ML23054A001
| ML23054A001 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/25/2023 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-2017-0021, NRC-2243, RIN 3150-AJ92 | |
| Download: ML23054A001 (1) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Meeting to Discuss and Promote Full Understanding of the Contemplated Action and Facilitate Public Comment Docket Number: N/A Location: Videoteleconference Date: Wednesday, January 25, 2023 Work Order No.: NRC-2243 Pages 1-30 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS AND PROMOTE FULL 5 UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONTEMPLATED ACTION AND 6 FACILITATE PUBLIC COMMENT (RIN 3150-AJ92; NRC-2017-7 0021) 8 + + + + +
9 WEDNESDAY 10 JANUARY 25, 2023 11 + + + + +
12 13 14 The meeting convened via Video 15 Teleconference, at 10:00 a.m. EST, Lance Rakovan, 16 Facilitator, presiding.
17 18 19 PRESENT 20 LANCE RAKOVAN, Environmental Project Manager 21 CHRISTOPHER REGAN, Director, Division of Rulemaking, 22 Environmental, and Financial Support, NMSS 23 GREGORY TRUSSELL, Rulemaking Project Manager 24 RICHARD TURTIL, Senior Financial Analyst 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 2
3 TOPIC/SPEAKER PAGE 4
5 Welcome and Logistics 3 6
7 Opening Remarks 6 8
9 Background 8 10 11 Overview of Proposed Rule 8 12 13 Questions and Discussion 22 14 15 Preparing and Submitting Comments 25 16 17 Adjourn/Closing 30 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (10:01 a.m.)
3 MR. RAKOVAN: All right. We might as well 4 go ahead and get started. I don't see a whole lot of 5 folks on, but that's all right, we're going to ahead 6 and move forward. Good morning everyone.
7 My name is Lance Rakovan, I am an 8 environmental project manager at the U.S. Nuclear 9 Regulatory Commission or NRC, as you'll hear it 10 referred to during this meeting, and it's my pleasure 11 to facilitate today's meeting, along with my associate 12 Caroline Tilton.
13 We're going to do our best to make this 14 meeting worthwhile for everyone, and we hope you'll 15 help us out with that.
16 Just a few housekeeping issues to go 17 through before I turn things over to our speakers 18 today.
19 This is an information meeting with a Q&A 20 session by the NRC's definition, so our goal is to 21 help you make informed comments on this initiative.
22 We'll open the floor to questions once we 23 finish the presentation, so for now all participants 24 will be muted. I will go through how you can ask for 25 questions once we get to that point.
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4 1 Please note that we are recording today's 2 meeting. If you have any issues with that you may 3 drop off at this time.
4 Please note that we are not accepting 5 formal comments during this meeting. We ask that you 6 provide your comments through one of the various 7 formal mechanisms, and we'll be going through how to 8 do that soon.
9 Our primary speakers today will be Greg 10 Trussell and Rich Turtil. With that, I will hand 11 things over to Greg, and I'll be back after the 12 presentation when we move to the public question part 13 of the meeting.
14 I'm going to ask everyone hold your 15 questions until that presentation is over. Greg, if 16 you would?
17 MR. TRUSSELL: Thanks Lance. If you could 18 move to Slide 3, please? Okay, so I want to thank 19 everybody for attending today.
20 My name is Greg Trussell and I am the 21 rulemaking project manager, and I'll go ahead and get 22 us started today.
23 The purpose of our meeting today is to 24 help facilitate public input during the comment period 25 for our proposed rule.
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5 1 We are also providing background of the 2 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection 3 Act of 2010, which we'll often refer to during today's 4 meeting as Dodd-Frank or the Dodd-Frank Act.
5 We also discuss how Dodd-Frank impacts the 6 NRC's regulations, and what are the NRC's proposed 7 approaches for compliance with Dodd-Frank?
8 Next slide, please. So here's our 9 agenda. We'll start off with some opening remarks 10 from our division director, Chris Regan, and then we 11 will go over some background and rulemaking.
12 Rich Turtil, our technical lead, will give 13 us an overview of the Dodd-Frank Act, the NRC 14 Commission's funding assurance requirements, and the 15 use of credit ratings, and what regulations are 16 impacted by the Dodd-Frank Act.
