ML20203J974
| ML20203J974 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/11/1997 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20203J911 | List: |
| References | |
| ASB-300-73, NUDOCS 9712220142 | |
| Download: ML20203J974 (190) | |
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- w ,e n OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS UNITED.5TATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
WORKSHOP ON PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS INITIATIVES Docket No.:
4 Work Order No.: ASB-300-73 , .
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LOCATION: Rbckville,MD ,'
g DA'IL Thursday, Deceml 11,1997 PAGES: 1 - 188
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1 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 ***
3 COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATING COMMITI'EE 4 ***
5 WORKSHOP ON PUBLIC 6 COMMUNICATIONS INITIATIVES .
7 8 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9 Two White Flint North 10 11545 Rockville Pike 11 Rockville, Maryland 20852-2738 12 13 Thursday, December 11, 1997 14 15 The Committee met pursuant to notice at 9:05 a.m.
16 17 MEMBERS PRESENT:
18 BILL BEECHER, Co-chair 19 CHIP CAMERON, Co-chair 20 JOHN CRAIG 21 DONNIE GRIMSLEY
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22 JOSIE PICCONE 23 LINDA PORTNER 24 JOHN ZWOLINSKI 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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?2 1 DISCUSSION GROUP PARTICIPANTS:
2 DON BECK '
- 3 -PAUL M. BLANCH
.4; PAT _BRYANT -
5' PAUL CHOINIERE~
.6- -RALPH DESANTIS .
'7- DAN GREENBERG , .
8 PAUL GUNTER 9 JUDITH JOHNSRUD:
10 DAVID A. LOCHBAUM 11 PAMELA NEWMAN-BARNETT 12 JDAVID NICHOLS 13 JIM NORVELLE 14 JIM RICCIO 15 DAVID STELLFOX --
16 TERRY STRONG 17 .
18 ..
19 20
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22 23 24 25
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3 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 [9:05 a.m. )
3 MR. CAMERON - I think we can get started.
4 I am going to ask my co-chair of the committee, 5 Bill Beecher, to welcome you.
6- MR. BEECHER: Thank you, Chip.
7 We want to thank you all most sincerely for coming 8 to the NRC today to provide your insights as we put together 9 a plan aimed at improving our ability to communicate clearly 10 and credibly with all our stakeholders, and particularly 11 with the general public, and to identify earlier and 12 squarely address public concerns.
13 Thanks to one of the members of the focus group, 14 Paul Gunter, I see we have been given a little nickname. We 15 are the NRC spin doctors. We are here to listen to your 16 candid comments, criticisms, whatever. Thank you, Paul, for i
17 distributing that to us all.
18 As you have seen from the materials sent you in 19 advance, the Commission recognizes that we have problems, 20 and the committee that Chip Cameron and I co-chair has been 21 working for months to focus on specific issues and come up j 22 with recommended solutions to the Commission.
l 23 That's where you come in. Our effort until now 24 has been entirely in house. Not to say that we live in a
- 25 cocoon where you have contact with.the greater public, with ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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-4 1 specialiintorest groups and such every day,-but in terms of u _2 Ethis particular effort _it has been in house to date, -
~3 :While some.outside stakeholders who were invited 4- ' couldn't make-it an'd-a few are late,Lyou here-today 5 represent'a broad cross section of those who have,_let me 6 say, a-keen interest in what we do.
Some'more keen'than 7 others. "We wanted you here at thic junctureLnot to much to 8 ' hear our thoughts as'to listen to yours. 'That's what today 9 - is about.
10 Have we identified the most1significant issues?
o 11 Are there important issues missing? Are our tentative 12 _ solutions the right ones?-
13 We know you will be frank. We trust you will be 14 constructive.
15 By the way, this-meeting is being transcribed and 16 each of you will receive a copy of the transcript.
17 This is a public meeting. It was publicly 18 noticed, and anyone who wants to come and listen tc our
=19 discussions.today can do so. As you can see, there are a 20 few here already.
21 I-should add that before the Commission acts on 22 this committee's proposals our final report will be placed 23 on our Internet web site where any and all interested 24 parties will be encouraged to comment. So this is the first 25- crack that outside parties will have at this process but ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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5 1 certainly not the last.
.2- In addition, we hope-we can conduct two regional ,
3~ workshops on:the_. report.
4 .Unlike-other senior managers on our committee, I ,
5 come out of a different culture. Before taking-this job 6 with the NRC four' years ago, I spent more than'30 years as-a 7 Washington correspondent,for such newspapers as the Boston 8 Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and the New-York Times.. I 9 grew up in-a culture of determining the facts.as quickly and
- UD thoroughly as possible and then writing 1 about them in; news ,.
11 stories and news analyses to better inform my readers. I 12 bring that same attitude to my presentfjob.
13 The current chairman of the NRC, Shirley Ann 14 . Jackson, and her immediate predecessor, Ivhn Selin,lboth 15 have shared the conviction that we do the public's business 16 and thus should do so openly and clearly.
17 Let me assure you that we are very serious about 18 our. desire to significantly improve our performance.
19 Those of you gathered here today represent diverse 20 interests and perspectives. You won't all agree among 21 yourselves or with us, but we really want your honest 22 auggestions. They will be most-carefully considered.
23 Constructive candor is what-we want; constructive-24 candor.is what we need. In advance I want to thank-you for 25 that.
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1 Before we get started, let's go around the table, 2 starting on my left. Please introduce yourselves, and then 3- we will get started.
I 4 MR. STELLFOX: My name is David Stellfox. I'm a 5 reporter with McGraw Hill's nuclear publications Inside-NRC, 6 Nucleonics Week, and Nuclear Fuel.
7 MR. RICCIO: I','m Jim Riccio. I'm the staff 8 attorney with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project.
9 MS. JOHNSRUD: Judith Johnsrud. I'm with Sierra 10 Club in Pennsylvania, but I think I'm speaking today for the 11 Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power, which I direct.
12 MS. PICCONE: I'm J0sie Piccone. I'm with the 13 NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
14 MR. CHOINIERE: Paul Choiniers, reporter with the 15 New London Day newspaper in New London, Connecticut, and I 16 have reported extensively on the problems at Millstone.
17 MR. GUNTER: Paul Guntar, Nuclear Information and 18 Resource Service, Washington. Also director of the Reactor 19 Watchdog Projecc.
20 MR. ELANCH: Paul Blanch, whistleblower employed 21 by Northeast Utilities. For 22 years now I've been an 22 independent consultant.
23 MR. LOCHBAUM: Dave Lochbaum, nuclear safety 24 engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
25 MS BRYANT: Patricia Bryant with the Nuclear ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. '
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1 Energy Institute.
2 MR. DeSANTIS: Ralph DeSantis, director of 3 communications for GPU Nuclear, which operates Three Mile 4 Island-and Oyster Creek.
5 MR. STRONG: Terry Strong, State of Washington, 6 director of Washington's radiation control-program.-
7 MR, NORVELLE: JI'm Jini Norvelle, director of new 8 services at Virginia Power. We operate North Anna and Surry 9 power stations.
10 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I'm John Zwolinski, member of the 11 NRC staff. I'm the deputy division director of our Division 12 of Reactor Projects for Regions I and II.
13 MR. CRt.IG : I'ra John Craig, and I'm deputy 14 divieion director: of the Division of Engineering Technology-L 15 in the Office of Research. Li?<.e the NRC staff, I'm a member 1
16 of the DSI 14, or Communications Coordinating Committee.
17 MR. CAMERON: Chip Cameron from the NRC's Office 18 of General Counsel, special counsel for public liaison and 19 also a member of the Communications Coordinating Committee.
i 20 NR. BECK: Don Beck with the Gallup Poll 21 Organization. We tocus on helping government measure 22 performance, and before that, the acting director of the 23 Office of Public Accountability for the Department of 24 Energy's environmental management progre.m.
l 25 MR. GRIMSLEY: I'm Donnie Grimsley. I'm with the l ANN ~RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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2 -MS. NEFMAN-BARNETT: Pamela Newman-Barnett, 3 reporter'for the Energy Dajly.
4 MR.--BEECHER: =All right,1 Chip,.will you take over.=
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5 MR.- CAMERON: Sure. :Thanks-Bill.
.6- Let me add my welcome to'all of you and~our; 7 appreciation.for taking your time to-be hera. -
8 I-thought-I would-give you a bit-of an' overview of 9 where we are coming from with this, and I guess two notable 11 0 - things around-the table. - I don't know how we got the three-11, - Pauls.together all right in a row. I'd just like to 12 compliment Jim Riccio on-his tie. Very nice choice.
13 As you all know, this effort of tlie Communications 14 Coordinating Committee grew out of the strategic planning 15 prot eas, specifically what is known as DSI 14. This paper 16 was done as a result of.the strategic planning process, and 17 that paper and the Commission staff requirements memorandum 18 in response to that paper is in your material.
19 I think as we pointed out in our cover letter to 20 you, there were three basic areas of concern that the 21 Commission flagged in their etaff requirements memorandum:
22 clear' communication in writing,-in oral presentations,nearly 23 -public-involvement on significant issues of concern, and .
24' - puPlic outreach generally.
25 What the committee has been doing is to try to 1
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9 1 address those objectives. We have been taking a look at a 2* broader number of areas. It basically corresponds to the 3 way the agenda is set up-today.
4 One f.s clear communication: How do we express 5 ourselves? Does it accurately describe a particular 6 activity or event? Does it talk about implications of the 7 event or'act.ivity? And 4s the material understandable?
8 The second area:is effective public involvement 9 - processes either on a' generic activity, such as a rulemaking 10 - or policy statement, or in reference to a particular 11 facility or site. -
12 We also have the public outreach area that 13- includes educational efforts that we are looking at.
14 A fourth area is, does the public have ready 15 access to NRC information and documents?
16 The last area is, are we timely in rosponding to 17 inquiries.
18 I want to emphasize one point on the clarity of
- 19 conimunications issue. Thir is the first item on your agenda 70 that John Craig is going to be our discussion leader for.
21 It's what should be the basic philosophy or approach to NRC 22 communications. This reflects a specific Commission concern 23 in regard tc this effort, which is not only that we provide 24 clear and correct information to the public, but that we do 25 so without either overstating or minimizing the safety ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I significance of events.
2 That is' easy to say, but what does that mean?
3 John =is going to try to set that discussion up for us in a 4 few minutes.
5 In terms of the committee's general approach, Bill 6 has already sort of flagged some-of this in terms of what we 7 would like to hear from you.
8 We have been attempting to determine whether the 9 NRC has a problem in a particular area, to try to figure out 10 what the nature and extent of that particular problem is, 11 and to look at how it can be fixed:
1 12 Do we need policy statements, if not in a formal 13 sense, in an informal sense, on some of these issues to give 14 better guidance to the staff?
15 Do we need additional procedures?
16 Do we need changes in the culture of NRC to better 17 implement some of thoce things?
18 What's the role of training in all of this?
19 The Commission has also asked us to pay attention 20 to cost. For all of the types of remedies we might come up 21 with, we also have to look at what are the costs and do the 22 benefits justify the cost.
23 Much of what we do recommend I think is going to 24 be folded back into the implementation of the strategic plan
-25 and that's why this strategic plan document is a key ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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$ b-11 1- document. There is a_ strategic' arena on public confidence .,
2 in-this plan that not:only talks'about clear communication, ,
~3 but it talks-about involving the_public.
4 As Bill. pointed out, we kept this agenda v'ry e 5 ~ broad so that.we can try to stimulate the maximum number of:
6 ideas and creative ideas, criticism from:all of_you that we
? Lcan use to help frame our report. That' report-w.4.11 go to 8 the Commission. We will send you copies; we will send-you'a 9 copy of the transcript from this meeting.
10 We do-plan some-broader public outreach-efforts on 11- the report, but we wanted to get'the main players here to 12 help on the development of our first product.
l 13 Since we do have a transcript, I would urge 14 everybody to follow our standard procedure. If you want to 15 say something, put your name plate up on end, so that you 16 don't have to hold your hand up all the time and so that we 17 don't miss anybody. I am going to ask the discussion 18 leaders for a particular segment to lead the discussion.
19 The one problem we have is we probably don't have-1 20- enough time to explore everything. We are. slated to run
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21 until three. If possible, if people are interested -- I 22 know that a lot of us are willing to stay after that, and we
- 23 will have to see how our stenographer works with that idea, 24 but we do have some flexibility.
25 We've arranged a novel way to keep us on tin.e ' this ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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12 1 morning, since the Commission choir has prevailed upon us to 2 come in and practice here from 12 to one. So we have to 3 stop at 12. I suppose that we could probably all sit around 4 and sort of come up with some of our favorite NRC Christmas 5 carols, like "The Twelve Days of SALP."
6 [ Laughter.)
7 MR. CAMERON: Or "All I want for Christmas is a 8 Response to my 2.206 Petition."
9 We are going to break at 12 for the choir. The 10 rest rooms are right outside here. We can get you to the 11 cafeteria and whatever.
12 I would just say welcome to you and turn it over 13 to John to start our first discussion area.
14 Before we do that, are there any questions about 15 the coordinating committee process or the process for today?
16 (No response.)
17 MR. CAMERON: John.
18 MR. CRAIG: I will start off by introducing. John 19 Zwolinski. I've asked him to help me lead the discussion in ,
20 this area. He's a little more mature than I am with the 21 agency and had a little more experience.
22 I thought we would open the discussion and I would 23 give you come insights into the strategic planning process.
24 As we prepared the direction-settf.ng issue paper 25 there was a think tank discussion on some of the ideas. I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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t 13 e 1 happened to be in the one on public communications, d 2 As the staff was sort of. kicking around' ideas they 3 were talking about when we approach:the'public, when:we are
~4- going to' interact with the public, what' thoughts come_to 5 -mind. One of the;very first ones was "have)your lawyers ,
6 talk to our lawyers." .
7 That sort of sqt the tone and' began to identify -
8 the rigidity, the formality that a lot of'the staff felt .
9 dominated our approach or mind-set on interactions with-the public.
i 11 I think the strategic. planning process, the fact 12 that we needed something that was somewhat -- I know you've-13 heard this before -- the Commission published the papers and 14 got input from a broad section of the public before they 15 made the decision.
16 In the past, one of the things that has sort of 17 characterized much of the NRC ar.tions is an approach that 18 our consultant -- I don't think he originated -- the 19 consultant that helped with the strategic planning process
- 20 termed " decide and defend;" We'd make a decision and defend 21 it.
-22 Ile was very adept at pointing out what that really
- 23 meant =as far as the way we thought about problems, the way -
24 we thought about getting comments, and those kind of-things.
25 Indeed, the strategic plan.iis the example of the transition
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14 1 of the state, not just the NRC, but the entire federal 2 government. But particularly with respect to' communications 3 openness and being responsive to the public.
4 Chip and I talked about the agenda. One of the 5 things that was described was how we describe an events is 6 the glass half full or is it half empty?
7 It was an interesting thing to kick around and 8 think about, because when you look at the' things that sort 9 of drive us, those subtle things where we decided to defend 10 it for years and that we have been admonished repeatedly for 11 not saying.anything that could be interpreted as being 12 promotional, and there was a general lack.of trust because 13 the staff to a large extent didn't interact with the public.
14 So there was a lack of trust that the staff had.
15 And the desire of most engineers to complete the 16 analysis before they make any. decisions or communicate 17 potential findings, which means you have to wait until la something is over and you've done all your analysis. That's 19 in direct conflict with the desire of the public to know 20 what is going on early on. So there are some natural 21 conflicts built into that.
22 You overlay that with the sense that this is such 23 'a complex technology people can't understand it. So there 24 is a hesitancy to try and explain it.
25 There is a sense that when do communicate things ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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'l- because-they are: antiseptic and= highly technical that we 2 protect licensees, and a lot of our communications'have.been ,
.3 described as-unclear,;overqualification,.. dense,' confusing,;
4 not fathomable. I those in many: cases are correct. I'd 5 like to think.there'are a few examples where they are not..
p 6_ _When you,look at t.1e' strategic plan and~you'ask 7- what's-the basic philosophy that guides the NRC 8 -communications,. weLcalk .tbout the principles of good
- 9 regulation and other-things, butLthe goals ara to be honest, ,
.10 open, candid,-complete and balanced, not speculative, clear 11 .and accurate and objective.
12 - As we try and communicate with the public about 13 particulcr issues or events, we need to explain our
- 14 expectations and responsibilities to the extent that we are.
15 comfortable the uncertainty associated with it. I have seen l 16 in my short time with the NRC since June of 1979 a huge 17 change in the way we communicate with people, the number of 10 opportunities to communicate the willingness to communicate-19 from the top of the agency on down, and I view that as 20 encouraging, c 21 What we would like to talk about.for this session
- 22 "Is the glass half' full or half empty?" ways to improve some 23 of the things that inhibit us from communicating effectively 24 with you or other segments of the public in a manner that is 25 relear and your questions are answered.
4 ,'
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k 1 I think it's fair to say when we interact with 2 licensees, largely engineers talking to engineers, there is 3 little confusion on the issues. There is often disagreement 4 en the results or requirements and safety significance, 5 perhaps, but the communication is clear. I think a lot of 6 that results from some of the subtle things tt:r.t I. mentioned l
7 before. .
8 I thought the way to get this session off was to 9 revisit a preliminary notification that was issued March 28, 10 1979. There are copies out there. This is the best quality 11 document I could get from our micrc ystem.
12 As I reread this notification that I believe was 13 issued shor-ly after lunch, it looks pretty good. It 14 reflecta pretty much what the agency knew. There was a 15 phone call from Region I to Washington somewhere between 16 nine and ten, as I remember.
37 The information was that there had been a trip at 18 Three Mile Island 2, that the plant was shut down; there 19 were some anomalies in behavior but the safety systems had 20 functioned and they had dispatched a response team.
21 Indeed, the PN that was issued noted that there 22 had been some radiation levels off site.
23 The reason I had cassed this out, because I had 24 remember it from the first time I saw it in 1979, is the 25 second page. And.I'll read it:
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17 1 "There is significant media interest at the 2 present time because of concern about potential of fsite 3 radiation / contamination."
4 The reason I point that out is because if there is 5 a point in time where the world changer, this was it.
6 I think it is fair to say there is significant 7 media interest today aboyt offsite radiation / contamination, ' '
8 and it continues.
9 As we try and characterize events today, *he 10 regional administrators have their press briefings, you 11 hear, I think, more oftta than not a discussion of what is 12 known, what the process is going to be to answer the 13 questions that need to be answered, what those questions 14 are, some time frames, and some discussion of the 15 uncertainty associated with chc information that is t 16 available today. I think that falls against the backdrop of 17 the way we used to communicate, and it's a marked change.
18 As this committee the way we communicate, wc have 19 identified a number problems, problems that I talked about 20 and others. We had hoped as a kickoff session that we could 21 get come of your perspectives on how we should describe 22 events, how much can you say, how much can you know, and 23 when do you depart into unwarranted speculation.
24 I'd like to throw it open and get some comments or 25 -thoughts.
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18 1 MS. JOHNSRUD: Some years ago I had the privilege 2 of a visit to the former Soviet Union and a meeting with 3 Evgeny Velikhov at the time when people in Minsk were first 4 really learning about contamination three years following 5 the Chernobyl event. Velikhov asked the question: What do 6 the people want?
7 I really had the sense that he could well have 8 been NRC bureaucrat wanting to know what is it that people 9 want. Genuinely puzzled. Our answer to him was one words 10 honesty.
11 The recor.struction of trust requires absciute, 12 complete, "L'.1, open .tonesty, even when things are 13 unpleasanc.
14 Having been the intervepor in the licensing of 15 TMI, I well tecall from long before, during and following 15 that accide:tt that there was very little such in the view of 17 people within the Statn of Pennsylvania.
18 MR GUNTER: Judith literally took the words right 19 out of my mouth with regard to the fact that the public 20 really wants to be told the truth.
21 The issue isn't a matter of honesty. There is a 22 public mistrust right . tow and has been that the mission 23 statement of the Nuclear Regulatory Cotamission is in fact 24 your mandate is to keep plants operating as opposed to the 25 congress 1Jaal mandate to protect public and safety.
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19 1 Our perception is that there is a constant 2 juggling between keeping plants operational and 3 marginalizing the public concern in an effort to keep those 4 plants on line.
5 The pablic's perceptionn are really more to be 6 weighed in as a factor that needs to be countered by the 7 real NRC miss3on plan t.o. keep these plants operating.
8 I think that the whole issue of' honesty comes in 9 when you need -- one basic issue that the public has growing 30 concerns about is the fact that radiation ituelf, reflecting 11 back on this preliminary notice of occurrence that you put 12 here before us, that the public understands that there is no 13 safe thresholds. It is constantly put into the ALARA 14 concerns that NRC seeks to achieve, but it is at the expense 15 of continued marginalization of public concern that there 16 are no safe thresholds, 17 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Paul and Judy, following up, my 18 instincts are each of us always tries to be honest and 19 truthful, and in fact the agency attempts to be candid and 10 trustworthy and honest.
21 In the scenario that John posed with en event that 22 takes place, what is acceptable six hours after the event 23 when I really don't have all the information that is 24 associated with the event, I'm concerned that I don't tnink 25 you want re to speculate but yet I do want to be honest to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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20 i say I know things or I don't know things. The agency, I 2 think, has been somewhat hesitant to say that we don't know 3 things. In other words, that might send a fairly negative 4 message that we have a real problem.
5 I will give you an example that occurred in the 6 last couple of months. We had a site testing an emergency 7 diesel generator. They have eight emergency diesel 8 generators on the site. One of those diesel generators 9 failed catastrophically; one of the eight failed.
10 The licensee declared an alert. An alert is a 11 rather significant activity for the licensee that brings 12 into this particular licensee's work force essentially 100 13 to ff5 people at one o' clock in the morning. The agency in 14 trying to respond, to understand what's going on, and so on 15 and so forth.
16 I would argue that the safety significance of that 17 particular activity was probably not very high in hindsight, 18 but in the first couple of hours we're trying to figure out 19 what's going on. We are struggling. How do we communicate 20 offectively, openly and honestly but yet get into 21 spin-doctoring, not try to create scmething that is not 22 there, but forthrightly say that we may not have all the 23 answers yet? Can the public even accept that answer?
24 I'm throwing it to your side. As John said, the 25 engineers of our world tend to want to analyte al3 the way ANM RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Wasnington, D.C. 2000S ,
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al 1 to the end, and now, 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> later, I've got all the 2 anssers to al2 the questions we can possibly come up with.
3 Dy the way, I did choose one that personally 1 4 feel was not that significant, but yet it. raised the 5 threshold of a state. State officials were contacted, and 6 of course the agency was deeply involved and mobilized to 7 some extent, ,
8 I'm trying to enhance John's event. What would 9 the public look for?. Maybe that will elicit a little bit of 10 a discussion?
11 MR. DeSANTIS: I would suggest that before we 12 spend a lot of time talking about how we should respond in a 13 crisis, from my perspective, when a crisis hits it's too 14 late to build trust. I'm interested in talking about how 15 the NRC programmatically in its communication program builds 1
16 trust day and day out. When there is an event at a plant, 17 that is not the time to try to earn people's trust. It's 18 important to have that beforehand.
19 If you think about how you want to structure your 20 program, that's kind of the philosophy that we have at our 21 company and I think it's a philosophy that would serve any 22 organization well.
23 Related to that, the NRC is in the business of 24 risk communication. The public looks to you to tell them 25 whether or rot they should be afraid. If you have the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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22 ,
1 trust, they are-going to look to you for answers.- You have
[..
2 to give them answers when you don't have all-the 3 information. That is why risk communications is a tric!
4 business; that's why people get paid to do it. >
5 I think that is something the_NRC needs to get -
, 6 more comfortable about. I think it's something NRC needs to {
7 feel _more confident about, making statements that say it's 8 safe, that even though we have four emergency levels, not ,
9 all of these are emergencies'in the way the.public 10- _ interprets an emergency to be; you~can have a site area ,
-11 cmergency and really not have any real concern:that needs to i +
i 12 :be out there. John's example and other examples in the
- 13 industry.
i 14 We kind of set ourselves up for a lot of 15 confusion. We have four emergency levels. You could have
- 16 many events in thece that really aren't cause for a great j 17 _ deal of offsite concern.
i- 18 I think as you go through it's important around 19 the facilities and in the United States to kind of build 20 that type of understanding as your program evolves.
- 21 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Ralph, I certainly agree with.the ;
foundation of the agency having trust, confidence and being 22
- 23 honest at all times. We did throw it into the middle of the
- . 24 event, and yeu' captured the_ thought. We have these
- 25. Jemergency action levels and the jargon we use can be scary, 1
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33 a 916tt and emergencies and so on and so forth. Those are
/ -res n; to that you made.
, MS. BRYANT: Going back to the question of what
, f.doesthepublicwant, I think the public would like to know 5 what is going on. It is incumbent upon all of us, whatever 6 our role, to tell them what has happened, to tell them what 7 we know, to tell them what we don't know, to tell them what 8 we are doing about it, and tell them we will get back to 9 them every hour, or whatever amount time.
10 MR. CRAIG: Thank you.
11 Dave.
12 MR. LOCHBAUM: I think the issue of when the NRC 13 communicates information to the public or what the standard 14 should be, the licensee has that same hurdle before it tells 15 the NRC about something by having incomplete information, 16 not having the full story.
17 If an event were occurring and the licensee told 18 the NRC that we don't have the full story, we'll get to you 19 in a few days when we do, the NRC wouldn't be happy about 20 with that response. I can't imagine what your reaction 21 would be, but I don't think that would be acceptable.
22 So I think you have got to consider the.t the ,
23 public is in that same position. Waiting until you know the 24 full story in a situation like that is probably not the 25 right message.
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24 1 However you treat the licensees on information 2 involving any issue, the public deserves the same level of 3 response. If you know something from the licensee, yov m .'e 4 an obligation to get it out to the public. Speculation on
- 5. whether it's an important issue is a. judgment call, 6 MR. ZWOLINSY.It Dave, I want you to continue your-7 thought, but to help the, entire audience,-licensees are 8 required to report when upset conditions occur within 60 9 minutes to our operations center. That communication is 10 part of many communications licensees are required to make, 11 including notifying their state and local officials. They 12 have threshold that they follow as far as bringing that 13 information into the agency.
