ML25329A183
| ML25329A183 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/31/1998 |
| From: | Hoyle J NRC/Chairman |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML25329A183 (0) | |
Text
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555-0001 CERTIFICATION MINUTES OF THIRTEENTH MEETING OF THE LSS ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL I certify that the attached minutes of the Meeting of the LSS Advisory Review Panel, held on May 2, 1996 are accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.
hairman I
December 31, 1998 Date
MINUTES LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL MEETING May 2, 1996 Las Vegas, Nevada The thirteenth meeting of the Licensing Support System Advisory Review Panel (LSSARP) took place on May 2, 1996, in the Pueblo Room, Clark County Government Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Members of the LSSARP present were:
John Hoyle, Chairman (NRC)
Claudia Newbury (DOE)
Harry Swainston (State of Nevada)
Steve Frishman (State of Nevada)
James Davenport (State of Nevada)
Malachy Murphy (Nye County)
Dennis Bechtel (Clark County)
Jay Silberg (Nuclear Industry)
Chris Henkel (Nuclear Industry)
Robert Holden (National Congress of American Indians)
Enclosed are:
- 1. Meeting Agenda
- 2. Federal Register Notice Announcing Meeting
- 3. Attendance List
- 4. Meeting transcript and Material Presented at the Meeting.
The meeting was open and attended by members of the public.
This transcript has not been corrected or edited and it may contain inaccuracies.
J hairman L
vIsory eview Panel
ENCLOSURE 1 MEETING AGENDA
Thursday, May 2 AGENDA LSSARP MEETING, MAY 2-3, 1996 Las Vegas. Nevada 8:30 Introduction (LSSARP Chairman) 8:45 Department of Energy Activity Report (DOE)
- a.
Schedule for LSS Development
- b.
Availability of Records Information System
- c.
Demonstration of Records Information System 10:45 Break 11 :00 Litigation Software Demonstration (Athena Legal Automation - Kimberly Hodes) 12:30 Lunch 1:30 LSS Senior Management Team Report
- a.
Topical Guidelines Publication
- b.
Assessment of Licensing Support Technology/Options (NRC-SMT)
- c.
Decision Capture Process and Procedure
- d.
Future LSS Activity 4:30 Adjourn
ENCLOSURE 2 FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICE ANNOUNCING MEETING
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Licensing Support System Advisory Review Panel AGENCY:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION:
Notice of Public Meeting.
SUMMARY
The Licensing Support System Advisory Review Panel
{LSSARP) will hold its next meeting on May 2 and 3, 1996, in Pueblo Room #1119, Clark County Government Center, 500 Grand Central Parkway, Las Vegas, Nevada 89155.
The meeting will be open to the public pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act
{Pub. L.94-463, 86 Stat.770-776).
AGENDA:
The meeting will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 2, and from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., as needed, on Friday, May 3, 1996.
The following agenda is planned:
- 1.
LSS Administrator's Report
- 2.
DOE Activity Report
- a.
Schedule for LSS Development
- b.
Availability of Records Information System (RIS) and Demonstration
- 3.
LSS Senior Management Team Report
- a.
Topical Guidelines Publication
- b.
Assessment of Licensing Support Technology/Options
- c.
Decision Capture Process and Procedure
- 4.
Future Panel Activity SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) established the LSSARP in 1989 to provide advice and recommendations to the NRC and to the Department of Energy (DOE) concerning the design, development and operation of an electronic information management system, known as the Licensing Support System (LSS), for the storage and retrieval of information relevant to the Commission's future licensing proceeding for a geologic repository for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste.
Membership on the Panel consists of representatives of the State of Nevada, Nye County Nevada, a coalition of local counties of Nevada and California adjoining Nye County, the National Congress of American Indians, the nuclear industry, DOE, NRC and other agencies of the Federal government which have experience with large electronic information management systems.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
John C. Hoyle, Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555: telephone 301-415-1969.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION:
Interested persons may make oral presentations to the Panel or file written statements.
Requests for oral presentations should be made to the contact person listed above as far in advance as practicable so that appropriate arrangements can be made.
Dated:
Jo C. Hoyle Ao ing Advisory Committee Management Officer
ENCLOSURE 3 ATTENDANCE LIST
ATTENDANCE LIST LSS ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL MEETING May 2, 1996 Panel Members U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission John C. Hoyle, Chairman U.S. Department of Energy Claudia Newbury State of Nevada Harry Swainston Steve Frishman Jim Davenport Local Government - Site Malachy Murphy, Nye County Local Government - Adjacent Dennis Bechtel, Clark County Nuclear Industry Jay Silberg Chris Henkel Indian Tribes Robert Holden (National Congress of American Indians)
Others Chip Cameron, NRC Moe Levin, NRC William Olmstead, NRC John Greeves, NRC Dan Graser, NRC Bill Belke, NRC Russell Irish, NRC Paul Bollwerk, NRC Camille Kerrigan, TWR/INFOSTREAMS Jim Boone, TWR/Regulatory & licensing Fielden Dickerson, TWR John Dossett, NCAI Elaine Hiruo, McGraw-Hill/Nuclear Fuel Judy Treichel, NV NW Task Force James low, TRW Aaron Engel, SAIC Rick Holmes, Clark County Jan Statler, SAIC David Warriner, DOE Jim Bresee, DOE Jim Schrecongost, DOE Virgil Rochester, IRG Diane McAlister, TRW April Gil, DOE Stan Echols, Winston and Strawn Martin Cummings, TRW E. V. Tiesenhausen, Clark County
ENCLOSURE4 TRANSCRIPT AND MATERIAL PRESENTED AT 5/2/96 LSS ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Review Panel Meeting Licensing Support System Docket Number:
(not applicable)
Location:
Las Vegas, Nevada Date:
Thursday, May 2, 1996 Work Order No.:
NRC-647 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island A venue, N. W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 Pages 1-158
1 UNITED STATES AMERICA OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
+ + + + +
4 ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL MEETING 5
LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM 6
+ + + + +
7
- THURSDAY, 8
MAY 2, 1996 9
+ + + + +
+ + + + +
12 The Advisory Review Panel met at Clark County 13 Government Center, 500 Grand Central Parkway, Pueblo Room, 14 at 8 :45 a.m., John C. Hoyle, Chairman, presiding.
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PRESENT:
(202) 234-4433 JOHN C. HOYLE CLAUDIA NEWBURY 1_'91l.~ ~ Sw.,,iufo,,
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AbCOM STEVE FRISHMAN ROBER I. HOLDEN
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1 2
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3 1
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(8:45 a.m.)
3 MR. HOYLE:
This is a meeting of the LSS 4
Advisory Review Panel.
The panel is a federal advisory 5
committee which operates under the rules of the Federal 6
Advisory Committee Act.
It's a meeting that's been 7
announced as open to the public.
I would at the end of 8
the meeting give an opportunity for anyone not a member of 9
the panel to make any comments that they'd like to make.
10 That would be tomorrow.
If anyone has a paper they would 11 like to give me of written comments, I'd be pleased to 12 accept them.
13 This is the twelfth meeting of the panel since 14 we were established in 1989.
Our last meeting was not 15 quite a year ago in Oneida, Wisconsin.
This is an 16 opportunity to meet face to face once again as money is 17 dwindling from the effective units of government.
It 18 might be difficult to meet as frequently as we have 19 past, though I wouldn't say that was tremendously 20 frequent, two to three times a year, but we will be 21 talking about that later on how we might continue to 22 communicate.
in the 23 At this time I would like to ask the members 24 at the table to introduce themselves and then we can 25 proceed.
I will go over the agenda a little bit after (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 that, but let's start with Chris Henkel.
2 MR. HOLDEN:
Chris Henkel of the Nuclear 3
Energy Institute representing the utility industry.
4 MR. SILBERG:
Jay Silberg from Shaw, Pittman, 5
Potts and Trowbridge representing the Nuclear Energy 6
Institute.
7 MR. HOLDEN :
Robert Holden with the National 8
Congress of American Indians.
We represent the tribes in 4
9 some areas and provide them with information in areas such 10 as this.
This is John Dossett -- analyst NCAI 11 (indiscernible).
12 MR. MURPHY:
Mal Murphy, Nye county.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
Bill Olmstead, NRC.
~....
'l..._/
ti 13 14 MR. GREEVES:
John Greeves, ~\\N'aste ~H&gettlenl-15 at NRC.
16 MR. LEVIN :
Moe Levin, NRC and the LSS 17 administrator.
18 19 20 MR. HOYLE:
John Hoyle, NRC.
MR. CAMERON:
Chip Cameron, NRC.
MR. TIESENHAUSEN:
Englebrecht Tiesenhausen, 21 Clark County and chief electrician (indiscernible).
22 MR. GANDI:
John Gandi, Department of Energy, 23 information management.
24 25 Energy.
(202) 234-4433 MS. NEWBURY:
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 Nevada.
Nevada.
comments.
MR. FRISHMAN:
Steve Frishman, State of MR. DAVENPORT:
Jim Davenport, State of MR. BECHTEL:
Dennis Bechtel, Clark County.
MR. HOYLE:
Okay.
Dennis wants to make a few He's going to make a few comments from the 8
podium and then come down here.
9 The only other thing I wanted to say before I 5
10 give Dennis an opportunity to welcome us is that the mikes 11 on the table are those that feed into the court reporter's 12 station.
They're not tied into the house PA system.
So I 13 will ask all of the members, please, to speak up so that 14 all in the room can hear us.
If you can't hear, please 15 raise your hand or say something and we'll try to do 16 better.
17 At this time I will give Dennis an opportunity 18 to say something.
19 MR. BECHTEL:
Thank you very much.
I'd like 20 to welcome you all to the Clark County Government Center.
21 We're real proud of this facility.
It's been open for 22 about a year.
As I was telling these people before, until 23 last year we were kind of all scattered over the town.
24 Now we're in one place, which makes county government more 25 efficient.
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l We're real appreciative of the LSS board 2
meeting here.
I guess it was fortuitous to combine this 3
meeting with folks attending the high-level waste 4
conference and hope no one had trouble finding their way 5
down here.
6 In the future, I think, as John indicated, 7
we're very uncertain about our funding as an effective 6
8 government.
In the future we're going to hang on for a 9
while here but I think if, in fact -- I definitely believe 10 there's a role for the LSS in the future and, of course, ll Clark County, even if we don't have a nuclear waste 12 division, wants to be very much involved in that and, of 13 course, you're welcome.
This is a good centralized 14 facility.
You can use this facility anytime you so 15 choose.
16 We've got some very important issues that 17 we've been wrestling with for the last number of years.
I 18 think it's important that we, as a local government, and I 19 think all of us feel that being able to organize data and 20 be able to retrieve data of this very important project is 21 important.
I don't think we quite know what the future 22 holds for the permanent storage part of it.
I would like 23 to think that that will carry on.
Of course, the emphasis 24 of Congress is kind of swinging toward interim storage, 25 but I think there definitely is a need to carry on a role (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 for this board, even if it's informal.
2 So we've got some good things we're going to 3
look at today.
It's interesting over the years how 4
technology has kind of evolved and we were talking about 5
something totally different when we got started.
And 6
maybe technology has kind of caught up with us and maybe 7
the sole process will be a lot easier.
8 Welcome.
Maybe a few logical pieces of 7
9 information.
The restrooms are out the door to the right.
10 We have a fine cafeteria facility here for lunch, nice and 11 close.
And I notice you've got 12:30 on the agenda for 12 lunch.
Normally we have the rush from 12:00 to 1:00.
So 13 we may even want to defer that to maybe even 1:00 o'clock 14 so we don't get caught up in the general county order or 15 earlier if you wanted to do it that way.
16 But welcome again.
If there is anything I can 17 do to help you out, if you need some copies made, or some 18 advice after the meeting.
If you're not familiar with Las 19 Vegas, we can help you out with the restrooms and hotels 20 and things like that.
We'd be glad to do it.
So welcome 21 and look forward to a good meeting.
22 MR. HOYLE:
Thank you, Dennis.
We greatly 23 appreciate your offer to have the meeting here this time 24 and we'll probably take you up on your offer to use it in 25 the future if the opportunity arises.