17 We will then review the NRC's regulatory 18 approach to allow the NRC to be in compliance with 19 Dodd-Frank.
20 That will end our formal presentation, 21 then we'll move to the open discussion and question 22 portion of our meeting. I will also review how you 23 can submit your comments.
24 We'll also talk about our next steps and 25 have some closing remarks. So at this point I'll turn NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 it over to Chris. Go ahead, Chris. Chris?
2 MR. REGAN: Thanks. Good morning folks, 3 my name is Chris Regan. I'm the director for the 4 Division of Rulemaking Environmental and Financial 5 Support here in our Office of Nuclear Material Safety 6 and Safeguards at the NRC.
7 Thanks also for all of you that are 8 participating and joining us today. In the interest 9 of not being too repetitive, I do have some things I 10 wanted to share.
11 So our objective of today's meeting is to 12 share with you where we are with the staff's proposed 13 rulemaking efforts and to aid in the facilitation of 14 public input during the comment period.
15 As you may be aware, the NRC is proposing 16 to amend its regulations for approved financial 17 assurance mechanisms for decommissioning, specifically 18 for parent and self company guarantees that require 19 moderating this issue by credit rating agencies.
20 So this proposed rule would implement the 21 provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and 22 Consumer Protection Act of 2010 that Greg mentioned 23 that directed us as one of the agencies to amend our 24 regulations to remove any reference to, or 25 requirements associated with reliance on those credit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 ratings.
2 The proposed action is an amendment of the 3 NRC regulations. This would be in Appendices A, C, D, 4 and E to 10 CFR Part 30, and these are the regs that 5 concern the NRC's criteria related to the use of 6 financial tests for the self and parent company 7 guarantees for providing that reasonable assurance of 8 funds for decommissioning.
9 So, as we been required to do in 10 accordance with the Dodd-Frank Act, we are proposing 11 to amend these appendices to remove those requirements 12 that rely on the bond ratings, and instead rely on 13 newly-established criteria for that credit worthiness.
14 This proposed rule affects applicants and 15 licensees who are required to provide that 16 decommissioning funding assurance.
17 Again, we really appreciate you joining us 18 today and showing us an interest in participating. We 19 look forward to hearing your thoughts during today's 20 meeting, and then also when we go forward and share 21 our proposed rule for comment.
22 With that, thanks for allowing me the time 23 to share a couple opening remarks, and I'll now turn 24 it back over to Greg. Thanks Greg.
25 MR. TRUSSELL: Thanks Chris. Next slide, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 please.
2 So as I said earlier, we'll be reviewing 3 the -- I was reviewing the agenda -- we'll start off 4 with some background material.
5 So in terms of the background we'll talk 6 about what is the Dodd-Frank Act, what NRC regulations 7 are being impacted, what are the NRC's decommissioning 8 funding assurance regulations and surety instruments?
9 And to present the background, let me 10 introduce Rich Turtil who is our senior technical lead 11 for the NRC's Financial Assessment COE branch. Rich, 12 take it away.
13 MR. TURTIL: Great. Thank you. Thanks 14 Greg. We'll be on Slide 7. Next slide. So I 15 appreciate it. Thanks for all of you being here this 16 morning.
17 My name is Richard Turtil, I'm a senior 18 financial analyst with the agency working closely with 19 Greg on this rulemaking and with my fellow financial 20 analysts on financial and corporate matters related to 21 NRC licensees.
22 The Dodd-Frank impact on federal agency 23 regulations, basically we're looking at two sections, 24 939, and then within 939, 939A.
25 And I just want to emphasize that this is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 verbatim by and large, the language from that 2 legislation, in that each federal agency shall review 3 any regulation that requires use of creditworthiness 4 and references regarding credit ratings, and to modify 5 those regulations.
6 And to modify, meaning removing reference 7 to or requirements of reliance on those credit ratings 8 and then to provide a standard of creditworthiness 9 that each agency would determine as appropriate for 10 our regulations.
11 So that is what we have so far achieved in 12 this rulemaking. We have reviewed the NRC regulations 13 and we are proposing modifications.
14 First I'd like to present some information 15 about credit ratings, by and large what they are and 16 what they are used for.
