ML22230A187
| ML22230A187 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/04/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780504 | |
| Download: ML22230A187 (1) | |
Text
RETUR J TO SECW-TARIAT RECORDS
- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
PUBLIC MEETING SECY-78-212 -
RECONSIDERATION OF BOARD NOTIFICATION PROCEDURES Pl ace -
Washington, D. C.
Date -
Thursday, 4 May 1978 ACE * ?EDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Officia.l Reponers
.ii44 North Copitol Street Washington, D.C. 20001 NATlONWIDE COVERAGc
- DAILY Pages I -
21 Teiephone:
(202) 3A7-3700
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on May 4, 1978 in the Com~ission 1s offices at 1717 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.
Th~
meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
P,s provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or infornal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any_ sta*te~~nt or a:*g~rn1ent contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
ERC 7339 2
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25 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION PUBLIC MEETING.
RECONSIDERATION OF BOARD NOTIFICATION PROCEDURES Room 1130 1717 H Street, N. W.
Washington, D. c.
Thursday, May 4, 1978 The meeting convened at 10:40 a.m., Chairman Joseph M. Hendrie presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:
Joseph M. Hendrie, Chairman Peter A. Bradford Richard T. Kennedy
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25 P R O C E E D I N G S CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Why don't we proceed on reconsideration of Board Notification Procedures?
MR~ BOYD:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me make a few brief remarks.
2 The Commission last considered this on January 24, and if you recall, requested the views of the Licensing Board and the Appeal Panel on the then proposed staff procedure for Board notification.
The basic thrust of these views was that the safety evaluation and the FES should by definition contain all relevant and material new information up to that point, and that only thereafter should the 'Boards and Panels be supplied routinely with ongoing docket information.
The Licensing Board suggested in its memo that this procedure be something that could be adopted on a six-month trial.
And the Appeal Panel suggested that it would monitor this new system over that period and decide at that time whether there were to be any-further modifications.
Begging the question slightly as to whether this should be a trial program or not, I would say that the staff agrees with and accepts.these Board and Panel views, would propose with the Commission's direction that this new system be implemented.
And if in fact, it turns out 6 months, 8 months, a year from now, that further modifications appear
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25 appropriate, it shouldn't be at all difficult to implement them.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
That is, you can always fix something that doesn't seem to be working well, and there doesn't seem to be any very strong reason to make the pro-cedure something which self-destructs in six months unless you do something.
Maybe we ought to, if we go this way, make it this is the procedure we are going to use and tell ourselves, please write down the 6-month date or whatever seems appropriate, and we promise we will take a look at it at that point.
3 You can make an information report from the staff point of view and the Board/Panel view and see how that fits.
MR. BOYD:
Exactly, there should be no problem with that.
Once the staff got over the hurdle of accepting the Board and Panel recommendations, we revised the proposed memo from t.he EDO to the staff, implementing this procedure which is in the revised Commission paper and enclosure 2.
We modified the proposed public announcement which fits in enclosure 4.
Three comments, I would like to make associated with this, one of which can be seen graphically on the charts are in the paper in enclosure 3 and also I have passed out
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slightly enlarged copies.of these.
The most difficult aspect of Board notification turns out when you consider it as an agencywide procedure is to try to visualize its implementation.
And in trying to visualize its implementation so there would be no loose ends or no areas subject to being ignored critically, I came up with the following 2 charts.
For better or for worse, I think almost every eye is dotted and t is crc-ssed.
The first chart shows the overall staff's process.
The top part of it shows how internally generated information would flow.
And the middle part of the chart shmvs how externally generated information would flow.
And toward the bottom, all o~ this information would funnel throug the office of the Legal Director and hence on to the Boards.
It is as you can see from the charts a rather complicated process.
Trying to expand the major program office, NRR or NMSS and see just what functions would be required there, I came up with a second chart showing what the NRR system would have to be, taking into account all 4 divisions being involved in the question of Board notifi-cation and how all of the information would have to pass back and forth.appropriately between the divisions and as well as coming in from the other offices and thence on to OELD.