14 You are right. I don't think we would accept "and 15 the licensee can get back in a couple days to us,"
16 If I understand your point, Dave, it's communicate 17 what we know, and if ar3 things that we don't know, it's at 18 least fair to say there are certain unknowns and we are 19 monitoring this closely.
20 MR. BEECHER: Let me interject scmething here. In 21 effect what Pat described is what we do. That's the SOP.
22 We describo what we know when we know it, what we don't 23 know, and say we'll get back as quickly as we can.
24 So to move this conversation to a place where it 25 could be perhaps more fruitful, one of the issues that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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25 1 iumediately arises for those of us dealing with the public 2 directly is the reporter's immediate question: What could 3 this lead to? What could happen if this event that you are 4 now describing gets out of contrel? How is the system of 5 l safety barriers potentially threatened if this one goes?
6 That's the kind of question we get. Maybe we can 7 get some contribution fro,m those of yob in this room as to 8 how to address that,-because that really does call for a 9 certain amount of speculation if you are going to carry it 10 down two, three, four orders of magnitude in terms of what 11 could conceivably happen. If you do that, you can raise a 12 scare that may not be justified at all, frequently isn't, 13 usually isn't.
14 If you say, well, gee, we don't want to speculate 15 on what could happen, all we are telling you is what we know 16 is happening. Sometimes the reporters then are unsatisfied 17 with that, and we have reporters here who can speak to it 18 themselves, 19 Maybe we can focus the discussion a little bit in 20 that direction.
21 MR. CRAIG: Dave, I like your idea. I don't think 22 I heard it articulated thu :.ay, that wu should use the same 23 yardstick to measure how we communicate with the public that 24 we use to measure licensees' performance. I think that's a 25 real good point. Thank you.
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86 1 MR._RICCIO: I want:to agree with Mr. DeSantis.
J 2 If you are going:to use an emergency situation the only l
-1 3 meltdown to have occurred in this country as your yardstick ~ l 4 of.how you are communicating, you are moving from the wrong-5 point. -l 6 This; agency has major problems with its .
7 communication on the-inside before-it gets to you people. A 8~ lot of-the people aroundLthis table have had_ awful 9 experien'ces with the Office of Investigation where-basically 110 a lot of us don't believe.a lot of the people in that office 11 .can be trusted. There has been little done to rehabilitate ;
.; 12 -that office other than changing the head. So by the time 4
13 that information gets down to you folk, we're ready to l 14- murder you because you're-the messenger.
l 15 I think Mr. DeSantis is right. You have to look
- 16 at communications throughout and not just by the time it 17 gets from you people to the reporter or the public or i
- 18 whomever.
19 I think Mr. Beecher is right. We should move off ;
20 the specific and into the more general.
21 MR. CRAIG: Don.
22 MR. BECK: I was looking at the agenda, and-it 23 says, "What basic criteria or philosophy should guide NRC 24 communications?"
25 I think we are all. assuming that you folks know '
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l 27 1 and have extensive experience with the basic principles of 2 risk communication and basic approaches in dealing with the ,
3 public and building trust with them.
4 In terms of getting to philosophy, I think one 5 really important perspective to have on communications is, 6 what are you communicating for, and do you have different 7 objectives within your ag,ency?
8 I suspect that you probably do and that you 9 probably have at leart three different focuses when you try 10 to deal with communications for the public.
11 One is just trying to get information out about 12 your program or a particular situation.
13 Another one may be termed public relations or may 14 be termed kind of promotion, and I think it's a perfectly 15 legitimate and important role for government, and that is to 16 define what your position is on something. I think 17 sometimes in an agency's attempt to appear so fair and open 18 and honest and wanting to hear from the public that they 19 oftentimes fail to make explicit what their position is and 20 why they believe that. I think citizens really want and 21 respect that, and they just want to make it clear.
22 I think another in terms of interaction with the 23 public that is very different than those two is really 24 involving them in decision-making to the extent that you can 25 and want to do that.
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28 1 So in terms of basic criteria or philosophy, I 2 think it's very important for the agency to understand there 3 are different objectives it has for dealing with the publici 4 it needs to use different techniques, depending on what that 5 objective is.
6 MR. CRAIG: Paul.
7 MR. CHOINIEREs, Something I found helpful in-some 8 speculative event where there has been a problem and the 9 reporters are asking what's the significance of it, what 10 could happen next if a certain thing isn't brought under 11 control -- one thing you might consider is designating a 12 certain technical person who works with the public affairs 13 te have the responsibility of dealing with the media.
14 I've had pretty good luck when I could get past 15 public affairs and directly to some of these technical 16 people. If you ask enough questions, I tend to get the 17 answers I need. It sometimes takes a lot of questions to 18 bring it down to a level that is understandable. I've 19 generally had good luck.
20 Some of the problems I've run into -- I'll have a 21 public affaire person and they'll take some questions down 22 and they'll go back to the technical person. They'll get 23 back to me, and that generates more questions. It's just a 24 very cumbersome process. If we could cut out the middle man 25 or maybe put that public affairs person on the phone as a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
29 1 third party or something or in a press conference situation 2 -- that kind of middle layer I find very awkward as a ,
3 reporter.
4 MR. CRAIG: I think that's a fair-comment. I 5 guess it would be no surprise if I told you there are a 6 number of people on the staff that would tell Office of 7 Public Affairs, no, I don't want to talk him, you do it.
8 In part it's because of uncertainty. They don't 9 know the person and they are apprehensive about answnring 10 any questions and they have been since high school.
11 [ Laughter.)
12= MR. CRAIG: Others are concerned about the 13 vocabulary: They are going to ask me a question; they are 14 not going to understand the answer. Or when they do try and 15 give an honent and balanced answer, they are going to end up 16 being criticized.
17 I agree it's a good idea. I think there is some 18 challenge.
19 MR. BhCK: Let me add to that. Sometimes staff is 20 very busy, but they could take the time except they are 21 afraid since they don't do this very often that one fragment 22 of what they say will be taken out of context and they will 23 be hung for it by their management.
24 Someone like Paul understands the issues and 25 relates-them fairly, but they may not know Paul or his work.
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30 1 They are afraid if they talk to hini for five minutes, he'll 2 take one phrase out of those five minutes and that phrase 3 will come back to haunt that person.
4 This is a real issue. Tney'd much rather deal 5 with an intermeniary in public affairs who will make a 6 judgment on the quality of the reporter and his reportage 7 and who has a little bit.more understanding of how to 8 express things in a way that the public and the reporters in 9 the public will understand.
10 This is part of the dynamics of it. Your 11 complaint is a very good one.
12 One of the things that we try to do in public 13 affairs when we have an event is to have technical briefers 14 available to do exactly what you are talking about. There 15 are some people who are designated and are very good at that 16 and have self-confidence and can in f act do a taarvelous job 17 at this, but there are not all that many of them, 18 unfortunately. There are not that many.
19 When you are talking about an event that just 20 happens, that person may not be aware of that instance.
21 I'm just trying to contribute to the conversation.
22 MR. CRAIG: Judith.
23 MS. JOHNSRUD Going back to the TMI accident, I 24 do recall a certhin highly placed member of the staff trying 25 to explain person-rem to reportern. Some of the rest of you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD .
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t 31 1 may reesll that event. It would have been hilariously funny 2 if it really weren't so serious.
3 I think it was indicative of two things. One, the 4 difficulty of a technical person in translating to the 5 reporters, but also there is a responsibility on the part of 6 the reporters not to go for the flashy,. spectacular, 7 frightening event or pote,ntial event, but rather to be 8 evenhanded in their reporting as well, and to have a kind of 9 ongoing process whereby the agency's language and technology 10 are explained on a day-to-day basis.
11 There is a real disconnect that troubles me at the 12 local level. The local reporter with a facility in his or 13 her own backyard can get preus locally, can get coveraae of 14 an event only if it has a local significance and only so far 15 as there is a local hook. Whereas the national press, with 16 due regard to them, seeme anmetimes to want a ratcheting:
17 unless it's worse chan the Valdez accident, then it's not 18 really a major oil spill.
19 That kind of escalation that goes hand in hand 20 with the sensationalism of the press wcrks against the 21 agency. How to resolve it is another matter, but I should 22 think that there are ways in which some outreach by the 23 staff, by the technical people to reporters, to the media in 24 general, and to public organizations, public interest groups 25 could go quite a long distance toward helping everybody ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 32 1 understand what really is happening in the course of an 2 event.
3 MR. CRAIG: Good comment. Thank you. Hopefu2.ly 4 we will get some more of that in this afternoon's session on 5 outreach.
6 Paul.
7 MR. GUNTER: When NRC and its communications goes 8 out-to the public, I think one of your principal 9 responsibilities is not , suaging public concern when in 10 fact there are legitimate reasons that the public gets 11 concerned.
12 One specific example would be the communications 13 ; th'M went out from NRC to citizens and media around the 14 cortification process for the VSC-24 dry cask and how there 15 were some very real concerns on the part of the public that 16 NRC had exempted Sierra Nuclear Corporation and essentially 17 allowed them to build the casks for the Palisades reactor to 18 meet Palisades fuel loading schedule before the casks were 19 actually certified.
~
20 Obviously that is going to spark some legitimate 21 community concerns, but in fact what NRC did was to attempt 22 to allay those concerns.
23 In fact what you are now faced with is essinntially 24 a situation where you have 19 of these casks loaded around 25 the country, with failures at Point Beach, Palisades, and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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33 1 Arkansas Nuclear without any kind of real strategy for how 2 you are going deal with the problematic casks at this point, ,
3 and the public was essentially brushed off.
4 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Is the interpretation exactly what 5 John went back to, decide and defend, rather than an 6 alternate approach? .
7 MR. GUNTER: I,think what I am-looking for is >
a several layers under that. The whole isoue of mistrust.goes 9 back-to the NRC's mission plan, your stated mission plan, 10 and then how the public perceives your mission p3an. What_
11 we are convinced of is that the mission plan is in-fact to 12 keep these plants operational, and in v.iaw of public 13 concerns, you treat those as obstacles that are to be-4 14 hurdled rather than dealt with.
15 MR. CAMERON: Could I ask Paul a clarification on 16 that, because it does tie back into your firct point, which 17 was the marginalization issue.
18 On this particular example, was it a question of a 19 difference of technical merit between the agency and the 20 concerns in the community? _
21 In other words, I am trying to get at whst should 22 we have done in that situation to better respond to public 23 concerns. +
24 MR. GUNTER: I think in this case it was pretty 25 evident that the' public wanted a voice.
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-4 34 1 Without getting to much into the technical issues, 2 it's very obvious that we have this nuclear waste problem ,
3 and that it was moving within 150 yards of Lake Michigan's ,
i 4 beach. The public waa obviously concerned about that issue, 5 and the NRC did not allay concerns by exempting the vendor 6 from the certification process in the construction.of these 7 initial eight casks. ,
8 I think one approach would have'been to follow 9 your own rules, and that you have a follow-through process 10 that the public can see.
11 MR. ZWOLIllSKI Can I help just a little bit, 12 Paul? There was an ogency generic rulemaking on dry cask 13 storage. When this vendor came in, I think the agency took 14 actions and did follow the rules. However, it hid behind 15 our rulemaking procedures and never did engage the public.
16 It was much more in this general venue.
17 The agency essentially defended its position based 18 on the technicalities, what have you, 2nd stiff-armed the 19 public and the public didn't have an opportunity to offer 20 any comment on the siting at Palisades plant.
21 So we kind of hid behind our rules in this ivory 22 tower rather than having the outreach to go to the public in 23 the first place for fear we might have a hearing or there 24 might be controversy.
25 MR. GUNTER: I think it's also a matter of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i I 35
)
1 changing the rules on the playing field. The public is :
2 constantly ( 'ronted with approaching a goal and the rules 3 change. Part of any kind of trust is to have some kind of 4 consistency in the relationship.
5 What we perceive is the rules are constantly 6 changing and what we know is the rules constantly change in 7 favor of the licensees rAther than in terms of any kind of 8 public advocacy.
9 t/R. RICCIO: To follow up nn what Paul was saying, 10 a couple things you might want to look at. Several years 13 ago the Union of Concerned Scientists put together a piece 12 called "The Public is Enemy."
la It was basically a delineation of the systematic
, 14 method by which the NRC has removed the public from the 15 process of licensing. Whether it be waste sites or 16 reactors, the public has been systematically denied access 17 to the process. The way you are going to attempt to license l
18 any new reactors.that are ever built in this country, which 29 there probably won't be any, but even if one does move 20 forward, the pablic is not involved.
21 We tried to litigate that to protect the public's 22 right to a hearing post-construction. Wri even convinced 23 Clarence Thomas we were right only to have it overturned 24 when it became political.
25 There is and has been over the past ten years a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 36 1 view that the public is the problem rather than this is l
2 something that we have to engage. ]
3 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Jim, if I can interject. Some of 4 . what John said earlier in response to events and our 5 technical staff being worried about what it's like to talk
, 6 and speak, you get them into a venue of you're going to have '
~
7 a hearing or you're going to have to defend your position, 8 these guys --
9 MR. RICCIO: I thoroughly understand the ,
10 trcpidation of the technical guys speaking to the press.
11 Their problem is the same. They have to get a sound bite 12 that is going to make sense to the public, and a lot-of your 13 engineers aren't really good at deciphering this information 14 into language that it interpretable.
15 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I agree with that comment. That's 16 on the mark.
17 MR. RICCIO: The problem is, though, every once in 18 a while the truth ceems to leak out. It usually comes in 19 the form of someone from the ACRS making a comment like, 20 well, probabilistic risk assessment means never having to 21 say you are certain.
22 (Laughter.)
23 MR. RICCIO: Or something along the lines of the 24 former chairman saying, well, when you have a steam 25 generator tube rupture, you basically have an accident ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ,
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37 I waiting to happen; you have a loaded gun and an accident 2 waiting to happen.
3 When you juxtapose these seemingly broad comments 4 '
with you guys saying, well, there nas no safety significance 5 to this event because of the probability that our redundant e safcty systems would account for all the problems,.you lose 7 it. The public has already gone; their eyes have glazed 9 over; they don't believe what you are saying whether it's 9 true or not.
le So you are going to have your technical people 4
-11 engage in better formn of communication at some-point down 12 the lui4.
13 Mt. CRA10: I think that comme;.: is right on.
14 Pamela, you're next, and than David Stellfox and 15 then David Nichols, i
16 I want to make a comment about a remark that Ralph 17 made earlier. Risk communication is one tough thing to do.
18 If I tell you that go from a probability of ten to 19 the minus three to ten to the minus four, you've reduced the 20 risk by 90 percent. The ques. ion is, is that good or bad?
21 Well, I don't know. It depends on the risk. It 22 depends on a whole bunch of thingn.
23 If we try to then say, well, what's one times ten 24 to the minur aix? It's one in a million. That's three 25 inches and 16 miles or something.
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}
38 1 I can't deal with that. It's a very hard thing to 2 do, 3 There are some excellent reports out about the !
4 difficulty of doing it. Every federal ~ agency has' difficulty !
5 doing it,-and various industries -- not the nuclear industry [
6 -- have difficulty. It is hard. The comments that Jim just 7 made reflect some of the Anherent difficulty in doing it. j 8 MS. NEWMAN-BARNETT I'm speakin'g from the 9- perspective of a trade press reporter, which is different, 10 of course, than a reporter that writes for the mainstream.
11 I've been immersed in many issues to a degree that someone 12 in the mainstream hasn't with respect to NRC.- That is where 13 I_am coming from with this.
14 I'd say my experience with-the technical-staff at 15 NRC has been very good. Not only are they very willing to 16 talk, but they are very willing to put things in English.
i 17 It helps, of course, if the reporter has some background and 18 then you are on the same page. Then you could say you know 19 what questions to ask and you know when to ask for 20 clarification, i
21 The onus can't be put solely on NRC to walk every 22 reporter through every detail. The reporter has 23 responsibility here to do their homework and to know what 24 questions to ask and to be diligent.
25 This is not going to come as a surprise to i
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a 39 l' anybody. There_are lousy reporters out there who start with
=i 2 a premise and then they seek to prove'it.
3 This actually happened at press conference-
-4 yesterday that Chairman Jackson.had in speaking about the 5 Millstone fine. I noticed that some of the reporters had=
6 something they wanted to write and they wanted to get -
7 Chairman Jackson to give.them a sound bite, give them a 8 quote that proved what they had already decided was the 9 case.
10 That happens a lot. I'm not sure there is 11 anything NRC can do about that. Your communications-can be 12 - perfect, but that doesn't mean the reporter is infallible.
13 Thece are extremely complex issues, incredibly 14 complicated. There is a danger in saying, well, we have to ,
15 make this as easy as possible for people to understand.
16 Sometimes that is not possible to do. It is going to be 17 complex. There is no way to give an explanation for certain 18 occurrences without getting into some jargon.
19 One of my favorite songs is by the Ten Thousand 20 Maniacs. There is a line where the singer is saying, well, 21 the people, they don't want what's hard to understand, so 22- give them candy, give them what they want.
23 But you can't-always people candy when you are 24 - talking about issues this complex. If rems are difficult 25 for a reporter to understand, they had better stay after the
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40 1 press conference and talk to somebody about what it means ;
2 and get the definition. As I said, if they don't do that, 3 that's not necessary NRC's fault. There is a responsibility 4 on the reporter's part.
5 MR. CRAIG: I appreciate that comment. I think 6 that when we talk to the public in general and when we talk 7 to the press, there is a burden on the people asking the 8 questions as well as the people answering them.
9 My experience has been when I meet with public 10 groups, citizens groups, whether it be Yankee Rowe or 11 somewhere else, there is a real willingness to understand.
12 It's not that hard. It harn't been that hard. I've been 13 lucky sometimes and sometimes not.
14 What I find is that it depends to a great extent 15 on credibility, the trust. There was a little table in the 16 front The Post some months ago. The bas.tc question was, if 17 you asked a question, who would you beideve? Would you 18 believe a congressman, the President, a federal official.
19 The percentage of people who believed federal officials was 20 surprisingly low. I think it was single digits. It's 21 amazing.
22 We have a, lot of work to do. I agree with your 23 comment. It sort of goes back to the comment that I think 24 Ralph made before. It's not something you can do when you 25 are responding to a crisis. I agree with that.
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41 1 It's an iterative, constant process to be able to
-2 communicate with people. There has to be a shared meaning ,
3 and an understanding on both sides, et cetera. That doesn't 4 happets overnight. It takesta long time.-
5 Dave, you're nexc. l 6 MR.-NICHOLS: Thank you. I think it's important 7 to recognize as well-that,a lot of the situations and 8 examples that have been brought up here today~are only one-9 class of licensees ti.9t the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 deals with.
11 From the medical perspective, a lot of times we 12 don't see any differentiation in the. Office of Public 13 Affairs of events that take place on the reactor side versus 14 events that take place in the medical arena. You may get 15 all of our events are after-the-fact events.
16 There is almost never a press conference 17 announcing that a hospital has been fined or there has been 18 an incident involving a medical misadministration. You'll 19 get a packet of press releases. The first press release 20 could be that a generator failed at a power plant, and then 21 the next press release is that a hospital is fined $2,500 a 22 because they didn't notify someone their suite number 23 changed.
24 - There needs to be some categorization, I think, ,
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42 1 that are of completely different consequence and analysis i 2 and trying to separate those out, so there isn't the 3 perception that, well, if the NRC is reporting on a reactor 4 event, the event in the medical situatior, is just as serious 5 or needs to be taken into consideration.
6 A lot of times what happens is people will read 7 the press releases. Ther,e aren't any technical staff to 8 contact on the medical issues. There is only one visiting 9 medical fellow who is a physician on the NRC staff. So you 10 don't even have any physicians you can contact in the NRC to 11 talk about these issues.
12 You will see a little blurh on page 26 that says 13 "this hospital was fined for not following NRC regulations."
14 That causes a whole set of hysteria with patients going into 15 this facility. There is no understanding of what happened 16 at the hospital or what the consequences were.
17 Don't get stuck in responding to all situations 18 based on how you respond to incidents with reactors.
19 MR. CRAIG: That's a good comment.
20 David Stellfox.
21 MR. STELLFOX: The one thing I wanted to touch on 22 was there seemed to be some reluctance, John, when you were 23 talking earlier, to stato NRC's position on events or 24 occurrences at plants. I don't really understand that at 25 all. It seems to me a fundamental obligation of the agency ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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43 1 is to take a position, to tell the truth, to say what 2 happened, what you do know, what you don't know, but to put 3 it in context. Probably one of the biggest problems is a 4 failure to put things in context.
5 Don't shy away from using the term "an emergency" C- or whatever action level it is. Use that, but then put it 7 in context. If you are r,eluctant to do that, that suggests 8 .: me that you don't know or that you are'still trying to 9 figure out how you are going to spin it. r 10 MR. CRAIG: That's a good comment. I think there 11 is a reluctance, as I stated earlier, to form conclusions 12 wit.h part of the f acts. I don't think it's spin control, 13 but I sure acknowledge it looks like that on the outside. I 14 think it looks like that.
15 MR. STE'.LFOXr You can say that you don't have all 16 the facts yet, that this is a preliminary conclusion, a 17 tentative conclusion, whatever, but don't say nothing.
18 MR. CRAIG: I agree with you completely. I will 19 note it's very dif ficu'. t to do. If you are responsible for 20 something to say and you don't knc, all the factc and you 21 are still trying to collect the facts so you can make the 22 decision, it goes back to a comment that Pat made earlier, I 23 thinks this is the status, this is what ue know, this is 24 what we don't know.
25 We try to do that. I think we are much better at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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A 44 3- that today than we were five years ago or ten years ago.
2 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Candidly-speaking, the preliminary. ,
3 notification is theoretically in the agency a' preliminary i
4 notification.- If it-has a sentence that is incorrect or 5 inaccu; ate or misleading,Lwhat have you, our current 6 situation is one in which there will be significant 7 . overtones from our management that we have made an error and 8 kind of pay the' piper, so to speak. ,-
9 In working with-preliminary information' it is a ,
10 tough job. We are trying to tell you. things, and then we.
11 are trying to have more information than maybe we-have. So- i 12 we cou'sel our staff to get the facts out as best we havei ,
13 them.
14 There is also that sensitization that-let's not 15 speculate, and yet I think the thought is to only give half i
- 16 a loaf is leaving people hanging. I think your comment was 17 there seems to be at least some room to put this into l 18 context or interpret.
i 19 MR. CRAIG: Don, I think you're next.
20 MR. BECK: One of the questions in the agenda says-l 21 'Is the glass _ half empty or half full?"
22 I think part of what I feel based on this 23 -discussion is that yeu might not know yourselves whether 24 -it's half full. I think'that's because, at least in the 25 documents I reviewed, there Yeally was a lack of measurement l
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45 l
1 in terms of what is it that your stakeholders want, what is l
2 it that they know, what has worked well in the past, and 3 systematically measuring that.
4 You cannot improve what you don't measure in 5 government in general. I think that as good as focus groups 6 like this are, you are still just getting anecdotes about, 7 well, this kind of worked,here, and the plural of anecdote 8 is not data. So it's very important, I think, to recognize 9 that some type of measurement over time is important to 10 track how well you are doing_in some of these important 11 issues. .
12 The other point I wanted to make was in terms of 13 changing.
14 Some of the things we have heard alluded to 15 sounded like, well, probably several of the senior managers 16 in NRC feel like their senior management tends to manage by 17 headlines or you are not really given permission to make 18 mistakes, and as a result of that, people on your staff are 19 hesitant to interact in a human way with people when issues 20 come up, and when you interact in a human way quickly, you 21 make miutakes.
22 Somehow your culture, it sounds like, to some 23 degree has to change. The question is, how do you do that?
24 1 s ust want to list a couple of points and then I'll pass it 25 on to somebody else.
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46 1 The first is, you really going to need to make 2 sure that you have senior management support for active and 3 meaningful dialogue and involvement in communication with 4 the public. A lot of that means permission to make mistakes 5 and demonstrating by leadership and role modeling that they 6 are willing to get out there and take some risks. .
7 The second is a, clear policy. I think you have 8 that. In the documento I've read, I think your policy is 9 quite clear. You say in writing that you want all of these 10 good things. I think that's very good and to be commended.
- 11. But the question is, is your senior managers' role modeling 12 behavior consistent with that consistently.
13 The other important point is rewards. Are there 14 rewards in placey 15 Everyone from GS-13 above should have a 16 performance indicator related to public involvement. Part 17 of their performance should be based on whether or not they 18 have contributed when needed to communicating and involving 19 the public, going to public meatings, attending focus 20 groups, and so on and so forth.
21 In the federal government, unless somebody is 22 measured on something that is going to impact their 23 performance and chance for a promotion, it tends to get 24 ignored.
25 Along with that is recruitment. When you recruit ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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47 1 new people into your organization, are you recruiting the 2 type of people who have the rkills and orientation that are 3 consistent with your new policy of openness and trying to 4 build trust with the public?
5 The last is one that is often forgotten, and 6 that's the relationship with employees. Are you taking the 7 steps necessary to make sure that the employees whose 8- responsibility it is to foster trust and openness with the 9 people really want that, that that is part of their mission, 10 that's what excites them, that 's a hot butt.on, a commitment 11 to involvement?
12 Oftentimes in government it's kind of like, well, 13 this person got that job because they were transferred out 14 of that section, or whatever. I think that recruitment and 15 rewarding and placement are really important in terms of 16 making sure you have people in the right places to bring 17 about the culture change that you want.
18 MR. CRAIG. Thank you. Those are very thoughtful 19 comments. I appreciate those. I think we agree with those.
20 Some of the points are dead center, There is a great 21 reluctance to make mistakes in this organization. We need 22 to make sure we have a staff that are committed to and 23 understand the importance of communication. I think it's 24 absolutely central to changing the culture and moving 25 forward.
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48 l'
1 I think Jim Riccio is next, i 2 MR. RICCIO: Back to rick communication and just a 3 couple of comments on taking measurement of what the public 4 wants, 5 There have been measurements taken within the 6 agency. One example was the status of 2.206 petitions, 7 which is raised in the discussion paper. What the public 8 wanted was a hearing. They got it one out of every 9 360-something times they filed a 2.206 petition.
10 We understand that many of those petitions aren't 11 substantive enough to actually rise to the level where they 12 would achieve a hearing.