17 So credit rating is an evaluation of the 18 credit risk of a prospective debtor, an individual, a 19 business, a company, predicting its ability or an 20 individual's ability to pay back that debt and an 21 implicit forecast of the likelihood of the debtor 22 defaulting.
23 So their credit rating represents an 24 evaluation by a credit rating agency of the 25 qualitative, quantitative information for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 prospective debtor, including information provided by 2 the prospective debtor and other non-public 3 information obtained by the credit rating agency in 4 performing their analysis.
5 So part of the contributing problem to the 6 financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 was the 7 determination that credit rating agencies, which 8 include Moody's and Standard & Poor's, generated bond 9 and other investment instrument ratings that were 10 suspect and unreliable, hence Congress's determination 11 in this section, 939, to have federal agencies remove 12 reference to and requirements on credit ratings from 13 regulations.
14 So I hope that's helpful in understanding 15 credit ratings.
16 Slide 8, please. This slide, Slide Number 17 8 highlights the acceptable decommissioning funding 18 assurance instruments available to NRC's various 19 licensees.
20 This slide identifies the location within 21 NRC regulations where decommissioning funding 22 requirements reside.
23 As you can see, NRC's Part 30, Part 40, 24 50, 70, and 72 licensees are required to have 25 decommissioning funding in place, ensuring there is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 reasonable assurance that such funding will be 2 available to licensees for decommissioning activities.
3 The bold letters on this slide identify 4 the specific locations of decommissioning fund 5 instruments available for use by licensees.
6 So in the first case, 10 CFR 3035F is 7 providing where those surety mechanisms, et cetera 8 exist. Further, the bold numbers following the bold 9 letters refer to the Part 30 appendices previously 10 discussed that allow for use of guarantee mechanisms 11 available to licensees for use for decommissioning 12 funding.
13 You can see that other surety instruments 14 aside from guarantee mechanisms discussed for this 15 rulemaking include prepayment of cash -- and these are 16 down below under surety instruments on this slide --
17 include prepayment of cash, external sinking funds for 18 utility licensees and other surety methods such as 19 bonds, letters of credit, and insurance.
20 And finally, note that in red we identify 21 use of the self guarantee and the parent company 22 guarantee. And that is really the focus of the 23 regulations that we are focused on for this 24 rulemaking.
25 In summary, this slide presents the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 location within NRC regulations where NRC's 2 decommissioning funding requirements reside and allow 3 the decommissioning instruments in which credit 4 ratings are currently relied on, and for which this 5 rulemaking effort is underway to address the Dodd-6 Frank Act legislative requirements.
7 Slide 9, please. So my screen seems to be 8 frozen.
9 MR. RAKOVAN: Slide 9 is visible, Greg.
10 MR. TURTIL: Okay. I'll speak to Slide 9.
11 Others can see Slide 9 at this time, which has NRC 12 regulations impacted by Dodd-Frank at the top?
13 MR. TRUSSELL: Yes, they can.
14 PARTICIPANT: Yes, he can.
15 MR. TURTIL: Okay. Very good. So I'll 16 continue. Mine is spinning around, but that's okay.
17 So from the prior slide, referring to what 18 was printed in red down below, we've listed here the 19 location in our regulations reflecting the parent 20 company guarantee and self guaranteed decommissioning 21 funding instruments.
22 Found in appendices to our byproduct 23 materials regulations in 10 CFR Part 30, the NRC 24 provides requirements for these guaranteeing 25 mechanisms that may be used by licensees for providing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 reasonable assurance of funds for decommissioning.
2 On this slide, which is Slide 9, for 3 company corporate licenses, and the next slide which 4 we'll look at in just a moment, is for colleges, 5 universities, and hospitals.
6 We have listed the NRC approved guarantee 7 mechanisms that currently rely on or cite credit 8 ratings -- also known as bond ratings by the way -- in 9 addition to other metrics to determine the 10 creditworthiness of the guarantor.
11 So on each one of these test criteria that 12 we'll use that could rely on bond ratings, of course 13 there are other metrics as well.
14 Slide 10, please. Just taking a look here 15 to see. Okay. I'm glad I have my own copies of 16 slides, this is very, very helpful.
17 So slide 10, you can see these are NRC 18 regulations. On this slide we've listed the location 19 in our regs reflecting the self guaranteed 20 decommissioning funding instruments for colleges, 21 universities, and hospitals. These two are found in 22 10 CFR Part 30, Appendix E.