I think we have everything outlined in that second
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25 chart that one could at that point reduce the detailed pro-cedures for all the offices.
5 Another complexity we didn't mention last time --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Have you reviewed these charts for faults of the first kind, i.e., you look for boxes which only have incoming arrows, indicating there will be, you know, that they will suffocate, or similarly boxes with only outgoing arrows which indicate that they:are some sort of source.
MR. KENNEDY:
Mr. Chairman, I noticed at one point in the chart, they didn't indicate the idameter of the pipes incoming and outgoing, and I was a little worried about the pressure levels that were going to be generated.
MR. BOYD:
They are all 24 inch pipes.
MR. KENNEDY:
Then,, the suffocation will occur at the Board level.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Sorry to interrupt you.
MR. CASE:
I think, Mr. Chairman, although we didn't do it that way specifically, both Roger and I went over this several times.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I haven't found one like* that, by the way.
MR. BOYD:
Eventually, it gets to the Board.
The se.cond complexity that I should like to take the opportunity to bring up involves what I foresee in many
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25 cases and have foreseen as the length of time that it takes in some cases for an initial*decision of the Hearing Board to become the final decision of the Commission.
In some cases owing to various appeals and extended times for con-sideration, some of these cases as I perceive them appear to drag on for years.
If you look at the guidance in the rules for a simple case, it talks, at least unless the rules have been changed, of something like 45 days for an appeal decision and 10 days for Commission review.
And if vou envision Board notification to the Appeal Board and the Commission over a period of 55 days, 6
it sounds rather simple.
However, in practice, it appears to me that a number of them go on as I say for perhaps years.
As we would apply this system, we would take a case still pending in the svstem and say, "Yes, indeed, if some~hing new comes up that applies to that case, it must be forwarded on through either the Appeal Board or the Com-mission, or whatever is appropriate."
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Would the material channel alwavs to the original Board or would it deflect up the line to the Appeals Board and then to the Commission as those stage were reached?
MR. CASE:
It would generally deflect, although I understand the Appeals Board has a procedure now that
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25 everything is sent to the Board it automatically gets, but that is its choice.
7 MR. BOYD:
The way the procedure is laid out and how we would Probably implement it, if in fact the Commission is the appropriate source to receive this information, we would funnel it to the Commission, at the same time probably providing a copy to the Appeal Board for information and perhaps even a copy to the Licensing Board for information.
In the case of the Appeal Board being the focus, we would sent it to the Appeal Board directly, and at that point also probably sending an information copy to the Licensing Board.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
So that after the Licensing Board had, for instance, issued an initial decision, the primary flow then, of material from that docket would go to the Appeals Panel.
MR. BOYD:
Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If the Appeals Panel passed upon it, we would qet it up here.
MR. BOYD:
Yes. sir.
One of the increments of the procedure is to have OELD provide all the offices with monthly status reports on all the sitinq Boards, Appeal Board cases and Commission cases so that we will know who is on first and know where to send this stuff. It is easy for us to determine technically
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where a piece of information ouqht to go with respect to the cases involved, but in manv instances, we don't know where these cases are in the Process.
Is it still before the Appeal Board?
Is it still before the Commission?
MR. KENNEDY:
Could somebodv describe the nature of this assessment of significance which OELD is goinq to Provide to the Boards?
MR. CASE:
It will be a staff submittal of what we think the technical evaluation of MR. KENNEDY:
Oh, okay.
MR. BOYD:
And it relates MR. KENNEDY:
It is not talking about its siqni-ficance in the case, but rather its significance in a technical sense.
MR. CASE:
As related to the case.
MR. KENNEDY:
Oh, I know, but I mean not savina this is somethincr you reallv ouaht to look at.
MR. BOYD:
No.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
It may include.
MR. KENNEDY:
It may lead them to that conclusion.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
But it may include some input from OELD of a legal nature.
