, 4 or 5 months is not a time in which you-'re going.to put a --- if you have to go
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.110 out fo.r proposals and get bids and you can.,t go to the national labs for contractor support, 4 or 5 months ain't 3
going.to cut it.
It takes damned near that long to deLine it 4
with your prospsctive bidders.
5 My glass is empty.
Does the Commission have 6
.overpo.wering objection to adjourning. this meeting and 7
. declaring that the tentative meeting that has been scheduled 8
.will not be held?.. So, please don*'t score it against me.
9 (Whereupon, at 5:05 p.m., the meeting was 10 adjournsd.)
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