23 In summary, what we've identified for you 24 in these two slides, that's Slide 9 and 10, are the 25 regulations, specific NRC requirements that cite, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 reference to, and rely on credit ratings.
2 Next slide, please, which is Slide 11.
3 In summary, reflecting the intent of the 4 Dodd-Frank Act, legislation to remove reliance on 5 credit ratings from our regulations, this rulemaking 6 will remove bond rating criteria from -- looking at 7 the slide -- remove the bond rating criteria for use 8 of guarantee mechanisms currently cited in 10 CFR Part 9 30, Appendices A, C, and E, and those criteria are 10 AAA. Currently those criteria are AAA, AA, A, or BBB 11 Standard and Poor's ratings and similar ratings for 12 Moody's. Moody's a credit rating agency.
13 The rulemaking will replace with new 14 creditworthiness criteria standard language that we're 15 going to visit now that you will see consistently in 16 the next few slides, and this is intended to be a 17 quote that would replace these credit ratings 18 language, and you'll see that in green on the 19 following slides.
20 Quote, creditworthiness that demonstrates 21 an adequate capacity to provide full and timely 22 payment of the amount guaranteed if necessary.
23 So in short, NRC staff will then assess --
24 in the future after this rulemaking is established --
25 will assess the creditworthiness of a licensee or an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 applicant and make the determination based on 2 information submitted by the applicant or licensee.
3 Next slide please, which is Slide 12. In 4 short, Appendix A parent company allows for -- so 5 we're going to walk through -- if I can back up for 6 just a moment?
7 Not the slide, but we'll walk through the 8 actual changes that are being proposed for this 9 rulemaking.
10 So for Appendix A, in short, Appendix A 11 parent company guarantee allows for either of two 12 approaches currently for meeting qualifications for 13 use of this mechanism.
14 In the rulemaking, the A1 approach will be 15 retained. A2 is the one being impacted by this 16 rulemaking, as reflected in this slide. Again, two 17 approaches will continue to be available for meeting 18 the parent company guarantee test.
19 The rulemaking approach changes A2, so 20 that alternative will be changed, replacing the prior 21 credit rating criteria with the new quote 22 creditworthiness criteria that I read on the last 23 slide, as reflected here in green.
24 And again, this is verbatim, the same 25 language we just saw. Creditworthiness that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 demonstrates an adequate capacity to provide full and 2 timely payment of the amount guaranteed, if necessary.
3 That language is replacing the bond rating 4 that currently exists there. The A1 approach will not 5 change and will continue to contain four metric tests.
6 Three of the four are listed here in bullets 2, 3, 7 and 4. The additional metric, passing two of three 8 ratios, involves evaluation of total liabilities, net 9 worth, and other financial metrics.
10 So with that, I'd like to move to Slide 11 13, please.
12 So in short, in Appendix C, self guarantee 13 for licensees that are companies as opposed to 14 universities and hospitals, the rulemaking replaces 15 the bond rating metric with the new proposed credit 16 worthiness criteria, again shown in green, the 17 narrative below.
18 All other metrics, so that's one and two 19 shown here, are retained from the original regulation 20 and will be retained from the original regulation.
21 There is and will be just one test in this Appendix C 22 for self guarantee, consisting of these three metrics 23 as reflected on this slide.
24 Slide 14, please. So this is for Appendix 25 E.
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17 1 For non-profit colleges and universities, 2 there will remain two alternative tests available to a 3 licensee or applicant. The licensee/applicant must 4 meet either criteria number one regarding an 5 endowment, and that's language explicitly contained in 6 Appendix C at this time.
7 It reads an unrestricted endowment or 8 endowments consisting of assets located in the U.S. of 9 at least $50,000,000 or at least 30 times the total 10 current decommissioning cost estimate -- and there's 11 additional language there -- whichever is greater for 12 all decommissionings for the college or university, or 13 they must meet criteria number two, the 14 creditworthiness criteria listed on this slide.
15 Again, prior to and currently, that 16 language that is in green here refers to credit 17 ratings, and this would be the replacement for those 18 credit ratings.
