ML14101A388
| ML14101A388 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 04/11/2014 |
| From: | Julian E L NRC/SECY/RAS |
| To: | Entergy Nuclear Operations |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| 50-247-LR, 50-286-LR, ASLBP 07-858-03-LR-BD01, RAS 25810 | |
| Download: ML14101A388 (99) | |
Text
MEMORANDUM TO: Board and parties Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (Indian Point, Units 2 & 3) Docket Nos. 50-247-LR & 50-286-LR
SUBJECT:
SERVICE OF COMMISSION MEETING TRANSCRIPT On Friday, March 21, 2014, the Co mmission was briefed on the waste confidence rulemaking. The briefing included an external panel with the following participants: Ronald Johnson, Tribal Council President, Prairie Island Indian Community; John J. Sipos, Assistant Attorney General, State of New York; Ellen C. Ginsberg, Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, Nuclear Energy Institute; Michael S. Callahan, President, CCMSC Corporation, on behalf of Governmental Strategies Inc., and the Decommissioning Plant Coalition; and Geoffrey H. Fettus, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Counci
- l. Out of abundance of caution, the transcript of that meeting 1 will be served on the Board, all parties, and the electronic hearing docket to ensure complia nce with the provisions of 10 C.F.R. § 2.347(c) regarding ex parte communications.
/RA/
. Emile L. Julian Assistant for Rulemakings and Adjudications
1 Transcript, "Briefing on Waste Confidence Rulemaking" (March 21, 2014) (ADAMS Accession No. ML14084A142). UNITED STATESNUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555-0001 April 11, 2014 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 + + + + +
3 BRIEFING ON WASTE CONFIDENCE RULEMAKING 4 + + + + +
5 FRIDAY 6 MARCH 21, 2014 7 + + + + +
8 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 9 + + + + +
10 The Commission met at its Headquarters, One White 11 Flint North, Commissioners
= Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, 12 at 1:00 p.m., Allison M. Macfarlane, Chairman, presiding.
13 COMMISSIONERS:
14 ALLISON M. MACFARLANE, Chairman 15 KRISTINE L. SVINICKI, Commissioner 16 GEORGE APOSTOLAKIS, Commissioner 17 WILLIAM D. MAGWOOD, IV, Commissioner 18 WILLIAM C. OSTENDORFF, Commissioner 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 EXTERNAL PANEL:
1 Ronald Johnson, Tribal Council President 2 Prairie Island Indian Community8 3 John J. Sipos, Assistant Attorney General, 4 State of New York 5 Ellen C. Ginsberg, Vice President, General 6 Counsel, and Secretary, Nuclear Energy 7 Institute 8 Michael S. Callahan, President, CCMSC Corp. on 9 behalf of Governmental Strategies and 10 the Decommissioning Plant Coalition 11 Geoffrey H. Fettus, S enior Attorney, Natural 12 Resources Defense Counsel 13 14 NRC STAFF PANEL:
15 Mike Weber, Deputy Executive Director for 16 Materials, Waste, Research, State, 17 Tribal, and Compliance Programs 18 Cathy Haney, Director, Office of Nuclear 19 Material Safety and Safeguards 20 Keith McConnell, Director, Waste Confidence 21 Directorate, NMSS 22 Andy Imboden, Chief, Communications, Planning, 23 and Rulemaking Branch 24 25 26 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 1:02 p.m.
3 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Ok ay, everybody settle 4 in. Great, good afternoon. So, the Commission meets today to hear 5 from an External Panel and the NRC Staff on the topic of Waste 6 Confidence.
7 I want to thank all the External Panelists for traveling 8 far to join us this afternoon to provide your perspectives. I also want to 9 thank the Staff for their work, and for their preparation for today
=s 10 meeting. 11 I=d like to take a moment to put today
=s meeting in 12 context for the record. I
=m going to start by noting where we are in the 13 process of dealing with Waste Confidence. And I
=m sure the second 14 panel will discuss some of this in more detail, but I want to sort of lay a 15 foundation here.
16 So, in response to a remand by the U.S. Courts of 17 Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Commission in the summer of 2012 18 instructed the Staff to update the Waste Confidence decision rule and 19 develop an Environmental Impact Statement. The Staff subsequently 20 initiated a scoping process, and developed the proposed rule and Draft 21 Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
22 The Commission directed some changes and 23 approved the release of the proposed rule and Draft Impact Statement 24 for comment. The public comment period was open from September of 25 2013, last fall, until December 20 th of 2013. The Staff received more 26 4 than 30,000 comments through correspondence and it transcribed over 1 1,600 pages of notes from multiple meetings held around the country.
2 One of our goals for this meeting is to be certain that 3 we understand the comments that we received. We recognize that this 4 is a complex policy issue, and many groups have different views on this 5 matter. On behalf of the Commission, we appreciate the significant 6 amount of time that all of these groups have taken in thoughtfully 7 analyzing the Staff
=s proposed rule and providing detailed feedback to 8 the NRC. 9 Today we have a good cross section of external 10 panelists to provide a range of perspectives on some key issues that 11 underpin the proposed rule and Environmental Impact Statement.
12 I=d like to note that given where we are in the process 13 so far, and as we noted in our Letters of Invitation to our panelists, we
=re 14 not seeking new comments from the external panel. We
=re here today 15 to discuss the comments that you
=ve already submitted during the 16 public comment period. So, this meeting is an opportunity for you all to 17 highlight and amplify issues you previously raised to help insure that we 18 understand your comments.
19 The external panel will be followed by a Staff briefing.
20 The Staff is in the process of eval uating all those public comments that 21 they received, and is still considering this feedback in their development 22 of the final Rule and Environmental Impact Statement. Ultimately, any 23 final rule will have to be approved by the Commission.
24 Because the NRC has not reached final conclusions 25 on the key issues, we won
=t ask the Staff to respond on the merits of 26 5 what is said today by the external panel, or to explain how they plan to 1 respond to comments that they have received.
2 I=d also like to remind everyone that because Waste 3 Confidence or continued storage contentions are currently being held in 4 abeyance on 21 adjudicatory dockets we will not address site-specific 5 continued storage issues or questions because of our role as judges 6 there. 7 So, we=re going to begin the meeting with 8 presentations from the external panel. We have 50 minutes, so I ask 9 each of you to be mindful of the time, otherwise I
=ll help you. I also ask 10 presenters to both external panelists and Staff to try to avoid using 11 acronyms so we all know what we
=re talking about.
12 Let me see if any of my fellow Commissioners have 13 any comments? No? Okay. Then to get us started we
=re going to start 14 with Mr. Ronald Johnson who is President of the Prairi e Island Indian 15 Tribal Community. Mr. Johnson.
16 MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Good afternoon, 17 Chairman Macfarlane, Honorable Commissioners. My name is Ron 18 Johnson, and I am the President of the Prairie Island Indian Community 19 Tribal Council. I appreciate this invitation to be here today to speak with 20 you about our views on Waste Confidence.
21 Before I begin, I
=d like to thank the members of the 22 Waste Confidence Directorate who met with us after the public meeting 23 in Minnesota to answer our questions about the Draft Generic 24 Environmental Impact Statement. Next slide, please.
25 Our tribal members are descendants of the 26 6 Mdewakanton Band of Eastern Dakota or those who are born of the 1 waters. Our people have lived on Prairie Island, Tinta Wita, for 2 countless generations. Our tribe land base has grown through various 3 federal acts beginning in 1891 and direct purchases by the Tribal 4 Council, and now totals over 3,000 acres. The Prairie Island Indian 5 Community is located between the Vermillion and Mississippi Rivers in 6 Southeastern Minnesota, about 30 miles southeast of the Twin Cities, 7 of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I skipped a slide. There was supposed to 8 be a slide there, I apologize.
9 On Slide 4, this slide focuses in on a portion of our 10 reservation that we call the Lower Island. As you can see, the Prairie 11 Island Nuclear Generating Plant and its independent spent fuel storage 12 installation are right next door to our reservation, and it shows in the 13 photo there. Next slide, please.
14 There=s no community closer to a nuclear power plant 15 than our=s. The independent spent fuel storage installation is about 600 16 yards from our nearest tribal member
=s home, and less than a half a 17 mile from our clinic, community center, elder center , education center, 18 and our gaming enterprise. Next slide, please.
19 Our Tribal Council chambers overlook the nuclear 20 power plant. I
=m always looking out the window and it
=s not just so I can 21 look at the sun, or the birds, or the Mississippi River bluffs, it
=s so I can 22 keep a constant eye on the plant. And that
=s kind of changed this day 23 because my position changed so I don
=t get to look out the window. It 24 does draw my attention, as it does anybody
=s. And this past summer, I 25 think it was in September or August, I participated in a radiation 26 7 exposure conference in Japan. That included an onsite tour of the 1 Fukushima Daiichi facility. I
=ve seen firsthand what happens when two 2 unlikely to worry about accidents happen and the design basis isn
=t 3 enough. I=ve seen the devastation and driven to the abandoned 4 villages.
5 My worst fear, and the worst fear of our people is that 6 we=d be forced to abandon our homeland because of an incident at the 7 plant or at the independent spent fuel storage installation. My biggest 8 concern isn
=t with the plant operations, it
=s the nuclear waste packed in 9 the spent fuel pool stored above ground in dry casks a half a mile away 10 from our homes. That
=s why our tribe has been actively involved in 11 Waste Confidence activity. Slide 7, please.
12 What does Waste Confidence really mean? It
=s just a 13 fancy term. Do we really believe that the best way to deal with spent 14 nuclear fuel is indefinite long-term storage at places like Prairie Island 15 along the flood plain of the Missi ssippi River? Can the Nuclear 16 Regulatory Commission be absolutely certain that spent fuel will be 17 safe if stored at the site in dry casks for decades or even centuries?
18 I don=t want to be too proactive with the third definition 19 on this slide, but sometimes it seems that our Nation
=s nuclear waste 20 policy is nothing more than a confidence game. While I have great 21 respect for the Commission and t he Nuclear Regulatory Commission 22 Staff with whom we
=ve worked with over the years, I don
=t envy the work 23 you have been asked to do on Waste Confidence. And I worry that the 24 Waste Confidence Rule will be used to continue the false promises of 25 our Nation
=s failed nuclear waste policy.
26 8 The defects in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act were first 1 exposed in 1998 when the deadline for removing nuclear waste to a 2 permanent repository came and went. More than 15 years later that
=s 3 still the law of the land, but now it
=s simply being ignored. Next slide, 4 please. 5 We cannot accept a Waste Confidence Rule that will 6 leave nuclear waste stranded on Prairie Island for decades to come, not 7 for our next generation, and certainly not for the next seven generations 8 of our people, indeed, of all Americans. As Mdewakanton Dakotas we 9 use the term A seven generations
@ to refer to a length of time, and the 10 successive generations of our people who can be affected by our 11 actions today. But nuclear waste is more than a seven generation 12 problem. Some of the most dangerous toxic substances known to 13 mankind, spent nuclear fuel, must be isolated from the environment for 14 tens of thousands of years.
15 The Dakota people know how the world can change in 16 100 or 200 years. The Dakotas seceded the first tract of land is now 17 what is the State of Minnesota in 1805. At that time, Dakota lands 18 extended from what is now Wisconsin through Minnesota, and into the 19 Dakotas. Fifty-seven years later our people were forcibly removed and 20 exiled from our ancestral lands after the Dakota Conflict of 1862.
21 Our people returned to Prairie Island and a reservation 22 was established in 1936. Today, just 209 years after the first land 23 secession our land base is reduced to 3,000 acres, and along the flood 24 plain of the Mississippi River. That
=s a 200-year snapshot of Dakota 25 history, and the federal government thinks it can make a 10,000-year 26 9 promise to deal with nuclear waste.
1 With respect to the Waste Confidence Environmental 2 Impact Statement or study, we have a number of concerns that we
=ve 3 included in our comment letters. While we do recognize that the Waste 4 Confidence Rule does not explicitly authorize individual licensing 5 actions, it allows for indefinite onsite storage of spent nuclear fuel by 6 stating that onsite storage is safe for 60 to 160 years, or longer. It
=s 7 because of the Waste Confidence Rule that the Administration can 8 state that all sense of urgency to solve our nuclear waste problems 9 we=re further from a national repository than we were in the 1990s. Next 10 slide, please.
11 The NRC=s assumption in the Environmental Impact 12 Statement sidestep the D.C. Court mandate to analyze potential 13 impacts associated with long-term onsite storage. On what basis can 14 the NRC or Nuclear Regulatory Commi ssion assume that casks will be 15 reloaded every 100 years? What if they are not? On what basis can the 16 Nuclear Regulatory Commission assume that institutional controls will 17 exist in 100 years, or 200 year s, and what if they are not?
18 With regards to the safety of extended onsite storage, 19 the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are 20 both working on technical studies involving the long-term storage and 21 eventual transportation of high burn-up fuel. Since high burn-up fuel 22 has been used for almost 25 years, we are alarmed that there are still 23 so many concerns, uncertainties associated with the extended storage 24 and transportation of this fuel.
25 The Department of Energy and the NRC are still 26 10 researching technical issues as cladding, degradation, and fuel 1 assembly embrittlement. The Final Environmental Impact Statement 2 must be revised to include a discussion of public health and 3 environmental impacts from indefinite onsite storage of higher burn-up 4 fuel. 5 The NRC, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the 6 Department of Energy studies will be used to support indefinite storage 7 including the full-scale cask storage demonstration of high burn-up fuel, 8 should be completed before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9 moves forward with the Waste Confidence Rule.
10 We=re afraid that the Waste Confidence decision 11 simply kicks the can down the road another 60 to 100 years. By that 12 time, the waste will be too unstable to transport. The end result, the 13 waste will still be stranded on site. Next slide, please.
14 We=re also very concerned about the potential cost of 15 developing a dry transfer syste m and replacing dry casks every 100 16 years. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement contains no 17 discussion regarding the significant cost to fabricate new casks, or to 18 construct a new independent spent fuel, ISFSI, or dry transfer system.
19 What if the state regulatory agencies refuse to allow the utilities to pass 20 these to rate payers or will pay for this?
21 In recent filing with the Minnesota Public Utilities 22 Commission, Northern States Power Company testified that its installed 23 per cask cost at Prairie Island is $5.6 million. That
=s a 734 percent 24 increase over the $812,500 per cask cost in 1990s. That
=s $584 million 25 in today=s dollars to be reloaded to 98 casks that will be needed if the 26 11 plant is only licensed to operate for another 20 years. What will the 1 figure reloading costs be if the casks were increased at the same rate 2 they have over the past 25 years? This cost scenario will be repeated 3 across the country. Has the NRC actually calculated or considered 4 costs associated with assumptions? Next slide.
5 The casks at Prairie Island Independent Spent Fuel 6 Storage Installation like every storage facility around the country were 7 meant to be temporary solutions for 20, 25 years. We remain skeptical 8 that these casks could be used for the time period envisioned in the 9 Waste Confidence Environmental Impact Study. It seems like the 10 capabilities of these casks keep increasing while the prospect for a 11 repository decreases. Ne xt slide, please.
12 The Draft Environmental Impact Statement seeks to 13 analyze severe consequences and potential environmental health 14 impacts generically for all facilities. This makes no sense. We are not 15 aware of another Tribal nation w hose entire reservation homeland 16 could be rendered uninhabitable by a spent fuel accident. The Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission must conduct at site-specific analysis of 18 environmental impacts.
19 We can=t have any confidence in Waste Confidence 20 Rules that support a failed nuclear waste policy, and that will result 21 indefinite storage of spent nuclear fuel on Prairie Island. The dry cask 22 storage installation will be a threat to our homeland, our livelihood, our 23 way of life until the waste is finally removed.
24 I thank you for your time today. I
=ll be happy to answer 25 any questions you may have.
26 12 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Thank you. We
=re now 1 going to hear from John Sipos, who is the Assistant Attorney General of 2 the State of New York.
3 MR. SIPOS: Good afternoon, Chairman Macfarlane, 4 Commissioners Svinicki, Ostendorff, Magwood, and Apostolakis. My 5 name is John Sipos, and on behalf of Attorney General Eric 6 Schneiderman and the State of New York, thank you for inviting the 7 State to participate in today
=s meeting on the Waste Confidence Draft 8 Generic Environmental Impact Statement, which I will refer to as the 9 Draft EIS for simplicity sake, as well as the related rulemaking.
10 The State truly welcomes this opportunity to meet with 11 you directly and discuss the State
=s concerns, and hopes that today
=s 12 dialogue will lead to improvements in the Draft EIS and proposed rule.
13 Slide 2, please.
14 As you no doubt have gathered from the comments 15 that have been submitted by the States and by last May
=s petition 16 regarding scope, New York and other states believe that the Draft EIS 17 and the proposed rule are significantly flawed. And I wish to highlight a 18 few of those concerns in my opening statement.