I think it is best to regard it as an overall evaluation bv the staff in terms of the technical meaninq in the health and safety sense as well as the MR. BOYD:
Let me take a crack at it.
The concept
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25 stems from the Appeal Board decision in Vogel where the Appeal Board said it is up to the staff to provide relevant material, new information, to the Board.
It is up to the Board to determine its significance.
9 So we said logically, rather than dump all this information on the Board and say, "Hey, we think by definition this is relevant and material," we ought to go on and assess for them our view as to the significance, even recoqnizinq it is the Board that has to make the determination of signi-ficance.
MR. KENNEDY:
Okay.
MR. BOYD:
It seemed like the gentlemenly thing to do.
MR. KENNEDY:
In other words, having made the final determination of relevancy and materiality, you are explaining to them why you made that judgment in fact.
MR. BOYD:
Yes.
MR. KENNEDY:
Okay.
MR. BOYD:
The last point I would like to bring up is implicit in this proposal is a need for a training program to acquaint the staff with all the Board no.tification and responsibilities which I see is in accordance with one of the recommendations in *the GAO Report that had been prepared for Senator Hart on.Board notification.
And so we have that essentially, not only as an
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25 10 adjunct followup to that recommendation, but I think as an inteqral part of this Board notification process, especially recognizing how complicated it is.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let's see, since the staff has accepted or very nearly wholly accepted the Board and Panel recommendations on how to handle these things, are there objectors or commentors near and far?
MR. CASE:
I don't know of any objectors.
There may be commentors on something; I don't know.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, the system has inevitably a shade more complexity this way than originally proposed, but not a great deal, it seems to me, from the Commission's viewpoint.
From where I sit, not from where you sit, but from where I sit, if you iust put another stamp and stamp a new address on every piece of paper that comes in and just send it out, that may be an easy handling procedure for you.
From my standpoint, it the Licensinq Boards,:-,now have to put toqether a great administrative staff with some technical people and.some leqal people and clerical people to handle it and make some sort of early determination for them of what it means and so on, that is not a help to us.
So I think this procedure which puts back in the hands of the more experienced and I really think expert staff on these matters the iob of doinq this and of sorting
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25 11 out the papers and getting them channeled in,the right place, I think that increases your problems over the ori.qinal proposal.
But from the Commission's standpoint, at least where I sit, it is a substantial improvement in an overall sense.
MR. CASE:
I would also consider it to be a vote of confidence on your part that the staff at least in that part of the process can handle all that material itself.
That is, before we submit our SER's.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, one of these days, we will go throuqh the charts with you and see how it is all working out.
And I think. indeed, it is a very helpful thing to not have to deal with all of the individual papers and assess them, get them on the Boards and so on, up through*
the point where the staff has submitted essentially its complete testimony before the hearing on both health and safety and environmental side, and to include in that every-thing that we think they ought to know.
I think that is fair enough.
MR. CHILK:
Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Sam, you have a comment?
MR. CHILK:
Can I just ask one question?
How much more material would you estimate is going to wind up in the Public Docket Room?
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25 12 MR. KENNEDY:
That's a good question.
MR. CASE:
None.
Because all of the material we are talking about is already MR. CHILK:
Is already released.
MR. CASE:
There may be copies of transmittal letters and things like that.
So there might be some volume, but --
MR. BOYD:
May I modify it only slightly.
For externally generated information, absolutely none.
Everybody is getting it now except the Boards.
For internally qenerated information and a system that churns up internally generated information, I think it is totally unpredictable.
It will depend on how much internally qenerated information thouaht to be relevant and material that later turns out in fact to be relevant and material there really is.
MR. CASE:
Well,' but the trigqer of internally generated information is the staff decides that the paper says that it is important enouqh or siqnificant enough to get some information from some outsider.
That correspondence is put in the Docket Room anyway.
MR. KENNEDY:
Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
You were going to say?
MR. KENNEDY:
I was going to say I'd recommend we approve of the recommendation.
But I would add that I think it would be useful to anticipate a review, let the
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25 Boards know that --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Oh, yes, I think it ought to be --
MR. KENNEDY:
We ouqht to say that perhaps in a notice.