19 Slide 15, please. Two alternative tests 20 are currently available to hospitals also in Appendix 21 E. Test criteria one, bond rating, or test criteria 22 two, metrics that include revenue debt, liabilities, 23 other financial metrics that would be analyzed that 24 would be provided by the licensee or applicant.
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18 1 one again to reflect the new creditworthiness criteria 2 reflected here in green. Test criteria two, the other 3 alternative test, will be retained. So there would be 4 an option or alternatives for such hospitals to pursue 5 use of creditworthiness.
6 Next slide which is Slide 17, please.
7 Excuse me, 16. I apologize.
8 So as we change the language of the 9 regulation, it falls on staff and for the applicant 10 and licensee to provide information to the NRC that 11 would have staff then evaluate that information and 12 make a determination as to the creditworthiness of a 13 licensee/applicant to use such mechanism.
14 And these are examples, and they are 15 provided in draft guidance, which went out with the 16 proposed rule. So you can see here examples of data 17 to support creditworthiness, determination for use of 18 parent and self guarantee as provided in draft NRC 19 guidance.
20 These will be standard financial metrics 21 and other data that could include revenue and historic 22 trends in revenue, net income and historic trends in 23 net income, capital structure, so the debt and equity 24 structure of the entity, of the corporate entity, in 25 recent changes in capital structure, annual free cash NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 flow, interest expense, levels of debt, interest 2 coverage, statements and assessments from third-3 parties, including bond ratings and corporate credit 4 ratings.
5 So this is the kind of information that a 6 licensee or applicant would provide in place of what 7 it had previously provided, potentially using a credit 8 rating.
9 This is the information, this is the kind 10 of narrative that a licensee would provide -- and 11 again, when I say licensee, I mean to say both a 12 licensee or applicant -- would provide in its pursuit 13 of use of a parent company guarantee or self 14 guarantee.
15 This is probably one of the more important 16 pieces in understanding that the licensee/applicant 17 would provide their basis for why they conclude that 18 they are creditworthy enough so to use a guarantee 19 mechanism. And then that staff, the NRC staff, would 20 evaluate that kind of information.
21 And this is within our guidance, the 22 following quote, no single piece of financial data 23 stands alone as a determinant of a licensee's 24 creditworthiness. In most cases, such a determination 25 requires analysis of multiple pieces of financial NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 data.
2 So the staff would look forward to such a 3 presentation and a submission by a licensee or an 4 applicant, and then we would evaluate that kind of 5 information.
6 And these are examples that currently 7 exist that we have in our current guidance, and we're 8 looking for commentary too as well on our draft 9 guidance that is out there.
10 But I would reinforce we're looking at 11 your basic financial data presented in a submission, 12 and that could include statements and assertions from 13 third-parties that have been received by the licensee 14 or the applicant that reflect on their own credit 15 ratings and other analyses by such third-parties.
16 That draft interim staff guidance is part 17 of the package that's gone out for comment and can be 18 found at our ADAMS Accession Number, as you can see 19 there, ML21306A361.
20 Next slide would be Slide 17, please. And 21 with that, I'm going to turn this back over to Greg, 22 and I thank you for your attention.
23 MR. TRUSSELL: Thanks Rich. So you can 24 see here on Slide 17 our proposed rule did publish on 25 January 3 of this year. We have a 75-day comment NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 period that ends on March 20 of 2023.
2 And to be helpful here, we did provide a 3 link to regulations.gov for those of you that want to 4 go ahead and submit a public comment on this proposed 5 rule.
6 Next slide, please. So you can submit 7 comments using any of these methods. We highly 8 recommend that you submit your comments 9 electronically, which is the federal rulemaking 10 website, which is regulations.gov, which can be found 11 at www.regulations.gov.
12 All you need to do is search for the 13 docket ID number, which is NRC-2017-0021.
14 Again, we have provided the link here to 15 the federal rulemaking site. You can also mail your 16 comments to this address, to attention of Rulemaking 17 and Adjudication.
18 You could also email your comments to 19 rulemaking.comments@nrc.gov. Again, the comment 20 period does close on March 20 of this year.
21 So just open it up real quick. Are there 22 any questions on how you can submit public comments?
23 You could open it up or you can put your question in 24 the chat. If there's any questions on how to submit a 25 comment?
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22 1 MR. RAKOVAN: So if you do have a question 2 you can use the raise my hand feature, or if you're on 3 the phone you can hit *5 and that will raise your 4 hand.