13 However, there have been instances where there 14 have been issues where the agency has taken a postcard that 15 was submitted by a disgruntled person in the public and ured 16 that as a basis of the petition when there were other 17 fil.ngs that were out there that could have been used as the 18 basis. So there have been instances where basically issues 19 have been sloughed aside.
20 Back to risk communication. There are two things 21 that you are going to have to understand about the way the 22 public perceives what your role is and what the job is of 23 this industry.
24 Nuclear power plants split atoms. That's an 25 inherentiv dangerous activity. When people come out and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 49 say, oh, everything is safe, it's safe, it's safe, you kind 2 of lose some credibility right off the bat.
3 l Unfortunately, the second thing -- and this is not
. 4. based in reality at all, especially if you look at your own 5 risk profilen -- che public is deathly afraid of waste. If 6 you look at your profiles, the waste in terms of its risk is 7 not as dc.ngerous as a rea,ctor.
8 I think it is one of the probleris you ran into 9 ,
with the dry cask and some of the other ways you are dealing 10 with the waste problem. The public views waste as extremely 11 dangerous.
12 You can see also that with what's going on with 13 the decommissioning now in New England. I bet that a lot of 14 engineers probably figure t. hat once the reactor was shut 13 down the public would be quiet and go away. Actually the 16 exact opposite has occurred. Now you are telling them what 17 you are going to do with this plant.
18 In reality the risk at that site has decreased 19 exponentially, and you have a much greater involvement 20 because now you are dealing with the waste. It's not really 21 based on reality; it's based on perception; and you are 22 going to have to get used to that.
I 23 ( MS. JOHNSRUD: I think that the concern about I
waste and its deadliness in fact goes to a long-term 25 attitude of the public that perhaps we underestimate.
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.1. 'Namely,; people think in terms.of-their_ children's future and -
'2- tho? future, the. stability,.the-longevity,-the_certaintyLof .
3 on the one hand a-regulatory process.. , y
-4 .On-the second hand, congressional'or state- -
i 5- . legislative political: action. _
6 .On the third hand,- economics that the public 7 seeing abandoned rust belt factories know full wellTean ,
8 happen at any facility, abandonment.
4 9 The fourth hand would be the social attitude of -a
, e 10 - the forgetfulness of our culture relative to what is ill perceived to be-a long-term biological risk.
12 I think if'I had one major recommendation to give 13 to the NRC, it would be replacing a clutch of engineers.with 3
+
13 some thoughtful, . careful medical people. -Not those who sre" 15 apologists for the industry, but who are trained in biology
- 16 ~ and in genetics and in epidemiology, and a number of other
. 17 medically-related areas to give a much greater role-to the =
l .le public's concerns about the health impacts of ionizing 19 radiation at all levels of exposure, all the way down to no
. 20 threshold.
, 21 MR. CRAIG: Paul.
F
' 22 MR. CHOINIERE: I want to agree with Pam.-- I find 4
- 23. that technical people, once they see you are doing a fair 24 and objective job and that you have done your_ homework, when ;
l -25 you do directly contact them, they will be helpful and try -
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51 1 to work through things and to help you understand them.
2- The bigger challenge obviously is in a more crisis 3 situation where you are dealing with reporters'that don't.
4 have the background. Trying to bring the technical people 5 on board in those situations is going to be a little more 6 dicey situation. .
7 The other point.I wanted to make is sort of the 8 difference between real honest public inpu't and 9 communication sort of window dressing.
10 I've seen quite a bit of the window dressing up at 11 the Millstene situation in Connecticut where the Nuclear 12 Regulatory Commission has been holding these periodic 13 meetings with the Northeast Utilities and kind of say, see, 14 we're very open to the public; we're letting the public come 15 in and watch these meetings.
16 Once you open these meetings up and you say you 17 are going to be more accessible to the public, I think you 18 have to run those meetings a little different. You just 19 can't treat them like you are all just getting together and 20 there is no public there. They start spouting out acronyms 21 left and right, and there is no effort to say what these 22 acronyms mean and what their context is.
23 I know engineers have to talk in engineering talk, 24 but I think there could be a little more effort to let 25 people sitting there know what the heck is being talked ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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52 1: .about.
2 Secondly, the meeting adjourns andLthere is sort 3- of - an invitation'.tc the ' public -in general s ' if you:want to.
4 come up and talk with us individually, we're open to do:
5: that.
~
I think if you've got the public-there:and they 6
7- ~are listening to this and asking questions, it's incumbent:
8 upon the' parties to take. questions from the audience at.
9 least for some period of time so everyone can hear what the 10- question and what the: answer is. Someone else~might have a 11 question that is quite interesting that I don't get to hear 12 because they are just having these little-individual 13 meetings.
11 4 It leaves me with the impression like the NRC
^ ^
15 wants to say, oh, we're open to the public, we're 16 communicating, but honestly they don't want to be all'that 3
17 open and communicative.
18 The other example up there is with the Connecticut 19 Yankee decommissioning. Any procedure for a real honest 20 public hearing on how that plant is to be. decommissioned, 21 should it be a safe store option, or as the utility has 22 planned,-which is immediate dismantlement --
it was a public
. 2 3 .- . meeting about that, but there wasn't-any real honest public 24 hearing to allow the public to comment on what they-think is 25 'the better option.
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53J ,
.It was anotherjindication where a lot ofl people I 1
2- talked to, the public felt it was just kind'of lip service.,
3 _because;they didn't really give them that honest opportunity 4- to give their input.
5 MR. CRAIG: Thanks.
6 I think-in our process we have a format.that is.
'. 7' acceptable where we call.it a public meeting and we just do 8 it in public, but the public doesn't have the' opportunity ~to
, 9 participate.
10 .MR.-CHOINIERE: It's for public observation only.
- 11 MR. CRAIG: Yes. I want to make sure I got-your-12 : comment right. What I heard you say was don't hold those 13- kind of meetings. If the public is going to be invited, e
14- it's going to be public.
15 MR. BEECHER: Actually, there are two kind of 16 meetings, I think. There is one between the NRC and the 17- licensee, which are open and they say the public is invited-18 to lister. in~. That is different from a public meeting where 19 the public does in fact participate throughout. So they are 20 two different kinds of meetings,
- ' 21 .MR. CHOINIERE: You should have those meetings,
-22 but I don't think they should be for observation only.
. 23 -There should be some format at the end of those meetings for
_ people to get some qualifications and understanding what was 24
~
-25 said. I know you have to put-time limits and there has to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S4 11 be~some restriction on that.
2: 'And also during that meeting.some effort -- if 3' Lthey are saying LER, to have.some_ kind of information
-4 -available what_an LER is and why they are talking about it.
5 LI know you can't1take them through and hold them by.the hand 6' for every issue, but there could be some fairly simple 7 things done so the public has some idea what the discussion 8_ is . - Otherwise,-it_doesn't really serve a lot of purpose if 9 people don't know what is going on and they don't have an-1 10 opportunity to ask a couple of questions. .
11 'MR. CRAIG: Thanks. Good comment.
12 ~ Paul' Blanch, you're next.
13 MR. BLANCH: This is more of a general comment.
14 This is titled the Communications Coordinating Committee, 15 We've seen at Millstone you can have the best communications 16 people in the world, honest, open communication, and other 17 people have mentioned it here, trust. If you don't have the 18 basic trust of the public, you're not going to succeed with 19 the best communicators in the world. I don't care how open 20 they are.
21 I think what this committee needs to concentrate a 12 2 little bit more on is how to instill the trust with the 23- public; what are the areas that need to be done to 24 reestablish the trust of the NRC?
25 Let me provide some examples. I do work with the f
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5 I 55 1- -communications _ people at Millstone._ .It's not a 2 communications issue up there;-it's a trust issue. We don't 3 concentrate on communications; we concentrate on building
._4 trust.
5 Some specific examples.
6 The State of Connecticut has a Nuclear Energy 4
7 ; Advisory Council.which formed about 18 months ago. If you 8 took a poll of.those people 18 months ago,1they were very 9 much against the NRC, very much against Northeast Utilities 10 and Millstone. The communications people and the executive-11 management has worked very, very closely with that group of. 4 12 people. I would say that many of them now trust Northeast 13 Utilities -- not all of them -- and will believe what they 14 say. ,
15 They have another group, Millstone Advisory
, 16 Council, representing various executives and school board i-
[ 17 members to just interface with the Millstone people to help 18 in reestablishing the trust.
19 Until this agency can recognize why the public' ,
20 -mistrusts them and deal with those issues, the 21 communications is going to fail.
22 If you surveyed the people that attend the 22- meetings around Millstone, or the people at Maine Yankee, 24 Connecticut Yankee: Do you trust the NRC? I don't think 25 you'd find a very-positive answer.
l I
1
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56 1 I think you really need to concentrate on how do 2 you reestablish the trust, and I'm sure every one of us 3 around this table could probably come up with ten items why 4 the public doesn't trust the NRC. They've seen Paul Gunter 5 come out with some of these issues.
6 There are literally hundreds of reasons why the 7 public doesn't trust the NRC. Even with the restart of 8 Millstone the public will, I think, trust NU much more than 9 they will trust the NRC.-
10 MR. CRAIG: Thank you.
11 Jim Norvelle is next.
12 MR. NORVELLE: Let me build on chat a little bit 13 as well as the gentleman from Gallup.
14 To build that trust, from our experience $n 15 running our plants and the way we are working in our 16 -' communities, when I think about the public, the number one 17 public that I focus on are the folks who are our neighbors, 18 who live in the EPZs around each plant, and how can we 19 communicate with them on a regular, protracted, continuous 20 basis either through neighbor meetings or through annual 21 meetings with boards of supervisors.
22 It leads me to question out of ignorance. I don't 23 know what the expectations are of the senior residents or 24 the other resident inspectors as far as what is their 25 responsibility to meeting with the local board of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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57 1- supervisors = on' a regular basis, the county manager on a 2- regular basis, so that-there.is that trust: relationship ,
3E established.
4 We are not talking'about:the MillstoneLsituation.=
5 It's too late then. Or.a TMI. situation. It's:a regular 6 course of business that communication must' occur. .
7 That is'where,.from my experience, the trust-is 8 first established. It has nothing to do.w'ith me as a 9 communicator; it really has nothing to do?with Bill'Beecher 10- or Ken Clark as a communicator, but it does have to do with 11 the senior resident and his or her responsibility in dealing 12 with the public that they have the most impact on, the folks 13 right around the plant.
14 MR. CRAIG: Let me ask John Zwolinski to briefly
~ -~
15 talk a little bit about what we do expect from the resident 16 inspectors.
f 17 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Don reached into this issue a 18 little bit: do we measure our more senior staff annually 19 through performance appraisals on how well they are 20 communicating with the public? The short answer to that is, 21 no, we don't. However, this committee is paying serious 22 attention to that thought.
23 Regarding our resident and senior resident 24 inspectors, there is an expectation that when problems arise 25 they do-communicate with local officials. However,-what I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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-58
- 1' hear you say, Jim, is ensure that you have established a 2 sound' working: relationship with thefstate'and local-3 officials'and. citizenry about the= facility prior to any_-type 4 of-problem _ occurring.
5 We are not uniform, not consistent in how'much of 6 our resident work force has engaged the public about these-7 various sites. I will s4y some of this is personality 8 driven. I recognize even from my own staff project managers 9 that do get out and meet with local officials others do not.-
10- Part of it comes back to some of the intrinsic fears-that we.
11 were sharing earlier.
12 I think you are making an. excellent point as to 13- the broader issue much beyond the Millstone and Maine Yankee 14 examples, Paul, but to the entire country. In areas where 15 there is not a great deal of interest the agency should 16 still be speaking and not wait until a problem occurs.
- 17 Those are very good comments that you are making.
18 MR. CRAIG: I notice that we are only 15 minutes 19 on the break. We will let Ralph, David, Paul and Terry will 20 have the last word for the session, unless somebody else 21 wants to also add a comment.
22 MR. DeSANTIS: I had my name tag up a number of 23 minutes ago. Fortunately, Don and Jim both hit on two 24 points that I wanted to make. I will just repeat them 25 briefly, and -that is building a communications ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -
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l 59 1 responsibility into the accountability of senior management 2 at NRC.
3 You could have the best regulations in the world.
4 I personally think the NRC is a very effective regulator.
5 However if the people don't have the other half of the 6 equation, if they are not relating well with stakeholders 7 and actualAi in some resp,ects probably are very reluctant to 8 even do that, the great regulations aren't' going to help the 9 ' agency and aren't going to help-the stakeholders.
10 I really think we hit on a central theme here with 11 that one. It may be an initiative which really needs to 12 have the endorsement of the very top of the NRC and it would 13 probably be an initiative that needs to go out throughnut 14 the whole agency.
15 I think it's really important, the aspect of the 16 resident irspector. I've had experiences where not only was 17 the inspector not encouraged, but 7 believe in some 18 instances it was quite frowned upon for the inspector go out 19 and meet with the public and actually had to get approval 20 from the regicn. In some cases that approval was denied.
21 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Fear of making a mistake.
22 MR. DeSANTIS: Yes. That's a recent story, by the 23 way.
24 It is reall!' important.
25 MR._BEECHER: By the way, that's contrary to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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e-60 j 1 policy, but'go ahead. It's interesting to know that.
2 (Laughter.) ,
L i.
3 -MR. DeSANTIS: The way you build trust.is like Jim 4 =said.--We do this'in our communications. program ar6und our p.
5 plants. We go out when times are stable and nothing is
- 6. going on to meet with people, like local government leaders:
7 and the neighbors. I'm not'sure how much of that is going 8 Lon . It's probably very uneven site'to site, but it's maybe 9 comething you need to work into programmatically _at each-
- -- 10 -site.
. 11 The other point I wanted to make was a point Paul 12 Dianch brought up, and that's the use.of advisory boards and 13 the whole aspect of public involvement. I think there is an 14 opportunity there to build-a lot of trust for the agency, 15 with one comment.
16 Where public involvement and advisory councils d
17 work well there is_a very clear expectation on everyone's 18 part on what the roles of the pcople involved are. Where 19 there is a breakdown is when there isn't a clear 20 expectation.
21 I sense frustration on some people's parts when 22 there is an expectation that people actually have authority 23 to make decisions when in fact the~ authority rests legally
^
24 -and everything else with certain other people.
25 For example, when it comes to deciding what to do ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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61 1 with a plant that a licensee owns. ThereLit a couple
-2 different options that the regulator gives us,_ but it's 3 ultimately our decision on which option to pick. For
-4 example, in decommissioning, where advisory boards are very- ,
5 popular now, it's important to make the expectations? clear.
-6 I think a role for-the NRC-is to educate. people a 7 little bit better about h,ow the rules apply.-
The rules let 8 open_a couple different-options a lot of times and the 9 licensee.may not always pick the one tilat other stakeholders 10 would want, but as long as it meets the rules, it's 11 acceptable. Ilthink it's good to get public involvement irt ,
~
12 on those discussions, but it's also important to-ensure that 13 everyone has a good understanding of the expectations and 14 rules.
15 MR. ZWOLINSKI: The undercurrent remains. If you 16 do not.have trust, honesty and integrity, then all the 17 ' rules, as Paul Gunter alluded to, can be massaged or 18 interpreted in any way you want to, and abuse would then 19 follow.
20 If we go back to the foundation -- this is your 21 point, Paul Blanch -- of fundamental trust and build upon 22 that and then apply your rules uniformly. I'm trying to 23 digest and synthesize. In other words, did I hear you 24 correctly? I am restating it.
25- MR. DeSANTIS: I think what I am saying is the NRC ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 should as-part of your' communications program be. educating -;
2 people about what your role is as-a regulator. What is-your
-3 job? is a' basic. question,-.but1I would say;there is a lot-of-4-- confusion'about that-around our.facilitieu about' precisely-SJ what is.your role, o
6: MR.JCRAIG: I think thht's a fair comment, but I
- 7. have to add soniething that the consultant that helped with 8 1 strategic assessment: pointed out-in a meeting.
9 The short take on~it is that one organization may 10 have the - responsibility and authority to make a decision, V il *and indeed they make it, but if all the stakeholders aren't
~
12 satisfied and understand it, if-there isn't trust, it's like 13 to be the wrong decision and it will cost a whole lot more 14' in the long run. So there is a balance there. It leads to
- 15. trusti it leads.to meaningful input and some of the other 16 things we talked about.
17 I think it is important for people to understand
- i. 18 'our responsibility to define those expectations, t
19 We have a tape that we have put together that we 20 show in hig schools -and middle schools. One of the 21 segments is, what are the ten most commonly asked questions 22 -about the NRC? The number one question that is asked -- I 23 think it's number one -- how nany nuclear power plants does 24 .the-NRC operate?
25- [ Laughter.) ,
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- 1. MR. CRA!G: So clearly we have.got a long way to 2~ go to. clarify our stakeholders' ' expectations of us in' that - ,
- 3: area.
4 MR.pDeSANTIS: 'I just:want to= respond..- I think! ,
5 you heard thin lfrom someone else, and I can't-remember who.
6 - Ultimately the NRC is. going to make decisions that.are not 7 - going to please all'the s,takeholders.
3 MR. CRAIG: I agree with that.:
9 MR..DeSANTIS: What I-am hearing is that your.
. 10 consultaat said'you are not going to make people. happy.
11 MR. CRAIG: No, not at all. The point was if 12 there are five people with very different interests and you j 13 have to decide how likely that-one of them is not going to 14 be happy, there is a difference, though, between 15 understanding the decision and understanding the
-16 responsibilities that maybe somebody had. I wasn't +
17 suggesting that we try and make everybody agree, and we have 18 to agree sometimes to disagree, 19 Terry.
20 MR. STRONG: I want to go back to risk 21 communication. Some people are blessed with the ability to 22 say it, say it right, be able to relate somehow, but11 think 23 most of us need training.
i 24 . With all due respect to your budget
_25 considerations, if you.are~ going to have people who are out ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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64 1 there that are going to be_ talking, they ought to haveLthe
. 2: training before they-get f ced.with the situation- There.
3- are_all kinds of good programs, They-mayfnot1directly. ,
4- relate.to'the-NRC issues,Lbut there is training available.;
5' MR.-CRAIG:- Thank you. ~ Good point;-
6 ' Judith,JI think you're.next.
7 1 MS, JOHNSRUD .I'm becoming more and more 8 uncomfortable as this discussion has' proceeded. 'I.think we 9; .are getting.away-from the.notionlof the.real-relationship 10 -between the regulatory. agency and the public it is supposed 11 to serve.
11 2 - I'm hearing how does the staff communicate with-13 the public, to J the public, at the public, but I'm not h 14 hearing a-great deal about how the staff listens to, absorbs -
15 and ever acts upon what the public is asking of it. That's 16 a-fundamental shift.in approach. Don't communicate at the 17 publici listen to the public; and then once in a while do 18 what you are asked to.do.
19 It's that almost blemish-free record of the agency 20 of not responding to what the public has requested that 21 ~ keeps the NRC in disfavor.
22 MP, CRAIG: That's a good-point.
23 Paul.
24- MR. GUNTER: I would like to respond to Ralph's f -25 comments-with regard-to NRC ccmmunications_and specifically-ANN RILEY;& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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T 65 1 what came out of the decommissioning options and how NRC 2 interacts with all the various stakeholders. I yust come 3 back again that the NRC needs to be consistent-in its 4 communications of its own regulations before you lose public 5 trust. That continues to erode.
0 A specific example comes out of the Yankee Rowe t 7 decommissioning where essentially the e-tions were out there 8 and the Yankee Atomic Electric Cotporation chose an option 9 that wasn't really on the playing field at the time, the usa 10 of 10 CFR 50.59 to essentially circumvent a public hearing.
11 The NRC Commission had a split decision on the use 12 of 50.59 to essentially expedite the economic interest of 13 Yankee Atomic and the public was cut out. That is still 14 ongoing and it will appear again and again as the NRC 15 basically changed its rules to what the public sees as an 16 accommodation to the utility.
17 Again, the regulations serve as a primary 18 communication vehicle to the public, and when you don't 19 follow your own regulations or when you circumvent your own 20 regulations, that is one of your basic breaches of trust 21 with the public.
22 MR. CRAIG: We have exceeded our time by almost a 23 half an hour. I want to thank you for the comments and the 24 discussions. Just because we are a risk-adverce 25 organization, I'll turn to the co-chairs of the committee ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 and_ask them if they have any;other comments they would to 2 make. ,
- 3 ~MR., CAMERON: I don't havet any other-comments to 4- make about this session.. -
I_think..we.got some. specific ideas-5 from all of you that we need to think: carefully.about. - ,
6- I.thiuk;that some of the things;that-were saidLare-
- 7. . going to reverberate thrQugh other-topics.- Por example, f
=8- we've already heard some stuff-on public-involvement and-has 9 the.right decision'been made. Weican revisit that. .
I' 10 The only thing I would say-is that the_ topics on 4 1
11 the this afternoon's agenda I think are probably going to s 12 take less of our time than these first three topics thac we 13 ;had on the agenda this morning. So even though we are .
- 14 behind, I think we can run over thece three_ topics into the >
15 afternoon and still get some good discussions and not get 16 out of here later than we had.
17 Go ahead, Bill.
18 MR. BEECHER: I would second-that. Some of the
. - 19 things that have been brought up this morning we have been 20- grappling with.- In fact, we have suggestionc, and you will 21 . hear a little bit about that in the discussions that follow l 22 in a moment.
23 Some of'the ideas that you have expressed-this -
2 24 morning, the emphases _rather'than the ideas themselves being 25 cnovel, are very, very useful and will-in fact be reflected r ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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N 67 in.what;ue put.together'for the; Commission and-for its (2L decision.-
3 Let's getLback at tentafter. That's 15 minutes. ':
li
'4 [ Recess.]-
~5 MR.-BEECHER: We are going to getistartedLbecause _.-.:
6 we have a choral group coming in 'here, and we want . tai hear.
o 17 your music;before we hear,theirs.
8
.Let me start by saying it's noc an open_ question 9- -whether we need to improve the clarity and understandability
~
-10 of our documents!and.public. statements.- We most-ascuredly 111- ~do. The issue:is.how best to accomplish-that.
-12 ;Let me begin with a brief summary of the issues as 13 we see them on the committee together with some tentative 4
14 -solutions. -Then we will discuss your thoughts, which is 4 15 what today is all about.
16 While technically proficient and well motivated, 17- with some notable exceptions the NRC staff is perceived as 18 _doing a less than adequate job in communicating with the 19- public in many of the docutuents that go into the public 20 domain and in making statements at meetings open to the <
21 public.
- 22- Since the root causes are many, so are the 23 recommended nolutions. The committee, for example, is'
[ 24: thinking 1of proposing some new training courses, 25 particularly.for the'300-to 400_ senior managers:of the-ANN ~RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1- agency, to heighten their' sensitivity about the need to 2 address public concerns inLways the general public can 3 Lbetter understand.
-4: We would recommend, further,-.that many high 5 : interest. inspection reports and technical-meetings with 6 licensees which are open to_the public start with a brief 7 summary laying cut the issueslln understandable language and 8 placing identified problems in clear context as to their 9 ' safety significance.
10 'In addition, in those public meetings we will urge 11 -the senior NRC official present pause every now and again in E12 the proceedings to explain plain language the significance 13 of what is being discussed. This was one of Paul 14 Choiniere's complaints, and this is one of the things the 15 committee has been wrestling with and one of the tentative 16 recommendations that we have, 17 A plain-English glossary of technical expressions 18 we routinely use, such as small break LOCA, ALARA, whatever, 19 would be significantly improved and expanded. We recently 20 put a glossary on our Web site, but it needs improvement and 21- expansion, i 22 The-staff would be encouraged to refer to it 23 routinely in their reports when writing them, and the public 24 would be encouraged to suggest additional expressions that
- 25 need_to be added to the_ glossary. We-look at this as a ANN RILEY..& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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.1- living document.
2 We recognize that all too often we have been 3- reactive rather than proactive in identifying _and responding to.public concerns.- me will .be making specific suggestions ,
5 to systematically identify such issues much earlier and to
-6 address them promptly and' forthrightly. .
7 We are recommending that the need to clearly 8 communicate with the'public and to demonst' rate sensitive 9 responsiveness to public concerns be included in the annual 10 performance appraisals of all appropriate individuals. That 11 was'one of the issues that was raised in our morning's 12 _ discussion. We are ready to tnake that proposal to the 13 Commission.
14 That's a very quick, glancing overview of the area 15 that I am starting to focus on. Let's now hear your 16 -thoughts. The same way. Raise the cards.
l'i Paul Blanch.
18 MR. BLANCH: Bill, you mentioned, among other 19 things, statements made to-the public. Some of the things 20 that I've observed as a member of the public and feedback 21 from other members of the public and things just a few 22 specific things the public doesn't want to hear.
23 John Zwolinski and I were at a meeting at Indian 24 Point, I think, a few years ago and had an NRC manager get 25 up there and say, cost is never a consideration; safety is ANN'RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -
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5m. b 70 1 our only concern.
2 He knew better. We all recognize.that cost.is a
'3. concern. We have. cost-beneficial licensing.- We have placed 4 dollars on man-rem. Economics'is a concern. People don't x
5 want to hear that. We don't want to hear these:
6 Defense in depths.- Anyone could shoot pretty big 7_ -holes in defense in depth concepts.
8 Multiple redundant-safety systems.
9 No danger to the health and' safety of the public.
10 Your recent communication on Millstone.wasn't 12 written by the communications people here, but that didn't 12 help establish confidence in either the technical or in the 13 communications area.
14 I think I've got the document here. I was just 15 looking through it. It said, well, the plant has been shut 16 down. It cost $1 billion, but there were no safety issues, 17 or-no significant safety issues.
18 I just don't believe that the public believes-19 there were no real safety issues. If there were no real 20 safety issues, why Millstone spend $1 billion plus? The 21 public doesn't buy that type of communication. You've got 22 to be more truthful.
23 MR. BEECHER: Thank you, l 24 Don Beck.
25 MR. BEECHER: I like what you said and I really ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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71 i support particularly the idea of appropriate training for 2_ staff members. I think that in my experience in government 3 and the private sector that if you are really going to bring 4 about change and improve an organization you've got to spend 5 the time on training.
6- Reading through the documents that I was.sent in 7 advance of this and listqning to you talk, there is one 8 caution that I would offer related to communicating with the 9 public that I thought came through a little bit in the 10 written document and to a lesser extent through your
-11 comments.