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1 Just looking at the schedule for a moment 2
before DOE begins, Claudia, I have allotted a couple of 3
hours -- we're running a little bit behind -- for your 4
presentation but that can run over or run under.
5 MS. NEWBURY:
I'm not sure we'll take quite 6
that long.
7 MR. HOYLE :
Okay.
8 8
MS. NEWBURY:
We may get all excited about the 9
computer display and spend days at it.
I don't know.
10 MR. HOYLE:
You never know.
We were going to 11 take a break after that and have a litigation software 12 demonstration by the Athena Legal Automation Company.
And 13 that would be, I guess, back behind us and on the screen?
14 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I haven't seen the 15 representative yet.
I told him we would have a screen, 16 and we do have a screen, and if they can plug into it, 17 that's probably what they'll do.
18 MR. HOYLE:
It's kind of not really part of 19 the meeting but it's an activity that Mr. Olmstead thought 20 would be good to have us all experience.
We'll see what 21 time it is then, Dennis, for lunch, whether we're running 22 early or late, and you can help us decide which way we 23 want to go.
24 And then the afternoon would be the NRC's 25 report from the Senior Management Team.
Mr. Olmstead and (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 Mr. Greeves are members of the NRC Senior Management Team, 2
along with Moe Levin.
They will be making a presentation 3
this afternoon.
4 Unless there are comments from members - -
a 5
suggestion has been made that --
6 MR. BECHTEL:
Just one comment.
I wanted to 7
thank you.
You've done a lot of work in setting up the 8
computer side of it and Carolyn Boyle, who is not here 9
today, is the public information person who did the room 10 organization and stuff like that.
11 12 13 MR. HOYLE:
She's not here.
MS. NEWBURY:
She's not here at all.
MR. HOYLE:
Okay.
14 MR. DAVENPORT :
I notice the agenda for 15 tomorrow is quite short.
Would there be any possibility 16 that we'll be able to entertain future LSS activity today 17 so that we could not hold tomorrow's meeting?
18 MR. HOYLE:
That's always a possibility, Jim.
19 I think we put that on there assuming that we'll be just 20 initiating discussion this afternoon.
And then if there 21 are more thoughts about the afternoon discussion or this 22 morning's discussion, we could continue it tomorrow.
So 23 it's partly that and partly to talk about how we will be 24 able to get together in the future with lack of funding.
25 If that can occur today (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 l
I MR. MObQ'BN:
I was going to make the same 2
point at that.
I'm leaving at 4 : 00 today.
3 MR. HOYLE:
Well, I brought enough NRC people 4
along to have the meeting continue forever.
5 MR. DAVENPORT:
If we could shorten the 6
meeting by a day, we might give you some additional 7
funding.
8 9
MR. MURPHY:
Do you have extra to give MR. DAVENPORT:
No.
I mean, I might have some lO additional funding.
They might have some additional ll funding.
l2 MR. LEVIN:
Here again the logic was, we were l3 going to introduce some thoughts and ideas today.
And we 14 wanted to give people a chance to think about it overnight 15 and discuss it and everything and then come back and 16 really try and have a good discussion on it.
But if we 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 can think quick and do it all today, then we can wrap it up today.
Or maybe we could go - - well, I don't know if we can go later tonight because this room, I think, is booked at 6 : 00 o'clock.
But maybe we could go a little longer to wrap it up today.
MR. HOYLE:
Okay.
Two other points.
Those around the room ha)! not had an opportunity also to 24 introduce themselves.
So why don't we ask them to tell us 25 who they are/.
Dan, do you want to start?
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1 MR. GRASER:
Dan Graser, Nuclear Regulatory 2
Commission.
3 MR. CUMMINGS:
Martin Cummings, TRW.
4 MR. HOYLE:
I'm not sure it's important for 5
this to be on the record.
6 (Introductions off the record.)
7 MR. HOYLE:
All right.
Thank you very much.
8 I am going to hand out a sign-up sheet, please, for the 9
record so I'll have all the names.
10 Without further comment, unless someone does 11 have a comment, why don't we ask Claudia to begin.
12 MS. NEWBURY:
In true DOE fashion, I brought 13 view graphs but I won't make -- break it up and set up a 1 1 14 few graph machines.
There's only five of them.
It would 15 be a waste of time and you all have copies or should.
16 As you all know, in FY96 DOE deferred most of 17 their LSS activities due to budget constraints.
In 18 January of this year, we started a process of looking at a 19 new program plan that would focus our activities and get 20 us to a viability assessment in 1998, aiming at a license 21 application in 2002.
So the LSS activities had to resume 22 and we put them on the schedule for 1997.
What we found 23 is that LSS, believe it or not, and I'm sure you do, is a 24 critical path activity and we had to work very hard to 25 bring it back in to make sure that the LSS that we have (202) 234--4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 been working on would be available in the 2000-2001 time 2
frame.
We plan to fund and develop the LSS in time for 3
that 2002 application.
12 4
What I've provided to you a little farther on 5
is a schedule and we'll talk about that.
We decided that 6
the technical specifications for LSS, based on the 7
requirements that were developed by the LSSARP, would be 8
developed by DOE.
That our M&O organization would be the 9
procuring organization and that the LSS administrator, of 10 course, as you know, will participate in the installation 11 test and acceptance of the LSS.
And then DOE, the M&O, 12 and NRC will all participate in the certification of 13 whatever system is developed.
14 Our goal is to have the technical 15 specifications for the LSS delivered to the M&O in the 16 first quarter of FY97.
The make-by analysis should be 17 completed by the fourth quarter of FY97.
That's the end 18 of September.
We need the identification of an LSS center 19 site under the current concepts by the fourth quarter of 20 1998, and that's an NRC responsibility but it is -- if 21 it's not done in time is a schedule breaker.
Then we 22 expect to have the LSS acquisition and development 23 completed in the first quarter of FY99.
We plan to ask 24 the NRC to certify the system by the first quarter of 25 FY99, the installation and tests completed the third (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1
quarter 1999, and have it operational in the third quarter 2
of 1999, and the final LSS certified by NRC first quarter 3
2000.
4 This is a very aggressive schedule for us and 5
we will be working very hard to meet it. You'll see some 6
of what we've done so far when John does his demo.
7 What we did is, the system acquisition 8
development phase had to be reduced due to a change in our 9
make-by methodology.
It's now being done by DOE.
We'll 10 incorporate more extensive evaluation of commercial 11 products and use as much as commercially available and do 12 it in an operational mode at DOE facilities.
That's 13 expected to reduce our acquisition development phase by 14 about six months, but again this is still very aggressive.
15 That's basically my update on where we are.
16 John is going to be doing a demonstration.
We need to 17 break for a couple minutes to get it up and running.
Of 18 what the RIS looks like at this point in time, we 19 committed to you last July.
Actually, I think we 20 committed last March to putting the Records Information 21 System, which is an index to all of our records, online 22 and available to the LSSARP members.
We've got the 23 prototype up here.
John will talk about how it will be 24 available to those people who want to use it and it really 25 looks nice.
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14 1
already to the other system we have, the ATDT, which is 2
the index to our technical documents, and has been using 3
it.
So between these two systems, you'll have all of our 4
records and all of our technical data indexes available to 5
you as a first cut.
6 Are there any questions on where we are now 7
and what we're going to do?
8 MR. TIESENHAUSEN :
If the NRC has access to 9
the ATDT, when will the other (indiscernible).
10 MS. NEWBURY :
The question was, if NRC has 11 access to ATDT, when do the other parties -- the other 12 parties do.
I think you do.
I know you do.
I signed the 13 paperwork that gave you a password.
All of the effective 14 units of government have been offered access to the 15 system.
16 MR. TIESENHAUSEN:
All right.
We'll need to 17 get together because I haven't seen it.
18 MR. OLMSTEAD :
I don't want to jump ahead 19 because there are some things we want to talk about later 20 with regard to senior management, because in discussing 21 before this meeting with some of the participants, there 22 was a question as to whether there would be a capability 23 of loading documents for those who chose to have their 24 documents loaded.
Has DOE made provisions for any of 25 this?
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1 2
documents?
3 4
5 for the LSS.
6 15 MS. NEWBURY:
For loading other participants' MR. OLMSTEAD:
Other participants' documents.
MS. NEWBURY:
That's part of the requirements MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, I understand, but if 7
you're up and running now and they have something they 8
want to load, are you in a position to do that?
9 MS. NEWBURY:
John, are you ready to do that 10 right now?
11 MR. GANDI:
No, not right now.
I guess we've 12 never envisioned that because of the LSS rule itself being 13 that we would not be loading other participants' 14 documents.
That we'd be responsible for the DOE.
I'm 15 sure we could probably make provisions for that.
I don't 16 know how the state feels about DOE loading their documents 17 or the NRC as far as the way they want to handle their QA 18 process.
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I also understand, I haven't 20 seen this demo.
That you have it on the Web.
21 22 23 24 (202) 234-4433 MR. GANDI:
Yes.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
(Indiscernible).
MR. GANDI:
Running under Netscape, yes.
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16 1
would you control the security there?
2 MR. GANDI:
Well, I'll give you the 3
demonstration and show you what we're doing as far as 4
security work.
It's not a common user ID password type 5
protected.
It's more of a free Internet type access.
6 Although we are not advertising the URL in any fashion, it 7
will only be open to the members of this group.
8 MR. OLMSTEAD:
But you're using somehow the 9
password user's support.
10 MR. GANDI:
Only in the point of delivery of 11 the chosen documents.
12 MR. BECHTEL:
If, in fact, this is a test, is 13 it possible that say the effected parties could 14 participate in the test to get familiar with say the 15 process?
16 MS. NEWBURY:
For the RIS?
17 MR. BECHTEL:
Yes.
18 MS. NEWBURY:
That's the objective here is to 19 give everyone in LSSARP access to this system.
20 MR. BECHTEL:
Yes.
I mean, we're going to 21 have to get familiar with just the process of actually 22 doing it.
And I don't know how long this test is 23 envisioned, but I think we would like to participate in 24 that just to understand the system and - -
25 (202) 234-4433 MS. NEWBURY:
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17 1
you online and using it.
2 3
MR. BECHTEL:
Good.
MR. OLMSTEAD :
But that's different than 4
saying they have your documents on 5
6 MR. BECHTEL:
Right.
MS. NEWBURY:
That's right.
This will just be 7
the DOE part of the system at this point.
Of course, we 8
have a lot of documents from the state and counties that 9
have been sent to us and those are 10 MR. GANDI:
We need to make a distinction.
11 This is our Records Information System not the LSS.
That 12 was the intent of providing this (indiscernible).
13 MR. OLMSTEAD:
No.
I understand that, but 14 also one of the savings that we could all realize is that 15 instead of being forced to come up with records management 16 systems for each individual party, one of the original 17 assumptions was that there would be some shared savings 18 associated with everybody using the same technology in 19 loading.
20 MS. NEWBURY:
John, do you want to 21 MR. GANDI:
If we could have about 10 minutes 22 to connect to the display unit there, it would be helpful 23 for everybody to see.
24 25 (202) 234-4433 MR. HOYLE:
Okay.
Ten minutes.
(Gandi presentation off record.)
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1 VOICE:
The thing that I try to focus on is 2
what's the licensing relevant records.
There are some 3
transmittal memorandums that are piling the numbers of 18 4
records in this thing that I think at least this committee 5
ought to look at and say, well, we've got to have a record 6
(indiscernible).
Nobody wants a system fouled up with 7
that kind of stuff.
Do you see what I mean?
8 VOICE:
I understand.
In other words, the 9
National Archives and Records Administration standard 10 usually has you dispose of that kind of stuff because it 11 doesn't have value beyond the time period in which it's 12 used.
And I don't think it was ever anybody's intention 13 that that kind of stuff was 14 MR. GANDI:
No, and that's part of our 15 reprocessing plan on this accumulation of 500,000 16 documents is when we're reprocessing those determinations 17 will be made (indiscernible) relevant.
We're doing that 18 based solely on (indiscernible) right now as it stands as 19 far as exclusionary records.
20 VOICE:
The problem with that is that the 21 definition of what's relevant is a definition which all 22 the parties in the proceeding are entitled to make.
Where 23 what may be relevant to one party may not be perceived to 24 be relevant to the other.