5 Once we see that your hand is raised we'll 6 allow you to activate your microphone. You may still 7 need to unmute, so you might need to look for that 8 little microphone and tap that if you are on Teams, or 9 you can hit *6 or unmute if you wish to unmute.
10 But I will look for hands and take them 11 in the order that I see them.
12 Surprisingly enough, Rich Turtil, you 13 appear to have a question. Please proceed, sir.
14 MR. TURTIL: A statement. I've been 15 informed that our ADAMS link for that ISG guidance 16 document is not pulling that up so we're going to look 17 into that, try and see if we can resolve that during 18 this presentation. So thank you.
19 MR. RAKOVAN: Great, thanks Rich. All 20 right, so let's see if we have any questions on how to 21 submit comments, or any questions on the presentation 22 in general?
23 Again, our goal here is to make sure that 24 you can make educated comments on this initiative 25 through the formal mechanisms.
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23 1 If the presentation gave you the 2 information you needed, great, if you have a question 3 or would like to get some additional information on 4 the topics covered, again please raise your hand and I 5 will go ahead and activate your microphone so that you 6 can unmute and ask your question.
7 So we'll pause and see if anyone has any 8 questions. Again, if you have a question, please use 9 the raise your hand feature in Teams, or if you're on 10 the phone you can hit *5 to raise your hand and I will 11 activate your microphone.
12 (No audible response.)
13 MR. RAKOVAN: Well, Greg, Rich, it seems 14 like you guys were very clear and very informative.
15 MR. TRUSSELL: Yeah, Lance, if you want 16 to, why don't you go ahead and just read through the 17 questions? Maybe that might spark some interest on 18 Slides 20 and so forth.
19 MR. RAKOVAN: Sure. And again these were 20 previously shared. I believe the Federal Register 21 notice, if this helps facilitate, or you know, bring 22 some questions to mind.
23 Question one, would this proposed rule 24 present additional risk to the public regarding 25 reasonable assurance that NRC licensees have adequate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 funding to decommission their facilities? If yes, 2 please explain.
3 Slide 21, please. Question two, does the 4 draft guidance effectively communicate the necessary 5 information to be submitted to the NRC that will 6 enable the NRC to effectively determine the licensees' 7 creditworthiness?
8 Slide 22, please. Question three, does 9 the draft regulatory analysis capture all of the NRC 10 and licensing costs required by this proposed rule?
11 And the last question, question four on 12 Slide 23. This is a big one.
13 One commenter on the ANPR argues that 14 Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Act is focused on issue 15 credit ratings of specific financial obligations, such 16 as long and short-term bonds rather than issuer credit 17 ratings or corporate family ratings, and that the 18 statute does not preclude the use of issuer or 19 corporate family credit ratings and federal 20 regulations.
21 Should the NRC interpret the statute and 22 implementing regulations as making this distinction?
23 Does the statute permit NRC to use issuer 24 or corporate family credit ratings in Part 30? If so, 25 should the NRC do so?
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25 1 Again, these questions are kind of to help 2 facilitate potentially and get you thinking about what 3 you might comment on.
4 If there is any clarifying questions, or 5 if this helps spur any additional information that you 6 were looking for from the meeting today, please go 7 ahead, raise your hand and we'll activate your 8 microphone.
9 Why don't we go ahead and go to the next 10 slide, Slide 24, that provides how folks can submit 11 their formal comments. Greg, do you want to go 12 through that one more time?
13 MR. TRUSSELL: Sure, thanks Lance. Yeah, 14 just to review again, you can submit your comments 15 using any of these methods.
16 Again, I highly recommend that you submit 17 your comments electronically, which is the federal 18 rulemaking website, which is regulations.gov, which 19 can be found at www.regulations.gov.
20 Again, all you need to do is search for 21 the docket ID NRC2017-0021, and we also have provided 22 the link here on the slide, it's right to that federal 23 rulemaking site.
24 You can also mail your comments to this 25 address, to attention of Rulemaking and Adjudication, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 or you could email your comments to your comments to 2 rulemakings.comments@nrc.gov.
3 Again, the comment period closes on March 4 20 of this year. And again, if you have any questions 5 on how you can submit your comments, please do so at 6 this time.