19 First off, the Draft EIS miscasts the federal action. This 20 is a fundamental flaw in the rulemaking. Building off that mistake, the 21 Draft EIS in its analysis of alternatives and severe accidents are also 22 fundamentally wrong. The Draft EIS is critically flawed because it 23 attempts to analyze the consequences of a spent fuel pool accident 24 generically for all facilities based on the modeled consequences of 25 severe accidents at two nuclear power plants located in rural or less 26 13 populated areas with markedly less build ing density. Slide 3, please.
1 Accident consequence factors specific to the Indian 2 Point facility, such as the surrounding population, building density, 3 critical and unique infrastructure, and proximity to significant surface 4 drinking water supplies have not been taken into account in the Draft 5 EIS. If we can move to Slide 4, please.
6 There are two reservoirs which are part of the larger 7 New York City watershed and reservoir system, and they are close by 8 to Indian Point. Specifically, the New Croton Reservoir is six miles 9 away, and the Kensico Reservoir is 16 miles away. They were there 10 before the plant was constructed. Several other reservoirs are also 11 nearby, as are Connecticut and New Jersey drinking water resources. I 12 don=t want to delay my presentation but I brought a larger version of this 13 map which I
=d be happy to share with the General Counsel, Secretary, 14 and the Commissioners. It sets out these water resources in more 15 detail. 16 But generic review of accident risk at Indian Point is 17 inappropriate because the consequences of a spent fuel pool accident 18 in the densely developed and highly populated areas surrounding 19 Indian Point are significantly greater than in the rural or less populated 20 areas in which the reference plants are located.
21 The State of New York respectfully submits that either 22 NRC must conduct a site-specific analysis of the environmental impacts 23 of a severe accident at the Indian Point spent fuel pools, or use the 24 Indian Point site, not a rural or less populated site, as the baseline for 25 this Environmental Impact Statemen
- t. Slide 6, please. Thank you.
26 14 So, the State of New York seeks a transparent, 1 objective, and thorough review of site-specific impacts, alternatives, 2 and measures to mitigate such impacts. There are, the State believes, 3 potential alternatives. Slide 7, please.
4 And as part of that analysis, the State has several 5 considerations or several issues that it would like to take B- it would like 6 the Commission to take into consideration. The proposed rule and the 7 Draft EIS, however, seek to prevent the State from pursuing the 8 site-specific concerns and consequences. Hopefully in our system of 9 federalism and under NEPA a host state, and that is what New York is, 10 if a host state wishes it should be able to review, test, and challenge the 11 assumptions and seek review of alternatives to the proposed federal 12 action concerning the storage of spent fuel within t hat state. And at the 13 multi-unit Indian Point facilities, the inquiry should examine the impacts 14 posed by the entire site. This, as we understand it, is the concept of site 15 risk. I know that has been a discussion at Commission meetings over 16 the past two or three years. If site risk is not taken into account the 17 exercise will inappropriately segment the review.
18 Now, the Draft EIS makes reference to various 19 considerations that, as the EIS states, help control risk, and it cites to 20 the Part 100 Site Selection Criteria, the General Design Criteria, 21 Emergency Preparation Plans. But ConEd selected this site in 1955, 22 and the federal government authorized it in 1956, well before many of 23 these programs were put in place.
24 I was preparing a list of things that were not on the 25 books, so to speak, in 1955 and 1956. That was before there was siting 26 15 criteria, before seismic criteria, bef ore population criteria, before FEMA, 1 before emergency planning requirements, before security 2 requirements, before 9/11, before recognition of sabotage concerns in 3 the Energy Reorganization Act, it was before the general design criteria 4 became effective for Indian Point. And the Draft EIS even notes that for 5 a class of plants, there are plant-specific criteria, not generic criteria.
6 To finish out the list of what hadn
=t taken place in the 7 mid-50s, it was before the accidents at TMI, Chernobyl, and the 8 multi-unit Fukushima accidents. It was before the reprocessing 9 program ended in 1975 or 1976, and before concerns about the 10 accumulation of spent nuclear fuel in dense storage configurations 11 began to arise. And it was before the National Environmental Policy Act 12 of 1969 that required federal agencies to take a hard look at the impacts 13 of their actions, and the alternatives to mitigate those actions. It was 14 before the 3 rd Circuit 1989 Limerick Ecology decision required NRC to 15 examine severe accidents on a site-specific basis.
16 The State of New York submits that there is not 17 another site in this nation or on this continent that poses the challenges 18 and risks that Indian Point does given its site-specific profile. Could we 19 go to Slide 8, please.
20 In light of these concerns, and if we could also then go 21 on to Slide 9, as well, in light of these concerns, the State also has 22 concerns given its understanding of the coverage of the Price Anderson 23 Act. And I
=d just like to quote from the slide, and I hope I may do so, 24 Commissioner Magwood, but as the slide states, AThere is no 25 regulatory framework for environmental restoration following a major 26 16 radiological release.
@ 1 Given these issues, the State respectfully suggests 2 that NEPA is not a problem. It shouldn
=t be viewed as a problem, it 3 shouldn=t be viewed as a hindrance. And applied correctly, it can 4 contribute to better decisions and address the State
=s concerns, and 5 help identify alternatives in mitigation, mitigation alternatives that can 6 protect the environmen
- t. Slide 10, please.
7 The State of New York led a 2011 and 2012 challenge 8 to the Temporary Storage Rule because it believed that communities 9 that serve as de facto long-term nuclear waste repositories deserve a 10 full and detailed accounting of the environmental public health and 11 safety risks. And it believes that a full range of alternatives should be 12 identified, evaluated, and truly factored into NRC decision making. The 13 State respectfully submits that the Waste Confidence DGEIS as 14 presented fails to provide such a full and detailed accounting and, 15 therefore, fails our communities.
16 The State hopes that you, the Commissioners, will 17 review the comments by the State of New York and other states and 18 address what we believe are the draft
=s deficiencies before the 19 rulemaking process continues on. Again, the Attorney General 20 appreciates the opportunity to present the State
=s views to you, and as 21 a fellow government in our system of federalism, and as a host state, 22 the State seeks to present objective information to you, the directors of 23 this agency. Host states do have a critical interest in this Commission
=s 24 decisions.
25 Thank you for your attention, invitation, and time.
26 17 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Thank you. Next speaker 1 is Ellen Ginsberg, who is Vice President and General Counsel, and 2 Secretary of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
3 MS. GINSBERG: Good afternoon, Chairman 4 Macfarlane and Commissioners Magwood, Svinicki, Apostolakis, and 5 Ostendorff. Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in 6 today=s meeting to discuss the commercial nuclear energy industry
=s 7 and NEI=s perspectives on the Waste Confidence proposed rule and 8 Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement. As did John, I will refer 9 to this as the GEIS. Next slide.
10 NEI submitted detailed co mments on the proposed 11 rule and Draft GEIS in December of last year. As requested, I will not 12 reiterate those comments, but instead I would like to provide how those 13 comments respond to some of the iss ues raised by others. Next slide.
14 Questions have been raised regarding the NRC
=s 15 framing of the proposed federal action as a rule to codify the Agency
=s 16 generic determination regarding the impacts of spent fuel storage 17 pending disposal. We believe that the NRC has correctly defined the 18 proposed action. The Court of Appeals in its decision stated that the 19 rulemaking in question constituted a major federal action. In fact, I 20 would call attention to the fact that the court itself said, and I quote, A We 21 agree with petitioners that the Waste Confidence rulemaking is a major 22 federal action.
@ This characterization is consistent with the nature of the 23 Waste Confidence Rule, and the rule itself is not a specific licensing 24 action. Therefore, the alternatives to the proposed action are not 25 alternatives to licensing, but alternatives to a rulemaking, such as was 26 18 described in the GEIS and a policy statement.
1 Some have advocated that the NRC should consider 2 the alternatives of a licensing moratorium in its Waste Confidence 3 rulemaking. Again, I would note that this type of alternative is 4 considered by the NRC, but it
=s not considered, and is considered in 5 individual licensing actions as a no-action alternative, but it
=s not 6 considered as an appropriate alternative to this rulemaking.
7 Notwithstanding the differing opinions and positions on 8 defining the proposed action, I would emphasize that the NRC has 9 fulfilled its NEPA obligati ons and satisfied the court
=s remand by taking 10 a hard look at the impacts of spent fuel storage pending disposal. Next 11 slide, please.
12 Regarding the adequacy of the NRC
=s assessment of 13 the unlikely scenario whereby a repository does not become available, 14 NEI agrees with the Commission that the 60-year time frame is the 15 most likely scenario for repository availability. It
=s wholly unreasonable, 16 which is to say remote and speculative for NEPA purposes to assume a 17 complete failure of the federal government to meet its legal obligations 18 to dispose of spent fuel.
19 With respect to the short-term and long-term time 20 frames assessed in the Draft GEIS, the NRC
=s assumptions are quite 21 conservative. For example, the NRC assumes that spent fuel will be 22 repackaged every year. The industry
=s operating experience with spent 23 fuel storage systems demonstrates that repackaging at this frequency 24 is not likely to be necessary.
25 Using those types of very conservative assumptions 26 19 has resulted in a Draft GEIS, and again we would stress one that 1 satisfies NEPA
=s hard look mandate. Storage in the short and long-term 2 time frames relies on proven technology and procedures that can be 3 accomplished safely. Next slide, please.
4 For all of the time frames assessed, the NRC 5 reasonably assumed that institutional controls will continue to exist.
6 During the short and long-term time frames, spent fuel storage systems 7 will remain under NRC oversight. I would note that this assumption is 8 consistent with current NRC regulations, such as 10 CFR Part 61. It 9 was reasonable for the NRC to assume the existence of institutional 10 controls, and the failure to establish a permanent repository is already a 11 highly unlikely event which neither NEPA, nor the court requires a 12 piling-on effect of additional conservatism by assuming the loss of 13 institutional controls. Indeed, that would be a worst case and remote 14 and speculative scenario beyond the reach of NEPA.
15 We have noted in our comments, however, that the 16 Department of Energy
=s EIS for the no-action alternative for Yucca 17 Mountain does assume that institutional controls would fail after 100 18 years. Although we continue to believe that that is a worst case 19 scenario, we do suggest that the NRC in its GEIS refer to the analysis 20 already done.
21 The Commission has directed the Staff to adopt or 22 incorporate by reference other agency analyses, and this is exactly 23 what we=re suggesting. It
=s consistent with COMSECY-12-0016. Next 24 slide. 25 The Draft GEIS also satisfies the court
=s direction and 26 20 meets the Agency
=s NEPA obligations to assess the spent fuel pool 1 leaks, and it does so by using a bounding analysis. The GEIS does not 2 simply recite the data from past leaks, or rely solely on the Agency
=s 3 regulatory oversight. Rather, it appropriately describes the regulatory 4 regime for spent fuel pool leaks and also explains the industry initiatives 5 for groundwater monitoring and remediation. This analysis of spent fuel 6 pool leaks doesn
=t merely hinge on the NRC being Aon duty.@ Rather, it 7 requires and recognizes the responsibility and actions of licensees to 8 detect and mitigate leaks. The GEIS also uses information from past 9 leaks to inform its assessment. Information from past leaks is one data 10 point in the Agency
=s overall assessment. Next slide, please.
11 The NRC=s approach to spent fuel pool fires is 12 consistent with the federal precedent in the Carolina Environmental 13 Study Group case. The NRC
=s recent consequence study of the effect 14 of beyond design basis earthquakes on spent fuel pools further 15 supports the Draft GEIS
= conclusion. In that study, I B- or that study 16 found, and I quote, ASpent fuel is only susceptible to a radiological 17 release within a few months after the fuel is moved from the reactor to 18 the spent fuel pool.
@ Next slide.
19 On the issue of whether the GEIS should incorporate 20 the environmental impacts into site-specific cost-benefit analyses, there 21 is simply no evidence that either the costs or impacts of spent fuel pool 22 storage will tip the balance of a NEPA cost-benefit analysis for an 23 individual project. As set forth in the GEIS, the environmental impacts of 24 continued spent fuel storage in the short and long-term time frames are 25 small. Moreover, the cost- benefits of specific projects are considered in 26 21 individual licensing reviews. Whether the small impacts of continued 1 spent fuel storage tip the NEPA balance could be considered an 2 individual case, of course, without the opportunity to litigate in individual 3 proceedings such as the generic issues already addressed in the 4 rulemaking. Next slide.
5 There is ample support in the existing record including 6 from the previous Waste Confidence decisions to make a reasonable 7 assurance finding regarding the availability of a repository, and the 8 safety and small impacts of storage until a repository is available.
9 Consistent with the prior Waste Confidence decisions, the traditional 10 findings should be retained. The court
=s remand did not require that the 11 NRC remove or change the findings, only that the Agency remedy 12 certain aspects of its environm ental assessment. Next slide.
13 This slide contains NEI
=s suggested language for the 14 Waste Confidence Rule. For the reasons I
=ve just discussed, we urge 15 the Commission to retain the reasonable assurance findings regarding 16 the availability of a repository, and for the continued safety of spent fuel 17 storage. There is certainly more than ample support in the record to do 18 so. 19 And with that, I
=d like to thank the Commission for the 20 opportunity to present the industry
=s views. 21 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Great, thank you for 22 saving us a little time. Next we have Michael Callahan who is here from 23 CCMSC Corporation on behalf of Governmental Strategies and the 24 Decommissioning Plant Coalition.
25 MR. CALLAHAN: Well, thank you. The 26 22 Decommissioning Plant Coalition appreciates the opportunity to appear 1 before you today on the Waste Confidence draft rule and the 2 accompanying Generic Environmental Impact Statement. Slide 2, 3 please. 4 We first want to emphasize our great respect for Keith 5 McConnell and his team for the outstanding work they are performing 6 on this matter. Their efforts bring great credit to themselves and to the 7 Commission as a whole. Slide 3, please.
8 The Decommissioning Plant Coalition or DPC is 9 comprised of a number of standal one former reactor sites where 10 reactor operations have permanently ceased and decommissioning 11 activities have been accomplished, are being accomplished, or lie 12 ahead in the site
=s future. This slide shows our current members we 13 originally formed in 2001. Slide 4, please.
14 Our main purpose has been and remains to do 15 everything we can to insure that issues that have unique impact on the 16 permanently shut down facilities are properly addressed, and we have 17 often stated, and I want to convey this again today that our members 18 have kept and will continue to keep the stored spent fuel and greater 19 than Class C waste safe and secure as long as we are the owners and 20 licensees.
21 We=re trying to hasten the day when the federal 22 government will fulfill its contractual obligation to remove the spent fuel 23 and greater than Class C waste from our sites. As the government
=s 24 action has stretched on longer than our companies, our states, and our 25 communities ever envisioned, our companies are increasingly 26 23 interested in insuring that the NRC recognizes that its proposals and 1 actions often, and perhaps usually have a unique impact on our current 2 and soon to be independent spent f uel storage installations.
3 I=m going to summarize our complete statement in the 4 interest of time, and with that let
=s go to Slide 5.
5 With respect to the draft rule itself, we believe that the 6 scope of the rule is appropriately limited to the deficiencies identified by 7 the court. We believe that the rule firmly and fairly addresses these 8 deficiencies, and that its analysis of short, intermediate, and long-term 9 storage time frames are more than adequate to support the long-held 10 tenet that the U.S. can and will successfully store and dispose of used 11 fuel and reactor-generated high-level waste. That, in summary, are our 12 comments on the draft rule itself. Slide 6, please.
13 Before adding comments on the Draft Generic 14 Environmental Impact Statement and providing information on the four 15 questions that you asked commenters to address, we return again to 16 our primary recommendation in our December 31 st , 2012 letter on the 17 Waste Confidence scoping process that the Commission must as its 18 first principle continue to hold to and articulate its long-established tenet 19 that it does not support indefinite onsite storage of spent fuel or greater 20 than Class C waste. Continued default by the federal government in 21 fulfilling its contractual obligations under the standard contract and the 22 resultant indefinite stor age at our shutdown reactor sites simply should 23 not be endorsed as acceptable public policy. Please be aware that after 24 the publication of the rule and the GEIS, the Commission and Staff will 25 remain responsible for insuring that NRC regulatory programs and 26 24 policies do not foster indefinite onsite storage presumably 1 unintentionally.
2 We continue to encourage the Commission to 3 undertake an analysis of best practice s regarding storing and securing 4 spent fuel and greater than Class C waste at our sites, and then to 5 articulate those in communications with the Executive Branch and the 6 Congress, and in addressing t he public. Slide 7, please.