25 (202) 234-4433 MS. NEWBURY:
(Indiscernible. )
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1 MR. WARRINER:
That's why we have followed a 2
conservative policy and putting into it things that 3
perhaps if we had better guidelines and more precise 4
guidelines we would not.
5 MR. OLMSTEAD:
And at the time we negotiated 19 6
this rule nobody thought we were going to be sitting here 7
13 years later worrying about this issue.
Had I known 8
that, I clearly would have wanted to deal with it.
So the 9
fact of the matter is that we need to -- and I think, 10 John, this committee needs to deal with that issue.
What 11 the records disposition schedule ought to be on what I 12 would call routine administrative --
13 MR. GANDI :
And the DOE greatly appreciates 14 that.
15 MR. WARRINER:
I think the NRC people speak 16 later of the topical guidelines that might help in that 17 direction at least.
18 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, they help in identifying 19 what everybody thinks is important, but you still have the 20 problem of a contract transmittal document that refers to 21 a subject that's in the topical guidelines that under the 22 NARA schedule would be disposed of in two years.
And I 23 don't think anybody would really seriously want it anyway.
24 If you actually put those documents in front of everybody 25 and passed them around, most people probably would say (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1
destroy them tomorrow.
But that's the kind of thing that 2
I think needs to be focused on because it's vastly 3
inflating the number of pages that you're putting in the 4
system.
And when you run searches like this, you're going 5
to get hits that people are going to have to wade through 6
that they're not going to be interested in.
7 VOICE:
That's correct.
8 MR. CAMERON:
And I would just add this is 9
something that we've talked about before in terms of how 10 we can refine our interpretation for the exclusions that 11 are already in Subpart J, and also whether there is any 12 new categories of exclusions that we might want to 13 establish to get things out of the system that are not 14 going to be important to licensing.
15 VOICE:
The other issue I think we have is how 16 to get at some contractor documents that you don't now 17 have.
The way those contracts are working, they submitted 18 some final product but some intermediate documents are not 19 submitted.
20 MS. NEWBURY:
(Indiscernible.)
21 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I know, but those record 22 packages don't always have everything that a litigator 23 would necessarily be looking fox- :.findisce:rnible} and the 24 problem that we're going to get into with that is, that if 25 we go to depositions and you say bring the documents with (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1
you and the witness you use is a contractor witness, they 2
bring a ton of documents you don't have in the system, the 3
whole thing falls with its own weight.
4 We'll get into that some more this afternoon 5
on how to deal with those kinds of issues.
I understand 6
the contract requires we would submit this records 7
package, but when you start breaking the record packages 8
apart, what you really want to know is where is the 9
technical data that the technical expert was relying on 10 when they made the statement that's in the report.
11 12 MS. NEWBURY :
(Indiscernible) is available.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
Then I think we need to have 13 everybody look at some of those packages.
14 VOICE:
Those packages aren't on this system.
15 All we'll get on this system is the record - -
16 VOICE:
Is the record?
17 VOICE :
Yes, that's correct.
18 MR. LEVIN:
Question John.
Have you given any 19 thought or have you matched the functionality you see 20 under this mechanism to the MSS functionality we developed 21 in our phase one and phase two, the functional 22 requirements?
23 MR. GANDI:
To some extent, but I do want to 24 reiterate this is just our records system as it is today.
25 I think there's some holes in mainly the data that's being (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 put in, but I need to get some feedback from the users 2
that are going to use a system like this to get a better 3
feel of what's going to be required.
Some of the term 4
enhancements we're looking at is a form for searching.
5 Such as you could key on the author, the title, keywords 6
and such through the document that will display the 7
identifiers of that header information and choose among 22 8
those, speed up the search somewhat, and also clarify some 9
of the holes that we have.
10 MR. LEVIN:
Under the LSS functional 11 requirements there are aspects of two-way communication.
12 Not just receiving information but sending information 13 both ways.
I was just wondering if when you were putting 14 this up and when you were thinking about the future, what 15 you might possibly be able to do, if you kind of looked at 16 things like that along the way so you could have in the 17 back of your mind, say, yes, if we had to, we could do 18 that.
19 MR. GANDI: Yes, and I think, Moe, this i s one 20 of the important things about the technology that's gone 21 forward even from a year ago when we were talking with 22 this Web technology, the Internet itself. It's the ease 23 of use, the functions that are built into the Web i tself, 24 and just the availability.
25 (202) 234--4433 MR. LEVIN:
Yes.
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23 1
MS. SCHRECONGOST:
Jill Schrecongost with the 2
DOE.
I just want to clarify that we have not been funded 3
to do anything on the LSS as far as analysis this year.
4 And our main efforts have been on driving the schedule to 5
meet the license application requirements for the revised 6
program plan that started in January.
So anything that 7
we're discussing is, of course, not formal because of the 8
requirement for the change to the CFR to change any of 9
those requirements.
10 MR. LEVIN:
No.
I understand that, but still 11 it's kind of ordinary practice when you're developing 12 systems and you know some things may be blooming in the 13 future that you kind of along the way look for 14 opportunities and think about.
I know there wasn't any 15 formal type analysis.
16 MS. SCHRECONGOST :
I understand that also.
I 17 just wanted to clarify that we have not done anything that 18 would take us away from the current regulatory 19 requirements for the LSS.
20 MR. LEVIN :
Understood.
21 MR. GANDI:
Any other questions?
22 MR. HOYLE:
So, John, what you're saying is 23 you want the folks around the table to use this to give 24 you feedback and you would be changing this system 25 further?
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1 2
MR. GANDI:
Yes.
MR. HOYLE:
Will those new thoughts that we 3
have feed into the requirements for the LSS?
I know we 4
kind of put them to bed, but maybe there are going to be 5
some new thoughts here.
24 6
MR. GANDI:
I think it's important, of course, 7
of one to think of the LSS when we're talking something 8
that's relevant to our records and access to our records.
9 It's natural.
But we're looking at this as a pilot 10 basically in the spirit of openness with DOE.
That we 11 hope to get some use and some relative ideas of the LSS in 12 the future because that is a DOE task we have to 13 consider.
14 MR. HOYLE:
(Indiscernible. )
I know Dennis 15 has brought that up a few times.
Give us something that 16 we can manipulate and work with and get some thinking 17 going on.
18 So I encourage everyone as soon as they can 19 get into it.
We can hardly read the address from here.
I 20 want to be sure we all have the information that we need 21 when we leave here.
22 MR. CAMERON:
How did you plan to distribute 23 the Web site address and all of that, John?
24 25 MR. GANDI:
This is right off our home page (indiscernible) and the URL's an extension off of that (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 home page.
2 3
WWW.YM - -
4 5
MR. HOYLE:
What's the home page again?
MR. GANDI:
P.go.
VOICE:
So anybody can get at it from that?
MR. GANDI:
Anyone can get at it right now.
25 6
There's not going to be -- it's an extension off that home 7
page of which we're not going to publicize.
8 VOICE:
Well, if they can get to the home 9
page --
10 MR. GANDI:
If you get to the home page, you 11 can (indiscernible).
12 VOICE:
When you said extension, I thought 13 that there was --
14 15 16 MR. GANDI:
(Indiscernible.)
VOICE:
Are you going to give that to us now?
MR. GANDI:
Yes.
Before the end of the day, 17 I'll have that out plus a list of instructions -- I'd like 18 to have from you as far as what we would like to have as a 19 mailing address.
20 VOICE:
Okay.
21 VOICE:
One other item on that.
We intend to 22 have a fully operational prototype with all the data by 23 June 1, I believe, John, wasn't it?
24 25 (202) 234-4433 MR. GANDI:
That's right.
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At that time -- right now we only NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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have -- well, actually what's running right here is a 2
stand-alone system.
It's not even hooked to the Internet.
3 In fact, here on this machine you can actually play with 4 it on the Internet (indiscernible).
I just added the 5
address to the bookmarks on there so you can actually just 6
pull it up very easily on that machine during a break or 7
over lunch or whatever and explore.
But right now we have 8
a subset of 1995 data there (indiscernible) and there are 9
no images except for the one image that John brought up as 10 a demonstration of capability.
So all we have are the 11 header information on our existing records that are in the 12 Records Information System.
13 MR. OLMSTEAD:
But one could break a records 14 packet down?
15 VOICE:
There are cross references at the 16 bottom of the header that would link you to other relevant 17 records.
18 MR. LEVIN:
John, what's your Web server?
19 What are you using?
20 21 MR. GANDI:
That's the address right there.
MR. LEVIN:
No.
I mean what 22 hardware/software?
23 VOICE:
Running Windows (indiscernible) 351 24 server and we're running process corporations 25 (indiscernible).
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1 2
3 MR. LEVIN:
Are you running on an alpha or VOICE:
Pentium.
MR. LEVIN:
Just out of curiosity, when you 27 4
load all 600,000 records, what platform are you planning?
5 The same platform?
6 VOICE:
The same platform.
7 MR. GANDI:
Either that or moving up to an 8
alpha search.
9 MR. LEVIN:
Okay.
I was just --
10 MR. GANDI:
And we have budgetary plans.
11 Hopefully it will go (indiscernible).
12 MR. LEVIN:
When you go the alpha, you'd be 13 running NT also.
So it's just a matter of --
14 15 MR. GANDI:
That's our plan right now.
MR. LEVIN :
How many simultaneous hits do you 16 expect --
I mean, how many transactions per second do you 17 think you can -- any idea?
18 MR. GANDI:
(Indiscernible) are you talking 19 about this specific aspect (indiscernible)?
20 MR. LEVIN:
I guess the entire thing.
What 21 would you be able to support?
What do you envision even 22 if we moved to an alpha?
What are you targeting for as 23 far as transaction levels?
24 25 (202) 234-4433 MR. GANDI:
(Indiscernible. )
VOICE:
(Indiscernible. )
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28 1
VOICE:
So when you talk about an alpha, 2
you're talking about a large (indiscernible) machine and a 3
4 MR. GANDI:
Yes, but this has to 5
(indiscernible).
6 7
8 9
VOICE:
Do you monitor the activity on it?
MR. GANDI :
Yes.
VOICE :
(Indiscernible.)
MR. OLMSTEAD:
I guess I'm not $,'ettin~p~ing 10 totally clear.
When we set up with Lawrence Livermore and 11 we anticipated about 50 people using the serve~ at the 12 same time, the problem you have is in the sequence.
If 13 I'm in the middle of this, pulling stuff off your server, 15 sam(::i_ docµm~:mt (indis_pe:§;p:ible )._, how many can you sequence 16 without having somebody start getting somebody elsers 17 instead?
18 19 VOICE :
Are you talking about --
MR. OLMSTEAD :
I'm talking about segregating 20 the packets.
If all of us hit it at the same time and 21 started asking for information, it's got to have some 22 mechanism to keep straight which user is which.
23 MR. GANDI:
That's not a concern at all.
24 That's all handled by (indiscernible).
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. OLMSTEAD:
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29 1
Internet if you've got the software --
2 MR. HOYLE:
No, Bill.
No, it keeps track of 3
(indiscernible).
4 MR. OLMSTEAD:
When we were doing ##. ¥H@§ji~f@
5 fliii£$:fi/~t:\\lthey told me this was a concern.
6 MR. HOYLE:
The concern might be on efficiency 7
because of -- depending on how the cache works and 8
everything and the hits, you may -- you know, a matter of 9
going back to the disk.
Is that what your 10 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes.
There was a problem in 11 terms of the ability of the people to get reasonable 12 responses.
13 MR. HOYLE:
But that's a different issue.
14 He's talking about hits on the cache and those type 15 things.
16 VOICE:
And again as your pulling images down, 17 you may see performance degradation but it won't be 18 because of the server.
It will be because of the 19 (indiscernible).
I don't know the application 20 (indiscernible).
21 VOICE:
Well, there's not enough people in 22 this room to affect (indiscernible) as far as the Internet 23 is concerned.
24 VOICE:
The chain is only as strong as the 25 weakest link.
If you're --
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1 2
3 4
VOICE:
What's the CCDF on (indiscernible ) ?
VOICE:
Not likely.
VOICE:
(Indiscernible.)
MR. GANDI:
(Indiscernible) probably more as 30 5
we get involved with our inventory and the number of users 6
that do attack the database.