7 MR. RAKOVAN: Greg, we've got a question.
8 Will the slides be made publicly available after this 9 meeting?
10 PARTICIPANT: Are they publicly available 11 now, or?
12 PARTICIPANT: Yeah, they're publicly 13 available now.
14 MR. RAKOVAN: Okay. Do we have the ML 15 number for them by any chance? We can drop that into 16 the chat or drop a link possibly into the chat.
17 MR. TRUSSELL: I'll drop a link to it in 18 the chat.
19 MR. RAKOVAN: Okay great, thank you.
20 MR. TURTIL: And if I may? This is Rich 21 Turtil. We're checking to see that that ML number in 22 ADAMS does work for the ISG. It opens for me, it may 23 not for others. I'm trying to confirm that before we 24 finish this public meeting. Be back soon, thanks.
25 MR. TRUSSELL: I just put the link to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 presentation in the chat, Susan, so you can see in 2 there.
3 MR. RAKOVAN: Thanks Greg. All right, 4 we'll hold on a second to see if anyone has any 5 questions. Again, raise your hand and we'll go ahead 6 and take hands as we see them and allow you to unmute.
7 And I know that Rich is also checking to 8 make sure that the ML number works. I'm going to go 9 ahead and do that too, so.
10 MR. TURTIL: Thank you Lance, we're still 11 working this. I think it's going to work, it should 12 open.
13 MR. RAKOVAN: Yeah, it works.
14 MR. TURTIL: Okay. So I'm going to put 15 the ML number right in the chat, as well.
16 MR. TRUSSELL: Okay Susan, I see your 17 comment. Let me get that ML number and you can pop it 18 in there. Thanks for that.
19 MR. RAKOVAN: All right. Thanks Greg, 20 thanks Rich. Thanks Susan for keeping us honest. All 21 right, so I guess I'll do one last call just to see if 22 there's any questions. Again, if you have a question 23 please raise your hand and I will activate your 24 microphone so you can ask it.
25 (No audible response.)
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28 1 MR. RAKOVAN: Greg, do you want to go one 2 more time through how folks can submit public comments 3 and kind of go through the last few slides?
4 MR. TRUSSELL: Sure. Okay, you're on 5 Slide 24, good.
6 Again, you can submit your comments using 7 any of these methods. We do recommend that you do 8 that electronically, which is the Federal Rulemaking 9 website, regulations.gov, which can be found at 10 www.regulations.gov. Just search for the docket ID 11 NRC-2017-0021. And here is the link to that site.
12 You can also mail your comments to this 13 address, to the attention of Rulemaking and 14 Adjudication. And you can also email your comments to 15 the rulemaking.comments@nrc.gov.
16 The comment period does close on March 20 17 of this year.
18 MR. RAKOVAN: Greg, I think you have a 19 couple more slides.
20 MR. TRUSSELL: Yeah, if we could go to 21 Slide 26, please? So we can go ahead and close things 22 out.
23 And in terms of the road ahead, the 24 comment period closes March 20.
25 I said earlier at that point in time the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 working group will work our way through the comments 2 submitted and use them in the development of our final 3 rule which we hope to develop throughout the year 4 2023, and hopefully get a final rollout sometime in 5 2024.
6 At this point in time, I'll open up to the 7 panel, or perhaps to Chris if anybody has any closing 8 remarks they'd like to have? Go ahead, Chris.
9 MR. REGAN: No, thanks Greg, just 10 appreciation to the staff for the presentation and 11 thanks for those folks that spent some time enjoying 12 us today.
13 We look forward to any comments that you 14 all may have on the proposed rulemaking, and that's 15 all I wanted to say. Appreciate everyone's time.
16 Greg, Lance, if you want to bring us home, you have 17 the mic. Thanks.
18 MR. TRUSSELL: Thanks Chris. Last slide, 19 please. So we appreciate any feedback that you could 20 provide on how we did today on the presenters or on 21 the presentation or the process as a whole.
22 Feel free to email me at any time at my 23 email address, which is gregory.trussell@nrc.gov.
24 Any feedback would be appreciated. So 25 that's the end of our public meeting today. At this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 point in time I'll go ahead and close it, and thank 2 you again for your participation. Thank you.
3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 4 off the record at 10:37 a.m.)
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