7 You asked commenters to address the four questions 8 in the FRN that accompany the draft rule and the Staff believes it would 9 be helpful if we did so today. Let us say first that we remain confident 10 that the federal government will meet its constitutional and statutory 11 obligations to protect citizens from safety and security threats. This 12 slide summarizes we don
=t believe a specific time line is necessary.
13 Please retain ample explanations in the elements of the rule, support 14 the Statement of Considerations, and we do endorse a name change of 15 the rule. Slide 8, please.
16 The draft Federal Register Notice for the proposed final 17 rule states that the analysis in the GE IS provides a regulatory basis for 18 the final rule. It also states that the analyses in the GEIS are based on 19 current technology and regulation. We believe that these two 20 statements require some additional amplification.
21 The storage stick canisters used at our site can support 22 safe storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste for decades to 23 come. Additional research is either underway or will be needed has 24 been identified to specify exactly how much longer these systems can 25 fulfill their safety and security functions with appropriate margins.
26 25 The results of that research will need to be considered 1 with the results of intervening and ongoing policy, legislative, and legal 2 activities. These will determine exactly how long we should proceed to 3 the future in serial acquisition and operation, and decommissioning of 4 prospective dry transfer systems and ISFSI systems and sites.
5 Therefore, the above language both here and where applicable in the 6 GEIS ought to be clarified and amplified to better explain that the 7 100-year building requirements are being used in recognition that such 8 rebuilding is probably and surely necessary at some point, that 100 9 years is chosen for the purposes of the GEIS as a reasonable surrogate 10 until those future research needs, information needs are complete and 11 that dry transfer systems may well be needed should the period of that 12 reactor storage extend to or beyond 100 years, and is similarly being 13 used as a reasonable surrogate. Refining the language will also lessen 14 any confusion over what the NRC regulations are now or will be after 15 the collection of the analysi s and necessary information.
16 We have some additional comments on the GEIS in 17 our full statement, and with that, Slide 9, please.
18 As a final matter, we wish to return to the task you have 19 before you as additional plants shut down and face decommissioning 20 after this rulemaking. The newly shutdown plants in the Agency seem at 21 times to be straining to reach decisions that address matters that were 22 settled when a number of our plants shut down many years ago. We 23 hope the Agency can draw on these precedents and allow the process 24 of modifying and deleting requirements at the newly shutdown sites, 25 where warranted, by the sharply reduced hazards of having the fuel 26 26 permanently removed from the reactor, and having pledged to cease 1 operating.
2 We are working to inform that process within the 3 shutdown community, and hope the NRC can take advantage of 4 personnel, resources, recorded decision documents, and other 5 measures to facilitate current decision making and provide increased 6 clarity with which the NRC and licensees can address community
=s 7 questions. Slide 10, please.
8 In summary, we believe the draft rule addresses the 9 deficiencies found by the court, that the Commission should expand 10 and clarify its written material ancillary to the rule, as well as the GEIS, 11 and that the Commission must seek ways to exercise its safety and 12 security policy role in spent fuel management to insure it does not 13 passively endorse onsite storage.
14 Thanks again for the opportunity to appear today, and 15 be glad to answer any questions.
16 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Thank you. And the final 17 presentation for this panel is from Geoff Fettus who is the Senior 18 Project Attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
19 MR. FETTUS: Thank you very much, Chairman 20 Macfarlane and fellow Commissioners. Thank you very much for having 21 us this afternoon.
22 Rather than read a statement to you and go into our 23 extraordinarily detailed comments, I thought I
=d go into more of a 24 30,000-foot range and hopefully be very concise so we can get right to 25 the questions, because I think I have some very different perspectives 26 27 from my excellent colleague, Ellen, and let
=s just get right to it. First 1 slide, please.
2 The three primary points, and I
=m not going to read the 3 slides to you either. And, by the way, fortunately you won
=t have to read 4 the slides here, a lot of them, because some of them I hope you take 5 back and you pour yourself a coffee or a tea, whatever it is you drink, 6 and you actually do read a few things at some point as you start to 7 deliberate. And the first thing you need to read is the court decision from 8 June of 2012. And the next thing you need to start reading are the range 9 of comments that you got, but always go back to the court decision and 10 look at what they said.
11 And I tried to, in thinking about what I was going to take 12 a very short period of time to talk to you about today in that 30,000-foot 13 level, I thought I
=d start with and end with we have a fundamentally 14 different conception of NEPA. And I think that
=s evident in our 15 comments and all the particulars, but let
=s talk more broadly what we 16 think that is. We also tried to provide you a path forward in our 17 comments, and I
=ll get to that. Next slide, please.
18 And then a fourth point just to make sure, there
=s 19 nothing new here today that I
=m going to bring up, and there
=s nothing 20 that adds to the record. We
=re going to talk about what we wrote. Next 21 slide, please.
22 Here=s what I think the fundamental disagreement is.
23 And it=s not an EIS that
=s focused on a rule per se, it
=s that the NRC 24 thinks the proposed action is whether or not it writes a rule. We think the 25 proposed action is the continued licensing of nuclear power plants that 26 28 allows for the production of nuclear waste then will have attendant 1 environmental impacts as it has to be stored perhaps indefinitely. And, 2 again, this is where I encourage you to go back and read the June 2012 3 decision from the D.C. Circuit. Next slide, please.
4 Here=s your proposed action, there
=s the site. Next 5 slide, please. Again, you don
=t need to read it. Here
=s your purpose and 6 need. I just wanted to make sure that I was quoting directly and in the 7 slide as you guys do go back and take time to reflect. Next slide, please.
8 And here are your al ternatives, and they
=re very concise, and they
=re 9 focused on the rule, and they
=re focused on ways of carrying out the 10 rule, or not even doing a rule is one of your alternatives. So, next slide, 11 please. 12 What actually happened? As I said, I
=m going to be 13 concise so we can get to the questions. So, by statute a major federal 14 action is one that significantly affects the quality of the human 15 environment. Performing what we called in our comments the minor 16 bureaucratic act of selecting among four alternative ways to complete 17 the NEPA response is not a major federal action that affects the 18 environment. Such an act in and of itself doesn
=t rise and trigger 19 NEPA. Next slide, please.
20 We looked broad and far to find any comparable 21 federal agencies that had done such an EIS triggered by a rule and we 22 found nothing even close to comparable in terms of prior federal 23 analyses, in terms of what the alternatives were. There were EISs that 24 were focused on rulemaking, but then they burrowed into actual 25 environmental cost-benefit which this doesn
=t do in the alternatives, 26 29 which is the heart of NEPA. Next slide, please.
1 So, here I simply quoted a bit from our comments just 2 to make sure that there
=s no departure today, nothing new that you 3 haven=t heard before. And the focus is on first a major federal action, 4 but we didn
=t just criticize what you did, we decided to try and be 5 constructive, as we always try and be constructive, and have a long 6 history with this Agency and others of trying to offer solutions and a path 7 forward, so next slide, please.
8 We actually frame for you a legally compliant definition 9 of a proposed action that actually focuses on a rule. And I
=ll read part of 10 it to you.
AThe NRC proposes to reinstate as a predetermined stage of 11 its individual licensing actions,@ and by the way, I
=ll stop right there. I 12 wanted to parse this for you.
13 Read the 2012 decision and look at how the D.C.
14 Circuit understood the Waste Confidence rulemaking as a predicate for 15 licensing actions. It
=s not B- go back to our scoping comments, as well, 16 and the exchange of letters that Ms. Curran and I had with the 17 Chairman in the process prior to the scoping even coming out. So, I 18 guess that was post-scoping/pre-draft to be precise.
19 So, first the NRC proposes to reinstate as a 20 predetermined stage of individual licensing action for nuclear reactors 21 and independent spent fuel storage installations a binding rule that 22 generically considers and determines for the purposes of future 23 licensing reasonably foreseeable, and you can read the rest 24 yourselves. But that would actually frame a federal action that I think 25 would lead necessarily to site-specific EISs at some point down the 26 30 road, but that would frame a defensible federal action under the law.
1 Next slide, please.
2 And once you actually frame such a federal action you 3 would actually create B- what would flow from it would be a range of 4 alternatives, so we also put that in our comments. And I decided, it was 5 actually an office discussion whether or not I would bring page 32 of our 6 comments with it and hand it across the table again. 32 is if you actually 7 printed the PDF of the comments that we submitted to the Agency, it
=s 8 not an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper, it
=s 8.5 by 14 because it wouldn
=t fit. 9 And, thankfully, computer systems or the word processing systems now 10 allow us to do that. It
=s pretty fantastic, so I think it
=s page 32. And we 11 actually drew up a matrix of what a proposed action would look like, and 12 then what the actual alternatives would look like. So, next slide, please.
13 And you would actually look and be able to contrast the 14 issues of real alternatives with real environmental costs and benefits.
15 And the alternatives that we selected for you, again we tried to think in 16 terms of what the Agency needs to actually do before it to comply with 17 NEPA, contrasted with the current approach of what we think is a focus 18 on the minor bureaucratic task of selecting whether or not you
=re 19 going to do a rule. Next slide, please.
20 On the matrix on page 32 that we hope you reflect on 21 with your coffee or your tea, are relevant time scales, alternative 22 storage modes, safety-relevant classes of spent fuel, the high burn-up 23 question raised by my colleagues, storage cask technology options, 24 and then most important, reliance on erosion of institutional controls as 25 a function of time which B- and, again, there
=s a long discussion in our 26 31 comments on the issue of institutional controls, and DOE
=s Scenario 2 1 where they look at the loss of institutional controls at independent spent 2 fuel storage facilities. Next slide, please.
3 When you actually look at the factors we said okay, 4 now what would the NRC actually have to look at? What would a real 5 EIS that burrowed into this look at? Well, we actually came up with a 6 no-action that we think you
=re facing which is continued storage. I 7 mean, as far as I know spent nuclear fuel exists and it
=s not going away, 8 so its baked in under the existing licenses. Reasonable Alternative 1, 9 license extension only based on current licenses. Reasonable 10 Alternative 2, proposed reactors with COLs B- I=m sorry, I violated the 11 no acronyms, the Construction and Operating License applications 12 received by 2030. Reasonable Alternative 3, current market share 13 scenario of spent fuel production which would be substantial growth for 14 the industry as far as we see going out to 2030, or even Reasonable 15 Alternative 4, a major growth scenario. So, we think all of those would 16 be reasonable alternatives to examine. And none of it would be 17 reinventing the wheel for you. Next slide, please.
18 So, what should happen now in my brief time? This is 19 what we think the court directed you to do, is to identify the major 20 federal action. We think that was done for you in that decision, and you 21 disregarded what the court has said here in the draft thus far. But, 22 number two, you have to evaluate the environmental effects of failing to 23 secure permanent storage, and that
=s directly from the decision.
24 Number three, to properly examine the future dangers and key 25 consequences with respect to spent fuel pool fires and leaks, and that
=s 26 32 from the decision. And we think thus far you failed to perform these 1 actions. Next slide, please, final slide.
2 We don=t think B- yes, will this take longer? Yes. But we 3 don=t think a lot of this is reinventing the wheel. There are places to start 4 and work that
=s ongoing and analyses that can be incorporated and 5 expanded upon. And we think the Draft GEIS needs to be withdrawn, 6 we think it needs to be rescoped and then reissued along the lines of 7 what I=ve described, and on page 32 we
=ve tried to give you a roadmap.
8 And we thank you very much for allowing us this time to speak with you 9 today, and I look forward to your questions.
10 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Thank you. Okay, thank 11 you all for your presentations. We move to the question part and we
=re 12 going to start off with Commissioner Svinicki.
13 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: I want to add my thanks 14 to those of Chairman Macfarlane for certainly your presence here 15 today, and for the aspects of the comments submitted by each of your 16 organizations that you
=ve highlighted here today. And I wanted B- I was 17 thinking about Mr. Fettus
= comments about the full complement of 18 comments, so I think from just the organizations represented here at 19 the table when we printed those out, and I don
=t know if any of my 20 colleagues brought their binders down here today, but it
=s a stack of 21 papers, so just from your organizations, not the full comment record. I 22 think it=s three or four inches worth of paper, so I know that we gave you 23 a period of time that is inadequate for you to cover the full range of 24 topics that your organizations developed on Waste Confidence. And I 25 also want to acknowledge, as the Chairman did, that we had a lot of 26 33 commenters who are not represented here today. We did our best to 1 get a diversity of viewpoints but, of course, you are representative of a 2 much larger comment record, and organizations that B- and individuals, 3 as well, who presented comments both perhaps consistent with those 4 we=ve heard here today, and other perspectives that in the interest of 5 time in this meeting were not able to present. But, certainly, the 6 comment record itself is avail able for each of you to examine.
7 As Chairman Macfarlane noted, the structure of this 8 meeting is also a little bit confining today because we do both have all of 9 the Waste Confidence proposed contentions that are held in abeyance 10 upon order of the Commission in various proceedings. And then we 11 also are at a phase in this B- in the procedural process that we
=re going 12 through that we are in receipt of the body of public comment but the 13 Staff will struggle when they come up here with the fact that they have 14 not yet fully evaluated and gone th rough that comment record.
15 So with the awkwardness that that presents, I think a 16 question that occurred to me certainly when I
=ve been in your position, I 17 have taken a body, a much larger body of information and then I have 18 been confined to present and highlight only various aspects of it, it may 19 be that some of you, if you
=re like me, as you listen to other presenters 20 you thought, you know, I considered emphasizing that in my 21 presentation, and I didn
=t. So, I wanted to first provide an opportunity if 22 any of you upon hearing your fellow presenters and what they had to 23 say, if there was anything within the four corners of the comments that 24 you submitted from your organizations that you now say I should have 25 emphasized that, and I would like to take a moment to make that point 26 34 in response to any other commenter. Is there anyone who
=s thought 1 about that and wanted to add to anything that they presented already 2 today? Mr. Fettus, if you would like, because you kind of even teed up 3 that thought a little bit, so you mentioned Ms. Ginsberg and some points 4 of departure you take.
5 MR. FETTUS: Well, thank you so much for the 6 opportunity, again. A couple of things I
=d like to echo. First, I
=d like to 7 echo Mr. Sipos
= point that we really believe that this shouldn
=t be a 8 hindrance, rather an opportunity to do the analysis right, because this is 9 an analysis the public interest community has waited for B- and I 10 speak for just NRDC, but I can say the public interest community has 11 waited for this analysis for nearly four decades since this process first 12 came out of an NRDC petition for rulemaking in the late 1970s. And I 13 think a strong generic review then triggers initial B- then triggers strong 14 site supplemental reviews is a crucial process for the Agency to 15 undertake, especially to engender public trust in what
=s been a long and 16 winding road for the search for repositories.
17 And you=re familiar with my work on Capitol Hill as well 18 from our respective paths and there
=s a long public record that both I 19 have and NRDC has on support for a strong science-based repository 20 program. So, we are deeply in favor of a repository program. I actually 21 think it=s going to end up being repositories but, again, you can look at 22 my public testimony before Senators Wyden and Murkowski on these 23 issues. But just the actual act of support for finding a repository and 24 having statements B- and this is responding to Mr. Callahan, having 25 statements of Agency support for finding a repository and against 26 35 indefinite storage. Well, I think we
=re all against indefinite storage. I 1 mean, nobody thinks this is the right way to go. We have different 2 visions on what would constitute a proper repository program, but doing 3 this analysis can help inform that path forward for Congress and 4 everybody else in a way that
=s very important.
5 And as a last thing, in doing that analysis there
=s a long 6 discussion in our comments which I hope you read on institutional 7 controls and DOE
=s Scenario 2 which was its section of its EIS where it 8 looked at the loss of institutional controls at spent fuel pools and 9 independent storage facilities at sites around the country. And we think 10 we raised a number of criticisms of DOE
=s Scenario 2, but I
=d like to 11 stress something we stressed in our comments.
12 DOE=s Scenario 2 they conducted I think in
>99 or 13 2000, so it
=s dated but it
=s not that dated, it
=s a starting point. You don
=t 14 have to reinvent the wheel. Just referencing it is inadequate under 15 NEPA. I mean, that
=s a meaning that doesn
=t remotely constitute a hard 16 look. However, using that as a starting point for the analysis and 17 addressing the issues of high burn-up fuel and a whole bunch of things 18 that will need to be done to improve upon that analysis, that's NEPA, 19 that=s a start, so thank you fo r the opportunity, Commissioner.
20 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Thank you very much.
21 Did anyone else have any points that they would like to raise? Yes, Mr.
22 Callahan.
23 MR. CALLAHAN: Just very briefly, I shared Ron
=s 24 frustration, if you will, about the indefinite storage. Hopefully, that 25 statement, just the very statement itself can survive in whatever product 26 36 of your work is, that is, you
=re not endorsing it. And we continue to try to 1 suggest ways, and suggest that you look for ways limited as you are to 2 exercise some analysis to articulate and advance those thoughts. But 3 that=s what struck me in Ron
=s statement.