(Indiscernible) if the alpha 7
system can't handle the load, we'll have to look at 8
something better.
9 MR. HENKEL:
Are you confident of the security 10 in this system?
That somebody can't hack into this and 11 disrupt the database (indiscernible).
12 MR. GANDI:
There really isn't anything they 13 can hack up in this database.
We may see something once 14 we get into the full text, but we plan on putting more 15 secure measures in at that time.
This is basically a 16 pilot and what we wanted was as much availability and use 17 from the members here as we could.
18 MS. NEWBURY:
John, also you have two systems, 19 right?
The system that's online is not the archive 20 system.
21 MR. GANDI:
Yes.
This is not our production 22 system.
This is a feed-off of that on the separate 23 firewall system.
So we have our original production 24 system maintained.
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. DAVENPORT:
You're saying this is just a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 clone of something else?
2 3
4 updated?
5 MR. GANDI :
Yes.
MR. DAVENPORT:
How often is your clone MR. GANDI:
We're going to move into that as 6
we go on to more production mode from this pilot.
Right 7
now I think we're looking at a weekly update to the 8
database, which is (indiscernible) of our records.
9 (Indiscernible.)
31 10 VOICE:
Is what's going to the system all the 11 documents that would be covered by NLSS?
12 13 trying to 14 15 16 17 MR. GANDI :
That and more.
That's what I was VOICE:
On an ongoing basis.
MR. GANDI :
Yes.
VOICE:
At least from DOE not necessarily MR. GANDI:
From the DOE -- well, DOE and 18 their contractors.
That's our DOE record holdings.
19 VOICE:
(Indiscernible. )
20 21 22 23 MR. GANDI:
Right.
MS. NEWBURY:
Yes, it is.
VOICE:
(Indiscernible.)
VOICE:
Could future participants add to this 24 system (indiscernible}?
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. GANDI :
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1 rule.
2 VOICE:
What was the question?
3 MR. GANDI:
Could participants add into this 4
system their records.
What I'm saying is, my 5
understanding is that would take a change in the rule.
6 7
VOICE:
(Indiscernible.)
MR. DAVENPORT:
What you're doing now isn't 8
part of the rule.
The fact that what the rule says is 9
irrelevant.
32 10 MR. SILBERG:
(Indiscernible) of the rule that 11 it would include all parties --
12 VOICE :
(Indiscernible.)
13 14 15 MR. SILBERG:
What rule are you referring to?
VOICE:
That's what I'm referring to.
MS. NEWBURY:
This is only the records system 16 that we are maintaining for our own purposes.
This is not 17 an LSS.
18 19 20 VOICE:
Exactly.
MS. NEWBURY:
(Indiscernible.)
MR. LEVIN :
But if you wanted to do a pilot 21 program, there is nothing to stop DOE from entering other 22 parties' documents in this system.
23 24 VOICE:
(Indiscernible.)
MR. GANDI:
I think the rule is that under the 25 rule, DOE doesn't enter other parties' documents because (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the party enters them or the LSS and district 2
VOICE:
Yes, but this has nothing to do with 3
the rule.
Sure, they could do whatever they want to do.
4 (Indiscernible.)
5 MR. WARRINER:
Could I jump in the middle of 6
this part of it? As the Senior Management Team recognized 7
last July this is Steve Warriner for the record.
As 8
the Senior Management Team for the NRC realized last July 9
when they visited our records system, we do have in our 10 record system documents that have been generated by other 11 organizations outside of DOE and its contractors.
We have 12 EPA documents.
We have NRC documents.
When we receive 13 something from the State of Nevada, we put that into our 14 record system because we want to maintain those for our 15 own purposes.
So we do have in our record system records 16 generated by participants outside of the DOE 17 organizations.
So that's already there.
Now if you 18 wanted to add to that as part of this prototype, we can 19 sit down and talk about that.
20 MR. LEVIN:
(Indiscernible) work logistically 21 and everything if somebody outside of DOE would want to 22 enter data into the system.
So that's one of the things 23 we could learn from this pil ot.
24 MS. NEWBURY:
I think, too, we're making more 25 out of this than it really is.
We committed to giving you (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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access to our Records Information System headers.
This is 2
not a pilot LSS.
This is not something we're going to 3
throw everything into and see if we like it.
This is only 4
our way of showing you what we have in our records system 5
and how we can electronically access it.
And if we go 6
beyond that, then we're looking at a lot more work for DOE 7
than we ever intended to do.
And you're looking at things 8
that are beyond the scope of anything we ever committed to 9
and we don't have the resources at this point to do it.
10 MR. LEVIN:
I don't think what we're looking 11 for is a commitment.
We're just exploring the possibility 12 and maybe next year --
13 MS. NEWBURY:
Well, I'm hearing a lot of great 14 ideas, but I'm also saying that that ' s not what this was 15 intended to be and let's not think it more than it was.
16 MR. CAMERON:
I think don't lose sight, 17 though, of the questions that people are putting on the 18 floor that relate to is there a different way to handle 19 the records, the relevant records of all the parties, 20 through either a distributed system or through some other 21 configuration that's not set forth in the rule at this 22 point.
I know that's a serious question but I know that's 23 something that when we get to the Senior Management Team 24 report, I think Bill and John and Moe are going to talk 25 about some alternatives along those lines.
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MR. MURPHY:
Why are we concerned about other 2
parties' records at this point in time?
I think Claudia 3
is absolutely right.
How did you describe it? Aggressive 4
schedule?
5 6
MS. NEWBURY:
Yes.
MR. MURPHY:
Meeting that schedule is going to 7
be tough enough.
I would prefer that they continue to --
8 whatever resources they get out of Congress to developing 9
the LSS rather than be shunted off on these little side 10 streets (indiscernible).
11 MR. CAMERON:
You mean developing the DOE's 12 commitments.
Keep in mind that DOE wears two hats.
They 13 have two obligations under the rule.
One is their 14 obligations as a party to get all their relevant records 15 in.
The second is their obligation to develop the system 16 that would then under the present rule be turned over to 17 the LSS administrator to load all the other parties' 18 documents.
19 MR. MURPHY:
No.
I understand that.
But I 20 would -- Claudia is going to have enough trouble getting 21 an LSS that meets the rule online without having to worry 22 about my records.
I'm not worried about my records.
I 23 don't want her to be worried about my records.
I want her 24 to develop an LSS that I can then use for my records and 25 her records.
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MS. NEWBURY:
Thanks.
2 MR. CAMERON:
Let it be noted that Mel Murphy 3
and Claudia agreed on something.
4 5
6 ahead here.
7 8
motion.
9 10 11 MR. SILBERG:
I move we adjourn on that note.
MR. CAMERON:
Yes.
Let's quit while we're MR. HOYLE:
There was no second to that VOICE:
Second.
MR. HOYLE:
Too late.
MR. GANDI:
As I started this presentation, 12 this is to make good our commitment to allow you access to 13 our record system under a median that I feel is probably 14 available to all participants -- our RIS system was 15 developed in Basis Plus and it's a very cumbersome system 16 for someone who is not Basis Plus wise to use.
I think 17 this is a good choice in the fact that (indiscernible) and 18 the availability is there.
19 Any other questions?
20 MR. HOYLE:
Thank you, John.
Let's see if we 21 can get some lights.
I know during this portion of the 22 meeting the court reporter was having a difficult time 23 identifying.
So when we see the transcript, we're going 24 to probably see voice this and voice that.
He's doing his 25 best effort.
We should all speak up, please.
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1 2
here?
3 4
It's now 10:00 o'clock.
Is Kimberly Hodes VOICE:
She's the speaker at 10:00 or 11:00?
MR. HOYLE:
At 11:00.
I just didn't know if 5
she had gotten here early.
37 6
VOICE: You just gave us a piece of information 7
we didn't have.
Her name.
8 VOICE:
It was right there.
9 MR. LEVIN:
John, I could jump in to what I 10 was going to say and we could pick up some time there.
11 MR. HOYLE:
We have a suggestion from Moe 12 Levin that we continue on with what would have been the 13 afternoon schedule.
So let's go ahead and do that.
I 14 also had a recommendation earlier that if we wanted to go 15 next door and get a sandwich, Chris thought it would be 16 cool if we sat and had a working lunch.
So let's keep 17 that in mind, too, as we role through the day here.
18 Moe?
19 MR. LEVIN:
I think everybody can hear me.
20 It's more comfortable sitting here.
21 First thing I wanted to do is just bring you 22 up to speed of what the LSS Senior Management Team has 23 been doing.
The activities we've been doing since the 24 last meeting last July in Oneida, just as kind of a status 25 check.
We had a lot of things in the works and they all (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 came to a grinding halt with the budget situation.
So 2
I'll just tell you where things were left.
3 On the LSSMOU between DOE and NRC, that was 4
supposed to cover the development, implementation, and 5
operations of the LSS.
The first MOU we ended up with a 38 6
draft that both Claudia and myself had agreed to.
It was 7
basically MOU agreed at staff level but it had not been 8
submitted for high-level agency concurrence before the 9
budget situation put a halt to things.
10 Also the LSS participants commitment and 11 Compliance Assessment Program and the auditing scheme has 12 been completed.
That was done by our contractor Labat 13 Anderson.
That contract is now terminated and that 14 program and the results of that work are on the shelf.
15 Also, as we've talked about, the Senior 16 Management Team -- the DOE records management facility to 17 research the relevancy of the documents that were there 18 and to see if they could track the decision chain on how 19 decisions were made on issues through the documents.
20 We've already talked a little bit about that.
You'll be 21 hearing more about that later when Bill and John give 22 their presentation.
23 Also we pursued two promising funding 24 mechanisms to fund the operation of the LSS.
And they 25 were promising but here again they were not brought to a (202) 234.4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1
conclusion because of the budget situation.
2 MR. SILBERG :
Are you going to describe what 3
those were, Moe?
4 MR. LEVIN:
I don't know.
Dan, do you 5
remember what -- to tell you the truth, we put that on the 6
shelf and I don't remember what the details were.
I 7
didn't bring the documentation.
8 MR. CAMERON:
I think it was basically instead 9
of some of the more complicated things that we thought 10 might be necessary, it was basically the scheme that was 11 set forth that we were thinking about originally where 12 there would be an agreement between DOE and NRC that DOE 13 would have money within their appropriations for funding 14 LSS administrator activities.
That's correct, right?
15 That's basically what we were going to do.
16 MR. GRAYSO~:
Dan GraysoR from NRC.
I think 17 the way things were pretty much left is that all of the 18 options that were explored related from the get-go to 19 having the money come through the normal DOE 20 appropriation.
And the different iterations or options 21 that we were looking at were simply the internal transfer 22 mechanism.
The language of the mechanism that would 23 actually get the money out of the DOE pot and transferred 24 over to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
And the 25 variations in the wording are fairly esoteric.
And again (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1
off the top of my head I can't recall the really fine 2
distinctions that we had but they all had essentially the 3
same starting point and they all achieved the same effect, 4
which was to get the money to support operations into an 5
NRC pot.
And the exact nature of the transfer mechanism 6
between the agencies -- I mean, if you wanted more detail, 7
I'd be glad to get back to you, but I cannot recall the 8
details.
9 MR. SILBERG :
That would internal accounting -
10 11 MR. LEVIN:
That's it exactly, yes.
12 Also since our last meeting the inspector 13 general of the NRC did a follow-up survey to their March 14 1995 audit on NRC's information management needs to 15 support high-level waste repository licensing.
In that 16 survey they concluded that the need for an LSS or LSS 17 functionality remains despite changes in technology, 18 funding, and DOE's program approach.
And that it's 19 critical to capture and maintain key records in decision 20 documents.
That NRC needs to keep working towards 21 achieving the LSS goals.
Finally that NRC needs to 22 maintain its relationship with the LSSARP.
23 Following that about maintaining a 24 relationship with the LSSARP, and given the situation we 25 have with the budget, I would like to make a suggestion (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1
that we continue our communications but we may have to 2
look at alternatives to meetings such as this when we're 3
all here in person.
I think we have to look at things 4
like video conferencing capabilities.
NRC, we now have 5
three video conference team setups available at NRC 6
headquarters so we can participate from that end.