13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I think it ought to be explicit in the Commission decision or be reflected in the EEO memorandum.
MR. BARDFORD:
Perhaps in the press.
MR. KENNEDY:
I was thinkinq in the press, the typical short note that the Commission will review the exoerience with this new procedure in X months, whatever.
And I would think 8 or 9 months.
Six months seems a bit too short.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Six months seems a little on the shy side.
I wouldn't even object to a year as a matter of fact.
Why don't vou decide what is reasonable?
Peter, what do you think?
MR. BRADFORD:
Let me just pursue with you for a minute the sentence on page 4.
The staff has already con-cluded (not intelligible) comments received in the course of development of r~gulations, code standards and quides shoul, not be provided to the Boards.
Does that specifically have reference to the
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25 situation like the connector problem?
MR. CASE:
No.
I wouldn't think so.
MR. BRADFORD:
Why not?
MR. CASE:
Well, there are so many things in the connector problem.
I guess it depends on which part of it you are thinking of.
Research results, no.
If they are relevant and material, they would have gone.
14 so* it is meant to deal with when Mr. Minogue develops a standard or a guide, he first -- somebody prepares a draft, and he generates a lot of comments internally, both.
within the staff and outside his staff.
Those could be considered material and relevant to some issues that the Board is considering.
But they are really not directed that way.
And comments that he gets from external organizations on the code or standard, quite similarly.
And we are trying to exclude those as a class as long as they are commenting on something under development, regulation, both guide or standard.
Now, within that mass of information, it is con-ceivable that a corn:tnentor miqht say. "I don't aqree with this particular part of your proposed guide because there has been some experiments conducted over here that show thus and SO* II We would say that that kind of information, the experimental information, we would hope by Mr. Minoque's
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25 staff would be extracted and sent over to us as oerhaps relevant material.
So you would get the information, but not the comments and the quides is what I am trying to say.
And as a matter of fact, thc;lt is what we have done.
There is a letter from Congressman Dingell relevant to this subject.
And, first, it was thouqht to mean all of the comments on quides and standards.
And we went back to him and he~_said, no, he didn't mean that.
But we did take all of those comments to see if there was such material in them and did include them in the Dingell pile.
So it's that kind of procedure that we meant to address.
It is not too well expressed.* It is hard to express it in a few sentence~.
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let's see, where are th~ words, Peter?
MR. KENNEDY:
Bottom of page 4, second paragraph from the bottom, last sentence.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Oh, yes.
I think what we mean is, for example, staff has already co_n::luded the comments received in the course of development of the regulation and code should not ordinarily be provided to the Board.
They may very well be matters that arise in such a proceeding where the staff would consider it appropriate.when notified.
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25 MR. KENNEDY:
May be continually.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
But the great mass of that material routinely ebbs and flows between loads of people and their commenters outside is a general proposition, not
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the sort of thing that the Boards ought to have to look at.
16 MR. CASE:
It is those very things that the standar setter, either you or Mr. Minogue himself, considers in the development of the standard.
That is its purpose.
And they are considered in that form.
MR. BRADFORD:
Does anything that you have here change the responsibility of licensees to report information to you after the development of the staff documents?
MR. BOYD:
Absolutely not.
MR. BRADFORD:
How is that duty defined now?
MR. CASE:
It is only defined in McGuire?
MR. BOYD:
I believe.
---~-- --- --
With respect to relevant and material* new infer-mation and Board notification, it is expressed in McGuire, Appeal Board decision in McGuire and reaffirmed in Vogel.
As far as information relating to safety, for example, at any time is covered in Part 21 or 5055(e), and other parts of the regulations.
But that is notifying the Commission.
In this case, it is Mr. Case.
But where Board notification is concerned, it is strictly the Commission law
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25 that comes down from McGuire.
MR. BRADFORD:
Does that also relate to NEPA or is that just safety?
MR. BOYD:
McGuire also relates to NEPA.