4 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Okay, thank you. Would 5 anyone else like to amplify? Mr. Johnson?
6 MR. JOHNSON: Just from my perspective from 7 outside looking in, as just a general citizen here but I
=m an elected 8 official from the Prairie Island Indian Community, my role is to govern 9 and I haven
=t the capacity to go beyond that as far as in the nuclear 10 industry here. And I think I
=ve kind of encroached on that line, which I
=m 11 doing it for the safety of our community. But I
=d much rather concentrate 12 some of my duties and responsibilities to governing than having to 13 address an issue that hopefully the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory 14 Commission, and the Department of Energy who are part of this federal 15 government can help in coming to a corrective solution on our nuclear 16 waste in America here today. So, that
=s the way I look at it. Thank you.
17 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Thank you. And, again, 18 we really appreciate your traveling to be present to communicate that in 19 person. 20 MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.
21 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Thank you. Did either of 22 the B- any of the rest of the panel want to say anything?
23 MS. GINSBERG: I
=ll go next. Thank you.
24 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Okay.
25 MS. GINSBERG: And I would endorse what Mr. Fettus 26 37 said which is there is stark contrast between his view and mine. I think 1 it=s important, though, and this is really the tip of the iceberg, but I think 2 it=s very important to recognize what this rulemaking is and what this 3 rulemaking is not. And this rulemaking is a review of onsite and offsite 4 storage for the period following license termination, license expiration 5 until disposal. It is not a fundamental review of the federal government
=s 6 consideration of repositories. It
=s not a fundamental view of a variety of 7 other things that were mentioned today, so I just think it
=s important in 8 the context of this conversation to remember what the rulemaking 9 focuses on, what the court addressed, and what the court said. Thanks.
10 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Okay, thank you. And, 11 Mr. Sipos, I have one and a half minutes but I
=ll give it to you if you 12 would like. I have a feeling you might have some contrasting points.
13 MR. SIPOS: Yes. Thank you, Commissioner. One item 14 that Ms. Ginsberg referenced was that there might be a possibility for 15 the states to pursue issues in individual licensing proceedings, and we 16 just don=t see that. We see the rule as an attempt to terminate that or cut 17 that off. And we do think as a government, as a participant in the federal 18 system that the state with, you know, competent attorneys, hopefully, 19 and experienced experts can bring concepts to the Commission
=s 20 consideration that can be the basis of alternatives, and possibly 21 cost-effective alternatives, and that that would B- that that is a societal 22 benefit. And we feel very strongly that there must be that opportunity 23 either here or B- we think it should be here, but it has to be someplace.
24 Thank you.
25 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Thank you. I thank you 26 38 all. Thank you, Chairman.
1 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Thank you very much.
2 Commissioner Apostolakis.
3 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: Thank you. There 4 are two issues that are not very clear in my mind. One is this generic 5 versus site-specific analysis, and the other has to do with the remote 6 and speculative scenario, so let
=s start with the generic.
7 Mr. Sipos, you said B- I think you said that if the NRC is 8 to do a generic EIS picking Indian Point as a case study rather than 9 some other study, of course, that would create problems for other sites 10 that would feel that that
=s not representative. And then I believe Mr.
11 Fettus said that you
=re for site-specific analysis, or something to that 12 effect? 13 MR. FETTUS: Yes.
14 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: Okay. So, I
=d like 15 some elaboration on this. What s hould the Agency do? I mean, there 16 are site-specific features. Can a generic statement cover those, or do 17 you want a generic statement to be supplemented by site-specific 18 analyses? What B- can you clarify that for me?
19 MR. SIPOS: Yes, Commissioner, I will try to do B- I will 20 try to clarify it for you. Each site poses B- has a different profile, and it
=s 21 not just is it a BWR or a PWR. It is what is B- what are the 22 characteristics of the human environment within 50 miles of that plant.
23 And a severe pool accident at Wolf Creek would likely lead to different 24 consequences than a severe pool accident at Indian Point. And I 25 viewed many of your meetings, and you
=ve had discussions about risk, 26 39 likelihood of events, times to consequences. I believe you returned to 1 that in the last meeting in January on the spent fuel pool consequence 2 study. And given the unique profiles of each site, 60, 65 sites, there are 3 likely going to be different environmental consequences, so as the 4 Commission has done elsewhere in other contexts for severe 5 accidents, we in New York State believe it would be appropriate in the 6 context of spent nuclear fuel, which has sort of been off the table for a 7 while going back to NUREG-1150, going back to other examinations 8 have been focused on reactor, what is the reactor risk? And we could 9 also talk about what is the site risk? And I know that
=s been another 10 topic of conversation, but we believe that through NEPA, through a 11 cost-benefit analysis, through some of the tools that the federal 12 government has developed, that there would be a path to identify 13 cost-beneficial alternatives. And it may not be for every facility, and it 14 may not be that ever y state wishes to B- there may be many states who 15 don=t wish to B- who don=t have concerns, but if a state does have a 16 concern we think an adequately resourced, competently staffed state 17 effort, that there should be an opportunity for that. I don
=t know if I
=ve 18 addressed your question.
19 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: We
=re getting 20 close. You probably have something to say.
21 MS. GINSBERG: Yes. I was just going to add, you 22 know, reasonable scenarios are part of the NEPA analysis. And it
=s 23 important that we look at the probability times consequences as the 24 Agency did. The recent consequence study just said that for B- it=s 25 only for several months, and several is defined B- is a relatively short 26 40 period of time, that there
=s any risk of a spent fuel pool fire. I needn
=t tell 1 you, Commissioner, you
=re the PRA expert, but the risk goes down to 2 virtually zero after just a few months when the spent fuel cools in the 3 pool. And then, moreover, it
=s moved to casks thereafter.
4 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: But how does that 5 address the issue of site-specific versus generic?
6 MS. GINSBERG: There
=s nothing unique about the risk 7 of the actual incident or release, if you will, for Indian Point as opposed 8 to anywhere else.
9 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: Yes, it
=s a 10 statement you have on your Slide 5 that the site-specific cost-benefit 11 analysis will not tip the scale, something like that.
12 MR. SIPOS: And, Commissioner, we think it would.
13 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: Now, this other 14 thing, no repository forever. Am I to take it from your comments, Ms.
15 Ginsberg, that you believe this is a remote and speculative scenario?
16 MS. GINSBERG: We believe it
=s highly unlikely, and 17 that the Agency has appropriately taken a much more rational and 18 reasonable approach considering various time frames, the 60-year time 19 frame, and then the 100-year time frame. It
=s not that the Agency didn
=t 20 look at this, which is what NEPA requires. NEPA requires that there be 21 consideration given the court
=s decision, with which I might add we 22 take issue, but the D.C. Circuit decided what the D.C. Circuit decided.
23 So, we think that, basically, the Agency has done what needs to be 24 done under NEPA. There
=s a hard look that
=s been taken at the two 25 earlier periods. If you look at international B- the international 26 41 experience, there
=s reason to believe that within 35 years one could 1 establish a repository, so 60 years, 100-year time frame are very 2 reasonable.
3 The Agency looked at the no repository time frame, or 4 pardon me, scenario, and deci ded that that wasn
=t the likely scenario.
5 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: But in your answer 6 you used the word Aunlikely,@ but in your slides you use the word 7 A remote.@ Am I to take those to the B- 8 MS. GINSBERG: Pardon me?
9 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: Remote and 10 speculative?
11 MS. GINSBERG: I would argue it
=s remote and 12 speculative. The D.C. Circuit had a slightly different view of it, so I think 13 highly unlikely and remote and speculative here can be considered as 14 representing the same concept.
15 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: How does one 16 prove that? Do you have to prove it that it
=s remote B- or is it a matter of 17 judgment? I don
=t know how I would do that.
18 MR. FETTUS: Oh, I
=m happy to talk to this, 19 Commissioner.
20 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: Oh, you B- 21 MS. GINSBERG: And I
=d probably be happy to 22 respond.
23 MR. FETTUS: First, I
=d like to B- this Commission is 24 well aware of its obligations, and I
=ve known all of you for a long time.
25 You=re well aware of your obligations, and you work very hard to carry 26 42 them out. And what the D.C. Circuit wrote in it s June opinion of 2012 is 1 law. And the D.C. Circuit invalidated the Commission
=s conclusions as 2 a whole, and it didn
=t just remand the Waste Confidence Rule, it 3 vacated it. It
=s gone, gone in its entirety. And when they vacated it, they 4 vacated everything in it.
5 And I just need to stress so clearly that go back and 6 read B- as I started today with my 30,000-foot proposal, go back to the 7 decision and read that first. And one of the things they talk about was 8 there is no basis for confidence that we will have a repository. And the 9 Agency needs to analyze what that means.
10 It is not wholly unreasonable, remote or speculative to 11 consider that the federal government or B- which we don
=t need to go 12 re-litigate the many decades ago decision for the federal government to 13 assume the industry
=s burden of the waste. That is as B- but there
=s no 14 reason to believe right now, despite the extraordinary efforts of a lot of 15 brilliant people to presume that we will arrive at a repository, or 16 repositories in any near-term future. The Blue Ribbon Commission that 17 Chairman Macfarlane sat on worked very hard on this and tried to chart 18 out a roadmap with the assistance of NEI, with the assistance of NRDC, 19 and many others.
20 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: But you are using 21 the word B- 22 MR. FETTUS: And it
=s not remote B- 23 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS:
B- A believe,@ it=s a 24 matter of belief then. It
=s not a matter of proof.
25 MR. FETTUS: What? What is a matter of belief?
26 43 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: That there will 1 never be a repository or that B- 2 MR. FETTUS: I
=m not saying I believe one way or the 3 other. I=m talking about what NEPA requires the Agency to look at and 4 analyze. And what NEPA requires the Agency to look at very clearly is 5 the potential for not arriving at a final disposal solution. And what does 6 that mean?
7 And we respectfully suggest to you, you don
=t have to 8 reinvent the wheel in starting to look at that. You have DOE started that 9 process. You have a lot more to do, and a lot of things to fix, and we 10 tried to give you a roadmap there on the inadequacies we saw with that.
11 But, again, this is not starting from whole cloth. NEPA requires this 12 analysis.
13 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: I must say I
=m still 14 perplexed by that. Mr. Johnson here criticized the NRC Staff
=s assertion 15 that every 100 years indefinitely we will be doing that. What do you 16 expect the Staff to say? Well, maybe B- I ran out of my time.
17 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Commissioner 18 Magwood.
19 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Thank you, Chairman.
20 Well, first, let me thank all of you for not just being here today, but for 21 participating in this process. We received so many thousands of 22 comments from across the country, and it
=s gratifying to know that 23 people are paying attention to these issues. You know, whatever point 24 of view they bring to it, whatever opinion they have about it, a lot of 25 people took a lot of time and effort to contribute to our analysis, so we 26 44 really appreciate that, and it
=s very important.
1 And I also wanted to particularly thank Mr. Johnson for 2 appearing today. It
=s always important, I think, for us to get the 3 perspective from Tribal governments. We did that all too infrequently in 4 these issues, so I appreciate you making the effort to come here today 5 and sharing your views.
6 And since you
=re sitting here, let me do an ad for our 7 new Tribal policy initiative that we
=ve been working on, and we
=ve been 8 receiving comments on. So, I hope you participate in that and give us 9 your views on that.
10 Of course, I also reflect that this is the first Friday of 11 spring. I didn
=t think this is how I
=d be spending my Friday afternoon on 12 the first Friday of spring, but it
=s good to be here with people who care 13 about an important issue.
14 I also wanted to highlight Mr. Fettus. As he pointed out, 15 NRDC provided not just negative comments, but what B- positive 16 comments in terms of not just no, but here
=s what we think you should 17 do. And I think that
=s very important in all these kinds of debates 18 because all too often NRC receives these just negative comments that 19 we=re doing the wrong thing, we
=re bad people, we have bad 20 motivations, and never find that at all constructive. And NRDC, to its 21 credit, often tries to provide its views in a way that can be acted upon, 22 so I appreciate that, and appreciate the extra effort that went into that.
23 So, I have a couple of substantive questions, but I want 24 to ask a process question first of all of you. This process has been going 25 on for several B- for many months now, and I just wanted to see if 26 45 anyone felt there was anything in our process that either truncated the 1 public dialogue on this, or prevented people from providing their views?
2 Is there something we could have done better? I just ask that blanket 3 question just to start off, and see if anybody has any comment. It was 4 perfect? No. Mr. Callahan.
5 MR. CALLAHAN: Well, I
=ve already noted our respect 6 for Keith and his team. I just can
=t imagine an effort that
=s gone on more 7 B- with more attention to detail and attention to those in the public that 8 wanted to make a comment, and wanted to participate. So, I think it
=s 9 been outstanding.
10 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Thank you.
11 MS. GINSBERG: I would add that I
=ve been doing this 12 a long time, and I don
=t recall a rulemaking where there were roughly 13 13 public meetings throughout the country, multiple Commission briefings, 14 opportunity B- extensive opportunity to submit comments, and 15 availability of Staff the way this Staff has been available, so I really 16 commend B- I echo what Mr. Callahan has said. I commend the Staff 17 because I think they
=ve been extremely open, willing to take comments, 18 and very willing to consider each and every one of them as best I can 19 tell. 20 COMMISSIONER MAGWOO D: Great, thanks.
21 MR. SIPOS: Yes, I would echo the comments of 22 Michael and Ellen, and the State has great respect also for the Staff 23 who was involved and has worked on this rulemaking. There have been 24 a number of meetings around the country. I think that is for the good. I 25 would caution that quantity, however, is not always the be all and end 26 46 all. And the State of New York has tried to present its concerns early 1 and often, if you will, regarding scope, and regarding alternatives, so we 2 are B- we wish B- we very much appreciate being involved in the 3 process. We think it
=s very important, and we do think, again, that NEPA 4 can provide a pathway. You talked about providing suggestions and not 5 just negative comments. I think NEPA can provide the solutions, can 6 provide the hard look, and can prov ide a way forward. Thank you.
7 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Thank you.
8 MR. JOHNSON: Commissioner, I look forward to 9 working with the NRC on the outreach to the Tribal nations. I think that
=s 10 really opened the doors, and it also brings in a different perspective of 11 looking into this issue, and the future. And even though other tribes may 12 not be as in the predicament we
=re in right now, the proximity of the 13 plant, it opens that avenue for other things that may come down the 14 road for the future of nuclear in the industry, whether it be 15 transportation, storage, or whatever it may be. It does, it opens that 16 door of opportunity for the Tribes to sit down face-to-face, 17 government-to-government.
18 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Excellent. Thank you 19 very much.
20 MR. FETTUS: I
=d like to echo my colleagues, that the 21 regional meetings were all to the good in the effort to solicit public 22 comment both at those meetings and by the December 20 th deadline 23 was, again, all to the good. And I also echo John
=s comments, though, 24 that caution should be taken that I wrote in very early after B- almost 25 immediately after the first scoping document came out with our 26 47 concerns, so we
=ve documented our concerns early and often with this 1 process. But the actual process of attempting we think was certainly 2 good and admirable on the Staff
=s part. 3 We think also, though, again with a caution, there were 4 a whole host of ongoing studies that probably should have allowed for a 5 much longer period for Staff to do much more work than it otherwise 6 would have done in the one year it was given to provide a draft.
7 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Okay. Thank you very 8 much. A couple of questions, first for Mr. Sipos. Can you give me the 9 State of New York
=s views on institutional control?
10 MR. SIPOS: Yes. And we did attempt to set this out in 11 our December 20 filing, but it is quite difficult to assume that the 12 institutional controls will be around, and that they will be effective. I think 13 it is almost in a way B- it is a way of B- and I don
=t mean this to be flip, but 14 it is almost a way of assuming away the problem, because I think in our 15 lives, in our own life span we have all seen dramatic changes. I think 16 back to, you know, when my grandmother was born in, you know, the 17 1880s, you know, the changes that she had seen.
18 I think it
=s very difficult, and that one is getting out on 19 thin ice when one says what we think we know today is going to take 20 place is going to occur for the next 60, 100, 1,000 years. And I do think 21 that=s where NEPA
=s hard look can come into play. And I don
=t think 22 we=re getting into remote and speculative in that way. In fact, in some 23 ways we=re assuming things will take place when they haven
=t even 24 been sort of gone to retail, or they haven
=t even come to the market yet.
25 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: So, in the State
=s 26 48 internal process, there
=s lots of regulatory organizations in the state that 1 do various environmental activities. They assume that institutional 2 control cannot be relied on long-term, they make that general 3 assumption?