7 Also, we can hold discussions and discuss 8
issues in cyberspace using the Internet, we we're prepared 9
to demonstrate if anybody's interested in what we did for 10 a rulemaking as a pilot on our Rule Net.
It's basically 11 an interactive what you call threaded conversation on the 12 Internet.
If anybody is not familiar with that, we're 13 prepared to demonstrate that.
It's a very effective way 14 to discuss issues over a long period of time, keep track 15 of what the issues are.
There is self-documenting.
16 Everybody has a fair shot at giving their comments.
It's 17 what we call asynchronous in that you can do it in your 18 own time whenever you want to.
It's every effective and 19 there's a lot of relatively easy to use and commercially 20 or even free software available that allows you to do this 21 over the Internet in the World Wide Web.
22 Then also we'd like to continue, and I think 23 it's important that we continue to meet face to face 24 periodically as the situation allows.
But what I would 25 like to do, and maybe we could have some discussion right (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1
now, is pursue these concepts and see if it's workable and 2
agreeable.
And then maybe talk about mechanisms that we 3
might use and what parts different parties would play in 4
setting this up and making it work.
5 MS. NEWBURY:
Well, I did look at Rule Net and 6
I thought it was real nice.
I was very impressed with it.
7 It's easy to use.
As you said, anybody can get in and 8
talk about things and do it at their own time and pace.
9 MR. LEVIN:
Was it obvious to you how it would 10 work in a situation like this?
11 MS. NEWBURY:
Yes, it was obvious to me, and I 12 figure if it's obvious to me, it should be obvious to 13 almost anybody.
I'm a point and click person.
14 MR. LEVIN:
Has anybody else looked at Rule 15 Net or has anybody -- does anybody else -- do you know 16 what I'm talking about?
I see some nos.
17 MR. MURPHY:
Would you like me to give a quick 18 presentation?
19 MR. LEVIN:
That's what I was leading up to 20 since we have time now.
He would be very disheartened if 21 I didn't ask him to show this.
22 23 24 MS. NEWBURY:
That was a really good
( indiscernible).
MR. HOYLE:
I haven't heard anyone say that 25 they do not have access to the Internet.
So I'm assuming (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1
that all of the participants do have access to Internet 2
and have an Internet address.
I would hope that one thing 3
we would leave with is that we have everybody's Internet 4
address with us to take back.
5 Moe, I want to hear you say again that we now 6
have a teleconferencing facility at NRC?
7 8
MR. LEVIN:
Video conferencing.
MR. HOYLE:
Video conferencing.
9 MR. LEVIN :
John just left.
The first one we 10 did was for MSS and John should be aware of the status.
I 11 think we had it operational a week or so ago.
I'm pretty 12 sure it's up and running.
If not, it's within days for 13 that first one.
We have two other ones in the works.
The 14 equipment is in.
It's just a matter of installation.
So 15 we would be in pretty good shape there and that was 16 another pullet I had.
I would like to everybody's e-mail 17 address or Internet address because, if nothing else, if 18 we have to continue this discussion before we get into the 19 more sophisticated or these interactive forms, we could 20 still talk about things through e-mail and we just have to 21 keep the conversation going.
22 VOICE:
(Indiscernible) 23 MR. LEVIN:
I hadn't reall y anti cipated using 24 a list serve right now.
More just e-mail with YCC lists 25 because hopefully we can jump over the list serve and go (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 straight to the news group or the forum type thing.
I'd 2
prefer doing that rather than set up --
3 4
5 MR. HENKEL:
(Indiscernible.)
MR. LEVIN:
Sure.
Mr. CAMERON:
One other possibility, Moe, is 6
that we use the subcommittee working group concept.
In 7
other words, there may be some issues that we could 8
delegate to a small but to a subset and they could meet 9
and then put it into either the Internet context or 10 whatever.
11 MR. LEVIN:
Well, actually the Internet 44 12 context allows for that.
You can set up little subforums 13 and assign certain people to working groups.
This can all 14 be managed and done electronically and then it's all 15 there.
And then when they're done with their work, they 16 can open it up to the larger community.
So this all 17 works.
18 19 MR. MURPHY :
(Indiscernible.)
MR. LEVIN:
Is there an underline?
Is it all 20 run together?
21 MR.
22 MR.
23 be a space.
It 24 MR.
25 MR.
(202) 234-4433 MURPHY:
(Indiscernible.)
LEVIN:
No, it can't be a space.
It can't has to be some kind of a {indiscernible).
CAMERON:
(Indiscernible.)
MURPHY:
I think it's all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1
MR. LEVIN :
That would make sense.
That would 2
be easier.
As a matter of fact, we might discuss, while 3
Bill is setting up the demo, things like the memos, the 4
letters that John puts out as the chairman of ARP.
What 5
if we did that by e-mail?
Does anybody object?
Is there 6
a problem doing that? It would sure make things a lot 7
easier.
8 MS. STOTLER:
I'm Jan Stotler.
The only 9
suggestion I would have is that you should acknowledge 10 receipt when you get something like that because the 11 Internet is so (indiscernible) if one of the connections 12 is down (indiscernible) get something and you won't know 13 it unless everybody tells you they received everything.
14 MR. LEVIN:
That's an excellent point.
What 15 we'll probably do is when we send these out we'll have a 16 little boilerplate paragraph at the bottom saying please 17 respond or 18 VOICE: Put it at the top.
19 MR. LEVIN :
Put it at the top so they'll see 20 it.
21 VOICE:
Not everybody reads all the way down.
22 MR. LEVIN:
You're right.
No.
You're 23 absolutely right.
24 VOICE:
Half the e-mail I get I read halfway 25 through it and say I don't care about that.
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46 1
MR. LEVIN:
No.
You're absolutely right.
We 2
will make that part of the heading.
3 VOICE:
Perhaps you could even set it up where 4
it automatically returns --
5 MR. LEVIN:
Some systems allow that and some 6
don't.
So that depends on your own internal e-mail 7
system.
So that's not under our control.
That's an 8
excellent suggestion.
So from now on if we get 9
everybody's e-mail address we'll just do it through e-10 mail.
11 MS. NEWBURY:
Remember, too, Moe, that you and 12 I have trouble sometimes because I don't get your 13 attachments.
So we'll have to work out how it is for 14 transmitting 15 MR. LEVIN:
What we -- yes.
There's a lot of 16 protocol issues that will have to be ironed out, but the 17 easiest thing would be just don't have attachments.
Make 18 sure everything is buried in the message.
And that works 19 as long as it isn't very long.
So these things generally 20 tend not to be too long.
So we'll avoid attachments.
21 22 23 VOICE:
(Indiscernible.)
MR. LEVIN:
But it depends.
VOICE:
I have trouble opening attachments 24 sometimes (indiscernible).
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. LEVIN:
One of the problems with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1
attachments is there are several ways of encoding the 2
attachments that will make it.
And if you aren't in sync, 3
if you can't handle the way I encode, and that's the 4
problem we have with Claudia with the Economic Project 5
Office.
We were using different schemes for encoding.
So 6
the easiest way is not to do it until later when we really 7
start passing around substantive large type documents.
8 We'll work out a protocol and say, hey, here's the common 9
denominator.
10 Here again, if we go to the Web technology, 11 that's the nice thing about the Web technology.
It puts 12 everybody on the same playing field.
You don't have to 13 worry about it. If everybody is using Netscape, you 14 already have the means to make sure that you can move 15 files across and there's no compatibility problems.
It 16 makes it a lot easier.
17 MR. HOYLE:
Moe, were you going to say 18 anything more about video conference?
19 MR. LEVIN:
No.
I was just saying that we 20 will have that capability and that may be - - all the 21 people on the panel have that capability available to 22 them?
23 MR. HOYLE:
Yes.
I was going to ask where 24 else does the capability exist?
25 (202) 234-4433 MS. NEWBURY:
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48 1
can make available.
2 MR. HOYLE:
3 MR. HENKEL:
I still move that we hold our 4
annual winter meetings at Lake Tahoe.
5 MR. HOYLE:
We came out this week not knowing 6 it was going to be 98 degrees.
This is still earlyMay, I 7
think.
8 MR. OLMSTEAD :
This is the presentation I use 9
to describe Rule Net to people.
What the Commission asked 10 us to do in -- they asked us to investigate participation 11 in the National Performance Review's Reg Net Project.
At 12 the time, I was the executive director of the 13 administrative conference and the Commission and the 14 National Performance Review staff came to the conference 15 and asked us to start designing a process by which 16 rulemaking could be done on the Internet using Mosaic.
17 The idea was that there would be public participation, 18 consensus building, and interactive text drafting.
As 19 Congress decided to do away with the administrative 20 conference and the NRC finally took me back, the 21 Commission asked me to help develop this concept and the 22 Rule Net was the result.
23 What you have down in the lower left-hand 24 corner of the screen is the home page for Rule Net on the 25 Internet.
You can get to it from our home page, the (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1
NRC.go home page or from the Lawrence Livermore site.
2 What we did was, we developed a system which has a library 3
of all the documents related to the rulemaking, which you 4
see with the references button in the lower left corner of 5
the home page screen.
A news and update section, which is 6
where the system administrators keep people apprised of 7
what's gone on in the forums on Rule Net.
And help and 8
information section, which is where we provide frequently 9
answered questions.
10 The forum, which is made up of three parts, 11 I'll talk a little bit later.
It has a dialogue 12 discussion area, it has a caucus area, and it has a 13 registered participant area.
Quite frankly, it was 14 modeled on the negotiated rulemaking model, which 15 everybody on this advisory committee is somewhat familiar 16 with.
It is not designed to get an absolute consensus, 17 though.
The tools that are developed are developed to 18 help collaborative discussion.
Then there was a feedback 19 area, which is basically feedback on technical problems, 20 and a purpose and vision statement, which describes what 21 it was we thought we were all about.
22 The idea is public participation in an 23 electronic town hall.
The participation is enhanced with 24 collaborative tools.
There are caucus opportunities and 25 there are facilitated discussions.
We also use these kind (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1
of character drawings to guide people through the process.
2 And in the discussion we have a little light bulb for 3
bright idea.
A question for question.
A thumbs down, 4
meaning I disagree.
A yes but.
There are a number of 5
other icons.
So that when you look at the threaded 6
discussion, you can tell quickly what the nature of that 7
particular comment is all about.
8 We use the Mosaic Web Browser.
Many people 9
don't realize that it was December of 1993 when the Web 10 Browser first appeared.
Here we are three years later and 11 there has been no piece of software take off quite like 12 Mosaic did.
In this particular rulemaking, we had 13 petitions for rulemaking on fire protection and she chose 14 fire protection because -- one of the reasons we chose it 15 was because we had reluctant participants.
So we weren't 16 going to get just people who were computer geeks 17 participating.
We were going to get people who have 18 stakes in the outcome having to use the technology and who 19 were somewhat negative about it. It gave us an 20 opportunity to measure that and we're in the evaluation 21 stage at the moment.
I'm sure if I told everybody at the 22 time if they opposed it, it meant I was going to look 23 favorably on the project, they would have applauded it 24 greatly.
25 The Reg Net idea was that you take distributed (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 data from many different places and you access it with a 2
graphical user interface like Mosaic, Netscape, SPRY 3
Mosaic, American Online, CompuServe, your local Internet 4
provider.
All of these databases can be distributed out 51 5
on the Net and you can get access to them very easily.
It 6
allows the public to participate at the low end.
Very 7
simply, with a links browser, even a blind person using a 8
brailler can access this information and make sense out of 9 it.
You don't have to have all the pretty pictures.
10 The industry is able to use whatever software 11 forms that they may have and convert them with these using 12 protocols like standard generalized markup language, 13 adobe, PDF files, signature and authentication devices.
14 And the government is able to provide the public a uniform 15 interface across agencies.
In other words, you shouldn't 16 have to deal with the IRS and the NRC using different 17 software.
So the theory was everybody would be using the 18 same software and the same protocols and the same 19 interfaces and they would be able to have equal access to 20 modeling and analytical tools.
21 Rule Net gave us an opportunity to show real 22 live modeling.
We had a video conference kickoff where we 23 had the Commission in Rockville at a video conference 24 center.
We had our regions hooked up with video 25 conference centers.
And we had a court reporter who used (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 a stenographic machine, pumping ascii text out onto the 2
Internet simultaneously.