12 It's just kind of a caution. There is this theme 13 clarity in communication is really a big problem, that you 14 really need to explain things better to the public so they 15 can understand. I think the caution I have is that it has 16 got to be done in a way that isn't condesconding to the 17 public, like, boy, the real problem here is that they don't 18 understand us; if they understood us, they would then agree 19 with our positions more often.
20 I'm not suggesting you. I know you don't believe 21 that, but I suspect there are people in the NRC who believe 22 that, that when they go to lunch they go, boy, the public, 23 they don't even understand the basics of radiation; if they 24 did, they would certainly understand why we have our 25 position and would support us; if we could only educate them ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 72 1 better, they would agree with us.
2 I think the evidence is very strong that that 3 isn't the case. It was certainly the case in the Department y 4 of Energy that oftentimes when we really did do a much 5 better job of communicating to the public it made them more 6 worried about what we were doing than when they were 7 confused about what we were doing. That was a good thing 8 that we clarified it and raised the concern.
9 So I just would caution that in terms of really 10 analyzing the problems that are you facing in terms of trust 11 and ;redibility, I suspect the problem in the main is not 12 clarity, although clarity is a important goal, and the other 13 is that when you talk about education and communication that 14 we always be very sensitive to the fact that the population i 15 is actually very smart.
16 I've never been in an instance where the 17 population hasn't very quickly tuned in to what the real 18 problem was and been effective at evaluating how honesc and 19 forthright the agency 3i dealing with it.
20 I certainly support the importance of clarity in 21 communications and training. It's important to improve that 22 in all agencies. At the same time I just wanted to offer ,
23 those cautions.
24 MR. LEECHER: That's a very uccful observation and 25 an important dimension, but I think the other side of that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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73 1 is something that Paul Choiniere was mentioned, that in 2 going to some of these meetings where the public is present 3 sometimes they are lost. They don't know what is going on.
4 They-have-no idea. That's a failure on our part in'not 5 communicating and not letting them have a better idea of 6 what in the world we are-doing and saying.
7- So there are both parts of the problem.
8 Dave Lochbaum.
9 MR. LOCHBAUM: I think more important'than clarity 10 is consistency in communications. I think the clarity issue 11 just establishes a threshold for the public to reach, and 12 they are going to reach that threshold no matter how high 13 it's set.
14 The lower you set it, the easier it is for them to 15 come up to speed, but if they are interested and they are 16 concerned, they are going to reach it no matter how high 17 that threshold is.
18 I think the laraer concern is consistency. An 19 example I would cite would be the Maine Yankee Independent 20 Safety Assessment Team report. There are 75 pages of 21 problems identified that are very clearly and cleanly -
22 stated.
23 The sheet that went out explained that although 24 there were some weaknesses, everything was okay and painted 25 a very rosy picture of the situation at Maine Yankee. There ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 is a disconnect between the executive summary and the cover !
2 sheet and the 75 pages of problems.
3 So I don't think the communication problems are 4 clarity; I think it's consistency.
5 The problem that the staff has right now is l
6 defining what is safety significant. There has been a lot '
? of talk about putting things in the right context. If you 8 had three staffers, I don't think there is a consistent 9 definition of what is safety significant.
10 I think that needs to be solved before you talk 11 about how to communicate ranking or significance or 12 priorities to the public, and I don't see enough along that 13 avenue.
14 MR. BEECHER: That's quite right. I just 15 mentioned the glossary as a glancing expression, but one of 16 the parts of our suggestion is that first the agency agree 17 on what expressions like safety significance means.
18 We've got to start with that. m) don't. You're 19 quite right. And there are lots of such expressions that 20 are used sometimes to finesse an issue as opposed to facing 21 it squarely, and we must face it squarely if we are going to 22 be clear and consistent.
23 !dR . LOCHB'.UM: I think some of it's terminology, 24 but depending on whatever definition people are using, when 25 you look at some of the enforcement actions that have been A!N RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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75 1 taken and some of the statements that were made by the staff 2 in the last year, it's hard to figure out why two issues 3 receive the same fine and totally disconnect un safety 4 significance. I don't know what message is being sent.
5 A consistent message, no matter what it is, needs 6 to be sent, and right now there is a big inconsistency 7 across the agency. ,
8 MR. BEECHER: In terms of enforcement as being one 9 of the signals of that?
10 MR. LOCHBAUM: I think enforcement is the biggest 11 thing.
12 I echo some of the comments that Paul Gunter made 13 earlier. The way to build credibility is to follow the 14 rules. When we find licensees not following the rules, the 15 agency takes what I call the wheel of miefortune approach.
16 Sometimes it's a big fine; sometimes it's ncn-cited 17 violations. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. I 18 don't know how you build credibility when you handle similar 19 events so differently.
20 MR. CAMERON: Bill, can I just ask a clarification 21 to David' 22 MR BEECHER: Sure.
23 MR. CAMERON: David, I think you using the term 24 " safety significant" not in the term with quotes around it 25 that could be addressed from a glossary point of view but in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
76 1 the broadest sense of we really don't agree on what the 2 significance of the risk to public health and safety of 3 various events are. Is that correct? You are talking about 4 safety significance in a broad way?
L MR. LOCHBAUM: I guess I was, but : look at two 6 events where the sams event happened at two licensees, and 7 one is a non-cited violation and one is a civil penalty. I a can't tell you which one is right, but they can't both be 9 right. 1 just look at from a pure, simple approach. The 10 same thing happened at two places and it was treated totally 11 different. I'm at a loss to figure out how the agency could 12 think they are 1'th right.
13 MR BEBCHER: David Stellfox.
14 MR. STELLFOX: I guess one of my biggest problems 15 in reading inspection reports and event repcrts and what not 16 is it gets back to the situation of Millstone. If there was 17 not a safety significant J.soue there, why nas the plant been 18 shut down for two years?
19 There may be a very good explanation for that. It 20 may be poscible to make that argument, but I don't see that 21 you have made that argument.
22 It's get back to Thermolag too. Look at the 23 resources that have gone into dealing with Thermolag. Yet, 24 if you ark NRC staff about it, they'll you it's a very low 25 safety significant lasue. Y(t incredible amounts of AFN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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77 1 resources in time and money have been spent on it.
2 It's gets back to the issue of context. I don't 3 think toe agency does a very good job of putting things in 4 context. Sometimes I get the feelir29 that your shy to say 5 that you think it's a low safety significant issue because 6 of reaction from some of the people on this side of the 7 table. I'd rather you say that, and then I'll go ask them 8 what they think about it.
9 (Laughter.)
10 MR. STELLFOX: That's my perspective.
11 MR. BEECHER: Thank you.
12 Dan Greenberg, 13 MR. GREENBERG: I'd like to offer a footnote from 14 the perspective of a reporter who was not centrally 15 concerned with NRC issues but who nonetheless writes about 16 science and technology. I write en op-ed column that 17 appears in The Post and other papers. I also write for 18 various other publications.
19 Nuclear issues have not been center stage in 20 recent years, at least at the national level, and therefore 21 I and I suppose a lot of other reporters who work in this 22 area have not paid as much attention to them as perhaps we 23 should have.
24 But what I can't help notice is that the other 25 government agencies that are concerned with science and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i technology, health regulation and related matters seem to 2 havn far-more outreach in establishing trust and using the i 3 _ press for their purposes of' educating the public than does .
4 the NRC.
5 For example, it is not unusual,-and it has ;
6 happened to me and lota of other reporters,-for Dan Goldin ]
7 out at NASA or Harold Vaqmus at NIH or Heal Lane at NSF to- .
) 8 say come around, let's-have.a talk; let me tell you what we 9 are doing here. I never hear from the:NRC.. I think maybe 1
'10 once in a while I get a press release or a publication, but ;
i 11 as a matter of fact-this is the first time I've been in this i 12 building. ;
13 The NRC is somewhere way, way off; it's not an 14 agency that teally figures large in my journalistic schedule i
15 making. '
16 I suppose if there is a recurrence of a TMI type ;
- 17. accident we'll all be rushing out here, but I think, as many 18 of you have sagely pointed out, that's not the time to be -
19 establishing your relationships with the press.
20 That's the end of my footnote. ;
21 MR. BEECHER: You'll give us your fax number 22 before you leave today, will you?
23 [ Laughter.)
24 MR BEECHER: Judy. !
! 25 MS JOHNSRUD: To go back to penalties, I'm always 1 4-4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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79 l 1 troubled when I read that the agency is assessing what looks 2 like a nice stift fine for an infraction and then sometime 3 later discover that it's actually been reduced or waived.
4 I would like some hard numbers. What percent of 5 assessed penalties per licensee are actually ultimately 6 paid? Second questions by what percentage of NRC 7 licensees? .
8 I've never seen those figures. Do you have them?
9 Are they available?
10 That is a real factor when it comes to, as 11 somebody said earlier, folks care about cost, about money.
12 That is one fundamental way in which the agency, in my 13 opinion, has failed miserably to persuade the public of its 14 concern about safety.
15 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Judy, to the two requests as far 16 as the specifics of fines, and so on and so forth, our 17 Office of Enforcement does publish an annual report. We can 18 certainly make that available to you.
4 19 MS. JOHNSRUD: I haven't been getting those. I 20 think you send me all sorts of things, but not what I need.
21 MR. BEECHER: That information is available. It's 22 public record. My impression is that mods fines that are 23 levied are paid in full. We can check thac. It's 24 available.
25 ,
John.
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80 l' MR. CRAIG: I had a stint in the enforcement staff ,
2 in my background. The process, of course, is one where we 3 propose civil penalties. Some of the licenseefreps, utility 4 _ reps can chime in here. Then they come back with a 5 response, with specific facts.
l 6 The enforcement policy has factors for mitigation 7 of the dollar amount of the fine, et cetera, and then the c 8 civil _ penalty is imposed. I can say with absolute = certainty 9 that?100 percent of the civil penalties that are imposed get 10 paid in a relatively short order. However, that is not to 11 say the dollar amount of the proposed civil penalty is paid. ,
12- There is a delta. We do mitigate them. As part of the 13 process of determining the severity in the enforcement 14 action, indeed there is also factors for escalation.
15 I would like to shed a little light on.the comment 16 about the two identical violations at two plants and why the 17 different action.
18 I had that experience a number of years ago. It 19 had to do with a high pressure injection pump that was out 20 of service at two utilities. Indeed, they were similarly 21 designed plants.
22 In one case there was a record where one of the 23 operators made a round and checked if various lights, power '
24- was available, and other things, every six hours or eight 25' hours, Then we went back and looked at all the logs and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. .
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I 81 !
1 indeed found out that by the log sheet the pump would have !
i 2 been operable.
3 It turns out that due to a mechanical spring in 4 the bottom and some other things when you test it, it would 5 cycle open and then cycle shut, but you had to actually then 6 reset the mechanism. It didn't matter whether was 7 available. It wouldn't h, ave worked. And they were supposed 8 to check this after a maintenance procedure.
9 In the other case there had been a similar 10 maintenance procedure, and the next check the operator had 11 identified it.
12 In both cases the pump was inoperable. So on the 13 surface they appear to be identical. The difficult thing to 14 dig out of the enforcement actions are the various factors 15 to escalate or mitigate and the surrounding things.
16 It's much like two car accidents at the same 17 intersection. The facts are different. It's hard to lay 16 all those out. We probably can do a better of doing that, 19 but indeed there is a rationale for why the two things that 20 appear to be identical are in fact treated somewhat 21 differently.
22 MR. BEECHER: Thank you, John, 23 Paul, 24 MR. CHOINIERE: I think safety is kind of a tough 25 issue to hold onto. There are those who can make a very ANN RILEY & AS30CIATES, LTD.
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82 1 strong argument that these plants can never be considered 2 safe because of the nature of technology. I think the issue 3 for me as a reporter is the erosion of the margin of safety.
4 Clearly with all the disregard for procedures and 5 the failure to keep the design of the plant up to date at 6 Millstone, that margin of safety eroded. In two and a half 7 years I've been very unsuccessful in trying to get anyone at 8 the NRC to try to quantify in any way how that margin of 9 safety was eroded. I think that is what the issue was 10 about.
11 This whole reluctance to kind of deal with that 12 among the NRC staff is a credibility problem. I get the 13 sense that reduction of margin of safety might be 14 interpreted by me or other members of the media that the 15 plants are unsafe. There is real fear among the staff to 16 talk about safety, because our interpretation will be they 17 are unsafe.
18 That's what they are talking about. They're 19 talking about them not being as safe as they should have 20 been. Given the potential danger of this technology, that's 21 not tolerable. Thel really should be as safe as they 22 possibly can be.
23 I just kind of throw that out, that whole issue of
. margin of safety, and maybe discussing with the staff and 25 these instructions talking about that, trying to help ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I 83 J 1~ interpret that for us in the media. ;
2 MR. BEECHER: Thank you. You do underscore an .
-3 issue that is very dif.ficult to deal with. If it's unsafe,- l i 4 we're. supposed-to close it dowr.. But there are levels of- ,
t -
1 5 safety and there are margins, and if the margin is eroded,-
16 how much? It's-a very difficult call-and it's even more ,
i difficult to talk about it because very few people are going -
8 - to want talk about that publicly.
It's a real-issue.- No 9 question.
l -
10 Jim.
- 11 MR. ZWOLINSKI: May I comment really quickly, 12 -Bill, to Paul and to David?
13 MR.-BEECHER: Please.
~ '
14 10R. ZWOLINSKI: Commissioner Diaz asked the staff 15 the same question quite sometime agos what's the big deal
, - 16 or_what are the major issues here? In trying to pull that 17 from the staff, I don't think he got a satisfactory answer 18 either.
l 19 I think it was a preponderance of a lot of smaller. i 20 issues. I'm not that close to it any longer. But absent 21 the real smoking gun or multiple equipment on the floor, or 22 whatever. I know that was an itch that he never felt was 23 adequately scratched by the staff.
24 So you all both are making a-fair point as to what
- 25 indeed has led to this.
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t 84 1 Sorry, Jim. Go ahead.
2 MR. RICCIO: No problem. A couple of things.
3 Going back to penalties. I know Chip and I and several 4 other people at this table have discussed this in the past. ,
1 5 If your penalties are not commensurate with the cost to 6 which these utilities are going to be -- the costs they are
- 7 going to lose by shutting down, there is going to be 8 balancing act taking place on the part of the-utility to ,
9 decide whether or.not they should actually follow your rule 10 or whether it's cost-beneficial to violate it and then pay
.11 the fine.
12 Whether or not that is explicit within the i
13 utilities is a matter of debate, but that is going to occur.
14 Unfortunately, you have already raised your penalties in the 15 recent past, but still they are in no way commensurate with 16 the cost to these utilities of having to shut down to fix 17 the problem.
18 Secondly, Mr. Beecher just mentioned that if there 19 is something wrong the NRC is supposed to shut down the 20 plant. That's happened once.
21 Dave was going to talk about this at some point, I 22 believe. What NRC generally does is it waits for the 23 utility to shut itself down and then slaps them with a ;
24 confirmatory action letter which keeps them shut down.
- 25 David always makes the point about, well, if they were safe s
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85 1 the day before they shut down and now they are shut down and 2 then you slap them with a confirmatory action letter, why 3 didn't you take that action while they were operating?
4 I think it has to do with the public's perception 5 of safety. If the NRC were-to come in and shut them down, <
6 you'd have a real problem on your hands, because then the 7 public wouldn't trust the utility because the NRC had to 8 shut them down .
9 Just those two points in con.Dination actually. If 10 you are going to enforce the regulations, enforce them 11 regardless of whether the reactor is operating or not.
12 Secondly, you are going to have to boost the fines 13 again. With the economics of this industry at this point, 14 some of these reactors are operating on the bubble 15 basically. It's a question of whether they are going to 16 continue to operate or not.
37 If you are going to say you're going to be la susceptible to a fine if you don't fix something or you shut 19 down, it's cost-beneficial for them to continue to operate.
20 I think that has to b3 addressed.
21 MR. ZWOLINSKI: Jira, our legislation has allowed 22 our fines to be escalated at a rate of ten percent a year 23 over the next nine er ten years. That's why I think you see 24 100 to 110. Next year another ten p9rcent would have you --
25 I will say $100,000 versus another day of operation or ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i nultiple days _in which the amount of profit is in the 2 millions, there is that major disconnect. I think that's 3 the real point.
4 MR. RICCIO: Even if you look at the Millstone ;
5 fine, on unprecedented fine.
6 MR. ZWOLINSKI Yes. .
7 MR. RICCIO: Bu,t it ends up being something like 8 $5 a day.
9 MR. BEECHER: Yet in the case of Millstone being 10 closed down as long as they had been closed down has cost 11 them billions.
12 MR. RICCIO: Indeed. In fact, for Millstone 13 they'd been better off had they basically kept NRC off their 14 back by complying. I think there is a balancing act there is the utilities are going to have to run as to whether they 16 can get away as much as they can and still remain cost !
17 competitive and ill comply with NRC regulations so as not '
~
18 to bring NRC down on their backs. ,
19 MR. BEECHER: Some of the very best, most 20 efficiently run nuclear plants in the country are also the 21 cheapest to run, and we have the representative of at least 22 two of t. hose plants sitting at this table. Maybe more than 23 one representative.
24 Ralph..
25 MR. DeSANTIS: Just a more specific comment about ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. .
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87 1 enforcement. I think what I've seen at the pre-enforcement 2 conferences where the media attends there are questions like ,
3 what could happen. It'a like a speculative typs of 4 question. What could happen to the utility? l 5 The NRC wii.1 say, well, if they are found to have 6 a certain violation, they could be fined this much. money.
7 The media will,says, what's the highest figure for 8 that level?
9 It would be whatever it is, $500,000. That's the 10 headline in the paper the next day, that a certain operator R11 could be fined so much money for a possible violation. It -
12 sometimes turns out that the 10tc decides it's not a 4 13 violation. That could go to some of the questions we had 14 earlier.
15 I think that goes back to maybe there is an
- - 16 .
opportunity for the NRC to do a better ,iob of explaining the 17 function of a pre-enforcement conference. I think we serve 18 the public better if we go beyond that headline. I know we 19 den't like headlines that say we could be fined so much 20 money.
21 Usually it's not a very accurate story because it 22 usually has the highest figure, which isn't always the one 23 that is given out. Or because of the other reasons like you 24 identified. If the probably is self-identified, for 25 - exaniple Why-is that important to the public? Why is it i
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88 )
1 important that an operator identify a problem compared to 2 the nigulator identifying it? What's the difference?
3 MR. BEECHER: John, do you wanc to address that?
4 MR. DeSANTIS: .
That's a rhetorical question.
5 [ Laughter.)
6 MR. ZWOLINSKI: I'm not aure you want che answer.
l 7 MR. DeSANTIS: ,1 know the answer, but I'd like you 8 to better explain to the media the answer.
9 MR. ZWOLINSKI By the way, some of that point 10 probably goes back to some of the discussions that Mr.
11 - Lochbaum was involved with when Office of Enforcement met 12 with NEI and USC, when the licensee discovers something and 13 what they choose to do vice the regulator finds the came 14 issue and Nhat we choose to do.
15 MR. BBECHER: The NRC wants to encourage a 16 conservative culture on the part of all its licensees, and 17 if the licensee is on top of things, finds things, we 18 consider that significant. If we have to find it, that says 19 something about perhaps the licensee not being as vigilant 20 as he ought to be.
21 Don Beck. [
- 22 MR. BECK: I wanted to offer a couple of thoughts.
23 Getting back to the isuue of clarity and the tendency for 24 lack of clarity in many government documents, it was my a 25 experience when I was a federal official that one of the 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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89 l
1' main reasons a lot of our things were unclear statements is 2 we weren't clear ourselves. We couldn't explain to the 3 public how decisions were made in the Department of Energy 4 because we weren't sure ourselves how decisions were made in 5 the Eepartment of Energy.
6 [ Laughter.) .
7 MR. BECK: As t,ime went on and we became more 8 comfortable with admitting that, our documents became more 9 l clear and we were able to say to people that we really don't 10 know. I think that is okay.
11 I'm not sure what your culture is like in terms of 12 the NRC, but if it is a culture where bad headlines, meaning i 13 that you as a program manager are doing badly, that is a 14 terrible situation to be in in trying to run a government 15 agency. It it's run by headlines and the perception is that 16 if you get bad press, therefore you are doing a bad job, 17 that's got to change, because the citizens are at risk when 1 ,
18 an agency is operating under that type of environment.
19 When you look at the research of public trust 20 towards government several themes come up: Is the agency 21 open to input?
22 Are the people in the agency technically 23 competent? That's a really important judgment on the part 14 of citizens when they decide whether or not to trust an 25 agency.
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90 1 Is it consistent? Does it follow through on some 2 type of a procean and adhere to it? Thst's very important.
3 Then also very important is a sense that the 4 government offi tals use sound judgment. The truth of the 5 matter is as citizens we are paying people like John, I 6 guess the two Johns, and others in this room, and Bill, and 7 so forth, to exercise judgment.
~
8 I think that in thin atmosphere in a lot of 9 agencies it's a scary word to say you're making a judgment 10 call. You've got to past that. I suspect that Bill is in 11 many meetings where he is advocating hds senior managera say 12 what you nean. What do you really mean when you are saying 13 this in the press release?
14 I bet you he can write extremely well and knows 15 how to get a message across,_but I also suspect he's in 16 meetings sometimes where sems of the senior managers -- you 17 don't have to admit to this, Bill -- that they're not really 18 sure and they don't really want to know, and sometimes they 19 want to kind of fudge it a little bit.
20 I think we have got to create an atmosphere where .
21 our public officials are allowed to clearly say that they do 22 make judgment calls. That's okay. That's an important part 23 of being a manager, and it's okay.
24 MR. BEECHEP: Dave Nichols.
25 MR. NICHOLS: Thank you. I think that while ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, ITD.
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i 91 ,
1 - addressing the area of what I'll call crisis communication -
[
2 or response to an event that han happened and how NRC gets , ,
J3 that message out there is an important role for.the agency. [
4 I.think it's'also important not to overlook other t 5 areas that the NRC uses to communicate with the public. In 6 medicine the two most common areas-that we deal with are-in 7 the rulemaking' process and publications in the Federal ,
n 8 Register as well as documents that the age'cy n reports to 9- other groups, such as your-A0 reporting to Congress.
10 -In the'propostd rule arena where a message goes )
11 out in the Federal Register that is read by!a large number 2
12 of nuclear medicine profesnionals as well'an'mombers of the ,
13 public, we feel it's critical that the NRC clearly identify 14 what the problem is that they are trying to solve and what
- 15 the risk and consequence if this problem persists is to not 16 only the worker and your occupational doses, but to a 17 patient and to a member of the public.
18 To date we hhvo not seen that type of discussien 19 take place in the proposed rule process. It then causes 20 more problems because the community tries to guess wnat the 21 NRC is really trying to get at.
22 This gets a little bit at the point that Don was l
23 -
4 making. The NRC is often perceived as dodging the-quescion
- 24 because they umy not know what the risk and the consequences 25- of. this : problem is. - It would be much easier to bring I t
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98 l 1 everyone together to try and address the problem during this i
2 process if everybody understood uhat your ultimate-goal was. :
a 3 The other side of the ' coin is on your' abnormal 4 occurrence reporting. One of_the questions in here is, do l the NRC's materials and presentations need to_be improved in 5 l 6 . terms - et:- clarity and ease. cf understanding? ,
7 ,
Part of that, i believe, needs to go into a 8 discussion of why you are even reporting this information.
9 We see in all the abnormal occurrence reports or almost all 10 of the Ao reportu involving medicine, particularly in
, 11 nuclear medicine,-at the very end of the report it says 12 '" thore is no medical significance as a result of this 13 event."
14 - The immediate question comes to mind, well, if 15 there is no medical significance, why are you reporting it?
16 You don't go into your description why you feel it's 17 important that Congress know or that a member of the public 18 know that you are report.ng this event. Yet you have a 19 clear ctatement that says there is no medical significance ,
20 there.
i 21 I think ycu need to go into that type of dialogue 22 as well when reporting issues like this.
23 MR. BEECHER: Thank-you. We are hearing a
' 24 different aspect of a problem from Dave than we are from '
25 -most.of the others of you, but it's very welcome, l
l .
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93 1 Paul Blanch.
2 MR. BLANCH: Thanks, Bill. I'd just like to 3 comraent on some of the comments from both Dave Lochbaum and 4 Jim Riccio made. Jim alluded to the fact of the 5 ineffectiveness of civil penalties.
6 At Millstone, if you look at the GAO report ,
7 " Preventing Problem Plants Requires More Effective NRC 8 -Action" you clearly see an example of how there is an 9 economic incentive for power plants to cor.tinue to operate -'
i 10 because the enforcement action is not a deterrent et all.
11 I wrote a letter to Senator Lieberman related to 12 that and have shared it with the staff and Dr. Jackson.
13 Millstone saved $18 million by continuing to operate in an 14 unsafe condition related to tlH3 442 valve on Millstone Unit 15 -2.
16 I think that needs to be looked at, but again, all 17 these things relate to the trust and consistency of the la agency.
19 As far as consistoney of enforcement, the most 20 vivid example I've seen of inconsistent enforcement is last 21 August 7th NRC Region I put out a public affairs notice 22 where an operator was supposed to take readings every 24 23 hours on some system and he missed it by an hour and 15 24 minutes and fudged the reading to back date it by an hour 25 and 15 minutes, and he was banned from the nuclear industry ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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j 94 1' for eitb*r three or five years. I'm not going to comment on 2- the .'ppropriateness of that or not. ;
i 3 On August 12th an inspection report was sent out 4- on another plant where an operator was supposed to take two-5 readings related to radiation in a spent fuel pool before :
G they sent a diver in. He decided he didn't want to take two 7 readings. So he photocopied the first and redated it. What a did the NRO do?- -l 9 You look at the significance of these two. The 10 NRC issued a severity level 4 violation, and actually not f
11 1 just for that . He grouped an other bunch of falsified j 11 records together into one severity level 4 violation-and'no-
- 13 civil penalty.
14 You've got to look at the consistency of all your is actions here. That's just one area of building the trust 16 and re-instilling the faith end confidence of the public.