4 MR. SIPOS: I don
=t know that the St ate has a program 5 quite like this that involves the time lines such as that we are talking 6 about with waste. I do know B- this is more anecdotal, we recently 7 finished up a program or a proceeding concerning an application for a 8 rate change for a utility, and part of that involved looking out into the 9 future, and taking into account for important long-lived assets, taking 10 into account a horizon of 60 years or more. And taking into account 11 climate change, which I think is another B- which is another issue here.
12 So, again, we may not be looking at an issue that has a 10,000 or 13 longer year life span, but in siting a power plant or similar facility looking 14 out into the future and what will be, for example, the sea level rise, the 15 storm surge, what will be the impacts, what does FEMA tell us about 16 these potentials, what are the different scenarios? So, we do look at 17 B- and it=s not exactly institutional control, but it
=s projecting out, and 18 projecting out and taking a hard look at what could happen.
19 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Okay, very well.
20 Thank you very much. I have 32 seconds left so I
=ll hold my last 21 question, maybe we
=ll have another opportunity to talk. But, again, 22 appreciate everyone
=s participation today. Thank you, Chairman.
23 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Commissioner 24 Ostendorff.
25 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Thank you, 26 49 Chairman. I want to add my thanks to those of others for your being 1 here today. I also note, as the Chairman indicated in her opening 2 remarks, that we are at a somewhat, I think the word was used by 3 another colleague as confining or limiting as to what areas we can 4 probe here given our adjudicatory responsibilities on the various 5 licensing actions, and where this rule stands.
6 Having said that, I think we have all greatly benefitted 7 today from hearing your perspectives. I think everyone has presented 8 their perspectives very clearly, and we also acknowledge there may be 9 significant, and in some cases are di fferences between where you are, 10 and where we may end up. We don
=t know. But I think everybody has 11 been very articulate and clear in saying where they are coming from.
12 And, Geoff, I really appreciate because we worked before together 13 years ago on the Hill, and I think having B- I=m not saying whether I 14 agree or disagree with your alternative construction going forward, but 15 the fact that you had a proposed solution, irrespective of what my 16 opinion might be of that, I admire and re spect the efforts taken to think 17 about it in a constructive, problem-solving way. So, thank you for doing 18 that. 19 I also think we benefit from hearing the phrase, A the 20 stark contrast
@ between different panel members here. That helps us be 21 able to hear the give and take, the challenge in your positions, and the 22 rebuttal of it I think is helpful for our decision making process. So, I do 23 have a few questions. Let me start off with Mr. Johnson.
24 Ron, it=s good to you see again. I enjoyed my visit to 25 Prairie Island in November 2012. I sat in your office there on the 26 50 perimeter and saw out the window that you were talking about, so never 1 having been there until then, it was hard to appreciate the proximity 2 issue. So, thank you for that visit. I think the relationship the NRC has 3 with you and your community is very strong, and very positive, and 4 you=ve been a very strong leader in trying to take a pragmatic safety 5 approach that benefits everybody.
6 I did want to ask a question of you. I know 7 Commissioner Magwood, I think, asked this question, as well, in New 8 York. Let me ask you in the context of your Slide 9, concern with 9 institutional controls, you know, 100 years in the future, and so forth. I 10 want just to kind of bore down a little bit. Are there particular aspects of 11 institutional controls given your particular community that you think 12 ought to be highlighted? I know you provided comments in this area, but 13 I don=t know if there
=s any particular examples that you wanted to 14 mention. 15 MR. JOHNSON: No, I can go back to when the Nuclear 16 Waste Policy Act was passed, and movi ng forward. It was, I believe by 17 1995 that casks were supposed to be removed, and the Yucca 18 licensing, in regards to what B- we=re just wanting the waste to be 19 removed. But as those time lines have gone and passed, and we
=re 20 looking at other new avenues with the Blue Ribbon Commission
=s 21 recommendation, here we
=re going down that same avenue again. And 22 what we=re trying to do is just make B- just try to move what could be a 23 potential, or may be an i ssue there down the road.
24 And our B- we fall back on this. The Tribe spends 25 millions of dollars on this issue that could be spent elsewhere to 26 51 enhance the community as economic growth and everything that we 1 need. But, you know, as we go along I think we
=re looking for some light 2 at the end of the tunnel that we can at least look at that perspective and 3 give some hope to our next seven generations coming up that this is 4 something they won
=t have to deal with. And we
=re kind of leaving 5 something for them to deal with when it
=s not their responsibility.
6 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: So, it
=s really your 7 concerns with how the federal government has implemented the 8 Nuclear Waste Policy Act obligations?
9 MR. JOHNSON: It is. It is.
10 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Okay.
11 MR. JOHNSON: I think that in fairness, that
=s B- and I 12 think it B- I just think it
=s the law of the land, and hopefully we can follow 13 that law of the land, unless something else changes that law of the land.
14 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Okay, thank you.
15 Appreciate that.
16 Mr. Sipos, I appreciated your presentation very much.
17 I=ve got two adult kids who live in New York City so I
=ve been up there a 18 number of times the last fe w years and understand the geography, 19 proximity issues you
=re raising. I was at Indian Point for two days last 20 summer with staffers from the two U.S. Senator
=s offices, and one of the 21 B- actually, two different Representatives that had equities in the 22 emergency planning zone, and the evacuation area.
23 I do want ask you one question. On your slide, I think 24 it=s your Slide 2, I think this was kind of a clarification. The bottom bullet 25 you said the treatment of severe accidents is flawed. I want to make 26 52 sure I understand that. In your presentation today I know that there
=s a 1 time limit. I think you mentioned specifically concerns on a spent fuel 2 pool accident as being B- that was the example you used. Are there 3 other types of accidents, or is that the one that you
=re really referring to 4 there? 5 MR. SIPOS: Given this rulemaking, I was confining the 6 State=s comments to the dense storage of spent nuclear fuel at the 7 pools at Indian Point. Conceivably, there could also be an issue 8 regarding dry casks, but really today we were focusing on the dense 9 storage in the spent fuel pools, and the consequences that could flow 10 from that.
11 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Okay, thank you.
12 Appreciate that.
13 Let me ask Ms. Ginsberg a question here. On your 14 Slide 10, and you had some proposed revised wording for 10 CFR 15 51.23. I want to make sure I understood one aspect here.
16 Your slide has a proposal, you used the phrase 17 Areasonable assurance,@ whereas, I believe the current wording has 18 been as feasible. I
=m curious, is there a significant distinction between 19 those two? Is there B- I want to make sure I understand where you
=re 20 coming from.
21 MS. GINSBERG: Sure. Yes, we think it
=s valuable to 22 maintain the findings of B- that were previously in the Waste Confidence 23 decision. The other thing is that this demonstrates the substantial 24 record that the Agency has amassed to support this decision, and we 25 think there
=s ample basis for a reasonab le assurance decision.
26 53 And, finally, to the extent that there
=s any reference 1 whatsoever to the Atomic Energy Act in the earlier decisions prior to the 2 Minnesota v. NRC, we think that this addresses any potential 3 questions that might be asked as a result.
4 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Okay, thank you.
5 Thank you all. Thank you, Chairman.
6 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay, my turn. I
=m going 7 to start with Ms. Ginsberg. And on your Slide 4 you
=re talking about your 8 assessment of the no repos itory scenario. And you say B- you said, I 9 think, that it was wholly unreasonable that the federal government 10 would fail to meet its obligations within 60 years or so. That was your 11 view. 12 So, one question I have in trying to understand that is 13 in 1983 would you have thought it whol ly unreasonable that the federal 14 government would have failed to meet its obligations under the Nuclear 15 Waste Policy Act as written in 1983 by 2014?
16 MS. GINSBERG: Well, let me answer by saying no, but 17 also follow that with, I think it
=s a false construct to assume simply 18 because it
=s taken 32 years for us to get to the point where this is really 19 at the forefront of policy maker discussion, to assume that thousands 20 and thousands of years from now it still won
=t occur. I just B- I don=t think 21 that=s reasonable. I think NEPA clearly suggests that what you need to 22 assess is B- are reasonable scenarios. And the Agency has gone 23 beyond, in my view, what the court required. It looked at the no 24 repository scenario, but determined that that scenario wasn
=t likely, and 25 then went to the other more likely scenarios, which are supported, 26 54 basically, by international experience, as well as the fact that there is 1 still a requirement, a federal statute that requires the federal 2 government to act.
3 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: So, you just said, I think I 4 got this right, that right now the discussion of waste policy is at the 5 forefront of policy discussions.
6 MS. GINSBERG: My opinion.
7 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: That
=s your view, or 8 NEI=s view? 9 MS. GINSBERG: My opinion.
10 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Your opinion. Okay. You 11 also say that the Commission, your recommendation is that the 12 Commission has a finding that a repository will be available when 13 necessary. What do you mean by Awhen necessary?
@ 14 MS. GINSBERG: Well, you
=re looking at a very long 15 horizon here, and we think that the Agency will have ample time to 16 B- actually, there is ample time for the Department of Energy, if that
=s 17 the entity that ends up building the repository, to have one available by 18 the time you
=re talking about.
19 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: I mean metrics for 20 figuring out B- 21 MS. GINSBERG: Okay.
22 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE:
B- what Awhen 23 necessary@ is. 24 MS. GINSBERG: Okay. You
=re talking about a time 25 period following expiration of the current license, plus in some cases 60 26 55 years, or if you take the long time frame, 100 years. So, we believe that 1 when necessary will be within one of those time frames.
2 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: So, the industry
=s view is 3 that when necessary is when everything, the clock for everything runs 4 out. 5 MS. GINSBERG: At least for the first two time frames.
6 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Okay. So, let me 7 ask B- Geoff, let me ask you a couple of questions. On your Slide 14, I 8 think it was, you B- I know you were being timely, and I appreciate that.
9 And you went through a couple of topics here which I would like to hear 10 a little more expansion on.
11 MR. FETTUS: Okay.
12 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: So, if you wouldn
=t mind 13 elaborating on your position relative to one of the things was alternative 14 cask storage technology, storage cask technologies. What do you 15 mean by that?
16 MR. FETTUS: Alternative configurations. I mean, one 17 of the things that B- in bullets 2 and 3, alternative storage modes and 18 configurations, safety-relevant classes. If you look at the matrix on page 19 32 that we provided sort of setting out what needs to be considered and 20 what potential reasonable alternatives the Agency could consider, we 21 tried to lay out, and it
=ll make much more sense. We actually don
=t just 22 have a matrix for you, we have explanatory text for each of the boxes 23 that make sense. So, it
=s hopefully relatively readable. But by that we 24 meant what if pools are still surviving long into the future, because 25 things fell apart and people stopped caring about the pools, so they 26 56 were cool enough that they didn
=t drain and have a fire, but they still 1 drained, and what does that mean?
2 Are we going to need different long-term configurations 3 for different kinds of fuel, which I think the cladding questions we have 4 from high burn-up, certainly lead themselves to questions of 5 configuration. Questions of dual kinds of dry storage configuration, 6 meaning do you have something put into a transportation-ready cask at 7 some point in the future that doesn
=t currently exist now, but may. So, 8 these are all things that are reasonable considerations that may come 9 to pass. So, it
=s that kind of thinking t hat we were talking about.
10 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. So, let me ask you 11 more about the last bullet there, which is reliance versus erosional 12 institutional controls as a function of time. So, can you elaborate a little 13 more on that, what you guys mean by that?
14 MR. FETTUS: Sure. Well, we think B- first, we start with 15 the premise that we share in the court
=s decision that the Agency has to 16 conduct NEPA and do this environmental analysis, and do an analysis 17 of what would happen if you don
=t get a final disposal site, because 18 that=s what you have to go look at. I mean, Commissioner Apostolakis is 19 shaking his head, but just read the decision.
20 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: That
=s not on the 21 record. 22 MR. FETTUS: That
=s not B- okay, right, that
=s true. It
=s 23 not on the record. I strike that, and I amend my previous sentence at the 24 request of Commissioner Apostolakis.
25 First, the Agency needs to look at what the courts 26 57 required you to look at. And we think the question you posed at the very 1 beginning of your time, which is would one have thought when Mo Udall 2 engineered the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in the 1982 3 time frame that we would be sitting here in 2014 debating this issue.
4 And this issue has ebbed and flowed in terms of public debate, it
=s 5 ebbed and flowed in terms of Congr essional attention, and it
=s going to 6 continue to ebb and flow depending on the life cycle of politics, and 7 science, and everything else. So, we found as we wrote in our 8 comments back in B- when did I write them, 2009? We found no basis 9 for confidence.
10 And I=d like to respond to one thing Ms. Ginsberg said 11 in directly addressing your question of why to not rely on institutional 12 controls, and why we think you need to do the NEPA analysis, is B- and 13 why we work so hard in our Congressional work, in the work I do in 14 terms of testifying before Congress. I
=ve laid out what I think, and when 15 I last spoke to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and 16 before the EPW, sorry, Environment and Public Works, the 17 fundamental problem facing our nuclear waste progr am in this country.
18 And it=s B- and with John Sipos here, it
=s interesting to hear him hear 19 this, but it
=s a lack of state authority. It
=s a lack of being normalized with 20 environmental laws. It
=s the Atomic Energy Act exemption from 21 environmental laws, but that federalism is going B- 22 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: I know, we
=ve talked 23 about this before B- 24 MR. FETTUS: We have talked about this directly, 25 Chairman. But that federalism problem that
=s inherent in the way the 26 58 law is currently structured in my opinion is likely going to stymie the 1 progress of nuclear waste for a long time until that
=s changed.
2 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: I have question for you, 3 Mr. Sipos. I
=m sorry, I mispronounced your name before. And maybe 4 you would also like to jump in, but I was wondering if there is a legal 5 view of institutional controls, whether New York State has a legal view, 6 if you=ve added B- if you=ve discussed this in your comments?
7 MR. SIPOS: I think we did discuss it in our comments. I 8 believe some of the other states may have also discussed it. I
=m 9 thinking of possibly the Vermont and Connecticut comments that were 10 also submitted.
11 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay, I can look at those.
12 MR. SIPOS: But I think the State does have a concern 13 that in this context, these institutional controls, or assuming these 14 institutional controls, one, will exist. And, two, that they will be 15 speculative, excuse me, that they will be effective is, in fact, speculation 16 that there is no basis to assume that they will continue, and they will be 17 effective. In a way, as I said before, it
=s almost like assuming the 18 problem away. Oh, we see there
=s an issue, but we assume that they 19 will be taken care of; and, therefore, we don
=t really have to address the 20 consequences. The State believes that that is speculation, and that it 21 really does not get at the heart of what NEPA is trying to do. And, again, 22 NEPA is a tool here, and it could identify alternatives.
23 And I think what B- none of the five of you 24 Commissioners were around I think when this issue started. Certainly, 25 you have a substantial task on your plates for this. The State 26 59 recognizes this, but the B- I think what NEPA is B- one of NEPA
=s 1 objectives is not to just push a problem down the road. And I think it 2 does, again, provide a pathway to a solution.
3 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Just very briefly.
4 MR. JOHNSON: I
=ll echo what Mr. Sipos said here. I 5 concur with what he
=s explaining to you today, and commenting on that, 6 so we=re right along with that comment.
7 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay, great. Thank you.
8 Thank you all. Let me see if B- are there additional questions?
9 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: I almost hate to do it, 10 but I do have to ask a question. Mr. Fettus, you sort of asked that we go 11 back and look at the court decision. I wanted to give you a chance to 12 really respond to something Ms. Ginsberg said, because I read the 13 court decision. There is clear language that says to petitioners the 14 Waste Confidence decision is a major federal action because it is a 15 predicate to every decision to license or relicense a nuclear plant. And 16 the findings made in the Wast e Confidence decision are not 17 challengeable at the time a plant seeks licensure. We agree with 18 petitioners that the Waste Confidence decision rulemaking is a major 19 federal action requiring either a FONSI or an EIS, and how is that 20 consistent with your comment that we
=ve miscast the major federal 21 action? 22 MR. FETTUS: It
=s a fundamental predicate to 23 licensing. This is B- it does not license a particular plant, it allows the 24 licensing of every plant. You cannot separate it from the licensing 25 action. You cannot separate this and treat it as B- there=s an enormous 26 60 effort made in the draft GEIS to treat this as not a licensing action.
1 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: So, this is analysis 2 that you=ve put in beyond the actual court language.
3 MR. FETTUS: Yes. We B- no, it=s not an analysis 4 beyond the actual court language. We hew precisely to the court 5 language. I encourage you to read our detailed comments on just this 6 issue. I don
=t - we actually don
=t use words beyond what the court said, 7 but it=s a fundamental predicate, and the court agreed with petitioners, 8 which was NRDC, et al.