And if you were in Hoboken, 3
Iowa, you could see that conference on your computer 52 4
screen at home using America Online within four minutes of 5
the spoken words in Rockville.
And we provided a form 6
where people could submit questions at the time and those 7
questions were fed back to us from Lawrence Livermore to 8
Rockville and the Commission was able to respond.
I'm not 9
going to go into fire protection and thermal lag for you, 10 but what we learned on this was that the public on the 11 Internet asked more questions through their computers than 12 they did in the video conference centers around the 13 country.
14 So our milestones we:¢:~ :;~e:t=e..::: we started this 15 project in November, we let people play with it in 16 November and December, we brought it online in January, we 17 closed the forum in February, and we're now in the 18 evaluation phase.
And we have it set up back here on the 19 World Wide Net where I can actually show you the 20 discussions.
I could do it here but I can't get the phone 21 line (indiscernible).
22 MR. LEVIN:
I thought it would be very useful 23 for everybody for people who haven't seen what the thread 24 of discussions looks like to actually see it.
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Right.
So I think you do want NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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to go look at one.
I can probably pull one up here, given 2
a minute or two, that's on this hard drive.
But it would 3
be better if we looked at it back here.
4 The one thing I should say is, we developed 5
some consensus evaluation tools using John Hellie of 6
Conflict (indiscernible) in San Francisco and patterned it 7
somewhat on the University of Arizona's Ventana software.
8 I don't know if any of you have ever used that, but it's 9
designed to improve meetings where you have somebody using 10 a flipchart.
And the theory is, everybody goes around and 11 tells you what they think and you hear the same thing 12 sometimes 20 times by the time you get around the room.
13 With collaborative software, everybody has a pc terminal.
14 Like the one that I'm using here.
And whatever 15 proposition is before you, you type the information in.
16 The computer or the artificial intelligence agent then 17 sorts it.
And people then get a screen presentation of 18 everything that people said and they can prioritize it 19 right at their computer screen and then it's reorganized 20 that way.
And essentially you can take what would take 21 eight hours worth of meetings and consolidate it into 22 about 45 minutes using these software tools.
23 24 VOICE:
(Indiscernible. )
MR. OLMSTEAD:
What we are suggesting that we 25 might do is, instead of having a meeting like this, we (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1
have virtual meetings using these tools where we give 2
people three days to comment on a particular proposition.
3 And then we provide them the sorts back and in the 4
threaded discussions you would see the results.
5 We also had a bozo monitor tool.
That anytime 6
a registered participant used profanity, they got thee-7 mail returned to them asking them to clean it up before it 8
was posted or to submit it in writing.
9 We had facilitators review the threaded 10 discussion in the facilitated area.
And the theory was, 11 if somebody was getting a little bit hot under the collar, 12 and we had some of that, the facilitator would talk 13 offline to the person suggesting how they could make their 14 point and then post it after that offline discussion.
I 15 don't think for the LSSARP we would do anything quite that 16 elaborate.
17 We also put this in three phases.
The first 18 phase was brainstorming where everybody was asked just to 19 pose their ideas.
The second phase we had the 20 facilitators try to structure that into subject matter and 21 have people respond to the subjects.
And then in the 22 third phase the staff said what they thought about it.
23 And we asked for traditional comments on that.
24 We're not talking about anything quite that 25 sophisticated here either.
What we're really talking (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 1
about it using the threaded discussion where we might pose 2
something for people to talk about over a period of time, 3
let everybody respond to it, and then use the facilitation 4
tools to move on from there.
We think that might be 5
useful in the context of LSS development.
6 MR. SILBERG:
Bill, did you do an analysis of 7
how much the process costs versus how much the typical 8
process costs?
9 MR. OLMSTEAD :
How much this process costs?
10 MR. SILBERG:
Yes, your Rule Net.
11 MR. OLMSTEAD:
We're in the process now of 12 doing that analysis.
I can give you some interesting 13 feedback.
We've done a statistical regression analysis of 14 a survey we gave to all of the participants and there's a 15 surprising support for this concept in the public.
There 16 is less support for it within the Agency.
And the reason 17 is that it probably changes the way the Agency does 18 business more than it changes the way the public does 19 business.
20 Normally, when the Agency puts a notice out, 21 it doesn't have to do anything until the comments come 22 back in.
So that period of time is available for other 23 tasks.
Whereas in this type of process your technical 24 staff actually as to be engaged while the public process 25 is going on.
They're actually engaged with the public who (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 1
is commenting in order to move from phase one to phase two 2
to phase three.
3 So it is more resource intensive within the 4
Agency during the public comment period.
It appears to be 5
a wash, though, in the total comments analysis if you 6
accept the legal proposition that if there's a comment and 7
a response you don't have to further analyze that in the 8
comments analysis on the rule.
I don't know where I come 9
out on that right now.
I'm still hearing everybody's 10 argument.
But those are the differences that bear on 11 costs at the moment.
12 MR. LEVIN:
Excuse me.
If anybody would like 13 to see what this threaded conversation looks like --
14 MR. GIL:
April Gil, Department of Energy.
I 15 assume that you've got a concurrence process that the 16 staff goes through when they respond to comments on the 17 rule.
How is that handled with the electronic format?
18 MR. OLMSTEAD:
In Rule Net, Rule Net is a 19 team-based management approach, which we were in team with 20 Lawrence Livermore.
I was the one that everybody looked 21 to for the authoritative decision on this.
And my 22 decision was, we would not have authoritative agency 23 responses during the period that Rule Net was pending.
We 24 said that nobody in the staff spoke for the Agency but 25 anybody on the staff could speak their mind.
So we didn't (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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have any problem with that, that I could detect.
What I 2
did was, if some staffer did put something out there that 3
I thought was ill-advised, I did attempt to get -- I used 4
the facilitation tool to have an offline discussion with 5
them before they actually posted what they posted.
But it 6
was largely to say do you really want to appear to be that 7
hostile to this particular comment.
8 MR. SILBERG:
What does that do to the 9
argument that you don't have to respond to the comments if 10 the response to the comments are not agency positions.
11 MR. OLMSTEAD:
My tentative thinking on that 12 is, I don't have to respond to commenters where the 13 commenter doesn't expect a further response.
And that 14 becomes a judgment call.
Not every commenter wants every 15 comment that they've already got a response to responded 16 to again if they're satisfied with the answer.
17 MR. SILBERG:
The question is whether that 18 meets APA requirements.
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, it does.
As you well 20 know, all the APA requires is notice of issuance, which we 21 gave, and a reasoned response, which I would argue those 22 are.
23 MR. SILBERG:
The question is whether it 's 24 reasoned if only one party gets it as opposed to the world 25 at large.
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MR. OLMSTEAD:
No.
Everybody gets i t.
2 Everybody can see it.
3 MR. MURPHY:
Everybody who's on the Rule.
4 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Anybody who has access to the 5
Internet can see any of the comment responses.
6 MR. SILBERG:
The next question is whether 7 it's a reasoned response if it's not the Agency response.
8 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, it is the Agency's 9
response when we get done.
10 MR. MURPHY:
(Indiscernible), but that's a 11 good question.
When does an informal comment that goes 12 out over the Rule Net become an Agency response?
13 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The problem is really -- the 14 correct question is, when does the Agency actual ly propose 15 a rule.
My answer to that is, this is more into advance 16 *ti~ef~ee2i~,!,~1et.l notice of proposed rulemaking than it is -
17 18 MR. SILBERG:
Okay.
So this is not 19 rulemaking.
This is ANPR's space.
20 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Right.
And the theory is *M 21 ~
yet to be tested;;,.~ T~hat when we promulgate the 22 notice of proposed rule we'll get fewer comments.
23 MR. SILBERG:
If it's ANPR, then it doesn't 24 matter because that's nonlegal.
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. HOYLE:
I think we're also seeing an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the interactive 59 3
MR. OLMSTEAD:
Jay is just treating us to the 4
conversation that's already gone on.
5 In order to keep on schedule so we can make 6
the 11:00 o'clock demonstration, here again I just want to 7
make the offer.
If anybody wants to see what we're 8
talking about, I can show you right here.
You'll have to 9
huddle around.
10 MR. HOYLE:
What I would propose to do, Moe, 11 is invite us to take a break and utilize your 12 demonstration at that time.
13 We're expecting Kimberly Hodes in before 11:00 14 we hope and set up this other demonstration.
So let's 15 take a break at this time and hopefully get back together 16 around 11:00 o'clock.
17 (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)
18 MR. HOYLE:
We're back on the record.
At this 19 time we will take our lunch recess.
20 (Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m., the above-entitled 21 matter recessed to reconvene at 1:40 p.m., the same day.)
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A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 2
3 (1:40 p.m.)
MR. HOYLE:
We're back in session now.
I'm 4
going to ask Moe, the LSS administrator, to enlighten us 5
to pick up where he left off this morning.
6 MR. LEVIN:
This afternoon John is going to 7
discuss the status of the topical guidelines and also the 8
decision capture process and procedure issues.
And Bill 9
is going to talk about assessment of licensing support 10 technology and options for the future.
11 This morning has kind of started to set the 12 stage for what we're going to discuss this afternoon.
I'd 13 just like to run through a few ideas that are the 14 underlying theme for the discussion about LSS technology 15 this afternoon.
16 What we've been discussing int ernally at NRC, 17 the Senior Management Team, is that the centralized 18 monolithic original concept for the LSS, basically an 19 early 1980s type of concept, is no longer cost effective 20 or even desired given the current state of technology.
21 That computer technology now is available to everybody.
22 Not like it was back in the early 1980s.
And that 23
- litigation support software is now commonplace and off the 24 shelf as we saw with this presentation this morning on 25 summation.
Also, we now have the Internet, which is a (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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relatively new technology that has just recently come on 2
the scene.
And the World Wide Web makes many separate 3
databases appear as one, can tie it all together, and 4
basically provides a common playing field for everybody to 5
get to very easily.
6 On the surface one could think that the LSS 7
could just be an agreement between everybody involved on 8
structures, procedures, and protocols we all would use 9
over the Internet using the World Wide Web.
And there are 10 many real life examples of what we're talking about using 11 the Web.
For instance, there is a search engine on the 12 Web, which is called Alta Vista.
It's by Digital 13 Equipment Corporation.
And it allows you to do freeform 14 searches much like you would do in the LSS.
Currently it 15 represents 21 million pages of information, eight billion 16 words of text.
This is all done under a VAX-based system 17 under the operating system OSF-1.
And if you looked at 18 and did any of these searches, you'd look at this and 19 you'd say, hey, this is a lot of functionality already 20 from the LSS.
We saw this morning with the demonstration 21 on RIS.
It doesn't take a great intellectual lead to put 22 it all together and say this could be the basis for the 23 LSS.
24 And this is basically what our thinking is.
25 And what you're going to hear we're going to present for (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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discussion this afternoon.
Not to say that there won't be 2
a lot of problems doing it this way.
We've started 3
thinking about what it would take to administrate this 4
from the LSS administrator's perspective.
And things like 5
the Compliance Assessment Program, the auditing, the 6
guaranteeing of availability and up time and those kind of 7
issues.
8 Looking at the original LSS requirements as 9
they were developed, I'm not sure that all those 10 requirements could even be met under an Internet-based 11 approach.
But if we think it's the way to go, we may want 12 to go back and look at some of those requirements and say 13 what requirements are really necessary and what 14 requirements have just kind of been added on as a nicety 15 as time has gone on.
If we agree this is the way to go 16 and we look at it and we can get reasonable in what our 17 functional requirements are, I think we have a real good 18 shot at putting together a system that will work for 19 everybody and will be very cost effective.
20 So this was just all.
We're going to now, as 21 a part of these discussions, get into more detail in this.
22 23 24 25 (202) 234-4433 Bill?
Who is first? John's going to MR. GREEVES:
Why don't I -- yes.
MR. LEVIN:
Okay.
MR. GREEVES:
Bill is playing catchup over NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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there.
Playing maybe.
I don't know.
2 I've really got a set of talking points.
I 3
laid a bunch of copies over there.
Hopefully people have 4
5 6
7 been this picking them up.
Do people around the table have set of notes?
MS. NEWBURY:
Yes.
MR. GREEVES:
Okay.
Good.