MR. CASE:
Well, it was written in the safety area.
I suppose you could get some argument as to whether it applies.
.MR. BRADFORD:
The staff reads it as relating to NEPA?
MR. BOYD:
A, we read it as relating to the environmental and the words "and environmental"'is included in that decision.
It is, indeed.
It is somewhat of a parenthetical expression, but it's there.
17 In any event, our procedure clearly lays out a whole track for the environmental part of this.
In most cases you know, they are separate hearings.
Now, one adjunct made clear by the Boards is that we don't start funneling extra environmental information until after the FES.
We don't start funneling in relevant material
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new safety information until after the SER.
So in some cases, the Boards will be on one service list, but not on the other yet because of the differences in time of the 2 parts of the process.
MR. BRADFORD:
But you are satisfied that if the licensee develops new environmental information after those
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25 18 documents have been filed, they are under some dutv to bring it to vour attention?
MR. BOYD:
And also to the attention of the Board.
Thev are under an obligation under McGuire to inform the Board.
McGuire says *both staff and applicants have a duty.
MR. BRADFORD:
How does that work in practice if the only place where that duty is clearly spelled out is in an Appeals Board decision, and if that isn't done, what are the sanctions?
MR. BOYD:
Jim?
MR. MURRAY:
Well, the Board can criticize the staff, draw it to the Commission's attention and have the MR. BRADFORD:
What about the licensee, though?
It's the licensee instead of the staff.
MR. MURRAY:
I would presume that this would bear on anything the licensee was authorized to do or was seeking authorization for.
In other words, we could withdraw the authorization to do whatever he has been doing or we could recommend against him getting the authorization he might be seeking.
If he is before a Board, he.will be seeking some-thing.
MR. BRADFORD:
But the sanctions would be in the context of what he is seeking.
It is not the same thing as
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25 19 a violation of a regulation.
MR. MURRAY:
That is correct.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
It doesn't fall under civil penalties and so on.
MR. MURRAY:
I can't be sure that we couldn't make a case under some provision of the regulations under all circumstances.
It would depend on the specifics of the case.
But normally, if it is a violation of nothing more than the injunction laid down by the Appeal Board and doesn't, as it might, relate to some other regulation, then it would not be subject to civil penalties.
MR. BRADFORD:
What was the Appeal Board drawing on in laying down that in1unction?
Were they interpreting a regulation or statute?
MR. MURRAY:
No.
My recollection is that they were just setting forth the normal what they conceived of to be the normal duties of litigants before the Board in assisting them in arriving at their decision.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Are we --
MR. BRADFORD:
What is needed of us today?
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If we think well of the propo-sition, I think it would be desirable to go ahead and vote it into place with anv modifications necessary.
Let me ask about the 6-rnonth trial period.
Is that part of the memo?
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25 20 MR. BOYD:
No.
It is not part of the memo, nor is it part of the oress release.
We would just plan -- and I really think you are probably right, a year is much better.
It was Jim Yoers' suqgestion of 6 months.
But I think a year would probably be more appropriate.
At the end of that time, we would be getting input from the Appeal Panel.
We, of course, would expect some input from the Licensinq Boards, and we ourselves would have to go back and review this thing.
And we could very easily put an information paper back to the Commission telling you how it has been going.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
To understand what is before the house, I would like us to understand that if we adopt it, it is not a thing which self-destructs after 6 months or a year, parties to see policy before but rather a thing in which we would ask all the to provide us with an evaluation in about a year whether we ought to modify or do something else.
Okay.
So that plus the memorandum outlining the here in the paper, I would define that as the issue the house.
And are you ready to take a position?
I'll ask for the "ayes."
(Chorus of "Ayes.")
So ordered.
MR. GOSSICK:
Also with the understanding if
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25 21 there is a glitch that develops here, you know --
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
If there is a glitch, we expect to hear from you immediately.
MR. BOYD:
It is our view to notify Boards, Panels, and the Commission.
(Whereupon, at 11:10, the meeting was adjourned.)