9 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Okay, thank you. I 10 guess I should give Ms. Ginsberg a chance to react. She
=s at the button 11 there. 12 MS. GINSBERG: Yes. For the record, I just want to 13 make clear that we are B- we have a distinct difference of opinion with 14 respect to what Mr. Fettus just said. That
=s obvious from everything 15 that=s been said today, but I want to reinforce it because his emphasis 16 on the court
=s decisions is important, and we agree with that, but we 17 think hewing to the court
=s words are equally important.
18 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Okay, thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Anybody else? No?
20 Okay, we=re going to now take a five-minute break, and then we will 21 hear from the Staff.
22 (Whereupon, the proceedings went off the record at 23 2:47 p.m., and went back on t he record at 2:55 p.m.)
24 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Now we are going 25 to hear from the NRC Staff, so Mike Weber, who is the Deputy 26 61 Executive Director for Materials, Waste, Research, State, Tribal, and 1 Compliance Programs, one of the longest titles in the Agency, will 2 begin. 3 MR. WEBER: Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, 4 and good afternoon, Commissioners. I think this is the first public 5 meeting since Commissioner Magwood
=s announcement came out, so 6 we wanted to congratulate you on your new position. We look forward 7 to continuing to serve with you in your current capacity until such time 8 as you assume a new position, and then we
=ll work with you again. So, 9 congratulations.
10 The Agency established a clear priority on the Waste 11 Confidence matter at the direction of the Commission. I would want to 12 just make a few brief comments and then turn it over to Cathy Haney, 13 the Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
14 It was clear from the direction from the Commission 15 that this needs urgent attention, so we have taken some of our most 16 experienced and most talented environmental specialists from across 17 the Agency to work diligently and in a high-quality way on the Draft 18 Generic Environmental Impact Statement, and now on the Final 19 Generic Environmental Impact Statement, as well as the proposed rule, 20 and preparing for the final rule. So, all the offices, the Nuclear Reactor 21 Regulation, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, et cetera, have 22 made a significant contribution.
23 While the Waste Confidence Directorate resides within 24 the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, it really reflects a 25 concerted effort by multiple offices, including the Office of General 26 62 Counsel. And I think Cathy will touch on those aspects in her remarks.
1 You heard in our first panel, and you are quite aware 2 from the SECY paper that we transmitted to the Commission that we 3 received a large number of divergent and complex comments on the 4 proposed rule and the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement, 5 and we heard that in the first panel. So, the Staff really has its work cut 6 out for us as we go about diligently, thoroughly reviewing those 7 comments and then deciding what changes to propose in the final 8 statement and the draft final rule for the Commission
=s consideration.
9 And I would end my remarks by just emphasizing it
=s 10 really your decision. The Staff is trying to do our best in providing to you 11 quality documents that reflect a t horough and thoughtful consideration 12 of the comments that we
=ve received, and this is a matter that I started 13 working on when I first came to the Agency, so I, too, have a fair bit of 14 experience with it, and recognize its significance to our mission. So with 15 that, let me turn it over to Cathy Haney.
16 MS. HANEY: Thanks, Mike. I
=ll pick up on a couple of 17 the points that Mike made this afte rnoon. We were tasked to develop a 18 Waste Confidence Rule with associated Environmental Impact 19 Statement within two years. To do that we stood up a Waste 20 Confidence Directorate within my office of the Office of Nuclear Material 21 Safety and Safeguards. There are a couple of specialties that we 22 brought to bear in addition to the environmental policy professionals 23 that we had. We also used individuals with expertise in rulemaking, 24 health physics, and various skill sets under the engineering category.
25 And then one that often doesn
=t get recognized, we also brought into 26 63 the group highly skilled communicati on professionals. And I think that
=s 1 one of the reasons why we were successful with some of the outreach 2 efforts that we did, because we brought those individuals skilled with 3 those aspects into the group, and did a lot of brainstorming on how we 4 could enhance the communication on this effort.
5 The Waste Confidence Directorate is staffed by many 6 full-time individuals, but we also have several individuals across the 7 Agency that are helping us on a part-time basis, temporary basis as we 8 need that skill set. We reach out to other offices and ask them to come 9 and help us for maybe a day, for a week, for a month, but we
=re using 10 definitely a matrixed approach as we approach this project.
11 Mike referenced some of the offices that we
=re using, 12 but there are a few that I
=d like to highlight that have supported us with 13 several resources, and then some again just on that part-time basis, but 14 sometimes go unnoticed. The ones that in the full-time staff we have 15 invited individuals to work with us from Federal, State, Materials, and 16 Environmental Management Programs, the Office of Nuclear Reactor 17 Regulation, Office of New Reactors, Office of Congressional Affairs, 18 Office of General Counsel, Office of Nuclear Security and Incident 19 Response, and also the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
20 As I noted earlier, we did have some spots where we 21 just needed to reach out to people for that week or maybe a couple of 22 week effort, and in those cases we had individuals from the regions that 23 helped us. Also, during a lot of the public outreach meetings, as you
=ll 24 hear from Andy, we had regional staff that attended those meetings, 25 and some coming from the localized plants to support us.
26 64 Then also, as I said, there were a few that are the 1 behind the scenes, it
=s the Office of Administration, and also the Office 2 of Information Services. And that
=s where we had Guard Service 3 working with local law enforcement that helped us, and then also with 4 the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer. With all that movement of 5 individuals they quickly responded to our needs and helped that.
6 Lastly, we have support from two laboratories, the 7 Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, and the Center for Nuclear 8 Waste and Regulatory Analysis. And that
=s support that has been to 9 help us with the public comments, as well as getting ready and getting 10 into the scoping period, and preparing the draft and the final 11 Environmental Impact Statement. So, from this I think you can see it 12 truly has been an Agency-wide effort. I
=m very thankful to all the other 13 offices, my peers across the Agency that have helped support me in 14 this effort, and support Keith
=s team as he moved forward.
15 We=re 18 months into the project. We
=re roughly 75 16 percent through that schedule that we started with. The Staff is working 17 extremely hard, and I think it
=s very much a credit to Keith and his staff 18 for how far they
=ve been able to move the project along with the time 19 that we=ve had so far. We
=ve made substantial progress, and we
=re 20 working towards meeting the prescribed schedule. And with that, I
=d like 21 to turn it over to Keith.
22 MR. McCONNELL: Thank you, Cathy, and good 23 afternoon, everyone.
24 I=m going to start off with a summary of the progress 25 today to develop the Generic Environmental Impact Statement and rule 26 65 for continued storage. And then I
=ll turn it over to Andy Imboden to talk 1 about some specifics regarding the five policy issues that the 2 Commission identified, and that we then put in the proposed rule for 3 comment. Andy will also provide a look forward in terms of what we
=re 4 looking at as we move into th is final stage of the process.
5 This diagram depicts in general terms the status of our 6 efforts to develop an updated Waste Confidence Rule supported by a 7 Generic Environmental Impact Statement. We have completed three of 8 the four phases, as Cathy just mentioned. And as you know, the Waste 9 Confidence Directorate began scoping this Generic Environmental 10 Impact Statement to support the updated Waste Confidence Rule on 11 October 25 th of 2012. The scoping process included four public 12 meetings which included two webinars, and a public comment period 13 that ran for 70 days, or until January 2 nd of 2013. The NRC Staff
=s 14 analysis of those public comments was provided in the Scoping 15 Summary Report that was issued in March of 2013.
16 Subsequent to that and following Commission review 17 and approval, we published the Draft Generic Environmental Impact 18 Statement and proposed rule for public comment on September 13 th of 19 2013 for what turned out to be a 98-day public comment period.
20 Although the public comment period was to have lasted for 75 days, or 21 until November 26 th, due to the government shutdown and the need for 22 us to postpone and then reschedule five of our public meetings, it was 23 extended until December 20 th of 2013. We are currently involved in the 24 process of considering and responding to the comments that we 25 received in the public comment period.
26 66 That concludes my summary of the efforts to date, and 1 the rest of my presentation is going to focus on our efforts to allow for 2 ample opportunity for the public to participate in our efforts to update 3 the Waste Confidence Rule. Next slide.
4 Throughout our efforts to develop the Generic 5 Environmental Impact Statement to support an updated Waste 6 Confidence Rule, we
=ve attempted to implement to a high degree 7 NRC=s philosophy on open government. In that regard we approached 8 the Waste Confidence effort with a view that an updated Waste 9 Confidence Rule was, to quote the NRC
=s open government plan, A the 10 public=s business.
@ Both prior to and during the public comment period 11 we undertook an aggressive effort to invite and solicit comment. We 12 aligned our efforts with the three pillars of NRC
=s open government 13 plan, transparency, participation, and collaboration.
14 In that regard, we attempted to be transparent in our 15 efforts by having the monthly facilitated conference calls to insure that 16 interested parties were prepared to respond to the issuance of the draft 17 documents. We informed interested parties of important events through 18 our WCOutreach email LISTSERV, and we actively updated our public 19 website. And, finally, we attempted to take full advantage of the 20 Agency=s social media options to get the word out.
21 In terms of participation, we encouraged involvement 22 in the rulemaking process by providing multiple venues for parties to 23 participate in a meaningful way, including conducting the 13 public 24 meetings that you
=ve heard about, and meeting informally with any and 25 all parties that were interested in the activities we had underway.
26 67 In terms of collaboration, we collaborated with 1 interested parties including working with other federal agencies, 2 including the Environmental Protection Agency, and as you heard 3 earlier from the External Panel, we did hold government-to-government 4 meetings with the Prairie Island Indian Community. And I would like to 5 thank Ron Johnson for his hospitality. He saved us from having to drive 6 through a driving snowstorm to get to one of our 7 government-to-government meetings.
8 Given the opportunity and the resources that the 9 Agency has provided us, our goal is to make the Waste Confidence 10 effort a positive example of NRC
=s commitment to open government.
11 Next slide.
12 In the course of the Waste Confidence public outreach 13 effort we learned a great deal, and we implemented a variety of 14 approaches that proved to be successful. Some of these may be useful 15 in future significant Agency actions, and that
=s why we raise them here 16 for your attention.
17 In particular, the Waste Confidence Directorate was 18 able to emphasize public interaction to a great extent. That resulted in a 19 robust public participation in our activities. We had a dedicated, 20 topic-focused communication team that along with support from our 21 Office of Public Affairs allowed us to maximize public participation.
22 We had a goal, an overall goal of being open and 23 transparent, and we tried in everything we did to meet that goal. In 24 addition, the staff was open, accessible, and flexible at the public 25 meetings. This included having the authors of the documents available 26 68 at pre-meeting open houses. This provided an opportunity for 1 interested parties to actively engage the NRC Staff members with direct 2 and specific knowledge of the draft documents. We allowed all 3 interested parties who wanted to present comments at the meetings to 4 do so. And we insured that there were opportunities for those that 5 couldn=t physically attend one of our meetings in the region to 6 participate via three facilitated telephone conference calls that we had 7 during the public comment period.
8 Finally, our staff host ed the monthly status 9 teleconferences that provided regular updates to members of the 10 public, and allowed them to ask questions about our efforts.
11 It=s also worth noting that along with our Office of 12 Public Affairs we did experiment with some of our social media options.
13 And one approach that we tried was not highly successful, and that was 14 our Waste Confidence online chat that we conducted with the Office of 15 Public Affairs as part of their pilot project.
16 We found that a complex subject like Waste 17 Confidence was challenging to address in the context of a realtime 18 typed exchange with a moderator format. The Directorate Staff who 19 participated would have liked to have provided more complete 20 responses but we were just constrained by the chat format. Next slide.
21 We=re currently in the process of reaping the benefits 22 of our outreach activities. We
=re reviewing and responding to the nearly 23 9,000 unique comments that we delineated from the approximately 500 24 transcribed statements collected at the public meetings, and the 25 approximately 1,500 unique written submissions.
26 69 It is worth noting, as others have mentioned, that we 1 received a total of approximately 33,000 written submittals; however, 2 the vast majority of those were form letters.
3 I do think it
=s important to state or restate what we said 4 at the beginning of each of our public meetings. Our work on the Waste 5 Confidence Rule benefits from public input and participation. We thank 6 all the parties for their participation in the meetings, including the 7 members of the External Panel that you met wit h earlier today, all of 8 whom participated in one or the other of our public meetings. We thank 9 them for providing either oral or written comments on the Draft Generic 10 Environmental Impact Statement and proposed rule.
11 I=d also be remiss if I didn
=t mention the cooperation the 12 Directorate has received from some of the less recognized contributors 13 to our effort. In particular, NRC
=s Office of Administration, the Office of 14 Information Services, and the Office of the Secretary to the 15 Commission who took on the consuming effort of uploading all the 16 comments. In addition, as Cathy mentioned, we received strong 17 support from the staff of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, 18 and the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses who helped us 19 with further processing the documents and the comments into our 20 comment response database.
21 I=ll now close my part of the presentation by identifying 22 some of the comments, concerns, and themes in the verbal statements 23 and written comments. And you
=ve already gotten some insight from 24 that from the External Panel, so next slide.
25 This slide depicts the most common topics, or in other 26 70 words those we heard most frequently at the public meetings, or we
=ve 1 read in the written comments. As you saw from the External Panel, 2 there was a great range and diversity to the comments. We heard 3 comments supporting the Generic Environmental Impact Statement 4 and proposed rule, and comments that passionately opposed what was 5 in those two documents. The greatest number of comments we 6 received expressed either a concern with or an opposition to nuclear 7 power. 8 Second to that was the feasibility of safe storage of 9 spent fuel particularly storage for long time frames, and the indefinite 10 storage period that was analyzed in the Generic Environmental Impact 11 Statement.
12 After that were comments or concerns about the range 13 of alternatives. Again, you heard that at the External Panel regarding 14 what was presented in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
15 And then following up were comments that either supported or 16 challenged the notion of the availability of a geologic repository when in 17 a specific time frame. Next slide.
18 Other examples of topics we heard that may be of 19 interest to the Commission and the frequency with which we heard 20 them or read them in the written comments are noted on this slide. They 21 included spent fuel pool fires. Many of the issues raised with respect to 22 the recent spent fuel pool consequence study were also raised in the 23 context of Waste Confidence.
24 Certainly, as the External Panel noted, our approach to 25 treating the durability of institutional controls was of particular interest to 26 71 a number of groups in the context of the indefinite storage scenario.
1 Also, the likelihood and impacts from spent fuel pool leaks was a 2 popular topic as was the storage of high burn-up fuel, particularly for 3 longer periods of time.
4 It is worth noting that the U.S. Environmental 5 Protection Agency in its statutory role as a reviewer of Agency 6 Environmental Impact Statements also identified both institutional 7 controls and high burn-up fuel as issues that the NRC should address in 8 more detail in the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
9 We note here that there is a significant body of 10 information on these topics currently available to the Staff from sources 11 both internal and external to the NRC. It is our intent in moving forward 12 to rely on this large body of existing work. We
=re considering several 13 options for responding to comments on these topics in the Final 14 Generic Environmental Impact Statement. To the extent warranted, this 15 could include adding additional appendices that focus more 16 expansively on the topics much like what was done for spent fuel pool 17 fires and spent fuel pool leaks in the Draft Generic Environmental 18 Impact Statement.
19 Other possible outcomes coul d include reconsidering 20 the approach taken, providing add itional supporting, or depending on 21 the circumstances, making no changes at all. So, with that, that ends 22 my part of the pr esentation, and I
=ll turn it over to Andy Imboden.
23 MR. IMBODEN: Thank you, Keith. It
=s my pleasure to 24 recap the four policy issues and the public comments we received on 25 these issues, and then I will conclude my presentation with the Staff
=s 26 72 plan for the path forward. We should be on Slide 8.
1 These four policy issues began as questions the 2 Commission directed the Staff to include in the Statements of 3 Consideration for the proposed rule. We made a special effort to raise 4 attention on these issues.
5 In response to the Commission direction, the Staff 6 published these issues in Section 4 of the Federal Register Notice. We 7 specifically mentioned it in our presentation that began each of our 8 public meetings, and we developed a one-pager to highlight these 9 issues to the public. We made all these materials available on our 10 website, and in hard copy at our public meetings.
11 On February 28 th, the Staff provided the Commission a 12 synopsis of the public comments on these four issues in the information 13 paper entitled, AWaste Confidence Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear 14 Fuel Proposed Rule Public Feedback on Specific Issues.
@ In the 15 following slides I will identify each issue in turn, summarize the public 16 comments, and then pr ovide the Staff
=s insight into potential responses 17 to these comments.
18 Ultimately, it will be the Commission
=s decision as 19 which way to go on resolving these policy issues when we provide you 20 with recommendations to the Draft Final Generic Environmental Impact 21 Statement and draft final rule for review. Next slide.
22 For issue number one, the Staff heard a fairly clear 23 message from those commenters that the NRC should remove a 24 statement regarding the repository availability time line from the rule.