17 It just doesn't happen when you see things like that. .
18 MR. BERCHER: ThLak you, Paul.
19 The clock tells me that if we were to try to 20 continue now we would be part of a choral group singing 21 Rudolph the Red Faced Spokocmbn. So why don't we take a 22 break now for lunch, 23 I would rcmind you of something that the co-chair 24 s a.' i , To the extent that any of you want to make comments 25 in this area then we cera back to lunch, you are welcome to Y
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-i do so. If something occurs i That's true for the whole day. l t
2 to you that you meant to bring up earlier in another 3 ses.sion, don' t fsel inhibited by the agenda not to bring it I 4 up. ;
5 Thank you very much. {
6 (Whereupon at 12:00 p.m., the meeting was .;
7 recessed, to reconvene at.:1:00 p.m., this same day.)
8 l 9
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96 1 AFTERNOON SESSION 2 (1.05 p.m.)
3 MR. BEECHER: Before we get started, you know how 4 speakers sometimes coming to an auditorium will start with 5 saying a funny thing happened to me on the way to the 6 meeting. Well, a funny thing happened to me when I got back 7 to my office today at lunchtime. I found on my desk a 8 bottle cap. The.t may suggest to you that I have a very 9 undisciplinr.d, sloppy staff.
10 Quite the contrary, I have a very literate staff, 11 because printed inside this top from Eliot's amazing all 12 natural f ruit juice drink is a quotation from Plato.- I will 13 share it with you, if you insist. Do you insist?
l 14 The penalty good men pay for indifference to 1
! 15 public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
16 Maybe Plato had in mind a broader definition of 17 public affairs than we have been dealing with today.
1d If there are any other comments that those of you 19 might like to make on the session we ended a little abruptly 20 this morning, this is the time to do it. If not, we will l 21 move right to the next session.
l l
2 .* But remember what I said earlier. If something l
- 23 occurs to you, no matter what is on the agenda, by all means 24 indicate that you would like to talk and it will be in 25 order. Nothing is out of order in terms of what the agenda I
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. . - u 97 1 says. Is there anything more from this morning's Clarity of !
2 Communications? l 1
3 Judy. .
4 MS. JOHNSRUD: What do we do about the things that !
5 occur to us on-the-long drive home? Do we send you written 6 comments right away? <
7 MR. BEECHER: You could. '
~
8 MS. JOHNSRUD' You_want it here today.
9 MR. BEECHER: If you could, it would be helpful to 10 us in our process.
11 Is there anything more from thia morning's session 12 that anyone has in his mind that he would like to raise now?
13 [No response.]
i- 14 MR. BEECHEP.: Chip, why don't you take over then. ,
15 MR. CAMERON: Thanks. I won't tell you what was i 16 inside my bottle cap.
17 I want to put a number of issues en the table for 18 you about public involvement.
19 Over the past several years we tried to initiate a 20 number of processes on specific issues that would try to 21 give the public early and active involvement in the 22 decision-making process. Granted we are still learning and 23 we.still need to improve what we are doing.
24 For example, are'we identifying all of the issues "
i 25= that we should do some type of additional public ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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p 98 r
i participation on? What type of public participation process .
2 should we use?- 'I 3 When we impir. ment a particular process, what are 4 .the elements of doinrj-it right in terms of making sure the 5 right people are represented around the table?
6 If there indeed is a_ table and it's not just a ;
7 _ broader public meeting forwat, is there equity granted in 8 terms of people being able to speak at the meeting?
9 Is there proper notice?
~10 Is the meeting time convenient for.the public? ,
-11 -Is the location a non-intimidating location?
12 -Are the materials available on time? Are they [
13 understandable?
14 All of these components that go into a good 15 process.
16 Other issues are how can we improve NRC staff 17 interaction in a public cetting? We heard a couple, I'm not ,
18 sure they were veiled references to the scientific and I 19 engineer staffs' reluctance'in some cases, or fear perhaps, f 20 lof having to deal in a public setting. How do.we overcome
~~
21 that?
22 Does the process make a difference in terms of ,
23 public satisfaction? How do we know if che process made a .
24 difference along those lines? Has the process changed the 25- agency decision?
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P 99 1 I want to put something_ squarely on the table to 2 you that is one of the biggest conundrums for me in doing -
l 3 public participation.
4 What :Of you do the process right and the agency i
5 reaches a decision that the.public or various sectors of the 7 6 public disagree with? Dot that mean you kill the. messenger 7 and the process stunk? .
8 In some cases maybe che process did stink because ,
9 you didn't inform people of what you did with the.r comments 10 or variouc-other things. There is always a possibility in 11 doing public participation processes that not everybody-is
-12 gting to be satisfied wjrh the result. So I just get ,
23 worried about how do you not throw out the baby with the 14 bath water.
15 other issues were raised this morning from Don in 16 terms of measurement: How do wt know if the public 17 participation process is satisfying the stakeholders? He's 18 had some experience with that and I hope that he illuminates 19 our discussion with that.
20 In terms of cost, we heard Terry Strong say this 21 morning that if the training is important, spend the money, 22 because you are going to get some payback for it.
23 When you are dealing with an area such as public 24 involvement, a lot of times it may be difficult to quantify 25 what the benefits are, so that you sometimes find yourself ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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100 1 in a position that if it takes so many thousands of dollars 2 to develop a public involvement course for NRC staff, for 3 example, how do you convince the decision-maker that that 4 money is worthwhile spending?
5 or if you want to do an independent assessment of 6 how well your processes are working rather than our 7 committee of insiders sitting around and determining that, 8 that taker money too. So again it's that cost benefit. How 9 do you~ convince tho decision maker that that money is 10 worthwhile spending?-
. 11 How do we at NRC achieve a consistent and 12 systematic approach co public involvement?
13 During some of the breaks a bunch have been 14 talking about the fact that it's almost like two agencies in 15 a sense, the material side and the reactor side. The .
16 material side takes a much different approach, I think, to ;
17 public involvement than the reactor side. Once you decide !
18 what are the proper elements of a public involvement 19 process, how do you systematize that and make that uniform 20 throughout the agency?
21 I think we heard the window dressing comment from 22 Paul this morning. In my belief, it's better not to do any 23 public participation process than do comething that is a '
^
24 sham. We don't set out to do sham public participation 25 processes, but we may not do it right. So it ends up 1
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101 l
1 sending a very, very wrong message.
2 With those questions, let's start with Jim.
3 MR. RICCIO: I think in some instances, Chip, you 4 are not going to be able to save a bad policy. You use in 5 your discussion paper the instance of below regulatory 6 concern. You could have held a sparkling public 7 participation process in that instance and you still would 8 have lost, because it was a really stupid 'Adea.
9 I don't think any amount of pub.1c participation 10 can rescue what is really viewed as a very poor idea. So 11 I'm not even sure that using BRC is probably the best, but 12 since it's in there we might as well use it.
13 In order to get your point.' across and to have any 14 real meaningful participation you have to do it early enough 15 in the process so that people can, first of all, get 16 themselves up to speed on the issue before they have an 17 opportunity to participate.
18 One way you could do that -- this is going to be 19 reiterated, I'm sure -- is follow your own rules. I have an 20 entire folder of Sunshine Act violations just from my 21 experience with the Tennessee Valley Authority. There in no 22 way that you can have meaningful public participation if you 23 don't get noticed in time. If you don't know that something 24 is going down, there is no way you are going to make the 25 meeting.
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1 I understand, especially with the licensing O 2 process, there are instances where you just happen to be in
- 3 the same room at the same time, so you might as well sit i
4 down and hash out a few more issues. But this was constant f I
5 and pervasive. I know that there are other examples 9here 6 people had problem with noticing comment. .
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jim.
8 Let's go to Don.
9 MR. BECK: Going back to the goal of public i
.10 involvement, which I see is different than the goals for 11 some of the other things we talked about, I think that the i
12 federal agency, the government agency has the responsibility 13 in public information, in awareness to have the best 14 information, the clearest information it can and to make it 15 available as much as possible to the citi:: ens. I think 16 that's the goal for public information.
4 17 I think as part of the public relations
! 18 perspective it is also the responsibility for the agency to 19 have a posi,aon and to make that position known and be able
{
20 to defend it and ~.m be afraid of controversy.
21 I really chink in today's environment we have 22 fede'ral officia)s who are too afraid of controversy and not 23 willing eraugh to stand and say "we do have a position.
24 Here a our position. Here's why we believe in it." I see 25 that as primarily .he goal of the public relations effort ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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103 1 and public information.
i 2 A third part, which is part of it too, is public 3 involvement. I see that as having a different goal, 4 although it's related. If you are going to have a good 5 public involvement program, I think you are ceces,arily 6 going to have to increase the resources for public.
7 relations, public information, and public comaunication.
8 But that in itself isn't enough, because the goal 9 of public involvement is fundamentally different. The goal 10 of public involvement, in my mind, is not to reach a policy 11 that everybody likes, but to have it done in a process that 12 is so fair that even those people who disagree with your 13 decision at least feel the process was fair. That includes 14 that the process needs to be transparent, and so on and so 15 forth.
16 I think that should be your goal and you shouldn't 17 1 be .rying to strive for something that is going to make 18 svorybody happy, but you should be striving to make sure 19 that it's a process that even those who disagree with you 20 say it was very fair and open.
21 Along those lines, with public involvement you 22 need to measure and go out and ask people what's working and 23 what's not working, and you need that feedback on an ongoing 24 basis.
25 For our private clients we do that in some cases ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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104 1 on a quarterly basis for many industries and give them 2 feedback on how their customers or audience are respending.
3 to different types of information. Clearly government can't 4 afford to do that on a quarterly basis, bt: they do need to 5 do it on a systematic basis.
6 You need that data, because if you don't.have the 7 data, you run into a situation where you reach a crisis and 8 you can't defend your program. In times of cutbacks, one of 9 the first things to get cut back, I'm sure, is 10 communications, training, public involvement.
11 I had the opportuntty to meet with several people 12 from the Internal Revenue Service recently. If you want to 13 talk about an agency whose back is up against the wall, IRS 14 has got to be one of the top'ones. They are in a situation 15 where they don't have the data in place to show what they 16 have done and how effective it has been in terms of dealing 17 with taxpayer complaints. If you don't have the data, you 18 are really vulnerable to criticism from the outside as well 19 as budget cuts from the inside.
20 The last point on public involvement that I would 21 make is that the challenge internally is going to be much 22 greater than the challenge externally. If you don't have 23 your very senior managers really committed to it, it's going 24 to be very hard to create a climate in which you are going 25 to make great strides in public involvement.
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105 1 We'did a survey in the Department of Energy of DOE 2 -employees on public involvement. We looked for a lot of 3 predictors of a person's willingness to engage the public in 4 the Department of Energy. The only thing that.was a 5 significant predictor of whether or not a DOE employee was 6 supportive of public-involvement was whether or not he or 7 she believed his or her manager believed in it.
8 In the Department of Energy it was a very 9 hierarchical command and control culture. If the NRC is 10 similar to that, managers have got to feel that their 11 managers really believe this and want them to do it as 12 opposed to just paying lip service to it and going through 13 the motions.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Don. I would 15 ask people to pick up on those in addition to what aise you 16 want to say, particularly the measurement aspect.
17 Let's go to David and then we'll go to Judy.
18 MR. NICHOLS: Thanks, Chip. I would like to 19 comment a little bit about the public workshop process as we 20 have seen it operate on the medical side. I want to echo a 21 point that Jim made about appropriate timing of the 22 meetings.
23 We had a workshop on two regulatory guides 24 involved with 10 CFR 32 where the Society of Nuclear 25 Medicine and American College of Nuclear Physicians were ANN RILEY & ASSOCIAT32, LTD.
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106 1 asked-to provide expertisecto be'able-toisit atithe table
- 21 during that; workshop. .
3- I;got the letter in my office about.three weeks
. - 4- -before-the workshop. Even if that-is'withinithe window of-5 when'you heve to appropriately _ notify people;to participate, 6- it's not going to be enough time for:melto pull nuclear -
7 medicine physicians-out.of their practice. -These guys set.
t 8- their schedules ~ months in advance. There.'is the abilityLto 9 get airline fares. We are flying people in.from all around 11 0 the_ country. I don't have a closet full of nuclear. medicine 11 experts that I can just pull out of our office whenever we 12 need to send somebody here.
13 So it's really critical that you extend as much as
^
14 possible the time of when you are notifying people of when 15 'these workshops are so that we can get the appropriate 16 experts to come to the table.
17 It is also important,-I think, to have snaff 18 interaction at these workshops. We have'seen scme change in 19 this, but a lot of times NRC workshops consist of the staff 20 putting a position up cnr a question up _ and then hearing 21 comment from the public and there is no response or 22 discussion with the staff.
23 So you set up a situation where you get a variety-1 of comments-from the public but you have no idea whether.
25 it's what the' staff:was-thinking when the posed the question ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. '
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4 107 1 or what their position is going to be on it, or whether you 2 are even giving them the information that they need to write 3 the rulemaking. It's a one-way street. To have that 4 two-way interaction really enhances the success of the 5 workshop.
6 I think it's also important to have the 7 proceedings forwarded to the participants after the 8 workshop. A lot of times you have these workshops and it's 9 like the information goes into a black hole. The 10 i participants never see the transcriptsi they don't see the I
11 meeting summaries; there is not a lot of discussion about 12 what happens to that information following the workshop.
13 To transmit that information back out to the 14 participants and the members of the public that want to get 15 it without having to go through the public document room or 16 the Freedom of Information Act to get that type of 17 information is useful.
18 Finally, it's critical from our perspective to be 19 able to see how the staff is interpreting and handling the 20 comments that are provided at the workshops.
21 If the staff agrees or disagrees with the 22 position, it's important to see some of t he rationele that 23 went into reaching that decision: What was the data that 24 the staff used to evaluate whether the position was 25 appropriate or not?
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109 1 A lot of times we get consensus at a workshop only 2 to find out later on that the staff just said, well, we 3 don't agree and moved on without any rationale or discussion 4 about how they reached that decision. That is very 5 troubling.
6 We have seen the NRC ccamissioning studies with 7 the National Academy of Sciences and spending two years 8 having an outside consultant study the medical program and 9 then say, well, we disagree with the report and move on.
10 Well, why did you even commission the report if you weren'c 11 going to listen to what they said?
12 Those are some of the areas that we would 13 encourage the NRC to action on in their workshop process.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, David. One clarification in 15 terms of the point you made about dialogue with the staff.
16 That wasn't necessarily saying the staff should take a 17 position on the issue, but you want to talk to the staff 18 about why they think, for example, there is a problem that 19 needs to be fixed, what's the rationale behind their 20 thinking on that.
21 MR. NICHOLS: That's right. Recognizing that a 22 lot of these workshops need to be held early on in the 23 process so " hat the NRC is not going to -- in fact we don't 24 want the NRC to go into the workshop with a mind-set that 25 this is our position, but to have the ability of staff to ANN ".ILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- ,- y % 3 109 1 -listen to.the comments and say, well, I don't understand 2 'this point or I don't understand.that; can you get me_more .
3' -information'on-this' area? So that~ at least: you get a sense _
4 that you are providing_them-the information that is going to 5 .be useful instead of~getting up and making comments that are
^
6 going to be~ disregarded somewhere down the road. .
7= MR. CAMERON: Thank you._ ,
8 Judy.
9 MS. JOHNSRUD I would like to underscore the
. 10 . question of timeliness of notification..-I think it's'even
- 11 more difficult-for the ordinary member of the public who may 12 have a very nearby facility of particular concern and yet 13 has great difficulty finding out the-timing of meetings, 14 obtaining the information in advance.
15- I don't think you sent me anything in advance of 16 this one,. Chip, for example, f
17 For the public, that is, the unrepresented public, 18 shall we say, there is, of-course, a matter of cost. We 19 hear frequently the distress of people, particularly in the 20 wide open spaces of the nation, that a workshop in San 21 . Francisco and a workshop in Washington, D.C. just really 22- don't do it when it costs midweek upward of $500 to $1,000 23 to get'to a meeting-for small public interest organizations 24 that are attempting at least to represent the concerns of
~ 25- Ltheir constituents and of-the public at large. This is an
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110 l 1
1 enormous impediment. I 2 I recognize the difficulty of providing a meeting 3 in every community. I went to one on' hazardous waste
-4 facility plan in Pennsylvania last night. The audience 5 consisted of one -- me. That's pretty upsetting.
6 I can understand that that-may become a problem as 7 well for the staff. It's. pretty disheartening to try to put 8 together some means of communication and h' ave it rejected, 9 as it were.
10 Btt that is to some extent a function of the lack 11 of timeliness, a lack of notification. A lot of the world 12 is not on e-mail. A lot of the world doesn't have access to 13 Internet.
14 That in turn raises the other part of this issue 15 that I consider particularly significant, and that is simply 16 access to information to the documents. It goes in part to 17 the difficulty of using technical documents on e-mai] when 18 there is an enormous amount of information to se covered but 19 the scrolling through is not quite the same as flipping the 20 pages of the hard copy.
21 If there is any one single issue that I consider 22 predominant in the functioning of a democratic society, it 23 is access to information. Very frankly, I fear as we look 24 ahead with the agency that the tendency to go to the 25 electronic form is going to further reduce in a very real ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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111 1 way the opportunity for members of the public at large to 2 become involved, to communicate back with you, agency, and 3 for the agency to reach the very people you are concerned to 4 affect.
5 MR. CAMERON: Judy, thank you.
6 On that last point, I would just put that all on 7 our plate for when Donnie Grimsley talks about access to 8 information, because it is an important issue that we have 9 tried to grapple with.
20 Let's go over to the middle Paul, and then we will 11 do that Paul and then that Paul.
12 (Laughter.]
13 MR. BEECHER: Ha didn't mean middle of the road 14 when he said middle Paul.
15 (Laughter.]
16 MR. CAMERON: I wasn't talking about that 17 particular spectrum.
18 MR. GUNTER: I think I'd like to open my comments 19 with just the fact that I've got a lot of direction from 20 public activists up in Massachusetts and Connecticut, some 21 of them very new to the whole process of challenging the 22 parceived threats that they feel from thic industry. They 23 hr.ve basically been involved now for the last four or five 24 years in this whole process. I go back to 1975 with this 25 whole issue.
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il I have-some sense of consistency here1that in one l
~
- 2 sense'not much has really changed between1the Atomic = Energy 7 +
g3 1 -Commissioniand-the Nuclear Regulatory;Conimission.. The 14- agency wentEthrough congressional 1 oversight?from'AEC.to NRC' [
'5- principally _because offits role as an. advocate for the
-6 industry. I,hadLthat' experience and that perception in 7 1975. -
- 8 The NRCLwas created, and yetiwe have a-whole new -
9 set of: activists'and public coming'into the issue. -Frankly, 10= their. notions are the same, and their-perceptions are that- __
011= NRC still' remains-an advocate for the industry.
12 I know that industry representatives here are 13 ' going to disagree with that in that they feel that they are 14 the most heavily regulated industry in the_ country.
15 The public perceptions really come from witnessing 16 what we feel to be one betrayal after another by the agency.
17 of our very legitimate concerns.
18 The press release that we issued today and.the 19 attachment basically outline just a few of a number of-20 issues that provide us with justification for this' concern.
. 21 I think that in terms of constructive criticism
~
22 what Tne feel needs to happen 1s- for there to be legitimate 23
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public involvement. That means that the agency needs.to 24 . move from essentially viewing the public as an obstacle and
- 2 5 -- legitimately? involving it.
1
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1 One of the areas that we could see where that 2 could_ happen would be to reinstitute public hearings in a 3 more meaningful fashion. The whole public hearing process 4 we see as being marginalized, particularly with regard to 5 decommissioning.
6 We saw that occur at Yankee Rowe. I provided that 7 example. Y don't need to get into that. The public 8 concerns and the public's right to a hearing process were 9 subverted.
10 I don't believe that's just our perception. That 11 was also the perception of First Circuit District Court 12 Judge Michael Ponser when he basically described the NRC's 13 ef forts as akin to the House of Circumlocution in the 14 Dickens novel Bleak House, that the agency actively-15 subverted some very Jegitimate concerns here basically to 16 get around the issue, which we believe to be to promote the 17 economic interest of the utility.
18 That decision is again reflected in the First 19 Circuit Appellate District Court when the appeals court 20 found that in that particular Rowe case that NRC-had 21 basically abandoned five years of duly promulgated 22 regulation to benefit the utility in a very arbitrary and 23 capricious manner which the court found utterly irrational.
24 I think that a lot of that could have been averted 25 if there had been a sincere effort on the part of the NRC to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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114 1 open the process to a public hearing where the public had 2 the right to cross-examination and discovery. .
- 3. Decpite the vociferous public concerns, despite 4 the decisions documented in these court decisions, what the 5 NRC moves on is to changa its rule to'further marginalize 6 legitimate public involvement.
7 That is just one example of a consistent trail of 8 where NRC has betrayed, we believe, it's mandate to protect 9 public health and safety in affording an agenda to again be 10 an advocate for the industry.
11 Another point that I think would make a difference 12 is to make material relevant to public involvement more 13 readily available.
14 I've got the highest regard for the Public 15 Document Room. I think that we will get into that when we 16 get to that section. The Public Document Room can only do 17 so much with the information that is made available to them.
18 We are concerned that the timeliness of the public being 19 informed is dependent on how quick the documents can clear 20 document control through NRC.
21 Things can disappear and be stalled before getting 22 into the public arena and the PDRs. I think one area of 23 chief importance in enhancing public involvement is 24 providing for an informed public.
25 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Paul. The last ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 115 '
1 issue ve:wi3i put on the plate _for when_Donnie talks ~.
'2 Just so that"everybody understands, the public +
'3- hearing process that you were' talking;about.in your'first 4 recommendation is the. adjudicatory. process. In other words, 5 being able to challenge,a particular' action, the 6- : cross-examination,-disecvery, the whole business. .
7 Do'you have any specific suggestions on how that-8 might-be accomplished, through a rule change or whatever, or 9 is it just sort of a general comment? I don't want to put 10 you on-the spot. I just wondered if we-could have the 11- benefit of-that.
'12 MR. GUNTER:- I think I would-cite the Rowe example 13 .where we feel that public concerns were subverted by the NRC 14 basically taking Yankee Atomic Power Corporation's bid-15 through 50.59 and essentially accommodating that in a rule l 16 change so that now we have a situation where the
[ 17 ' decommissioning of a plant is not a major federal action, 18 which basically gets around NEPA; we-have been outmaneuvered 19 in terms of the Administrative Procedures Act and the Atomic 20 Energy-Act.
i 21- All these represent trigger points that all of us ,
22 know would key in the public hearing procecsLand that 23 essentially NRC in-its rulcmaking process has basically 24 cleared all that from the board.
25 That was' intentional. There is no questionfin our i3 ANN RILEY-&-ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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116 1 minds that that was a deliberate act to remove a legitit* ate 2 public involvement.
3 If you want to restore public trust, the first act 4 yeu would do would be to rescind the current decommissioning 5 rule. Just rescind the rule and basically go back to where 6 we were with regard to the public hearing process through 7 the Administrative Procedures Act, the Atomic Energy Act, 8 and HEPA. I think that takes an admission on the part of 9 the NRC that the public has been subverted to date 10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Just let the record reflect 11 that when you say rescind the decommissicning rule that it's 12 the 1996 decommissioning rule relevant to reactors, although 13 you may feel the same about the 1997 decommissioning site 14 cleanup rule.
15 MR. GUNTER: That's another example.
16 MR. CAMERCN: Thank you.
17 Paul, the newspaper Paul.
18 MR. CHOINIERE: I vas reading my notes and I was 29 thinking, how should the NRC resident inspector or project 20 manager interact with the public on a continuing basis?
21 I think you could waste some energy spending too 22 much time on that. I think a regulator is kind of like a 23 referee in a sport. If you are doing your: job, you are not 24 really noticed a lot.
25 You need to establish trust that if there is a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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117 1 problem you'll take it seriously and you'll get it 2 corrected. I think that's what John Q. Public wants from 3 his regulators.
4 I think if you are going to be calling meetings 5 just to kind of say that nothing too much is happening, and 6 this is our job at the NRC, I don't think you will.get much
? media interest and I don't think you will get much public 8 interest.
9 I saw that question kind of leading into the 10 direction of just kind of holding meetings for the sake of 11 holding meetings and informing the public of what you do and 12 what your role is. I don't think people are that interested 13 except to know that you are doing your job and when there is 14 a problem you will answer their questions honestly and you 15 will deal with it forthrightly.
16 That's the comments I had on that.
17 MR. CAMERCN: Thank you. I think we heard sort of 18 a different opinion on that this morning. I'm not sure that 19 you are in opposition to that, but maybe Jim Norvelle can 20 address that.
21 MR. NORVELLE: I would agree with what he said.
22 We've all been in too many meetings that should f.ever have 23 been held either inside our companies or outside.
24 .
My viewpoint on resident inspectors is more one on 25 one and establishing relationships with local officials and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l ~118 11 their counties, cities, tour.s, .et cetera',;on an ongoing.
2-- basis.- A' cup.of coffee,.that type of thing,1rather than ll' having a meeting where_cruly nobody wouldLattend because- '
-4_ there is nothing going on. ,
5 I think that's where you do build f up trust. That 6 includes not1only public officials, but that wculd; include 7- the editor of the. local paper.
8 MR. CHOINIERE: I think that-mak'es sense.
9 .MR. CAMERON:- So you guys are in agreement.
10 -MR. NORVELLE: Yes.
~11- MR. CHOINIERE: Very much so on that' issue. '
-12 MR. CAMERON: Paul.
13 MR, BLANCH: Thank you. I'd like to carry.cn a 14 little bit what Paul said -- this guy -- as far as the 15 decommissioning. ,
16 One of the issues that has come up at Connecticut 17 Yankee decommissioning-and Maine Yank 49 is you have two 18 different types of licenses, the Part LO 12. cense, which is a 19 power license, and you now have a Part 72 license, which is 20 l the independent storage of spent fuel.
21 I wasitalking to uomeone a few weeks'ago that 22 actually assisted the NRC in the development of the Part 72 1
23 rule.many years ago,-and it's intent was-to apply to the 24 long-term storage of spent fuel after decommissioning, 25- whether'it's on site or off site.