If you don't, 8
we've got like three over here.
It's just points that I 9
thought would be useful to get through.
10 Many of you were at the High-Level Waste 11 Program this week but a few of you were not.
So I'll just 12 give a little bit of background.
13 Again, I'm the director of the High-Level 14 Waste Program at NRC.
The changes that are affecting the 15 program are having a large impact on me, my program, DOE, 16 others, and I think most are familiar with the fact that 17 DOE is coming out with a new program plan.
It was a 1994 18 program plan.
Now there's a 1996 program plan.
A lot of 19 this was caused by budget cuts.
Doctor Dreyfus is talking 20 about his viability assessment in 1998.
At one point in 21 time the license application was due in 2001.
Then it was 22 no date at all in mind.
And very recently the date that 23 is being talked about is 2002.
Well, separately, there's 24 two pieces of legislation on the hill.
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difficult to sort of understand what is it that I, and 2
whoever the I is, whether it's NRC or DOE, what is it that 3
I need to be doing.
So sort of in self-defense, our 4
approach is, we need to keep our focus on the disposal 5
issue.
There ' s a lot of attention being paid to the 6
storage issue.
Well, my program has to focus on the 7
disposal issue.
8 Also, our resources are cut.
We had a $22 9
million program.
Budget cut it to 11.
Fortunately we 10 have some carryover funds that allow us to operate a 11 little bit above 11.
So with that, I've had to slim down 12 my staff and try and focus on the important issues.
We 13 did a number of papers at the conference here to try and 14 identify what those issues are.
And we refer to what we 15 call the 10 key technical issues and the staff sitting 16 around the table are familiar with that.
So I just do 17 this as a little background.
18 But for lots of reason, I, my staff, we need 19 to streamline our efforts.
We've done that in terms of 20 defining what we think the issues are.
I think these 21 techniques, that we have video conferencing, use of the 22 World Wide Web, are tools that I need to, my staff needs 23 to get better at utilizing.
So that's sort of the 24 background.
25 (202) 234-4433 I come to this LSS topic.
I wasn't there at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the beginning, but corning to it, there's a recognition 2
that we need to document decisions.
Now where we are at 3
some point in time, what that decision is, document it.
4 It doesn't mean it can't change, but I think a need that 5
we have is to have an agreement with DOE that they will 6
document the decision process that they're going through.
7 There's a number of things in the past that weren't 8
documented as well as they should be.
My point at this 9
point in time is, I'd like to come to some agreement as to 10 how we're going to document the decisions moving forward.
11 We can talk about past decisions but minimum at least 12 document the decisions moving forward.
I'd like to just 13 throw that out for discussion, one of the discussion 14 items.
15 When the Commission staff puts together 16 papers, makes recommendations, the Commission comes back 17 to us and not always, but frequently they agree with the 18 recommendations that we have and all that is a matter of 19 record.
I think if we could agree on what level of 20 decision needs to be documented, how it's going to be 21 documented, that that is an important step that will help 22 us in the licensing process.
23 So I'll just throw that open to the floor.
I 24 know Bill's got some views on this.
And I won't ask him 25 to go over his old views but maybe his views of how we can (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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constructively work this in the future.
Bill, you want to 2
help me out here in terms of -- that's a small 3
4 MR. OLMSTEAD:
You don't want me to do this.
MR. GREEVES:
Not yet.
No.
Just the topic of 5
documenting decisions.
6 7
when I MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, one of the problems I had there's a story I like to tell that some of the 8
people in this room have probably heard me tell about.
9 It's a Russian folktale and it has to do with the cold 10 winter in Siberia when this bird was freezing to death.
11 MR. GREEVES:
This was a small bird, Bill.
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
And a Russian peasant comes 13 along and the bird is lying on the ground and is about to 14 freeze to death.
He'd like to do something to help it, 15 but he looks around and he can't find anything to help the 16 bird except that he sees a steaming cowpat over in a field 17 and he sticks the bird in it and goes on his way.
Pretty 18 soon the bird warms up.
The bird starts feeling pretty 19 good and starts to sing a little song.
And as the bird is 20 singing a little song, another peasant comes along and 21 sees the bird in this cow manure.
He takes it out, cleans 22 it off, and very delicately puts it on its back and 23 continues on the path.
Then the bird dies.
The moral of 24 the story is, it isn't always your enemies who £.?,ut,, you in 25 it, it isn't always your friends who get you out of it, (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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but when you're up to here in it, for God's sake don't 3
I think the story is apocryphal for the High-4 Level Waste Program because everybody has good intentions 5
and people's intentions aren't always interpreted the way 6
that they ought to be.
But the fact is that people are 7
trying to do a good job with respect to their particular 8
piece of the program, whatever that may be.
Whether it's 9
the state's interest, the federal interest, the local 10 interest or not.
But the time frames involved are much 11 longer than the political institutions and the consensus 12 available to support them.
And we've had that problem.
13 When I first came into government in 1974 from 14 the State of Kansas, I was told, gee, we're going to put a 15 young, ambitious lawyer on high-level waste because by the 16 end of your career you can have this done.
And I am now 17 going to retire in a few years and pass it on to yet 18 another group of young lawyers that probably won't have 19 any better success than I've had at seeing a program come 20 to an end.
21 One of the problems we dealt with in the 22 negotiated rulemaking years ago, and we're still dealing 23 with today, and it's not going to change, is documenting 24 who made what decision when on the basis of what data.
It 25 is just absolutely important to know whether or not a (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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particular decision was made in cognizance of a particular 2
set of facts.
3 When I got back to the NRC and started looking 4
at just our piece of the LSS, we weren't doing a very good s
job of it.
I don't think a very good job of it is still 6
being done even though everybody knows that you should do 7
it.
And it isn't that they don't know that you should do 8
it and that they're not trying to do it.
It is that 9
people's work habits as human beings make it awfully hard 10 to get them to conform their habits to some kind of 11 systematic approach to documentation of issues and 12 decisions.
13 The good new is, I think at Yucca Mountain on 14 the technical side with QA data we got the message across.
15 And at least up to now the data trails are there.
But if 16 you go to headquarters and look and say can I find what 17 data was available to Ben Rushe when, we'll find that Ben 18 Ruche has gone and taken his records with him.
19 20 What's that?
You never wanted them anyway.
So the same thing is true with NRC.
We've had 21 John Davis leave.
We've had Bob Browning leave.
We've 22 had Joe Bunting, Bob Benaro, and it's just important.
23 MR. GREEVES:
I think, Bill, in the Commission 24 we do have a procedure at least for things like Commission 25 papers.
I mean significant items we raise up to the (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Commission.
Those are documents that are released, 2
they're public documents, and they're available.
I think 3
a question is, do we have a parallel set in DOE land and 4
have we got an eye on that set.
They need to find their 5
way ultimately into an LSS.
6 VOICE:
We can't hear you over here, John.
7 MR. GREEVES:
Okay.
I'll speak louder.
8 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Let me just address the 9
Commission piece of it and John will tell you the pain we 10 just went through because we wanted to set up a Commission 11 decision tracking system to do the very thing that I'm 12 talking about here.
And the agony we went through to get 13 that tracking system put in place, and we've only done 14 that in the last year and a half, was horrendous.
People 15 did not want to support that effort.
We were in desperate 16 straits.
We were about to lose our agency historical 17 memory because of retirements in the Agency.
And we had 18 no method of getting to the key documents so people didn't 19 waste time letting a lot of stuff that they only found out 20 later didn't mean anything.
But to put the professional 21 team together to put that database in place, and it's not 22 a very big database, was hugely controversial within the 23 Agency.
And that's the type of thing that I'm talking 24 about.
25 I think we're in good shape at the moment.
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How long it stays in good shape - -
2 MR. GREEVES :
You're talking about NRC space 3
we're in good shape.
4 MR. OLMSTEAD :
I'm talking about a very narrow 5
part of NRC space.
I'm talking about those documents that 6
the politically appointed officials of the Agency treat as 7
important in their daily work.
8 I can see I'm making a big impression on my 9
colleagues.
10 MR. ECHOLS:
Bill, did you get any kind of 11 (indiscernible) holding up the process?
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
No.
The problem quite honestly 13 is the commissioners don't know what documents they rely 14 on.
And so you have to go to the professional staff that 15 prepares the papers to develop the document trail for 16 them. And their attitude, quite frankly, is why should I 17 bother.
I know what they are.
18 MR. ECHOLS :
You can have some structure in 19 the SECI process (indiscernible).
20 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I think the question is, we 21 have a structure in the SECY process designed to track 22 something.
I think John knows more about that than I do, 23 but it doesn't really track by issues.
It tracks by date 24 and decision.
But if a particular issue came up in a 25 number of different contexts, it's usually the (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 professional staff that sees the interrelationships and 2
can tell you that these six documents go together.
72 3
MR. CAMERON:
Will you please state your name 4
for the record?
5 MR. ECHOLS:
Stan Echols.
On the policy 6
statement on risk assessment, for instance, I thought the 7
NRC did an excellent job in giving the historic record as 8 it went along.
So you'd pick up the latest SECY paper.
9 Within it, it would track from the previous SECY paper the 10 other documents and there were a number, I think - -
I 11 don't know if they were new regs or what, but there were 12 some technical documents on PRA and how it applied across 13 the program and so on.
So you do have a pretty good 14 system of laying out a paper trail.
And then when you 15 publish the final policy statement, again in the 16 statements of consideration it's laid out.
17 So I find it a lot easier with NRC than a lot 18 of other places in backtracking to pull the key documents.
19 They may not all be in the one spot, but if you pulled a 20 series of documents, they, in turn, will lead to the other 21 documents.
22 MR. SILBERG:
The only question I have is when 23 you said how will be able to determine the data that 24 decision-makers had in front of them when they made a 25 decision.
I don't think the SECI papers do that.
The (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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SECI papers are very high-level documents.
And if you're 2
expecting DOE's decision-making process to get down to the 3
data level, I don't think there's any precedent in NRC 4
world that will take you down that level of a document 5
trail.
Now whether that's feasible to do it or not, I 6
simply don't know, but it certainly to my knowledge isn't 7
done at the NRC today.
8 MR. OLMSTEAD:
One of the problems I have in 9
raising this issue with the Licensing Systems Support 10 Advisory Committee, or whatever the official acronym is, 11 is that for everybody except us it's not terribly 12 important.
It is vitally important to us and the reason 13 is that we don't have long institutional memories when 14 we're dealing with issues.
And we can waste an awful lot 15 of time recreating a trail of decision-making only to find 16 out it wasn't relevant.
17 To take it completely out of this context, 18 I'll tell you the first time I came up with it was when 19 the law firm of Covington and Burling came to a meeting 20 and embarrassed me with the document paper trail of our 21 own agency.
And fully nine out of the 10 documents that 22 were critical to this particular decision, which had to do 23 with the transfer of control of the license, which has 24 subsequently become kind of folklore, we couldn't pull out 25 of our record system.
Once I had the author, the title, (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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and the date, I could get it.
But I didn't know the 2
author and title and date when I started to work on the 3
problem.
4 MR. SILBERG:
How long ago was that?
5 MR. OLMSTEAD:
That was back in 1979.
But I'm 6
just talking about the type of thing that John is raising 7
here was a piece of the quid pro quo that we were trying 8
to get out of the licensing support system that we didn't 9
have in the Agency as a while.
10 Even the point that Stan makes, which is a 11 very good point, illustrates this, because when I put the 12 teams together to do the Commission Decision Tracking 13 System from the Office of Research and the Office of NRR 14 and AEOD, the professionals that ~
W$Z'e... designated as 15 cognizant on the issue from those three offices all 16 disagreed on what the key document was.
17 18 rulemaking MR. DAVENPORT:
Since we did the licensing negotiated rulernaking years ago, we have a 19 statement out of the NRC that all issues are litigable in 20 the licensing proceeding.
There are no predecided issues.
21 With that in mind, what difference does it 22 make whether you guys have a record of your tracking of 23 your in-house documents?
They're not going to be binding 24 on any litigative issue anyway.
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. OLMSTEAD:
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to you and make a lot of difference to me if I'm trying to 2
represent these people who are putting together cohesive 3
testimony in a proceeding.