25 Reasons cited for this support varied, but commonly included a lack of 26 73 NRC control over repository time lines and previous failures in 1 accurately predicting when a repository would become available.
2 Commenters also noted that a time line should not be included 3 because, as they assert, that it is unnecessary to provide a repository 4 time line in an Environmental Impact Statement, or that it is more 5 appropriate to go back to the language that was used in the 2010 Waste 6 Confidence Rule, which stated t he repository capacity would be 7 available when necessary.
8 Other commenters wanted the NRC to remove the 9 statement about repository availability because they assert that siting a 10 repository is impossible, and that including a statement about 11 repository availability ties the United States to repository disposal of 12 spent fuel, to the exclusion of other options, such as reprocessing.
13 The commenters who expre ssed support fo r retaining 14 a statement regarding the time line for repository availability did not 15 always provide a supporting rationale, but when one was given 16 commenters stated that the time line is an important element of a 17 contract that that commenter asserted the public has with the nuclear 18 industry, or that having a time line for repository availability in the rule 19 affirms the importance of repository disposal.
20 At this time in the current state of the Directorate
=s 21 review, we believe that removing a specific policy statement regarding 22 the time line for repository availability from the rule text may be 23 warranted. This is mainly because it is not within the NRC
=s 24 responsibility or control to def ine when a repository might become 25 available. Next slide.
26 74 On issue number two, th e Staff heard a general 1 message of support from commenters for retaining a policy statement 2 regarding safety of continued storage of spent fuel in the rule text.
3 Supporters gave diverse rationales. Some commenters noted that 4 including a statement about safety would enhance openness and 5 transparency, or would indicate that storage is, in fact, safe. Others 6 indicated that a safety statement should be included because such a 7 statement, one commenter claimed, and I quote, AIt would give people 8 that are opposed to industry bases to make opposition,@ or that the 9 safety statement appropriately addresses the issues raised in 10 Minnesota v. NRC, or New York v. NRC, or commenters asserted that 11 safety determinations are more important to NRC decisions and to 12 members of the public in spent fuel matters rather than environmental 13 issues are.
14 One commenter who expre ssed support for the policy 15 statement indicated that the statement could alternatively be moved to 16 the Statements of Consideration rather than in the rule text.
17 Commenters who expressed opposition to making a 18 policy statement regarding safety of continued storage in the rule text 19 provided several reasons, including that providing such a statement is 20 unnecessary in the rule, that the Generic Environmental Impact 21 Statement is unable to support such a statement, and assertions that it 22 is not possible to project the futu re safety of spent fuel storage.
23 One commenter neither supported nor opposed this 24 issue, but asserted that technical issues identified as part of the NRC
=s 25 long-term Waste Confidence update must be resolved before the NRC 26 75 issues its Final Environmental Impact Statement. And although we are 1 not making a safety determination as part of this rulemaking, a specific 2 policy statement regarding the safety of continued spent fuel storage 3 has been a consideration in the past Waste Confidence rulemakings, 4 and given the number and breadth of concerns expressed about spent 5 fuel storage safety, the Directorate Staff is at this time in the current 6 state of our review inclined to retain a specific policy statement 7 regarding the safety of continued spent fuel storage in the rule text.
8 Next slide.
9 For issue number three, in contrast to the prior two 10 issues where there was a clear public preference, commenters who 11 responded to issue number three were split on the issue. Some 12 commenters expressed support for st reamlining the discussion portion 13 of the Statements of Consideration, while others opposed such a 14 streamlining.
15 Commenters who supported streamlining did so most 16 commonly because it would improve clarity or reduce redundancy. Other 17 commenters suggested that lengthy Federal Register Notices are 18 burdensome to search, and that streamlining could remove 19 anachronisms. Most commenters who opposed streamlining indicated 20 either that either the information in the discussion portion supports the 21 rule, or it provides a plain language explanation of the matters in the rule 22 text. 23 Other commenters who opposed streamlining stated 24 that it would introduce changes upon which the comment did not have an 25 opportunity to comment. Additionally, some commenters indicated that 26 76 the Statements of Consideration should address findings that the NRC 1 has historically included as part of the Waste Confidence decision. And, 2 finally, one commenter stated the Federal Register is more readily 3 available and easier to search than the Generic Environmental Impact 4 Statement.
5 At the current state of our review, the Staff believes that 6 some streamlining of the discussion portion of the Statement of 7 Consideration is warranted where it repeats information that is in the 8 Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement. The extent of that 9 streamlining is yet to be determined, but the Staff notes that the 10 Statement of Considerations must retain enough content to adequately 11 support the rule and the changes that have been made. Next slide.
12 Commenters who responded to issue number four 13 expressly near unanimous support for changing the title of the rule.
14 Commenters provided an array of reasons to support changing the rule 15 name, and specifically these reasons included that the name is an 16 anachronism, the name provides no useful description of the rule
=s 17 purpose or its intent, historical findings of confidence in the availability of 18 a disposal site have proven incorrect, and confidence in the ability to 19 manage or dispose of waste does not now exist, or that the 2012 ruling 20 from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 21 invalidated confidence as a basis for the rule, or that the term A Waste 22 Confidence
@ is not meaningful enough without an explanation of how the 23 term originated, and confidence can only be obtained if all fuel is 24 transferred to dry casks.
25 One commenter who responded to this issue expressed 26 77 opposition to revising the title, and that commenter asserted that 1 removing the term A Waste Confidence
@ would be shortsighted because 2 the term ties the rule to the need to establish basic confidence in ultimate 3 waste disposal.
4 Many other commenters who did not specifically 5 comment on issue number four, but that we heard at our public meetings 6 expressed views related to the term A Waste Confidence.
@ Those 7 commenters indicated that waste confidence is an oxymoron, the term 8 does not describe the rule
=s purpose, or it refers to confidence in a 9 repository that they indicated was misplaced based on experiences with 10 Yucca Mountain, or with other attempts to dispose of nuclear materials.
11 So, at this point in our review the Staff believes that the 12 title of the rule warrants changing. The Staff does not make a specific 13 recommendation for the new title right now, but as we move forward we 14 would be recommending a title change that accurately reflects what the 15 rule does, noting the fact that in contrast to previous rulemakings which 16 were accompanied by a Waste Confidence decision and policy 17 statement and five findings, the rule we
=re developing now is 18 fundamentally different because the regulatory basis for the rule is now 19 an Environmental Impact Statement, whose purpose is to put forth the 20 environmental impacts of spent fuel storage. Next slide.
21 Finally, I wrap up the Staff
=s presentation with a 22 discussion of the path forward. The Staff is currently processing and 23 developing responses to the public comments. Our next steps are to 24 complete that effort, make changes to the Generic Environmental Impact 25 Statement and the final rule, and to provide a high-quality set of 26 78 documents to the Commission in the summer of this year. And as Cathy 1 said in the outset, we intend to make every effort to produce a 2 high-quality product and finalize it within the prescribed schedule. Thank 3 you. Mike.
4 MR. WEBER: That concludes the Staff
=s presentation.
5 As we prepare to address your comments and questions, I would 6 emphasize that as I said in the beginning, the Commission is the ultimate 7 decision maker here, so while you
=ve heard some previews of the 8 directions that the Staff is currently thinking about, there are no final 9 decisions on the Staff
=s part. And, clearly, it would be up to the 10 Commission to make the final call with respect to the rule and the Final 11 Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
12 And I would be remiss if I didn
=t call out that we have in 13 our audience several members of the Waste Confidence Staff, but you 14 will not see them all here because many of them are toiling on analyzing 15 the public comments and figuring out what changes, if any, are 16 appropriate for the analysis. So, with that, that concludes our 17 presentation, and we
=ll be happy to hear your comments and respond to 18 your questions.
19 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay, thank you guys very 20 much for the presentations. We will turn to questions immediately 21 starting with Commissioner Svinicki.
22 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Well, thank you all for your 23 presentations. And I was wondering a little bit as I looked around the 24 room if everybody was here today. I know there
=s a scene in B- the 25 famous scene in the Christmas Carol, not the film adaptations but the 26 79 actual literary work itself which I
=m a fan of, where, of course, the ghost 1 of Jacob Marley visits Scrooge early in it, and he
=s explaining that after 2 your death you will wander the world, so Scrooge remarks that his 3 B- because Jacob Marley was his partner in business, he says you
=ve 4 been dead these seven years. Have you traveled much in that time? And 5 the ghost of Jacob Marley says something to the effect of I have, and 6 many weary journeys lay before me. So, I feel like when I think about the 7 Waste Confidence Directorate Staff, although they have journeyed far, 8 many weary journeys lie before them. So, I want to thank you for all the 9 work that you
=ve done to those of you who are here in the room. Keith, to 10 you and your team. And, you know, I think any time you work in a large 11 organization people say the good news is you get to work on a 12 high-priority project, and then the bad news is that you get to work on a 13 high-priority project, so I think you and your folks have done a 14 tremendous job.
15 And I might ask, I know there have been a couple of 16 statements made in the Staff panel to the effect that you have every 17 intention of being able to conclude your work on the time line that you 18 have publically discussed, the summer time frame. Is your confidence 19 now since you have had some time with the public comment record, you 20 know some sense of the journeys that lie before you? Is that schedule 21 still achievable? And if there were a question about it, what would occur 22 to make that something that you would have some lower probability of 23 achieving? Keith, maybe you wa nt to take a cut at that.
24 MR. McCONNELL: I would characterize it as we
=re 25 cautiously optimistic of meeti ng the established schedule. We
=re 26 80 cautious because we
=re respectful of the volume of comments that we
=ve 1 got, and the need to address them comprehensively. But we
=re optimistic 2 because as Mike and Cathy have indicated, this is an Agency-wide 3 effort. All the offices have put their shoulder to this. And, also, I
=d note 4 that it=s basically within our control. It
=s a matter of the NRC Staff 5 performing in this particular instance, but there is a great challenge in the 6 sense that we B- I think all of us want to produce a high-quality 7 document. And that takes time, and it takes working smart, so we
=re 8 attempting to do that. So, I don
=t know if I responded completely to your 9 question.
10 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: No, I think that is 11 responsive, and you
=re still pulling in that direction. But, of course, you 12 control much, but you don
=t control everything, and doing the job right is 13 going to be balanced against the schedule that
=s been laid out for you.
14 So, that=s what I take from your answer, and I appreciate that. And I think 15 that that=s appropriate.
16 And, again, as Chairman Macfarlane indicated in her 17 opening, we do have these constraints around this meeting where since 18 you=re still in the process of analyzing the public comment record we
=re 19 not going to ask you specifically to respond. I appreciate that you leaned 20 forward a bit and gave us at least w here preliminary indications might 21 take you on some issues. Mike Weber was clear again at the open and 22 close of the Staff
=s presentation, appropriately so, that that is and needs 23 to be caveated as a preliminary view. But I do think that that
=s helpful.
24 So, in light of that, and the fact that you will continue 25 your work, and the Commission will see whatever product you provide to 26 81 us, I think the only question, other question that I
=m going to ask you is 1 that the NRC
=s Inspector General had a report, an audit of NRC
=s 2 compliance with 10 CFR Part 51 that
=s relative to the preparation of 3 Environmental Impact Statements. Have those recommendations been 4 factored into your approach to the work you did here on the EIS? And, if 5 so, could you talk a little bit about how that was done?
6 MR. McCONNELL: Yes. We
=re aware of the OIG
=s 7 report. In fact, some of us were interviewed by the OIG Staff. They made 8 six recommendations, and they basically boil down to three because one 9 is develop guidance, and the other is to implement. And they related to 10 doing a ROD according to 51.102 and 103. Sorry, Record of Decision, I 11 apologize. And we intend to do that, but that would occur at the end of 12 the process when the rule is published. So, we haven
=t done that step.
13 The other two related to scoping of the Generic 14 Environmental Impact Statement, which we did do in accordance with 15 what the OIG recommended. It wasn
=t required but we did it because we 16 thought it was the right thing to do. And the other dealt with the format of 17 the Generic Environmental Impact Statement in relation to Appendix A to 18 Part 51. And our Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement is 19 consistent with that appendix, and the IG
=s recommendation.
20 COMMISSIONER SVINICKI: Okay, thank you. And I 21 guess I=ll just close by once again saying take heart in how far you
=ve 22 come. You keep pulling in that direction. And, again, in any number of 23 fora in Q&A, you know, I
=ve been asked how I feel about the NRC Staff
=s 24 efforts in this area and, you know, I just respond that I think it
=s a really 25 proud effort on the Agency
=s part, so I want to thank all of you for your 26 82 commitment to this, your devotion. And you
=re closer to the end of this 1 miserable endeavor than you think, so don
=t worry about it. You
=ll get 2 there. Thanks.
3 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Commissioner 4 Apostolakis.
5 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: Well, in a previous 6 life I used to submit papers to technical journals and then I would get 7 comments from peer reviewers, and I didn
=t know where they were. And 8 I remember that as the number of comments approached ten or more, I 9 would get very annoyed.
10 (Laughter.)
11 COMMISSIONER APOSTOLAKIS: So, I must say that 12 you guys have a herculean task ahead of you, and I have complete 13 confidence that you will do your best to respond to these comments, 14 more than 1,000 comments I understand. And given the constraints of 15 today, back to you, Madam Chairman.
16 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Commissioner 17 Magwood. 18 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Thank you, Chairman. I 19 should note that Commissioner Apostolakis
= previous lives sound very 20 boring to me. I was expecting him to have been an Egyptian pharaoh, or 21 perhaps a Bolivian midwife, or something interesting.
22 (Laughter.)
23 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: The target is so rich.
24 Well, first, let me thank you. We
=ve been through this little journey from 25 the very beginning. I
=ve talked with all of you at one point in time or other, 26 83 and Cathy rather frequently about this effort. And it always impresses 1 with me the NRC Staff how when given some massive challenge, which 2 when you sort of think about conception, you think how is all this going to 3 get done in this time frame? Somehow they always seem to manage to 4 pull it together, so I
=m always quite impressed with that. And particularly 5 since unlike a lot of agencies, most of this work was done in-house, all 6 the comment resolutions were all done by NRC Staff, not with the use of 7 a lot of contracts. Well, they had the labs helping us, so that
=s more to be 8 lauded. 9 From the previous panel, one item I wanted to give you 10 a chance to react to was the comment that we heard from all the 11 panelists about how successful the public outreach was. And you 12 highlight that in your presentation. And as I hear that, and I hear how 13 Keith pointed out that there were some lessons learned from this. How 14 do we incorporate that going forward? I mean, we
=re going to have 15 opportunities to do these sorts of things, and Keith won
=t be running all of 16 them, or maybe he will. I don
=t know. What are we doing to make sure 17 that the rest of the St aff benefits from what we
=ve learned here?
18 MR. IMBODEN: Okay. Well, both Cathy and Keith have 19 asked the Staff to produce a document at the end, a lessons learned, so 20 that way we could see what other B- what wasn
=t highly successful and 21 what was, what we
=d like to do more, better, and different the next time 22 an opportunity like this presents itself that has the high degree of public 23 interest on it. And we
=re not B- we haven
=t set a deadline for that. We are 24 planning on accomplishing that in the summer, as well. The first priority 25 right now is getting the doc uments to the Commission.
26 84 MR. WEBER: Yes, I would only add, of course, one of 1 the benefits of the Directorate approach that we took to prepare this set 2 of analyses is that the Staff have come from across the Agency, so now 3 that this team when it
=s completed will disband and people will go back 4 across the Agency, they will take with them the good insights that they
=ve 5 gained through this public process.
6 And on the feedback we heard from the first panel on 7 the process, you know, what I took away was kudos on the process, but 8 a qualification of well, we
=ll determine how good it is based on what the 9 product is from this process. And I think that
=s fair, you know. And I think, 10 you know, at a certain point process and product intersect, and I
=m sure 11 what we come up with, what you come up with will not please everyone.
12 And then those who took the time, and energy, and committed to 13 participate in the process will have an opportunity to reflect upon well, 14 how did what we did contribute to or detract from that final outcome?
15 And, hopefully, they
=ll be equally forthcoming in sharing those views with 16 us so that we can look at this kind of in its totality, and not in a segmented 17 way. 18 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: I appreciate that. Mike, 19 do we B- I think there
=s so many training courses, and I don
=t have a list 20 of all of them, but I imagine there
=s a training course that speaks to this 21 kind of process. If there is, are we going to be able to fold your lessons 22 learned document into that training? Is that something the Staff would B- 23 MR. IMBODEN: Yes, prior to the public meetings we 24 had everyone who was going to go on those meetings take specific 25 training to be able to respond. That
=s definitely a lesson that I
=d like to 26 85 share with my colleagues so we could B- 1 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Fold that back in.
2 MR. IMBODEN: Yes.
3 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Fantastic.
