ML25196A185
| ML25196A185 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/18/1977 |
| From: | Bender M Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | Rowden M NRC/Chairman |
| References | |
| Download: ML25196A185 (1) | |
Text
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS WASHINGTON. D. C. 20555 Honorable Marcus A. Rowden Chairman March 18, 1977 U. s. Nuclear Regulatory Conmission Washington, DC 20555
Dear Mr. Rowden:
The Advisory Conmittee on Reactor Safeguards has considered the application to its activities of the Government in the Sunshine Act (5 u.s.c. 552b., Pub. Law No.94-409). The Conmittee has been ad-vised of the legal interpretation of the Act as applied to ACRS activities, and the Conmittee offers the following comnents with respect to application of the Act as it relates to the effective discharge of its duties in protecting the public health and safety.
The ACRS desires to implement the Act fully and has implemented applicable provisions of the Act in large measure well in advance of its effective date. Except for limited sessions needed to dis-cuss information specifically requiring protection, most sessions to gather information, including discussions with NRC staff mem-bers, licensing participants, and interested members of the public, have been open to the public since implementation of the Federal Advisory Conmittee Act. More recently, the Comnittee has also opened its deliberative and decision-making sessions to the public in accordance with the intent of the Goverrnnent in the Sunshine Act.
The Conmittee is concerned however, that open sessions at which forthcoming ACRS reports are discussed and drafted will tend to compranise the collegial nature of these reports. This is particu-larly likely to be the case if Conmittee deliberative discussions taking place in public sessions are permitted to be put in issue in subsequent hearings on license applications or other NRC pro-ceedings. The Conmittee desires that statements of views or ex-pressions of opinions by individuals during open sessions not be treated as matters of record in other Comnission proceedings since such statements may not reflect the individual's final views or positions. Nor should proposed positions be treated as the collec-tive judgment of the Conmittee, since the Conmittee's final deter-minations are reflected only in its final reports, which, in licens-ing cases, are made part of the public record in accordance with Section 29 of the Atomic Energy Act. These reports do include supplementary remarks which represent the final conclusions of individual members when they disagree with the Conmittee's col-lective judgment.
2784
Honorable Marcus A. Rowden 2 -
March 18, 1977 Beyond this, we are concerned that conducting our letter-writing sessions in public could impair the scope and depth of our collec-tive drafting effort. Even without the constraints which seem likely to flow from public presence, drafting responses which are fully debated and acceptable to all members is normally difficult.
Our recent experience with open drafting sessions has convinced the Conmittee that the addition of public observers compounds these problems.
Open sessions limit the uninhibited discussion of issues since members are reluctant to discuss matters which may involve the privacy of individuals or other privileged matters. Thus, Conmittee members are likely to be restrained in their discussion with a resulting loss in the effectiveness of the Comnittee's de-liberative process.
We understand that, in the Aeschliman case, the court of appeals recognized the collegial nature of the ACRS and refused to perm.it discovery of individual ACRS members because of the disintegrative effect that discovery would have on the collegiality of advice and reconmendations. The court concluded that the ACRS is comparable to an administrative adjudicator whose mental processes are pro-tected from examination. The Conmittee's unique statutory role in the Comnission's licensing process appears to be a part of the Com-mission's adjudicatory proceedings since the process cannot proceed to completion without benefit of an ACRS report.
We believe that these considerations support a conclusion that the tenth exemption of the Sunshine Act is applicable to those portions of the ACRS meetings where reports related to the hearing process are being prepared. It is anticipated that the other nine exemptive provi-sions of the Act will be used only to the extent necessary to pro-tect specific information being discussed which is exenpt from pub-lic disclosure.
The Comnittee desires your consideration regarding the application of the Sunshine Act to ACRS activities as noted above. The Com-mission's endorsement will result in essentially all substantive discussion at Comnittee meetings being conducted in open sessions, except for the preparation of final reports related to adjudica-tory matters.
2785 Sincerely, M. Bender Chairman