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1- Because the: public doesn' t have this hearing 2- process, they can't even question the NRC.whether Part 72- -
3 applienito-decommissi'ned plancs,.because they are turning 4- from a-power reactor to a high level-' waste dump, and Part 72 5 lshould apply. When you question the NRCLon this, they say, ,
6 I well, it doesn't apply. Sorry. That's it. ~Part 50 7; applies. '
8 You.look at Part 50, and they have 108 words on ,
9- tha storage of rpent fuel. You look at-Part 72, and ,
-10 something like 41 pages.
11 l These are the types of issues that really upsetL I
12 the public.. The NRC has a tule for the storage of spent 13 fuel. and they don't usa it. This is very, very bothersome 14 to a lot of people.
15 This gets back to the basic isrue of trust. Who 16 is going to trust wom0cne even though they have got a role 17 they don't even apply it? They find ways to say it doesn't 18 apply in this case. The public gets quite upset.
19 I'd like to talk.now about NRC public meetings and
.20 how the NRC interfaces with the public.
21 There have been some people that do provide 22 reasonable interface with the public. Chip, you've 23 -interfaced with the public in a lot of our meetings. That' ,
24-- has been somewhat succacer;1. John has been somewhat
- 25. successful. Bill Travers has done a relatively good job up ANN RILEY-& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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120 1- rat Millstone in satisfying the public.
2 'But if you put-the wrong people in there,-you do, .
31 more:danage than you do good, and wa've had some horrible 4' people.on a routine. basis attempting to interface with the-
-5 public. They are arrogant; they are intimidating; they usel 6- these phrases I was talking about before. The IG has:
7 already been informed of* intimidation by_ members of the NRC i 8- of the general public. They use phrases: well, that's 9 beyond the design basis. .We don't have to consider that.
10 You've got to put the right people in front of the 11- public. You have to be very, very careful. We've had some 12 good technical, people from the NRC make presentations, and
.13 these people underetand the ins and outs of all the 14 technical issues, but they are not effective in 15- communicating. They've got to-be trained before they get in 16 front of the public.
17 Most of the time the public is very upset when 18 they are finished with these public meetings. In a lot of 19 cases the NRC takes the attitude that the public serves the 20 NRC; we're the government, and you're just the public. It's 21 just the general attitude that is conveyed by many of these ,
22 people.
- 23. } When you really lock at it, the licensee is E
24 suppused to answer to che NRC, but the NRC real2y is 25 supposed to answer to the public, and if the NRC could keep ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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121 1 that in mind. I think it will go a long way.
2 When they come down there in their three-piece 3 Guit0 and sit up on a Stage and everyone is down below them, t
4 it just sends the wrong message. The atmosphere in these 5 public meetings is not good for the most part.
6 Again, most of the public meetings at Millstone
, --and I understand there.is a reason for it --
it's not a 8 dialogue; it's more of a monologue. You're allowed three 9 minutes to say what you have to say, "Thank you very much,
\.
10 We'll get back to you."
Mr. Blanch.
11 That just doesn't go very far at all. It's 12 probably better not to hold those public meetings if that's 13 the way they are going to be. It's got to be a dialogue 14 where people are equal.
15 I think the NRC does have a long way to go in 16 dealing with the public, especially in i.he oublic meetings.
37 I've probably attended 20 of them in the past year, and most 18 of them have been disasters, especially the last one at 19 Connecticut Yankee, the decommissioning hearings. Absolute, 20 total disaster.
21 You don't foster confidence with the types of 22 attitude being taken by the NRC in most of these public <
23 meetings.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Paul. To just summarize a 25 little bit, you did mention there are two sides to this ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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132 I coin. One is make sure you don't put the wrong people up 2 there, and secondly, the flip side is provide some training 3 for people not only on communication, but how to structure a 4 public meeting so that you don't alienate people, the 5 talking heads up on the dais sort of thing, but also in 6 terms of attitude, a full recognition of the fact that the L 7 government serves the public.
8 MR. BLANCH: That's right.
9 MR. CAMERON: David, 10 MR. LOCHBAUM: I'd like to address two issues, one 11 being the 10 CFR 2.206 petition process and the other being l
12 public meetings.
13 Despite the recent changes to the 2.206 process, j 14 it is bas.4.cally still broken; it's not a very effective 15 process.
16 I told myself after the first peticion I was 17 involved I would never do it again. Basically there is no 18 other avenue. So we tried it again on the Donald C. Cook 19 plant. We submitted a petition on October 9.
I 2n To date we have not received even an 21 1 ocknowledgeenent , although I made sure there was enough 22 poutage on it. I'm pretty sure it got here. I haven't even 23 received an acknowledgement. I don't know what's going on.
24 It supports my earlier belief I shouldn't have done; I 25 wasted my time doing it. I wouldn't recommend anyone in the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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123 1 .' .public to waste etfort'in that process.=
2 If you; compare-the:2.206--process with the-license 31 amendmentyprocess, I think you will'aee the difference that 4 ILam looking at itlfrom. -The 2.206, if there is anything 5 wrong at all, it's rejected. It's viewed by the'NRC in'a -
6: very, very legalistic; approach. Anything at all. wrong and.
7- it's. rejected or denied. .
8- JIf thelNRC applied that same standard to license 9 amendments, there would be virtually no license' amendments 10 : granted. : The NRC does not do that. _They communicate;-they ,
11- Lestablish a dialogue with the licensees.
12 They v.'ill sometimes' figure out what the right
~
13 answer is to the question posed by the-licensee-and provide i
14 that, the example being the license amendment submitted by !
15 Millstone Unit 1 for spent fuel in 1995. They asked for a 16 license amendment. NRC determined themselves that a license
, 17 condition was really-warranted, and they granted that. It ,
16 wasn't even what the pay asked for, but that's what they
- 19 needed and that's what you guys gave them.
20 2.206 petitions are just rejected. There is no 21 effort made to make the party happy. I think that process 22 needs to be looked at again.
4 23- Also, actually having~public hearings without
=24 having the opportunity to for.public-hearings would really ,
- ! 5 - =be what people'are looking for. I strongly recommend you-
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124 1 actually have the public hearings.
2 As far as public meetings, I think that members of 3- the public who attend NRC public meetingc should be treated 4 at least as well as visitors to a zoo.
b' [ Laughter.)
6 MR. LOCHBAUM: When people 90 to a zoo, in 7 addition to getting to watch the animals, they actually get 8 to read signs to find out what is going on. When you go to 9 a public meeting, you get tc watch, and that's about it.
.10 For example, if you go to a pre-decisional 11 enforcement conference that discusses findings in an 12 inspection report, it would seem as a minimum copies of the 13 inspection report should be made available to people who 14 walk in the door. They very seldom are. In fact l've never 15 been to one there was, but I'll cay very seldom just-in case 16 there was one somewhere.
17 Also, unless you have some really good information 18 upstairs -- I can't say the text. The pictures in this one 19 are really nice -- but this information, if you provided 20 this at public meetings in the back of the room to people 21 that wanted to read it and look at it, I think that would be 22 helpful.
23 I think the information is good. I don't think 24 it's getting out. I notice that when we have workshops on 25 the public interest side we generally have all kinds of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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125 1 materials at the back of the room for people who are 2 interested. So you have a lot of infornation. It just 3 needs to.get out to folks. I think having a table in the 4 back of the room at public meetings would be one way to get 5 it out.
6 I think the other thing that you should consider 7 doing is on emerging issues or faster paced issues where you 8 can't do the te.n-day notice and sometimes there are not 9 public meetings held because of the pace-of the issue, and 10 the NRC simply conducts telecons with licensees. Some 11 consideration should be given to open up the telecons to the 12 public to sit in on. Again, a non-speaking role, but at 13 least have the opportunity to sit in on a telecon and see 14 what's ooing on. In reality the telecon is a convenient l 15 substitute for a public meeting, so equivalent types of l
16 access should be provided.
17 The only other recommendation I could do for l
18 public meetings is I notice at the very beginning of the 19 meeting everybody goes around the table and introduces 20 themselves and who they are. The people who come in late, l
21 generally you don't know who those folks are. I generally
- 22 know they are NRC, because you can read the badges, and the l
23 more senior people tend to come in late.
'24 [ Laughter.]
25 MR. LOCHBAUM: I don't know if there is a cause l
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'l 126 1 and effect there.
2 I'm not advocating tardiness notes or anything 3 like that, but I think it would be nice if people came in 4 late the at least say who they are.
5 I think that's pretty much the only cummenta I 6 , have o: public involvement.
7 MR. CAMFAON: Those are good specific suggestions.
8 Let me ask you before we go over to David, on the 2.06 9 procetts, the point that it's still broken, the example of 10 not receiving an acknowledgement. That is one of the things 11 that we wanted to specifically try to fix with the new 12 procedures. So is it a question of the new procedures are 13 bad, or is it a question of we have the new procedures and 14 we are just not following through on them? Or 1r it a 15 little bit of both?
16 MR. LOCHBAUM: I haven't characterized it, but I'd 17 be willing to bet it's a little bit of both. I don't know 18 what your procedure is. I don't know if I'm supposed to get 19 notification at all.
20 I can't say that you are not 2s11owing you are not 21 following your procedure. I just know in two months you 22 have had several exchanges with the licensee and I've heard 23 that they understand that we submitted a petition and they 24 are actually responding to it, but they the NRC has not 25 going back to the petitioner.
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127 1 MR. CAMERON: Some people may not even be familiar 2 with the fact that we have a management directive that is 3 fairly recent that governs how 2.206's should be handled.
4 I' was drafted so that we would be more responsive. I take 5- it even that infornation perhaps is not out there.
6 MR. RICCIO: Some of us have actually participated 7 in that process. I don't think it's a question of the fact 8 that we don't know that it exists; it just doesn't work.
9 Actually, the point we made in the original 2.206 10 process review is that the process is broken, but if you 11 apply the rules that exist, you probably wouldn't need the 12 2,06 in the first place.
13 MR. LOCHBAUM: I'd also like to point out that I4 George Galatis in We The People submitted a petitic.,on 15 Millstone. That petition was denied tuo years later. There 16 was a fine issued yesterday for elements that were discussed 17 in the petition. So the NRC imposed a civil penalty on 18 actions that were denied in a petition. The message that 19 goes out to the public is,.thanks, but don't bother us. Yet 2C you issue a civil penalty.
21 It goes back to the consistency thing. It's hard 22 to understand which one of those actions is right.
23 MR. CAMERON: It's another classic problem that 24 was identified that we were going to try to correct through 25 the management directive, denying the petition but then ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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128 1 later on taking some action that_ basically legitimizes what 2- was in the petition.-
3 MS. .PORTNER: Linda Portner, associate director of 4 _ the Office of Congressional Affairs, NRC.-
5 MR. CAMERON:- Thanks.
6 Is there anybody else that we need to introduce?
7 MR.-BECK: Picking up on the wild animal theme of
-8 David, I had pointed out to me once when I was with the 9 Department of Energy that having the Department of Energy
'10 - doing public involvement was a little like sending a gorilla 11 to : harm school. You were much more comfortable with the 12 gorilla in the room but you never forgot that it was a 13 gorilla.
14 (Laughter.) ,
15 MR. BECK: One of the issues that I think we have 16 got to_ grapple with is who is the public when we talk about 17 public involvement? It's a big issue.
18_ I think it's important to point out that there are 19 many different publics that are going to need very different 20 techniques for.public involvement.
21 I an a little concerned that over the last hour or 22 so we spent a lot of time talking about public hearings and 23 public_ meetings. While I think they are an important
- 24. - component of a public involvement program, I think they are 25 just'a component. Agencies have got to increasingly figure
!=
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I 129 1 out different ways of reaching different audiences because 2 there are many audiences that don't attend those.
3 In fact I really believe that if you were going to 4 sit down and really try to design a process that exaggerated 5 differences and controversies, you would probably come up 6 with a public hearing or public meeting format. That 7 doesn't mean that they are not important and critical to 8 public involvement. They are, but they certainly are not 9 the only part of a federal agency trying to move forward in 10 making enlightened decicions in the best interest of the 11 public.
12 I think along those lines that if you are going to 13 really make the NRC change the way it does business, you are 14 going to need to have some type of formal public 15 participation planning process internally where every major 16 activite sits down and does a public participation plan.
17 Over time agencias have found that they can maybe la relax that, but in the period of changing their culture, if 19 you look at the example of the Bonneville Power 20 Administration, which constructed many dams and was 21 extremely unpopular as a result of the WPPSS reactor issues 22 and so forth in the public northwest, at one point they 33 couldn't drive Bonneville Power Administration vehicle in 24 parts of Montana and Idaho because people would actually 25 shoot at them.
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130 3 They went through a very severe crisis and changed 2 their culture. One way that they did it is they gave some 3 agency, whether it's Bill's organization or comeone, the 4 clout within the agency to say, no, we are not going to move 5 forward with this activity until you've convinced me that we 6 have a public participation plan in place. .
7 The key to the public participation plan is 8 defining who is going to make the decision, what the 9 decision is, and what the process is going to be, and what 10 ; the role of the put.;ic in. That obviously needs to be 11 discussed with the public.
12 , You've got to have that clarified up front or a 13 lot of times these public involvement programs become very 14 frustrating for the people in the agency and on the outside.
15 I think that it's really important that some part 16 of t .
organization have some teeth to ensure consistency, 17 that there is a well thought out process in place, and that 18 there is a commitment to it.
19 I would say that one of those components when you 20 go through that is important messages internal and external.
21 P.xternally you need to heir the public understand that we 22 are not talking about redefining American federalism or the 23 role of the NRC, and so forth, or maybe changing laws, or 24 maybe we are, but you need to make that clear.
25 Internally an important message for senior ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1311 1 management oftentimes is when we say public involvement, we 2 are not talking about a pleuiscite; we are not talking about 3 turning NRC's legitimate decision-making responsibility and 4 authority over to come type of plebescite.
5 What you are talking about is encuring that the 6 procens that you go about in making your decisions,is very 7 transparent, very fair, and open for many, many different 8 audiences in the United States to access and influence.
9 That's very different than a plebescite. You 10 might not have that problem in the NRC, but I suspect in 11 most governt. enc agencies when you use the term public 12 invcivementa with your senior managers, oftentimes they are 13 thinking, oh, my God, they are going to go out there and 14 have a vote on this.
15 I think it's really important that if you go 16 through the systematic plannir.;< and discuss the role of the 17 different publics, the role in the decision process, it 18 really helps having an effective public involvement program.
19 MR. CAMERON: Thnra you very much, Don.
20 David.
21 MR. NICHOLS: One of the issues that I thi'k the 22 NRC needs to address is consistency between what takes place 23 at headquarters and what takes place in the regions.
24 A lot of times we run into situations where there 25 will be a rulemaking ongoing or the meoical community has ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 132 l I entered into discussions with people at headquarters. We'll 'l 2 send a notice out to all our members saying that the NRC is ,
3 considering this and discussing it.
4 Then at our state chapter meetings they will have 5 invited someone that they know from one of the regional 6 offices, and he'll start getting questions about, well, 7 what's going on with this rulemaking and what have you heard 8 and what's going to be the outcome, and he doenn't even know 9 that the agency is engaged in a rulemaking. All of a sudden 10 you get all of these mixed messages and probably more 11 confusion than is necessary.
12 I think the agency needs to do a better job 13 throughout the whole process, not just the final outcome, of 14 educating people in the regions that are then interacting at 15 a local level with the community.
16 One of the questions you state is how to determine 17 which rulemakings become part of the special process. I 18 know that there are some thresholds on compliance with the 19 Regulatory Flexibility Act and r9porr.ing requirements that '
20 the agency has to meet in determining whether something is e 21 major rulemaking versus a minor rulemaking.
22 One of those thresholds is based on the income or 23 profit of the institution. What we run into in nuclear 24 medicine is that the licensee is actually the hospital, but 25 the impact of the rulemaking is on the nuclear medicine ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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133 l 1 department.
2 While you may have a hospital that is a 3 multimillion dollar business, it doesn't meet the threshold 4 of complying with the Regulatory Flexibility Act because 5 it's not deemed as having a significant impact on that 6 - hospital's business, but in the nuclear medicine department, 7 if you've got a regulation that all of a sudden starts 8 costing more than the nuclear medicine department is 9 bringing in, the hospital is going to say, we n't afford 10 to do this anymore.
j 11 So even though the NRC by law doesn't have to 12 - comply with some of there things, they need to take into 13 consideration who the impact is going to be on and 14 considering complying and going that extra step in l 15 explaining the benefit and rationale, 16 MR CAMERON: 1 hanks, David.
17 I know we are running a little bit late. Let's 18 take the cards that are up, and then we will move on to the 19 next top. Let's start with Ralph, and then we are going to 20 go over to this side of the table, to Jim and Judy and Paul, 21 and then we will finish up with Terry.
22 MR. DeSANTIS: I wanted to go back to the 23l beginning where you'are looking to establish a program which 24 builds trust and understanding. With all due respect to the 25 folks from the media, it's very difficult to do that through ANN RILEY.& ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters +
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134 1 1 the media. I would encourage NRC to look for ways other :
2 than through the media to relate with key stakeholders. !
3 If you look at the sites,,the licensees are doing ,
4 a lot of that work already through their normal customer
]
5 relations and communications work. I think there are 6 - opportunities for the-NRC region people to get out.to the-
. i 7 . sites more and for the resident inspectors as well to
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8 establish relationships with local officia1s, neighbors
- 9 around the plant, educators, whatever audience that is t
11 0 important to you.
11 I know at Three Mile Island and at Oyster Creek 12 over the years that has worked-extremely well for us.
13 Obviously at TMI, after the accident, talk about trust, that 14 was something we wor *ed very hard to. regain. '
15 What we found out was that it was not possible to 16 do it through the media, that the way the media works really 17 is-built around confrontation and conflict. We had to find 18 other, more creative ways to do that meetings with state i 19 officials, state regulators, congressmen.
20 We've had come experience with a citizens task 21 force at our Saxton plant which we are decommissioning. We 22 have gotten other people involved who normally aren't always 23 involved in the issue like the people here. For example,-
t
< l24 there is no.one here today from local government. That's a 25 very important_ audience for our industry . ;
4
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i 135 1 Our plants are in communities which are governed 2 by volunteers, township supervisors or county executives.
3 They are elected by citizens to represent them. So I think 4 thal is an important audience. Just neighbors of facilities 5 is a very important audience. Principals of schools next to 6 our facilities. A very important audience. Local. business 7 people. Local environmental groups. You can go on and on 8 and on.
9 What we have been successful in doing that we --
10 it's kind of a little bit of a surprise benefit is that you 11 do get other people invv V!i in your issue that otherwise 12 would not be. It's kind t. thtt huge 98 percent of the 13 people in the middle who aren't interested day to day on 14 your issue, but if you get an effective public participation 15 or involvement program, you can get representatives from 16 these groups interested.
17 I think that goes a long way to establishing 18 trust, because if you get people in neighborhoods that are 19 recognized as opinion leaders, as recognized leaders of that 20 community, they are going to speak about you one way or 21 another sooner or later, and when they do, what they say 22 carries a lot more weight than what other people say.
23 That'n just a comment.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Ralph.
25 Jim.
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136 i 1 - MR'. RICCIO: I'just wanted to address the first N
'2 question:' Does NRC need to do more in terms of '
-3 communicating our health and safety responsibilities to the 4 public?
5 I'm not sure whether you need to do more 1 6 communication or just be a little bit more honest =about it. ,
7 A lot of the regulation that has been occurring-in this 8: agency over the last five-years has had very little to do 9 - with public health and safety; it'o had a lot more to do
-10 with allowing these reactors to operate and continue to 11 operate in a competitive environment. ;
12 You can say that you are in the_ business of ,
13 . protecting the public health and safety, and then you go 14 through cost-beneficial licensing actions, you use ,
15 enforcement discretion to allow plants to continue to 16 operate when they should have been shut down. I 17 You've reduced your tech specs by 40 percent.
18 There used to be ten commandments on "thou shalts" in terms 19 of operating a reactor. Now there are only six 20- commandments. '
21 You have undertaken programs to reduce 22 requirements marginal to safety. What do these have to do I 1
23 Lwith safety? _These have to do with allowing reactors _to-24- operate when previously they hadn't been allowed to.
25 I think you have to be a little bit honest with o
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137 ,
1 -the public 6L well and say, yeah, there is an economic i
, 2 factor anvolved here; yes, this industry is under pressure, i i
3 to compete with other forms of electricity. To merely say ,
4- that you are here to protect the public health and safety i 5 when most of your regulatory agenda is a deregulatory agenda }
6 leaves the public wondering whether you are being very ,
7 truthful with them. . >
8 I'm not sure whether-you need to communicate what-9 your role is in terum of "our role is to protect the public ,
10 and health and safety under the Atomic Energy Act" or f 12 whether you have to be a little bit more honest with them 12 and say, yeah, we're regulators and we do take into 13 consideration economics. ,,
14 MR. CAMERON: I think that ties in with something 15 Paul said earlier. ;
16 MR. RICCIO: One more thing. The school programs 17 and audio-visual type stuff. Don't do it. That'c the role 18 of ANS; it's the role of the utilities. Quite honestly, I 19 -get tired of having to answer questions from mothers who are I 20' . coming to me going, my kids'were just told in school today 21 that radiation won't hurt them. I don't know if that came -
22 from an NRC spokesman or an industry spokesman or something 23 .like that, but it doesn't help.
24 MR. CAMERON: We will discuss that when Josie does 25 her public outreach.
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138 1 Judy.
2 MS. JOHNSRUD: If I could go back slightly. I 3 think it was Don Beck who said there are many different 4 publics. That is a phrase that has been used repeatedly to 5 minimize the significance of the public interest 6 organizations, those which are nonprofit, do not have a 7 vested interest in the outcome of an NRC decision, that is, 8 an economic vested interest, but they have a very 9 significant health, safety and environmental interest.
10 It defuses public participation for those who are
-11 concerned for their families, their communities, their 12 welfare, well being to be rather dismissed in that manner.
13 Related to that, I believe it was David Nichols 14 who triggered a notion that I think we haven't talked about 15 at all, and that is the relationship among the agencies, 16 federal agency to federal agency, the tie that the public 17 well recognizes that, yeah, there is sort of a game going 18 on. Which one do we put at the bottom of the list? Is it 19 DOE, DOD, EPA, or NRC, or FDA?
20 There are relationships among the agencies in 21 which they reenforce one another in what the public wil2 22 perceive to be opposition to what the publics are 23 considering to be their interests.
24 I think there are ways in which NRC may be able to 25 separate itself, divorce itself from that kind of l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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139 1 interlocking that actually has the impact of strengthening 2 the public disrespect or mistrust.
3 The next term that we heard just a bit ago, I _
4 think from Mr. DeSantis, was key stakeholders. When that 5 term arises members of just the plain old ordinary affected 6 public get pretty distressed that thny are not considered 7 key, important stakeholders. It is indicative of the 8 attitude that I am hoping you folks are able to overcome.
9 Finally, or next to finally, the issue of 10 connections with local officials are something that I would 11 encourage you to be extremely careful about. Your condition 12 of discredit and mistrust on the part of the public very 13 easily is extendr$ to local officials.
14 I'm thinking about not a reactor situation so much 15 at the moment as some radioactive waste-related issues. A 16 county or a township official who even appears to be tied in 17 with, receptive to the agency thereby engenders mistrust on 18 the part of his or her constituents.
19 I have the sense.that I am hearing how can the 20 agency protect itself rather than revise its modes of 21 operation and its goals and its accountability. I think a 22 lot more attention in the agency needs to be paid to those 23 to whom you are in fact ultimately accountable, and those 24 are the general population.
25 Finally, I am glad that Jim raised the issue of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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140 l
1 health and safety. It is deeply troubling that there 2 appears to be a continuation of a dismissal of the impacts 3 of low dose radiation exposures on the part of many within 4 the agency at the very tims when there does indeed appear to 5 be far more research that leads to the opposite direction.
6 In turn, this, of course, is related to the standard-setting 7 on the part of NRC as well as EPA.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Judy. I think we realize 9 what your point is about local government. It's not to just 10 assume that they represent the interest of the community.
11 Paul.
12 MR. GUNTER: Mr. Beck, you raised the issue of the 13 fears raised within the agency by the word " plebiscite." I 14 have to say that it does go back to this whole issue of 15 legitimate involvement of the public, particularly in a 16 democratic society. The NRC, as was the AEC, is perceived 17 as a rogue agency that essentially operates outside the 18 democratic society, 19 Just to give you an example that I have from 20 history that carries forward, following the Three Mile 21 Island accident there was increased scrutiny on NRC and on 22 the incredible accident. Our society promulgated evacuation 23 plans for existing facilities. Out of that the state and 24 local governments were given more emphasis in terms of 25 evacuation plans so that a governor could actually veto an ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 141 i 1 evacuation plan that was considered unworkable, i
2 When such a vetoes actually came to the fore with 3 che governor of New York and the governor of Massachusetts 4 for the Seabrook plant and Shoreham and it looked like the 5 rule itself would threaten the licensing plants, essentially 6 the rules were overridden. In terms of the rules in a 7 democratic society, that was viewed as another example of 8 this breach of trust.
9 -
When we are talking about evacuation planning, 10 when we are talking about forced relocation, as my 11 experience was in Hillsboro, New Hampshire when DOE did the 12 site characterizations of the crystalline rock repository 13 out there, or, for that matter, currently ongoing in Yucca 14 Mountain where eminent domain is going to be the vehicle, I 15 don't know that you are actually going to be able to win 16 public trust, but certainly you've got to have a process 17 that is transparent and that people can trust.
18 I think that the problems associated with this 19 particular industry places any regulator or oversight agency 20 in a real conundrum, particular inside of a democratic 21 society.
22 MR. CAMERON: Let's go to Terry for a last 23 comment, and then we will do the Beecher pirouette break.
24 [ Laughter.)
25 MR. BEECHER: Arc we going to have a musical ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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142 1 accompanimen'? t 2 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead, Terry. ,
3 MR. STRONG: I can't match any of these last 4 several comments.
5 Something that David Nichols said about 6 coordination between regions and headquarters brings to mind 7 an incident that occurred. There was an incident of 8 overexposure of some kind in a child in New Jersey. New 9 Jersey and NRC corresponded back and forth. A very 10 sensitive issue in New Jersey.
11 The agreement was made between the State of New 12 Jersey and NRC headquarters, I guess with the regional 13 office of NRC involved in it also, that New JetJey would 14 issue the news release about this, that New Jersey would go 15 first, and if the NRC had something else to say later, they 16 would follow later t 17 It didn't work out that way. The NRC's news 18 release got in the press first, much to the chagrin of New 19 Jersey.