4 MR. WEBER: And, of course, we
=re also responding to 5 the Chairman
=s tasking memorandum on public involvement. And one of 6 the tasks in that is to look at the comprehensiveness of our training, and 7 is it focused on the right aspects? So, we
=ll have that opportunity to 8 reflect on that, as well, including other Agency initiatives, not just what 9 we=re doing on Waste Confidence, but other licensing actions, the 10 Reactor Oversight Process. So, we
=ll use any and all insights.
11 MS. HANEY: I would just add one more thing as a best 12 practice I think that came up was encouraging Staff to think outside the 13 box with regards to public outreach. Sometimes we tend to limit 14 ourselves to what
=s been done before, and what
=s been successful 15 before. And when given this task several months ago to take on, really 16 bringing together the team and allowing our Staff to brainstorm on ideas, 17 and how to do things differently was, I think, one of the biggest benefits, 18 and what really got us to going with as extensive an outreach as we did.
19 So, again, it
=s one of those intangible lessons learned, but I think it
=s just 20 continuing to send the message to all of our Staff and managers that it
=s 21 okay to think outside the box.
22 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Thank you. One last 23 question for Jacob Marley, otherwise known as Keith McConnell for the 24 record. After going through this rulemaking effort in this compressed 25 time frame, you must have learned some lessons about how to manage 26 86 an activity like this. And you had to take a disparate workforce and 1 quickly bring them together and harmonize that. Anything you want to 2 share about your experience that you think is a unique lesson that you
=ve 3 taken from this exercise?
4 MR. McCONNELL: Just two thin gs. I think one thing is I 5 actually believe that firm deadlines are your friends. And I think in this 6 particular instance the Commission
=s prescription of a deadline is 7 actually, in my view, a very positive thing.
8 In terms of bringing Staff together, you know, I heard my 9 name mentioned a couple of times but that
=s really misdirected. It
=s the 10 people behind me who are doing all the work, and in the audience, and it 11 just what B- it probably goes away from your question, but it just 12 demonstrates, I think, the quality of not only the technical staff, but the 13 rulemaking staff, and the communication staff in this particular instance.
14 And the legal staff, I
=m sorry. Sorry, I include them with the technical 15 folks. 16 COMMISSIONER MAGWOOD: Right. And SECY, as 17 well. Right. Well, again, appreciate all the work on this. Obviously, 18 there=s still some critical steps to go. As this goes forward, if anything 19 comes up that could interfere with your completion on schedule, you
=ll 20 please highlight it to the Commission as soon as possible. All right.
21 Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman.
22 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Commissioner 23 Ostendorff.
24 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Thank you, 25 Chairman. My good friend and colleague, Commissioner Svinicki, being 26 87 the student of film that she is, I thought that rather using the Christmas 1 Carol, she might pick a couple of other movies to select from, 2 Groundhog Day could be one.
3 (Laughter.)
4 COMMISSIONER OSTENDORFF: Die Hard II, Death 5 Wish IV. So, I appreciate Kristine
=s keeping this light a little bit this 6 afternoon with her movie choice, and I think the comment was very 7 appropriate.
8 You know, I
=m not sure I have any questions. I know that 9 we are limited to what we can say today, and I know that you
=re still 10 working on forming opinions, so I would B- I think Commissioner 11 Magwood=s line of questioning on lessons learned, and how to capture 12 that, I completely agree with those points that he has made, and I think 13 that=s important to capture.
14 I would comment, I
=ve also B- I=ve been pleased to see 15 the willingness with which various office directors have supported 16 people. I ran a Combined Federal Campaign in the Baltimore-Annapolis 17 area back in 1999 through 2002, for three years I did that for the Navy, 18 and the giving and organizing that, this, and so forth and so on, look to 19 my friend B- well, where did Glenn go, because Glenn Tracy
=s been back 20 here. He was here a few minutes ago. I know the NRO has been, in 21 particular, with the B- assisting their workload has been a big contributor 22 to help attainment, as well as all the other offices. And I appreciate your 23 mentioning those, both Cathy and Keith, across the board for the NRC, 24 and the people behind you. So, I
=ll add my thanks and encouragement 25 for the rest of the marathon here for the group, and I have no further 26 88 questions. Thank you all.
1 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay, thank you guys. I 2 have questions, so I
=m going to ask a bunch of questions. And I will say 3 thank you, and I will say, A ndy, I guess it was okay that you left my staff 4 to do this. Good job.
5 I was glad to hear, Keith, you say that there
=s a large 6 body of work to draw on as you start to address these comments, not 7 only work internal, but external work which echoes some of the stuff I 8 was saying at the RIC. I do encourage you very strongly to look at the 9 large body of work that exists on a number of the areas in which you 10 received comments that
=s not produced from within the Agency, but 11 that=s produced outside the Agency. And the degree to which we don
=t 12 reinvent the wheel, but we use what
=s out there is very helpful, I think.
13 So, more encouragement in that area.
14 There have been a lot of discussion about the public 15 comment process, and I appreciate that you guys traveled around.
16 When Andy was thinking about leaving me, we talked about the 17 importance of getting around the country and talking to folks personally 18 about this issue, and I
=m glad you guys were able to accomplish that. I
=m 19 wondering if there were comments, if you received comments about the 20 public comment process that you
=re going to address?
21 MR. IMBODEN: Yes, in the scoping period we 22 requested from the public input on where should we have these 23 meetings. Waste Confidence is a nationwide issue, there
=s no one place 24 you go to talk about Waste Confidence. It affects everybody. And we got 25 all kinds of input on that. We couldn
=t make everyone happy, we couldn
=t 26 89 be everywhere, but we B- 1 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Sure, obviously.
2 MR. IMBODEN:
B- did our best to B- 3 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: But did people comment 4 on the process itself, what they thought would be helpful, or what they 5 thought wasn
=t helpful?
6 MR. IMBODEN: We got good public comments, notes of 7 appreciation and that kind of thing from our meetings, how they were 8 conducted with the actual authors of the documents there, people 9 appreciated that access to the NRC Staff, and the NRC scientists and 10 engineers that went to those meetings did a wo nderful job embracing 11 that role, and the meetings themselves because the purpose was to get 12 public comment. The NRC
=s presentation was very brief, people said 13 they appreciated that because that allowed us to, even though some of 14 the meetings did go long, to hear everyone who wanted to make a 15 comment, had the opportunity to do so. And even though nobody likes a 16 time limit, you know, our facilitator helped. It was fair to everybody and 17 that allowed us to do that, and we did get good feedback on that.
18 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: So, other questions about 19 the comments that you got. So, in regards to comments that you 20 received on institutional controls, w hat were the types of comments that 21 you received related to long-term financial capacity?
22 MR. IMBODEN: And the institutional controls, that
=s one 23 of the assumptions in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement that 24 seemed to attract a lot of comments, as did costs. The cost analysis that 25 the Staff did in the draft was an analysis of the proposed action, the 26 90 rulemaking, or its alternatives. And we did get a lot of comments. We 1 heard some of this from the first panel. Well, what about the cost of the 2 storage itself, or which fund is going to be used to pay for this and that?
3 So, we=re still deciding what the best approach is on those things.
4 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Yes, I
=m not interested in 5 where you=re going with it. I
=m interested in understanding the detail of 6 the comments.
7 MR. IMBODEN: Yes, institutional control was B- going 8 into it, it was something that was very B- kind of a narrow B- it was one 9 assumption in a large Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
10 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Can you remind me what 11 the Draft GEIS, Environmental Impact Statement and th e proposed rule 12 assumed regarding financial assurance of long-term storage? Do you 13 guys B- 14 MR. McCONNELL: Well, we assumed institutional 15 controls were in place. We also assumed that the industry would be 16 there, and so the finances would be there, as required by regulation.
17 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. And our finance 18 B- our regulations go beyond the 60-year safe store period for financial 19 assurance? Am I missing something here?
20 MR. McCONNELL: There would still be a possession 21 license. They would still need to decommission any independent spent 22 fuel storage installation. And, therefore, there st ill would be a need for 23 financial assurance for those activities. They still need to fund the safety 24 and security aspects of the operations of those facilities.
25 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay.
26 91 MR. WEBER: That
=s what exists today.
1 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Right.
2 MR. WEBER: Right. So, they
=re not done until we say 3 they=re done and the license is terminated.
4 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Right. I
=m just trying to B- I 5 don=t remember what was in the Draft GEIS, and the rule, so I
=m just 6 trying to understand where B- you know, what our benchmark was.
7 MR. IMBODEN: Yes, it was a continuation of our 8 existing regulations.
9 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. According to your 10 Slide 7, you received more than 150 comments on high burn-up fuel?
11 And you noted that the B- well, in your writeup you noted that the EPA in 12 their statutory role as a reviewer of NRC Environmental Impact 13 Statements said that this topic should be addressed in greater detail.
14 Right? In the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement, so what 15 were some of the major technica l comments about high burn-up fuel?
16 MR. IMBODEN: Oh, high burn-up fuel was included in 17 the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement. It
=s part of our 18 analysis.
19 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Right. The clear B- they 20 wanted more detail, but that was their comment. I
=m interested in other 21 comments that you received.
22 MR. IMBODEN: Yes, that was B- there was a lot of 23 comments on that issue, so we heard different things in different parts of 24 the country.
25 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay, interesting.
26 92 MR. IMBODEN: It was a little bit different in the meeting 1 we had in the Boston area than the one we did in Southern California.
2 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: So, what were the 3 concerns raised?
4 MR. IMBODEN: The concerns B- one of the lines that 5 was surprising to me was the feeling that high burn-up fuel would be 6 licensed in a way that somehow wasn
=t forthcoming, you know, by the 7 Agency when we would approve it. It kind of surprised some folks that, 8 you know, does my plant near me that I
=m concerned about, does that 9 have high burn-up fuel? And that kind of concern, so that was a little 10 surprising to me because, you know B- and in our documents we 11 absolutely consider high burn-up fuel.
12 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Were there other technical 13 comments on high burn-up fuel?
14 MR. IMBODEN: And then how B- during the period that 15 Waste Confidence is concerned with after the license life for operation, 16 how aging mechanisms might occur on high burn-up fuel. That was one 17 comment. Another line of comment was kind of like there
=s a lack of 18 research here. You guys need to do more before you could come to a 19 conclusion.
20 MR. McCONNELL: I might add, I think the focus of most 21 the comments, and from a technical perspective were on aging 22 management activities and also the uncertainty that exists with how 23 degradation might occur in dry storage with high burn-up fuel. And that 24 there might be greater uncertainty in that particular instance than there is 25 with storage of the other fuel, so it
=s mostly on B- I think, focused on the 26 93 uncertainty that exists with high-burn-up fuel for long periods of time, or 1 periods of time beyond 20 years.
2 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay, thanks. I
=m 3 interested in your use of the term feasible. On Slide 6 you talk about, you 4 know B- 5 (Off microphone comment.)
6 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Yes, so to me feasible 7 means B- you know, this is a complete connotation but it means 8 technically feasible, not necessarily politically or societally feasible, so 9 I=m wondering if you share that B- if you would just ex plain what feasible 10 means. 11 MR. McCONNELL: I think from the perspective of the 12 Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement we saw it to be both 13 technically feasible based on the Department of Energy
=s work, and also 14 our own Staff
=s work on the Yucca Mountain review. But also looking 15 internationally, we also thought that feasibility could be expanded to 16 include the societal and political will to get the job done. So, I think from 17 the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement feasibility covered 18 both. 19 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Okay, thanks for 20 that clarification. I appreciate that. What kind of comments did you guys 21 receive on dry transfer capabilities, safety and feasibility, there
=s the 22 feasibility word again, of dry transfer of spent fuel?
23 MR. IMBODEN: Yes, that was our assumption that 24 came into play in the long-term and the indefinite scenarios in the 25 Environmental Impact Statement. And we heard comments about the 26 94 B- in particular, the Staff assumed that that would have to be done every 1 100 years for the purposes of the Environmental Impact Statement. We 2 got some comments that that was a very, very conservative number, that 3 cask would be longer. We heard other comments that because of things 4 you don=t know about, you should assume more frequent replace, so 5 that=s with how often it had to be done, the frequency. We also got 6 comments on people
=s opinions on what the environmental impacts of 7 the construction of a dry transfer facility would impose on, such as it 8 would cause B- it was a ground disturbing activity, so it may have 9 impacts to cultural and historic resources, or terrestrial life, that kind 10 thing, and worker exposure, those kind of concerns. It got a lot of 11 attention.
12 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Do you want to add 13 something on that?
14 MR. McCONNELL: Well, we also got comments on the 15 fact that there hasn
=t been a dry transfer facility even proposed for nearly 16 20 years which was B- it was in the mid-1990s, I think, that DOE and 17 Transnuclear came in with a topical report, or something similar to that.
18 So, there is a great deal of concern that while it might be feasible, 19 nothing exists on paper at this point.
20 CHAIRMAN MACFARLANE: Okay. Okay, thanks, 21 thanks for expanding on all of that. And I
=m way over my time now, so I
=m 22 going to ask if anybody has additional questions or comments? No?
23 Then I will thank you all. I know you are working very hard but there is 24 light at the end of the tunnel. There is, Andy, there
=s light at the end of the 25 tunnel. 26 95 So, I know this is an issue of great interest to many 1 people, as clearly demonstrated by the number of comments that we
=ve 2 received, and the amount of input that we
=ve gotten. And, of course, we 3 are paying a lot of attention to it he re at the Agency, and will continue to 4 do so and follow its resolution.
5 We appreciate all the comments and the hard work, 6 again, that folks outside have provided to us. And, clearly, based on our 7 discussion right now, they were very precise and technical, so we really 8 appreciate that, and we will go forward with this. Thank you all very much 9 for your attention. We
=re adjourned.
10 (Whereupon, the proceedings went off the record at 11 3:53 p.m.)
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the Matter of )
)
ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC. ) Docket Nos. 50-247-LR
) and 50-286-LR (Indian Point Nuclear Generating, ) Units 2 and 3) )
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I hereby certify that copies of the foregoing SERVICE OF COMMISSION MEETING TRANSCRIPT have been served upon the following persons by Electronic Information Exchange.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Commission Appellate Adjudication Mail Stop O-7H4M Washington, DC 20555-0001
ocaamail@nrc.gov U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of the Secretary of the Commission Mail Stop O-16C1 Washington, DC 20555-0001
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Lawrence G. McDade, Chair
Administrative Judge lawrence.mcdade@nrc.gov Richard E. Wardwell
Administrative Judge richard.wardwell@nrc.gov
Michael F. Kennedy
Administrative Judge michael.kennedy@nrc.gov
Carter Thurman, Law Clerk carter.thurman@nrc.gov Kathleen E. Oprea, Law Clerk
Kathleen.Oprea@nrc.gov
Edward L. Williamson, Esq.
Beth N. Mizuno, Esq. David E. Roth, Esq. Sherwin E. Turk, Esq.
Brian Harris, Esq.
Mary B. Spencer, Esq.
Anita Ghosh, Esq.
Christina England, Esq.
Catherine E. Kanatas, Esq. John Tibbetts, Paralegal U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of the General Counsel
Mail Stop O-15D21 Washington, DC 20555-0001 sherwin.turk@nrc.gov; edward.williamson@nrc.gov beth.mizuno@nrc.gov; brian.harris.@nrc.gov david.roth@nrc.gov; mary.spencer@nrc.gov anita.ghosh@nrc.gov; christina.england@nrc.gov; catherine.kanatas@nrc.gov; john.tibbetts@nrc.gov OGC Mail Center OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov William C. Dennis, Esq.
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William B. Glew, Jr.
Organization: Entergy 440 Hamilton Avenue, White Plains, NY 10601 wglew@entergy.com
Docket Nos. 50-247-LR and 50-286-LR SERVICE OF COMMISSION MEETING TRANSCRIPT 2 Elise N. Zoli, Esq.
Goodwin Proctor, LLP Exchange Place, 53 State Street Boston, MA 02109 ezoli@goodwinprocter.com
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460 Park Avenue New York, NY 10022 driesel@sprlaw.com; vtreanor@sprlaw.com astolorow@sprlaw.com; jgandhi@sprlaw.com; nduncan@sprlaw.com Kathryn M. Sutton, Esq. Paul M. Bessette, Esq. Martin J. O'Neill, Esq.
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Lena Michelle Long, Esq.
Laura Swett, Esq. Lance Escher, Esq. Brooke McGlinn, Esq.
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Mary Freeze, Legal Secretary
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Docket Nos. 50-247-LR and 50-286-LR SERVICE OF COMMISSION MEETING TRANSCRIPT 3 Manna Jo Greene, Environmental Director Steven C. Filler
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[Original signed by Brian Newell ] Office of the Secretary of the Commission
Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 11 th day of April, 2014