20 I guess the point that I would want to make is 21 that we do need to tie the regions to headquarters and make 22 sure the right hand knows what the left is doing so that in 23 any of the states nobody gets the rug pulled from under them 24 on sensitive issue. And it w. a sensitive issue.
25 MR. BEECHER: Excuse me. I think what happened, t
t l
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143 1 -according to our regional office in Region I, is that New p 2 Jorsey said that they were going to come out with a press j 3 release the same day, and our office kept checking with them
-l 4 and asked when it was going to come out, j 5 At the end of the business day they got no answer, 6 and they asked us what should we do. I said, the day is
- 7. almost over. The newspapers are going to bed. There won't 8 be any notice to the public. If they are not putting it ouc ;
'9 today, we will. But I said inform them.
20 That's what literally happened.
The unhappir.ess was there.
'1 MR. STRONG: The 12 relationship between what Agreement States looked at as -a 13 partnership'between the NRC and the states as they do their 14 business, there was a problem there; there was a ;
15 misunderstanding, a fallure to communicate properly. The 16 Agreement State community is a piece of the public that does 17 deal with NRC. The sensitive there needs to be present.
18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Terry. Did you have one 19 other point?
20 MR.-STRONG: I did, but it will come back later.
21 MR. CAMERON: Let's be back by 2:30.
22 [ Recess.)
23- MR. CAMERON: Jose, why don't you tee this issue 24 - up for us, as-they say.
t 25 MS. PICCONE: I think we have been-covering some +
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144 1 of the questions already this morning and a bit before the 2 break as well and discussing what public education or 3 outreach activity NRC should be involved in.
4 There have been a number of comments already that 5 we shouldn't just have meetings to communicate our health 6 and safety responsibilities, that that's not what the public !
7 wants to hear. They wouldn't attend meetings in this 8 regard.
9 We have already had some comments on school 10 programs.
11 Let me summarize a few of the activities in this 12 area that NRC is already doing and putting out on the table 13 whether you think we should continue this kind of activity 14 or expand it.
15 We do have some of the Public Affairs brochures 16 that I think David has shown earlier. We have a number of 17 these. Some videos that Public Affairs has produced as well 18 as additional ones that are available for the public.
19 We have a studen: Web site on the Internet, and we 20 do already have a school volunteer program that is primarily 21 for volunteers for science fairs, career days, science 22 presentations, that kind of thing. And some teacher 23 training workshops.
24 We have already had some discussion on the 25 resident inspectors-and project managers, what kind of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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145 1 interaction there should be there.
2 The problem and the question I would put out to 3 you is, how much can or should NRC be doing in this area of 4 education without getting into or crossing the line of 5 promotional activities?
6 I will just mention a couple of comments that were 7 made to me by Dave Nichols before he left. He said in this 8 regard he thinks one of the greatest things NRC can do in 9 the area of public outreach is put out positive press 10 releases, not just negative press releases, and to indicate, 11 for examnie, that such and such a hospital down the street 12 has just received their ten-year licence renewal, and in the 13 previous period of time they have had no violations or no 14 significant violations.
15 His other comment was in the area of school 16 programs and educational activities. Rather than NRC 17 getting involve in those activities, that NRC provide funds 18 or seed money to the professional associations to do this.
19 He said he would not like to see NRC going out and telling 20 someone what nuclear medicite is. He would prefer to have 21 NRC cooperate with the professional associations and have 22 the physicians or nuclear medicine specialists go out and 23 discuss those activities.
24 In our committee in preliminary discussions we 25 have discussed some possibilities in this area which I will IdRJ RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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146 l
1 mention, with hopefully the idea of your comments on whether 2 these are good ideas, whether we should pursue them, expand, 3 or forget them.
4 We have talked about developing a speakers bureau 5 and an audio-visual library that would be available to all 6 NRC personnel, that could be uscd for media presentations, 7 meetings with the public.on specific sites, or in community 8 presentations, such as to the PTA or local' citizens groups 9 who might request NRC to do this.
10 These are some of the things that we have been 11 talking about. I'll leave it open to you now.
12 Paul.
13 MR. GUNTER: I think that if it came down to NRC 14 toting around a video of "Our Friend the Atom" and enforcing 15 the regulations, I think emphasis shorid be placed on 16 enforcing its own regulations. We hear constantly that the 17 NRC is faced with budget cuts and downsizing personnel.
18 I think that the emphasis again should be on 19 rather than what clearly turns out to be promotional 20 activity for industry that it should be going into 21 enforcement of its regulations and actually internalizing 22 that work so that what we have is enforcement and not a 23 process by which we see exemptions from regulations or 24 deferral of responsibility to industry decision. I think 25 it's a very dangerous area for NRC to be venturing into if ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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! 1 they are scing to be toting around film. l 2 MS. PICCONE: David. .l 3 MR. LOCHBAUM: As far as drawing the line-between ;
4 outreach and promotion, I think if the NRC focuses on its 5 mission nd how it perfotms that missica, then that's l
6 outreach. %f you start going into how power plants work or ;
7 things l'.ke that, that is an area that is n. ore promotional; ,
8 I think that's an area that the industry or individual 9 licensees could do and should be doing if it's to be done at 10 all. 3 11 As far as the audio-visuals, I think the NRC could ]
12 develop slides and figures and materials to pass out when i i
13 it's communicating with the public. A picture is worth a 14 thousand words. I think a picture for some of the technica, i 15 subjects being discussed, if one is-available, would help 16 communicar.e whatever mossage or whatever topic is being 17 dis c*.'e s ed . !
18 I was in Vermont last week and a Vermont 'lankee ;
39 licensee made a presentation to the State of Vermont. They i 20 had a few pictures of a breaker that was involved in some 21 event. I think things like that are very positive, lt don't 22 think that would be promotion. I think that's just better ,
23 communications. !
24 That's pretty much the only comments I had.
35 MS. PICCONE: Jim. l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. '
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248 L :1 MR. NORVE!,bE Ilwould datinitoly want to see the 2 Commission not in promotion of the industry. Promotion of,
- 3 the industry really is our purview and our area.= To go into 4- a classroom and to talk about what I do as a resident ,
l 5 inspector would certainly be a fitting topic. I would j l
6 encourage that type of discussion of the role and .
7 responsibility of the Commission. !
2 l
8 I'm struggling with what-David said about the pure ~'
9 science or how a power station works. I would have a hard 10 timo seeing how that'c promotion. It might be- too fine a 11 line to ask an individual to walk. If I'm in Save talking
- 12. about my position as a resident inspector-at a neighboring 13 plant.and comebody cays, well, how do they work, I'd feel l 14 xind of funny saying, well, I'm sorry, I can't tell you 15 that. :
16 MR. RICCIO: Read the Information Digest. f 17 MR. NORVELLE: Fill out a FOI request and I'll be 19 able to tell you.
L-19 (Laughter.) ,
- 20 MR. HORVELLE
- To be involved in just explaining f 21 the public health and safety and the Commission's role in
! 22 l that is. c ertainly acceptable, but certainly not the 23 promotion of the industry. '
> l L 24- MS. PICCONE: Judy. ;
4 25 MS, JOHNSRUD: I do concur with Jim. I'm very . ,
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l o 149 1 much concerned that the agency would almost unavoidably take 2 on a promotional role.
3 However, I think there is one way in which the 4 agency staff themselves, although it might be rather 5 hazardous for them politically, can be effective in the 6 public education process in a way that others can't, and 7 that is the explanation from within the regulatory agency of 8 its relationship to the political world and the publics that 9 it is supposed to serve.
10 I really find that most members of the general 11 public just don't really have much notion of how our 12 l government works when it comes right down to it. They might 13 have trouble distinguisning between the NRC and the state 14 bureau of radiation protection, or whateve.t. There is a 15 horrible lack of understanding of government functioning.
16 It might be very uwelul if that were the role.
17 As for educational materials, I think one of the 18 best things I ever encountered came out of the Understanding 19 the Atom series. It was written by Asimov. It dealt with 20 the genetics of radiation. Way back, 30 some years ago.
21 It would be possible but only so far as there 22 really was an evenhandedness, a willingness to recognize the 23- alternative perspectiven on radiation and human health.
24 Frankly, the history of the agency is such that I 25 think you would have to bend over backward to persuade the g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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150 1 public that you were not promoting a particular view. I 2 guess it's a cautionary message.
3 MS, PICCONE: Paul.
4 MR. BLANCH: Just a comment on one of the 5 brochures that I saw up in the hallway, Public's Involvement 6 in Regulation, the 2.206 Process. I think that document 7 should be burneo nd maybe produce power with it.
8 It looks good, but the public participation 9 process is a joke. You look at the number of petitions that i
10 have been accepted by the NRC, and it's a very small number.
11 It says in there that the public can petition to suspend, 12 modify or revoke a license. NRC wouldn't know what to do if 13 they had to revoke a license. They con't even have a 14 procedure if they ever revoked a license. I'm talking about 25 a power license. They never have revoked a power license.
16 MR. CAMERON: I think there is a Public Affairs 17 brochure on it.
18 MR . BLANCH : On how to revoke a liceuse?
19 Mk. CAMERON: I'm teasing.
20 [ Laughter.)
- 21 MR. BEECHER: There's our problem with credibility 22 again.
23 MR. BLANCH: We're all friends.
24 It is documents that you put out like that, and I 25 am'sure there are others, that are really misleading to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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151 l 1 people like myself and probably some of the othur people j 2 around here. It just doesn't work. Don't try to say that. l 3 you have a wonderful process when you don't have any process 4 - at all for public participation, and that 2.206 process is 5 - pretty close to useless as far as I'm concerned, and we have 6 all experienced it, many of us on this side of the. table. l 7 That's just a comment on one of the outreach things that has -
0 been done.
9 MS. PICCONE: Terry.
10 MR. STRONG: All of that notwithstanding, there is 11 still an awful lot of misinformation and misunderstanding.
22 The public at large whose health we are protecting doesn't 13 really understand what the uses of radiation are, where it 14 '
comes from, how it can be used.
15 I would agree that the NRC should not be involved 16 in that role, but who should? Who does take that on?
17 Everybody wants in the K through 12 curriculum. Everybody la wants a handle on that.
19 We all like to have our issue of the month or 20 whatever, and radiation ought to be one of them in that 21 curriculum on a continuing basis. The kids that are growing 22 up now, their parents, from whom they get their attitude, 12 3 ;
have grown up in an environment of the bomb and nuclear 24 power and that's bad stuff, and so radiation is bad stuff 25 and the-kid thinks that radiation is bad stuff.
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152 i How are we going to break this cycle so that the 2 kid can make a decision for himself about what radiation is -
3 and where it comes from, how it can be used, and put this !
4 issue-in perspective for themselves?
E I don't have the answer. I don't know where it 6 ought to come from. I don't know how it ought to be done, l 7 but at some point radiation is pretty important in the l 8 society, in the economy in a variety of ways, and kids ought
-9 to $1nderstand what the deal is.
- 10 MS. PICCONE: ' Jim.
- 11 MR. RICCIO: I don't think there is a real -
12 misperception on what radiation does. -I don't think the 13 public has a misperception of what radiation does. The 14 reason you use radiation in medicine is because it kills 15 cells.
16 I don't think there is a real misunderstanding of 17 what this stuff does to people. Where the misunderstanding 18 has occurred has been where you have a radiation release -
19 from a plant and the immediate press release says there is .i 20 no threat to the public health and safety, 21 I have been saying this to reporters and it has 22 been ringi.sg true. At some point in the very near future
- 23 radiation is going to bo looked at in very similar ways as 24 tobacco. It has been a known carcinogen; it continues to be 25 a known carcinogens and basically the government and those ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Q 153 :
.1 that.are basically marketing this poison haven't really been -i i
~
2 forthright with the public, t 3 MS. PICCONE: Paul, i 4 MR. GUNTER: I'd like to defend the 2.206 process, !
i 5 particularly in the context of public education and.public G outreach. I do believe while the-process in terms.of 7 providing any kind of judicial review is worthless, it is a 1- 8 - very significant public education and public outreach tool 9 for those of us who use it. j 10 In the context of the media, there seems to be an !-
c
. 11 air of legitimacy filing to the Nuclear Regulatory
, 12 Commissien a petition, and if the' merit of the petition is 1S framed.i.n-its agproach to the regulator, the media will pick I 14 up on that. You can actually work issues into the public f
! 15 arena through the 2.206 process.
i 16 While our expectations are very low about how the
~
17 regulator will treat it, it does have a very significant i 18 :' ole in terms of working the issue in the public arena, j 19 MR. CAMERON: I don't think that's inappropriate 20 at all.
21 MR. RICCIO: If I could follow up on Paul's ,
22 comment. The only reason we end up using the process 3 I
33 anymore is because we know that it will enhance our ability 24- to gain the press' attention. The reality is we have long i d
25- given up on the process working.
-4
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l 154 1 Amend, suspend or revoke? Even in the last 2.206 2 process we said those three things were far too narrow. You 3 should allow the public to ask for other forms enforcement 4 that aren't that limited and that drastic. That was t
5 incorporated, I believe.
6 MR. CAMERON: It was. It was incorporated in tho 7 management directive. I think one of the messages that we .
8 need to give to the Commission is that the management 9 directive ~may not be working. I know you wouldn't say 10 "may." I'm just using that discretionary term.
11 MS, PICCONF. : Paul.
12 MR. GUNTER: I would just like to further add that 13 the 2.206 process, albeit flawed, does provide for 14 establishing a record by NRC response if it and when it 15 comes. Eventually it does come.
16 However, in the climate that we are in right now, 17 we would hope that these comments actually don't eliminate 18 the petition process.
19 MS. PICCONE: Don.
20 MR. BECK: In terms of education, it's hard for me 21 to envision the NRC as being on the cutting edge of the 22 education field. It's really not its primary mission.
23 On the other hand, maybe something that could help 24 guide your education program if it's being done with the 26 purpose of helping citizens make informed decision and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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155 1 enhancing their ability impact the policies. I think if it j
. 2 was kind of guided by that, it would fit within your mission i 3 and still be education. ~!
4 I jotted down what to me has always been kind of 5 une of my favorite quotes on public involvement that
{
6 Jefferson had, who I think always has some of the best linea f
7 on everything.- This is rough. I just jotted it down. It's ;
8 not verbatim, but I hope it captures what he meant. He has j 9 a quote that says, "I know of no safer depository of the :
t 10 ultimate power of society than the people themselves, and if 11 we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their power 12 with a wholesome discretion, the solution lays not in 13 removing them but rather informing their discretion through- I 14 education."
15 I think that speaks for a lot of the importance of
. ?
16 making sure communities understand what the issues are so 17 they know whether or not they want to choose to be involved 18 in influence the outcome. 6 19 MS, JOHNSRUDs It occurs to me that if the NRC 20 were in fact capable cf providing unbia.ed, fair, evenhanded 21 information, that could in and of itself be a test of the >
. 22 openness and the success of the shift in direction and of 23 the culture that you are talking about here.
~
24 I have to add I am not at s11 sure I can imagine 25 that is happening, but I'd love to be surprised.
. i 1
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156 1 MR. CAMERON: I' guess that raises sort of an 2- interesting issue of whether it would be possible to get 3 some type of balanced peer review of materials like that to 4 see if they in fact accomplish'that. That would be an 5 interesting process. l 6 [ Laughter.)
7 MR. RICCIO: A balanced peer review.
8 MR. CAMERON: I didn't know what else to say. T. 3 9 idea is Jim Riccio and Judy Johnsrud and some other people, ;
10 if they reviewed this particular document that we were going L - 11 to use for educational purposes, if they thought that it was 12 straightforward, then I guess we would be pretty safe.
13 MR. RICCIO: My experience with your peer review 14 has been that what happens is you put out a document in 15 draft form, and anything that might be deemed to be negative 16 to the industry is removed. I save all the drafts, because i 17 I know a lot of the language will never appear again in an 18 NRC document.
19 One example was when they did the analysis of the 20 containments. One of the beautiful lines in the executive ,
21 summary was that there was little confidence that any of the 22 containments would basically withstand a core melt. That
~
23 was completely removed by the time it got out of draft form.
24 That's generally the way peer review has worked 1 25 with this agency. When you see it in draft form you.know 9
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157 1 people have obviously come to that conclusion or it-wouldn't 2 have it into draft. It seems to be relatively algnificant 3- comment when you are dealing with your containment >
4 integrity.
5 MR. CAMERON: I didn't taean to key in on that, but t
6- that's perhaps a valid point in and of itself. .
7 MS. PICCONE: Any other comments? ,
8 (No response.) ;
9 MR. CAMERON: Thanks a lot, Josie.
- 10. Donnie, are you ready?
- 11 MR. GRIMSLEY: I certainly am.
12 The issue that I am supposed to_ lead the j 13 discussion on deals with public accesc to NRC information.
I 24 Actually I was just thinking it was 30 years ego that NRC 15 decided that it needed to start making information available 16 to local citizens near power plants as part of the hearing 17 procesu. It was actually 1967 that happened.
18 The issues are basically in the areas of the 19 timeliness of information,.the ease if getting access to 20 information.
21 A possible issue deals with NRC sort of having 22 focused its public distribution program in Wanhington and 23 very near the power plants. There is certainly a broader
_ 24 community in America interested in what goes on:than these 25 focus groups that we have.
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l 158 1 Also the role of technology is a big issue now in
, , 2 terms of information dissemination in all institutions.
3 NRC itself has committed itself to a major 4 revamping of its entire information management activity 5 within the agency, which will provide opportunities to 6 leverage on that and provide information that is more timely 7 at least electronically to the public.
8 I would like to get your comments and your 9 concerns about these issues. Our preliminary thinking is 10 that we really need a fairly thorough re-look at everything 11 we do in terms of public information dissemination, because f
12 we have lots of different mechanisms and lots of different 13 technology, and we need to come with sort of a re-look at 14 how NRC does this type of work in terms of getting 15 information to the public.
16 I don't who went up first, but we will start Paul, 17 who seems to be always the last one to get called on.
18 MR. BLANCH: Before I leave here I would like to 19 make some positive comment. I think what you have done with 20 the Internet, the NRC home page and all those Web pages in 21 Office of Public Affairs has just been fantastic. To get 22 out information,-access to inspection reports, transcripts, 23 meeting notices, Office of Public Affairs netices, that has 24 '
gone a long way from my perspective to gain information 25 quickly. I would like-to encourage that that continue and l
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1 l 159 1 maybe-even expand.
2 One of the things that was on the agenda, Donnie, 3 was how you deal with e-mail. I'd like to have you address 4 how you deal with electronic mail, because I do obviously 5 communicate a little bit by e-mail with the NRC. I'm iust 6 curious what you do with it as far as making it av;.f u -le, 7 PDR, and so on and so forth.
8 MR. GRIMSLEY: Linda is going to lead the 9 discussion on that, because that is definitely an issue.
10 The only guidance that we have out to the staff is that 11 e-mails have to be considered as official records like all 12 otner documents. It's just like all documents. Staff has 13 to make a decisio.1 as to whether it gets into the record 14 that is made public. That is the only guidance that we 15 actually have out dealing with the official record.
16 Paul.
17 MR. GUNTER: I have a positive response to the 18 public access to information. I actually found mys-lf quite 19 educated by the Public Document Room, at least the 20 Washington office. There are some different situations in 21 the outlying, local public document rooms that obviously 22 need improvement. In those situations I think they are more 23 zuformation dumps. By and large that experience varies 24 across the country, but some of that has to do with just how 25 often the LPDRs are used.
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- 1
- There is room for improvement in.the LPDRs. :I 2 . don't know how you are going do!that particularly_with the.
3 responsibility laying with the-local public-libraries to 4- deal with it.
l5 Certainly the experience with the PDR.and-its 6- responsiveness is quite impressive. .
7 I-guess my only criticism would be information 8 getting to the PDR in a timely fashion. Often the documents 9 of interest can get hung up in document control or maybe not 10 even out of the offices that are' issuing them in a timely 11 fashion so that the ability of the public to educate-itself 12 Lon a particular issue is stymied. :That does tie in with the 13 public_truct issue as well, because information is power, 14 particularly in this situation.
^
15 One concern in looking doun the line would be ho-16 information and documents will be preserved. Certainly we 17 think that rather than make judgment calls in this 18 particular generation on the impact of information that.all 19 documents really should be preserved without discrimination.
20 I know that is a fairly outrageous statement, but 21 it would apply to anything from Sunshine Act to actually 22 documenting issues of material fact about a particular-issue 23 or problem.
24 I think that is going to be a real issue-in terms 25 of who determines which documents are eliminated from the ANN RILEY-& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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E 161 1 public record. I think that needs to be a very transparent
. 2 process with a lot of public oversight.
3 MR. GRIMSLEY: Thank you.
4 I want to make a comment there. If you look at 5 the where official records are in our own central files, the 6 various_ storage facilities and eventually national. archive, 7 a tremendous number our records are on a permanent retention 8 schedule, and then others are on a sort of 40 years after 9 license schedule. I doubt there will be very much destroyed 10 in our generation, because we hava already basically 11 established that.
12 Paul.
13 MR. CHOINIERE: I'd have to say on this issue the 14 glass is just about full. I've had quantum leaps in the 15 ability to get information from just a few years ago with 16 the Internet access. I've had occasion to use che Web sites 17 at several of the federal agencies, and the NRC's may be the 18 best, or at least among the best. You can quickly move from 19 one place to another. The Public Document Room is pretty 20 good in our area, in eastern Connecticut.
21 One thing I think might need to be look at is 22 whether it might be time- to have a direct link from your Web 23 site over to the nuclear documents, the NUDOCS program. Now 24 you have to have a password and you kind of have to get 25 permission. The Cold War is over, and these are supposed to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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162 _.
11 be public' documents. Maybe it's time just to kind of make?
2 them more' accessible to'everyone. I have the NUDOCS, I can ,
~
3 do.it, but might be time you~can just kind of click'on it' 4 and get in there and start looking for things.
5 MR. GRIMSLEY:- Paul,-in fact getting rid of NUDOCS 6' is the major goal ci' the Information Mancgement System, and 7 it will be Web enabled and certainly make those public ,
-8. documents that are.out in thst electronic repository 9 available to everybody. I think we all know the limitations 10 of NUDOCS.
,11 MR. BEECHER: That's the ADAMS system, by the way,
'12 and it_has been funded to come in starting in 1999.
13 MR. GRIMSLEY: Judith.
14 MS. JOHNSRUD . I said earlier access to 15 information is essential to a democratic society. I want to
[ 16 give a warm :ommendation to the PDR here in D.C. I was 17 talking some what earlier with someone and said I can 18 remember back when you would go to the window down on-H .
19 Street and somebody would poke a nose out and say, "What do 20 you want?" Unless you had the precise, correct number, you 21 were booted out of the room without ceremony.
22 I have had excellent response from the librarians, 23 and they should be commended; they should be retained and 24 expanded in number =, They are excellent.
25- However, I have to admit I can occasionally manage 4
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l l 163 1 to hit the right keys and get into the Internet where I 2 would tike to be.
. t It is an extremely difficult method for dealing 4 with extensive documents that require careful attention in 5 terms of needing both to skim, to find the things that are l 6 pertinent, and being able to return to what you found that 7 was pertinent sometime later. Perhaps it's the way my mind 8 works, but it's far more effective to have that hard copy 9 piece, those pieces of paper, the do;ument in hand to 10 re-find information rather than having to scan through pages 11 and pages and endless scrolling.
12 I am very much concerned that the move to 13 electronic capability will have the result, as I have found 14 it in some utility litigation, of shortening the time for 15 use of the documents for responses. That in turn will 16 eliminate the potential for those who are not on electronic 17 mail.
18 For instance, if Yucca Mountain ever comes to a 19 licensing stage, my understanding is that the LSS system 20 would essentially require that one have been involved all 21 along, and ather than going through the full length of 22 discovery, that one is required to have had access to the 23 documents, and it is presumed that any participant, any 24 intervenor, for example, would have been up to date and have 2E had access all along.
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- 164 l' It just simply isn't true. A lot of folks can't
-2 afford $2,000 or $3,000 every two or three-years to keep,up_.
3 - with the technology. We thereby. eliminate quiteiprobably in
~4' a form of environmental'public citizen injustice those'who 5 -areLlikely to be the most affected.
6 For that reason, I strongly urge the maintenance- ,
7- of hard copy even if the NRC has to build another building 8 or two for the purpose. Maybe that would be a good use of 9 some-of the-budget.
10' At any rate, there is nothing more important.for 11 the public than being able to have access to the 12 - information.-
13 I would like to note that on electronic mail I 14 often get encoded messages that are exceedingly difficult to
- 15 translate. In fact impossible. And hence the early 16 notificatisys come to naught.
17 However, I also find that in the hard copy 18 distribution list there is a certain capriciousness with 19 respect to what does and does not arrive in the mailbox. I 20 think there may he fairly simple ways to overcome that.
21 I am concerned that we have some history of local 22- public document rooms having had extensive documents removed
_ 23 from them at various times in the past, and having that 24 history, the memory, as well as the comparative basis, I 25 think both technically and historically it's very ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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165 1 significant.
2 But overall I do want to commend the librarians of 3 the NRC.
4 MR. GRIMSLEY: Thank you.
5 MR. RICCIO: Not to beat a dead horse, but I've 6 often said the ladies down in the Public Document Room are 7 the most efficient part of the NRC, and I hold by that.
8 One thing that I am concerned with again is in 9 this shift from paper over to computer records there already 10 has been a loss of information.
11 In one of the many FOIA requests that I submit to 12 this agency awhile ago I was_looking for violations. I was 13 told that they were shifting over the violations database 14 and when they found that there was a computer record but no 15 paper record, they got rid of the computer record. This has 16 been ongoing.
17 I've been receiving nice thick stacks of the 18 re-re-adjusted numbers of violations and things like that 19 from the NRC for a while now. It kind of concerns me that 20 basically you don't have a full record of what is going on 21 with that reactor, and how can an inspector make a 22 determination as to whether or not there has been a 23 violation in the past, a similar instance, if they don't 24 have the record?
25 I don't know the extent how much is actually being ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATrS, LTD.
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Y 166 11 lost.-LI dont think they have-actually. determined that.- It did disturb me that if there was a computer record andino 3 paperfrecord,.they would'just wipe out the computer record 4 as if it never existed. That.is one problem.
- 5. The LPDRLin my experience, and-I've worked _'in D.C.
6 and'out inLthe regions, they vary greatly. Some are, as 7 -Paul has termed, information dumps where there are just-8 ' boxes and boxes filled with unassociated-information. But 9 on the whole my ext 'rience with the Public Document Room has 10 been great. The people down there have always been very 11 helpful.
12 Perhaps running your meetings you might learn 13 something from the way that the people in the PDR. interface 14 with the public. They don't care if you're a licensee or.a 15 member of the public or a reporter. They treat you the 16 same. As David has pointed out in the past and as he has 17 ex erienced from coming from one side of the fence to the 18 .otaer, you can have a very different experience with NRC 19 depending on what chair you are sitting in basically.
20 MR. GRIMSLEY: Dave.
21 MR. STELLFOX: It's getting very repetitive, but 22- I'm sure-you're glad to hear you are getting compliments. I 23 toe e.m really impressed and think you have a right to be 24 proud of the Web pages and the Internet access, the 25 information available. -It's tremendous, and I love it'.
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167 1 :Again, the. staff of the PDR, in Washington-at least, is
.2- excellent, excellent, and I know everyone at my office feels
'3- -the same way. 'It's-great.-
4 MR.- GRIMSLEY - Thank you.
5 David.
6 MR. LOCHBAUM: I want to add to the praise for the 7 Public Document Room. I've never had any problems there.
In fact-that office enforces the rules. I went in there one 9- time with-a can of Coke and as immediately thrown out.
10 (Laughter.]
11 MR. LOCHBAUM: It's rigorously enforced.
12 As far as the Internet, there is-a lot of 13 information. Like has been said earlier, I think it's one 14 of the best Web sites out there. It'c very helpful.
15 One suggestion I might offer is that if-you 16 created a location on the Web site for each power reactor 17 licensee and put in this location information like meeting 18 announcements, license amendment requests, press releases, 19 inspection reports, PNOs, et cetera, it would be easier to-20 go to one site and get that information rather than the six 21 -or seven-locations where that information is currently 22 presently. If it didn't create a huge burden, it might be a 23 very-helpful tool.
24 MR. CAMERON: We gather today to canonize 25 Elizabeth Yeates.
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d 168 4
1 -[ Applause.)
- 2. MR. CAMERON: = We wanted.to give credit'to 3 Elizabeth who is right-here. We also wanted to give credit 4 to Walt Oliu, who is right there, who is the moving force 5- : behind the Internet at NRC. We wanted to recognize those 6 two since prhise is few and far between. The restoof us 7 have a lot of work to do,' but we are going to try to do it.
8 Did.you want to say something, Elizabeth?
9 MS. YEATES- On behalf of the' staff of the Public 10 Document Room, I'd like co express my thanks for the. kind 11 words that have been said. They are well deserved. It is 12 an excellent staff of dedicated public servants. That is my 13 general cott. ment.
14 My technical one I lift from what David said.
15 What he was describing as-a possible desirable organization 16 on the Internet is what we now call a docket file. In the 17 Public Document Room we have by licensee the vast majority 18 of the information. Those concepts of organization of 19 information are very important ones on which Walt and myself 20 and others are working. That type of comment is very
- 21. useful. Thank you.
- 22. MR. GRIMSLEY: Okay. I'm going to start again.
- -23' David, we will go this way. I don't know who came up first 24 here.
25- MR. STELLFOX: Not to leave you with nothing but ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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169 1 praise, there is a problem with timeliness of information 2 getting to the:Public Document Room, wnich has already been 3 said, bu'c it's a real problem. If you can do anything about 4 it, that would be helpful.
5 The other thing is, although I think the staff at 6 the Public Document Room is excellent, I don't think the 7 computer system that they have -- I once took a training.
P -course on how to use the computer system down there to 9 search for things and I've never been back since.
10 (Laughter.)
11 MR. STELLFOX: I have never found anything there 12 intentionally. Staff has found it for me, but I've never 13 been able to find anything there.
14 MR. GRIMSLEY: Judith.
15 MS. JOHNSRbD: Just a quick question. Are SECY 16 documents now on Internet?
17 MR. GRIMSLEY: Yes.
18 MS. JOHNSRUD: I haven't run them down. Thank 19 you.
20 MR. GRIMSLEY: Jim.
21 MR. NORVELLE: To those who set up the daily 22 stutus report on the Internet and e-mail them to our 23 mailboxes, a great deal of thanks. You've basically given 24 full employment to about 70 nuclear communicators in the 25 country with about five phone calls every time one of our ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Y 170 1 power levels goes'from even--100 to 95 percent power. .
2- -One of the interesting confluences of our industry
'3 is not only_the_ issues of public health and safety.with the-4 .NRC,-but of course as we move into~a competitive arena our 5 product,- electrons, is being watched very closely by Wall -
6 -Street and by the five business wires.
7 I asked someone, what's the trigger? When you see 8- a power level drop, at which level do you call _and'see 9 what's going on.- He-said, any time I see a 10 percent drop 10 in your reactor power, I'm calling. Well,.that's not a big
_ 11 ' drop. But he said, I'll call you and s ee how soon you are
- 12. going'to be back up to 100 percent, et cetera, et_ cetera, et 13 cetera.
14 That's fine, and I will return those calls as 15 diligently'and quickly as we return every call. I know 16 there are some others of my brothers and nisters out there 17 that won't do it that well. They are wrestling with this 18 competitive information and how public it is, because the 19 swing of a generation of a nuclear unit can affects the 20 price of electricity on the open market at any given time.
21 I know that somt t. .ilities would love not for that 22 to be:out there. I'm not one of them, but I do know that it 23 'has_grTranteed employment for about 70 cther people.
24 - MR. GRIMSLEY: Are there any other comments befcre 25 I turn it back over to Mr. Cameron?
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- i 171 1~ L[No' response.)
-- 2 : MR.-CAMERON: - The lest issue we~are going.to 3L discuss today -is --going to be led by Linda' Portner of our 4; Of fice of = Congressional; Affairs staff,_- and- this has to do -
S' Lwith:the timeliness of'our response to. requests'from the 6- public, and: also the e-mail-issue. .
7 MS . - PORTh2R: Thank you. This is going to be 8 tough act to follow,_ because it's the most praise I've heard 9 all afternoon.
l E101 When our subcommittee looked at responsiveness to-11 inquiries, we were looking at incoming letters to the NRC.
12 We were not looking at 2.206 pet.itions and that sort of 13 thing.
14 Of course-we did get into e-mail because we are 15 now being swept up in this increase in e-mail that the -
- 16 agency is receiving.
17 First of all, when we get a letter, the NRC is I
18 aware that the timeliness of its response is important as is 19 the quality.
20 The way it is set up now when you write to the 21 - Commission, the Office of the Secretary or the Office of 22 Congressional Affairs if it-comes-through a member of
, 23 Congress, will send out- a letter of1 acknowledgment within a
. 24 couple of. days, which is nothing more than, yes, we have 25 received your: letter, we are working on a response, and we 1
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u
-l 172 1- vill'get-back to you.
'2 If the Chairman is going to respondito your -
3 request, the bulk:of-our. correspondence ~seems to be 4 averaging _about 17 or-18 days.
5_ If the EDO is going to respond, you'd save a
' couple of' days.
~
6- It's around 15 or 16 days to get an answer 7 back. .
8 An office director prcbably takes ten or less.
. 9' So obviously'the' higher the level for the 10 response, it takes more time for review, concurrence and 11 signing it out.
12 This involves about'75 percent of our 13 -correspondence. However, there are cucliers. There is-14 correspondence where for a variety of reasons we find we 15 cannot respond within our normal time frame.
16 For example, I know in our office, if it's a 17 member of Congress that write in either for a. constituent or 18 for himself or herself, we will call the office and let them 19 know we are being held up for such and such and we really 20 can' t get back to you until a cr icified time.
J 21 The Secretary's office will also do this sort of 22 thing.
23- I am not aware that the EDO staff will always and 24 frequently does not provide any sort of an interim 25 interaction. -Sometimes they do, but it's not sort of in our a
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1 5
173 1 guidance'that they do that.
=2 We are open for suggestions and any comments that 3 you might have on our responsiveness to-your incoming 4 letters.
5 This other than the e-mail. E-mail has been 6- . coming in. Sometimes if it's an e-mai1Lthat requires just a 7- factual answer, how many. reactors are operating and that 8 type of thing, there can be a quick turnaround by someone fand you would.just get an answer back.
~
9
- 10 If it's an allegation, of course, it is handled 11- - accordingly.
12 If it is actually an e-mail that is really a
- 13 formal letter that needs a formal response, then we-have to 14 -treat it as an incoming letter and handle.it accordingly.
15 Our group. looked at the fact that we really don't 16 have any clear guidance in any of our management directives 17 now on how to handle e-mail. So again we are open to 18 suggestions and comments, and certainly we will consider 19 them.
20 MR. GUNTER: Certainly there is a problem with the
' 2 11 timeliness of NRC response. One specific example that is 22 still outstanding has to=do with fire protection. This-is
- 23= something I don't believe is just a technical issue per se, 24 and it's not even a response directly to our organization, 25 but the-request was made-through Congressman EJ Markey's ANN--RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTS Court Reporters 1250JI Street, N.W.,. Suite 300 Washington,~D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
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174 1 office to staff for a response on this particular situation.
2 MS. PORTNER: Yes.
3 MR. GUNTER: We are lefs with the perception that 4 essentially NRC is guarding itself from an issue that is 5 relevant to public health and safety. I think that this 6 ties directly to trust issues. Certainly timeliness is tied 7 t o that trust issue. .
8 MS. PORTNER: This came in from Congressman 9 Markey, though, didn't it?
10 MR. GUNTER: -Right. It was May. We are still 11 awaiting a response.
12 MS. PORTNER: We have called his staff to let them 13 know that there is a product. I can't tell you when it is 14 going to get out. It will probably be out within a couplo 15 of weeks. But we have been in touch with the Congressman's 16 staff to let him know.
17 If it had come in directly from you, we would have 18 called you directly. Congressional Affairs deals with 19 members and their staffs. We have contacted him and let him 20 know that, no, we haven't forgotten, it has not fallen 21 thrcugh the cracks. I did not contact him. It was a member 22 of our staff that did. So I'm not really clear on why it 23 was held up, but we have tried to explain it to them, and it 24- seemed we have covered that with them.
25 MR. GUNTER: Certainly it's tied in with the whole ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 1751 ,
' l-- issue _of-formulating technicalurcaponses, but very much is a
- 2 - ' concern that~ itI is also' restricting infonnation that ue- -
3- iwould' raise #a.n: issue on. {
4 MR,' BLANCH: ~ This - couunent is 'somewha*: related=to y
>51 thel allegation process. Just a little bit of background.,
6 I ' v'e_been working'at Millsto o somewhat with the 4
L7 employee concerns progran,' listening to NRC: feedback, and- -
8- one of the-problems that we:found at Millstone that the NRC 9 ' criticized us for was the fact thst the. employees who come. ,
- 10 to the employee concerns program, their level of 11- satisfaction is quite low; less than 50' percent of the 12 -people.who come to the program are satisfied with the 13 response that'they get. -
14 We-looked at it why they are not satisfied with >
JL5 the response. Many of the causes of their dissatisfaction 16 -is that the concerns program didn't' fully understand the 17 concern, and as they were addressing the concern they didn't 18 1 maintain proper communications between the concerns program ,
19 and the employee bringing the concern such that when the 20 letter of' response wient.back to thet concerned individual it.
L 21' really didn't'nddress the issue properly, 22 Wnat they have done at Millstone is they've 23- established an ongoing dialogue between the concerned 24: tindividualLand the employee concerns _ program. That-seems to 25 be working very~well.- If there is confusion, they can call t
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- l 4 ,, ,
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~
. .- C D-176 1 up the person and resolve that misunderstanding.
- i. 2 We have even gotten so far as to when we ara 3 drafting the fine? response to the individual sat down with 1 4 the individual to assure that it has responded to all'of his 5 concerns. j 6 If we contrast that to the NRC and we are talking
? -
responsiveness to letters tha*. could be allegations, the NRC I
8 10 guilty of the sano thing. They tak+: in a 1 cuter, a 9 concern, whatever it might be, and every 30 days they are 10 going to say, yeah, we are still working on your concern, 11 and maybe six months later you get a recponse th;t doesn't 12 even resemble the issue that you first raised.
13 The NRC needs to do what they are telling 14 licensees to do, and s. hut is to maintain commitnication, get 15 clarification of what the icsce is, and actually work with 16 the person, whether it happens tu be '
fire protection issue 17 or whatever the issue. There are thousands of issues out 18- there. '
19 One comtneut that I have been harassing John 20 Zwolinski about related to e-mail. I can do that. I can I
21 harass the NRC. I've counted the occasions. On six 22 ditterent occasions people withir the agency from the 23 Chairmar's office on down have hit the reply button rather 24 than the forward button when they were really forwarding.
J 25 [Laughtcr.)
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2 F
177 1 MS, PORTNER: We've got to learn how to use E
2 e-mail.
3 MR. CAMERON: You must have some interesting 4 . messages, 5 MR. BLANCII: Five of them were relatively benign, 6 but one of tnem was cut and pasted into a letter to Sena% r 7 Lieberman. So I think you might need some real careful
_ 8 education en which finger to use and what button to hit.
9 MS. PORTNER: This is somet.hing I think we are 1
70 greing to probably have to have some more guidance on. There
~
11 are some areas where we can just turn it arounu. It's
,i 12 factue.1 information. It's not a formal type response.
13 But a 2.3t of the e-mpfl is going to start to come '
_g
\ 14 through. It already has. Like yourself. You are posing a 15 letter and you expect a formal response. It can't just come 16 with a turnaround e-mail. It's going to have be logged into 17 the process, because I'm sure you are going to want a 18 recponse either from the EDO or from the Chairman or a g
, 19 senior management official.
-j-- 20 MR. BLANCH: The other night when I was inquiring 21 about participation in this meeting I got .a return e-mail 22 from Chip in about an hour and a half. I thought that was l
33 1 real good. Then I got a return phone call from John 24 Zwolinski also within about an hour and a half. Things are
- 25 ,,
improving, Chip.
3 E
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178 1 MS. PORTNER: I don't know which-one went up 2 first. Judy, s
3 MS. JOHNSRUD This is a fairly quick one. I take 4 it you don't have but I urge you to develop criteria to be 5 able to flag incoming requests that deal with issues that 6 j will bs sensitive to the public so that they can be given 7 certain kinds of priority and response. I gather you don't 8 have any such at the moment from what you say with regard to 9 handling incoming mail, h 10 MS. l' ORTNER: With e-mail?
1 11 MS. JOHNSAUD: E-mail, but also letters. I say 12 l that because I think that that is another piece of the 13 development or reestablishment of some level of trust on the 14 part of the public.
15 There is a great frustration if one has written, 16 has requested, and six months go by. It engenders mistrust.
17 It indicates that this is either not important to the 18 agency, or there is something that somebody doesn't want to 19 reveal. Any mechanisms that can be developed that will 20 genuinely overcome it would be very valuable.
g 21 MS. PORTNER: Thanks.
22 MR. RICCIO: My comments kick back co the previous 5
23 discussion. On access to neccesary information a couple of 24 ; things I find to be troublesema.
25 } One is that there has been a reduction in the W RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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__a 179 1 frequency with which information do being provided to the 2 public, and that being through the AEOD. They are now 3 releasing their report once every year. It's basically all 4 the data for every reactor in the country. You can go in 5 and probably dig out every single rear. tor, but it's not 6 really that helpful. .
7 They are only releasing their AEOD report once a 8 year to the Public Document Room.
9 MR. CRAIG: Can you describe the report?
10 MR. RICCIO: Performance indicator report, and 11 it's also being sent on an off-annual basis. So you can 12 never have like a full year's information, It is always 13 coming in through the quarter of whatever.
14 The other thing that I found to be very helpful in 15 the past -- I'm not sure whether it's being done anymore, 16 and it goes back to something that Paul Choiniere had said 17 before, that sometimes the best method for contacting the 18 NRC isn't necessarily going through Bill's office when you 19 have a technical question. There used to be a list of 20 technical contacts at the Public Document Room. I don't 21 know whether that still exists or is still in use. That was 22 an excellent document.
23 MR. GRIMSLEY: Walt.
24 MR. OLIU: I'm Walter Oliu, the Publications 25 Branch. My organization compiled that list some number of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 i
y 180 years;ago, but we_were subsequently unable to continue
~
1 -- -
2- updating it because of resources. :Yes, we knew it had
-3' usefulness. -Itractually had usefulness for our regional-
- 41 staff as_well.
51 MR. RICCIO: I'm"sure. For anyone.trying.to. find' i
6 :a specific answerito.a specific technical question.it was 17 very helpful. 3 8- MR. CAMERON: That is something.that you would 9 -advocate that we reestablish.
- 10 MR. RICCIO: I think it would be a good thing. If 11- you-are trying to get answers to technical questions, rather 12 'than going through the Office of Public Affairs, you can go i
- 13 to the person who is making a decision on steam generators n
14 or whatever. Again, that;means that they_are going to have
- 15 to feel comfortable speaking with the public as well.
16 In regard to e-maile, good luck. I don't have a 17 clue. '
18 MS. PORTNER: It's something that we are going to 19 have to consider carefully and provide _ directions to the 20- staff. As I said, there are some, things that-there is no 21 need to treat it as requiring a formal type of response, but i
- 22 then there are others that are far more extensive and really 1 23 . require an official NRC response. That is something we~are 24 _ kind of grappling with now, and especially.since there is a 25 lot more of'it.
I' '
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'181- i
!1' Paul. 'Whichever-Paul,went.up'first.
2c .MR. BLANCHt Just a quick comment-as it relates--to
. the' Internet- and 'e-mail".
- 3. .I happen to have-_a complete-e-mail 4^ -list ~of all:NRC personnel on-my_ computer, and that's the~way S.' I got_ Chip's_name ; His address.is'reallyEstrange. ' He's!the t
6 only'oneLin the-agency with=a real middle name-having an
- 7. "X". -
8- When-you go to the NRC home pageLand it says
~
9 -a e-mail the NRC," when you hit"on that it comes up and says 10 Office of:Public Affairs. -Is there a reason that the e-mail 11 lists'for personnel is not posted on the Web site?
12 MS. PORTNER: The e-mail list is not posted?~
13 MR.1 BLANCH: If I want to send an e-mai3 to Dr.
- 14- Jackson ~or Chip,_ there is.no way I can find their e-mail 15 address.
16 501.-BEECHER: Walt, do you know the answer to 17 that?
18 MR. OLIU: The answer to that is that the decision was made at very senior levels that it was not really 20 < helpful-to have everybody in the agency's e-mail address i- 21 there at the Web site because of some of the issues that-22 Linda has alluded to that we need to work cut relative to 231 how we are going to' handle e-mail.
If you are a manager,
'24 there would bs a resource impact.
.25 Moreover,1 there :Ls a- consistency of response issue ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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182 1- involving the way.the agency communicates with'its various 2 _ publics. For theltime being'it'should~not be theren it. _
E
- 3: won't be there.
4 MR. BLANCH < I'll just have-to put-it.out.on my-S: te-mail list.
.6- [ Laughter.]
~
7 MS.'PORTNER: Spme of it's actually.fa321y-easy-to O' figure out._ The Hill'has been'using e-mail'a little'more 9 frequently now.
'10 I would add to Jim's' comments with
=
MR. GUNTER:
- 11- _ regard ~to another document that we think is important and
'12 .we'd'like it reinstituted. It was canceled because of 13 : budgetary considerations. It was NRC's publication of -- I 14 forget the NUREG number itself, but it was the routine 15 releases from= nuclear power plants. It was being compiled 16 through a contract with Brookhaven National Lab. I believe 17 1993 was the last edition of this document.
18 In terms of responsiveness to public inquiries, I 19- think this is a very important piece of information that was
- 20. being compiled by NRC. We were using it in responding to 21 .public inquiries to our office, and we would find it very 22 helpful-to see this document reinstituted.
23 MR. RICCIO: If you want to have a discussion 24 about what documents have and have not been pushed forward,
. 25 -that could:probably take up-a whole other day.
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183 1 MS. JOHNSRUD: Out of curiosity, to whom does one 2 most directly go with inquiries concerning documents? Who 3 is the most effective source?
4 MR. OLIU: If you have access to our Web site, you 5 can simply refer queries about agency publications, that is 6 to say, those things that we have formally published. Just 7 send your queries to NRC Web, our e-mail address. If you 8 have questions about the larger docurent collection or 9 docket collection that the PDR would have records on, then 10 you would certainly get directly in touch with them through 11 their e-mail address.
12 MS. JOHNSRUD: Why when I have requested copies of 13 press notices that arrive encoded and unreadable do I never 14 get a response back from, I guess, the webmaster?
15 MR. OL10: It depends on which e-mail address you 16 used. If you went to OPA's --
l 17 MS. JOHNSRUD: Just using a reply from the source.
l i
18 MR OLIU: Then it should come from them. If you 19 went to NRC Web, it would come to my staff and we would l
20 either respond or refer it appropriately. We are 21 responsible for the agency's NUREG reports and regulatory 22 guides and the like and would indicate where you could 23 obtain those or send you a copy as appropriate.
24 MR. GRIMSLTI: You are having problems reading the l 25 press releases when they come to you?
l ANN RILEY & ACSOCIATES, LTD.
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184 1 -MS. JCHNSRUD: Oh, yes.
2 MR. CAMERON: Even when they come through in 3 English?
4 MS JOHNSRUD: No. Those-I can manage to read.
5 It's a very strange language. I've complained, and I get 6 nothing back. .
7 MR. RICCIO: If I could make one more point about 8 the performance indicator data. This agency has been in the 9 process of attempting to open up the watch list process, 10 making it more transparent. I find it ironic that as they 11 are trying to open up this process they are taking the data 12 that the public has used to assess whether the process has 13 been effective away from the pub;10, 14 I know for a fact that the senior managers are 15 going to have access to that information-when they sit down 16 twice annually to make their determination. You'd figure 17 that the public should at least have the same access to that 18 information on at least a semiannual basis. If they are 19 . going to have a watch list meeting twice a year, we should 20 at least have an updated version of the AEOD report twice a 21 year. It just would seem logical.
22 MR. CAMERON: Apropos of your comment about if we 23 want to get into what documents should be available or what 24 are not available it would take a whole other day, I think 25 that either you or Paul said earlier that this process ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 should be transparent about what documents we are going to 2 eliminate et cetera, et cetera. I look at that as a 3 recommendation that we should have a transparent process 4 that the public is involved in if we are going to undertake.
5 We will put that into the mill.
6 I would ask if there are any other issues that we 7 did not cover before we close today.
8 Pat, did you have a comment?
9 MS. BRYANT: Actually a suggestion. I've been 10 involved in a number of analyses like this over the years of 11 all communications programs in different types of 12 organizations. A lot of what you are doing is pretty much 13 standard in terms of evaluating the quality of the program 14 and its effectiveness, 15 One of the things we have done a couple of times 16 in different programs is to bring in independent analyses 17 not only of materials in the program but also to add an 18 element which includes a cross section or representative 19 people you are trying to reach to get a better feedback on 20 haw effective your program is.
21 We found that it always added an important 22 element. It was occasionally humbling.
23 I do recommend that you consider adding that.
24 This is good.
25 MR. CAMERON: And humbling.
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it 1 (Laughter.)
l 2 MS. BRYANT: But it can also add u very important 3 perspective.
4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you for that suggestion, Pat 5 Any other finni comments on general matters?
6 MR. BEECHER: I would like to tnake a comment.
7 It's very brief. It is to compliment you. When this 8 started we asked for constructive candor. What we have 9 gotten was constructive candor. So I applaud you for that.
10 [ Applause.)
11 MR. CAMERON: Judy.
12 MS. JOHNSRUD: When is it all going to pass, 13 please? Can you give us a good, hard date?
14 MR. BEECHER: I can't give you a hard date. We 15 can give you a soft date.
16 MR. CAMERON: The date is hard enough for us.
17 MR. BEECHER: There is a process of drafting and 18 then going to the Executive Council and then perhaps 19 redrafting, and then going on the Internet, and two 20 workshops. My guess is before the Commisadon can finally 21 coe to grips with this would be the spring. That's my 22 guess. Finally come to grips with this.
23 Has anyone got a better grasp than that?
24 MR. CAMERON: I think that's a good estimate. As 25 Bill said, we really appreciate the input. We are going to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 107 1 seriously consider the comments that we heard from you today 2 in putting together the report.
3 John.
4 MR. CRAIO: We going to send everybody that 5 participated copies of the report, the transcript, et 6 cetera. When the Commission issues it's Staff Requirements 7 Memorandum, that will be available. It will be pretty 8 transparent.
9 MR. CAMERON: We did hear a lot of corments on ?
10 2.206, some very, very telling comments. For some reason, 11 as you might notice from the SRM, it becomes apparent to 12 those of us who get tasked with these things. We study 13 these things very carefully.
14 The last item in the SRM was referred to the EDO 15 staff rather than this committee for response, and we are 16 going to make sure that the 2. LOG comments get to the people 17 who are working on that. And it will be repeated in our 18 summary of what we send up with our report.
19 We talked about expectations earlier. I don't 20 know if we are going to be able to accommodate everything 21 that we heard today in terms of what goes to the Commission, 22 particularly since some of it was in oppositior;, and some of 23 it touches on much broader issues, albeit maybe more 24 critical even than the things we were talking about tcday.
25 But that all needs to be reflected in what we send up as a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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188 1 summary of this meeting too. We are going to try to do our 2 best. ,
3 Thank you again.
4 [Whereupon at 3:48 p.m.. the workshop was 5 concluded.)
6 7 '
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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REPORTER'S:CWRTIFICATE This.is to certify-that the attached proceedings f before the United States Nuclear Reg 111atory Ccamission in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING: WORKSHOP ON PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS !
INITIATIVES DOCKET NUMBEL , ,
-PLACE OF PROCEEDING: ROCKVILLE, MD ;
were held as herein-appears,_and that this is-the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court i reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and ,
accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
Y.b 6 Michael G. Paulus Official Reporter
\ ,
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