4 MR. MURPHY :
Well, they also someday might 5
make a big difference to the CP circuit, court of appeals.
6 They've got to establish their records and 7
(indiscernible).
8 MR. DAVENPORT:
But the record that's going to 9
be on review is the one that occurs in the proceeding not 10 that happened some years before that Bill's collecting 11 documents on.
12 MR. SILBERG:
But if the issue is how the NRC 13 made a decision, and the NRC isn't able at the hearing to 14 explain the basis for that decision, then they've got a 15 problem.
16 MR. DAVENPORT:
But they're going to have to 17 put on that evidence in the proceeding not it doesn't 18 do any good to put out a document that was created 10 19 years ago.
20 MR. MURPHY:
But I think Bill's problem speaks 21 not just to the ultimate licensing decision.
It speaks to 22 rulemaking.
It speaks to any kind of a decision that the 23 Commission makes.
24 MR. DAVENPORT:
I guess that's my point is 25 that you're trying to use this system that you want to (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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develop as a management tool rather than as a litigation 2
tool.
3 MR. OLMSTEAD:
One of the things that we built 4
into the system that was never a part of the negotiation 5
because of the very reasons that you're raising -- I mean 6
why would you care if I had such a system?
You wouldn't.
7 But at the time that John Davis and Ben Rushe and I were 8
discussing it, we wanted a management system in it.
I 9
didn't have to negotiate that because there was nothing to 10 negotiate.
11 MR. MURPHY:
I think it was part of the 12 negotiation.
I think it was part of the motivation of all 13 of us (indiscernible) negotiating system that we all 14 wanted to be able to manage this information and these 15 documents as well as just find them and the quicker the 16 better, as I recall.
17 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I don't care whether you manage 18 them, see.
I do care whether the NRC manages.
19 MR. CAMERON:
Can we hear anything from DOE 20 about this?
21 MS. NEWBURY:
Let me see if I want to say 22 anything.
In terms of documenting decisions, I agree that 23 there needs to be a systematic approach to doing it.
In 24 systematically documenting your decisions, you create 25 something that goes into LSS which will help you find (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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everything that went into that decision-making process.
I 2
don't see the LSS as the management tool, however.
I see 3
a disciplined approach to creating your management process 4
and documenting your decision as the management -- I just 5
messed up there.
Creating the decision documentation 6
properly, the administrative record properly, and then 7
putting it into the LSS as how you get there not the LSS 8
per se.
9 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I agree with that.
I wouldn't 10 even want to argue that point particularly.
That's why 11 MS. NEWBURY:
What I do want to say is, we 12 haven't been very good at that and we've been talking 13 about how we're going to improve it.
14 MR. OLMSTEAD:
What got me started as a member 15 of the Senior Management Team was, I couldn't figure out 16 what happened to it.
So I had Chip pull the design 17 documents from 1989.
The original reports that were made 18 on the design of the LSS.
In there that very point that 19 you're making is made.
We don't have include this as part 20 of the LSS.
We can pull it out and treat it separate.
It 21 didn't decide to do that.
I can't find any decision, at 22 least in NRC, where they decided to do that per se, but I 23 wouldn't have disagreed with that at the time.
The 24 problem I was, nobody could tell me where it went.
25 (202) 234--4433 MS. NEWBURY:
It probably went into the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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(indiscernible) very well and it sounds like NRC needs to 2
think about it a little more (indiscernible).
3 4
5 MR. GREEVES:
More than think about it.
MS. NEWBURY:
They need to do something.
MR. GREEVES:
What I'd like to -- my sense is 6
that DOE agrees that better is something we can strive 7
for.
I don't think we're going to solve it here.
I 8
wouldn't propose that any solution or agreement be made 9
here, but what I would propose is that we have a separate 10 discussion about what kinds of things need to be 11 documented, how, in electronic format so that we don't 12 have the classical problem Bill described in 1979 where 13 neither DOE nor NRC has a good handle on, well, how did we 14 get from where we are now, 1996, to 2002, and how many 15 times did we change the thermal loading.
We, being DOE.
16 How many times did DOE change the thermal loading at Yucca 17 Mountain?
Just because you document in 1996, the thermal 18 loading design is 85 kilowatts per acre, doesn't mean you 19 can't change it in two thousand and whatever.
But we need 20 to see what that trail is.
I think what we probably need 21 is a separate meeting to talk through what are the items 22 we really want to make sure do get documented.
How is 23 that going to happen.
Make sure it's in electronic 24 format.
You're right, it's not LSS but it can be plugged 25 into LSS once it exists.
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MS. NEWBURY:
I'm not sure if I understand 2
what you mean by "in electronic format."
3 MR. GREEVES:
That means full text retrieval.
4 That's the goal.
5 MR. CAMERON:
If you have a system set up for 6
documenting these decisions, I would imagine, as Claudia 7
speculated, that there would be a document coming out of 8
that process that would then go into the LSS.
9 10 MS. NEWBURY:
Right.
MR. CAMERON:
You need to insure that.
But 11 what I hear being said around the table is that this 12 issue's resolution decision tracking system, whatever you 13 want to call it, is an important part of the NRC technical 14 review and the DOE license application.
And it's going to 15 be tied into the LSS at some point but it is not an 16 integral part of discussion in terms of building the LSS 17 system.
18 MR. GREEVES:
Claudia, to give you an example, 19 and some of the people around the table, when we're trying 20 to build our review plan, I said to myself, well, what 21 happens when Dave Brooks retires.
He's the geochemist.
22 He worked for NRC from 1987 to 1997 and he had all these 23 thoughts, all these ideas on all these rationales of why 24 the container would last for a certain amount of time.
25 Well, I told my staff I want them writing that down.
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MS. NEWBURY:
I agree with that.
MR. GREEVES:
So when Dave leaves, whoever I 3
hire behind him has something to work from.
And whoever 4
has my job when this license is granted, will have some 80 5
basis to know why we thought titanium was a good metal to 6
use.
So that's the point.
7 MS. NEWBURY:
I agree with that completely.
8 In fact, we are doing synthesis reports this year for 9
partially that reason.
To put on paper the thought 10 processes that many of the scientists were going through 11 in making their conclusions on lower level issues or 12 concerns.
And I think we do need to document all that.
13 What I was questioning is when you say in electronic form.
14 Are you looking at some kind of a database that we put all 15 this in and you can link -- I don't know why you say 16 electronic format.
That was what my question is and we 17 can talk about it --
18 MR. GREEVES:
That's just what's in my head 19 is, you know, all the Commission papers we do and each one 20 of them is a significant action.
They're all in 21 electronic format.
when I write an SCR for a case, I 22 fully expect that's going to be in electronic format in 23 the future.
24 Chip?
25 MR. CAMERON:
I think all that John is saying (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS ANO TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 is that hard copy document is in an electronically 2
searchable form in some system.
3 MS. NEWBURY:
It's in a Wordperfect files.
4 That's what I was asking.
I wasn't sure if there was 5
something beyond that.
81 6
MR. GREEVES:
Maybe I was talking past you.
I 7
don't want to have to do what we did with the document 8
system Bill's describing.
9 MS. NEWBURY:
You don't want a scanner 10 MR. GREEVES:
We had to go through our files 11 and the staff, that's why they resisted it. If it had 12 been an electronic file and they had this magic system we 13 all looked at earlier, they wouldn't have complained.
It 14 would have jumped on their machine and they'll say, okay, 15 you want to know what we did on mixed waste in the past 16 seven Commission papers.
That's a push of a button.
The 17 reason they resisted was it was on hard pieces of paper in 18 somebody's file.
Nobody had all of it.
They had to go 19 ask three people.
Gee, I've only got three of those 20 papers.
How many do you have.
That's why they resisted 21 it, Bill.
22 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, I know, but we just had 23 another big meeting and John really is being quiet here.
24 He's the one that's 25 (202) 234-4433 MR. HOYLE:
You're carrying the ball.
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MR. OLMSTEAD:
He's the one that's stuck with 2
administering this now.
But it's not a picnic to 3
administer once you even have it up because you still have 4
people who want to do business without telling you that 5
this needs to be added to the system.
I don't think it's 6
sinister.
It's just the way people are.
7 MS. NEWBURY :
I understand totally.
Believe 8
me.
I've been dealing with it in other arenas for years.
9 People like to have things in their back pocket and that 10 makes them indispensable.
11 MR. SILBERG:
We're really confusing two very 12 different things right there.
One is that -- maybe three 13 things.
One is DOE's decision-making process.
Second is 14 NRC's decision-making process.
The third is the LSS.
15 While the products of the first two go into the third, I'm 16 not sure that there's much of a relationship between the 17 two.
I think it is very important that DOE and NRC 18 understand each other as how decisions get made.
And each 19 one of them independently needs to figure out how they 20 need to document those for their own purposes.
DOE 21 because it's going to be the applicant.
And when Harry 22 and Jim and Steve get to cross examine DOE witnesses and 23 want to say, well, how did you reach this decision, and 24 the guy says, well, there's this report over here, wel l, 25 what went into that report? If the DOE witness isn't (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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going to be able to address those questions, the DOE 2
witness is in trouble and DOE needs to pay attention to 3
that.
4 Similarly, when Bill puts his reviewers on the 5
stand.
When John gets on the stand to say I've made this 6
licensing review and I think this repository design will 7
reasonably assure public health and safety, and they start 8
asking questions, well, what did you base that on, they 9
want to know the trail of documents that leads back.
And 10 all of those documents probably need to be in the LSS.
11 But we really need not to mix up those three different 12 issues.
13 NRC needs to develop a system which makes 14 sense from its standpoint.
DOE needs to develop a system 15 which makes sense from their decision-making system.
And 16 the records need to be collected somewhere so the 17 important ones are going to be around 100 years from now.
18 When we want to close up the repository, someone is going 19 to say, well, my grandfather told me that there was this 20 test that said chlorine 36 was found on top of this hotel.
21 MR. OLMSTEAD:
And I agree with that with one 22 exception.
I want to make -- the reason for the 23 demonstration this morning, the reason for what I'm about 24 to say, if I get to these slides, and the reason for 25 pushing on this documentation is that there's going to be (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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a lot of duplicative money spent if everybody goes off and 2
develops a "system" that doesn't integrate well with the 3
system that other people are using.
4 MR. SILBERG:
They're different systems, 5
though.
One is 6
MR. OLMSTEAD:
No, no, no, no.
They're not 7
different 8
MR. SILBERG:
One is a document system and the 9
other is a decision-making process.
10 MR. OLMSTEAD:
But they're related in the same 11 way that exhibits are related in the courtroom.
If you 12 have your exhibit, I have my exhibit, and Mal's got his 13 exhibit, and Jim has got his exhibit, or whether we have 14 joint exhibits, each of us is going to put a certain 15 amount of time and effort into that process.
If we can 16 find ways to share common standards.
I don't care how you 17 design your "piece of the system," but we need to have 18 some common understanding of what the terminology is when 19 we talk cross systems because there's no reason for them 20 to have a documented decision trail that documents the 21 decision-making in a different way than ours if we're both 22 interacting with each other on the decision.
That's my 23 point.
24 MS. NEWBURY:
I'm not sure I totally agree 25 with that, but we do have to agree at what level we are (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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documenting our decisions.
I don't want to spend a lot of 2
time and money documenting why I moved to -- hole five 3
feet if that's not what's expected.
4 MR. GREEVES :
Well, that's what I was 5
suggesting is that I think we need another meeting.
It 6
would be a public meeting.
Anybody is welcome to come to 7
it.
But I think I, my staff, need to get together with 8
DOE and at least talk about what are those things.
- NRC, 9
what's your expectation of what we, DOE, should be 10 documenting.
At least talk that down or write it down.
11 Obviously, Bill is going to give me some advice on it.
12 I'll take some of that.
But I think there's a separate 13 meeting that needs to happen.
Like you've said, you could 14 do a better job.
So we need that separate meeting.
I 15 think the advisory panel here needs visibility of what 16 we're doing, and if they can offer some comments, let's 17 have them.
My first proposal is let's have that separate 18 meeting.
It could be a video conference type thing.
So I 19 would like to take that as an action item that we could 20 follow up on.
21 MS. NEWBURY :
I agree.
I think it would be a 22 good idea for us to sit down and talk and make sure we 23 understand each other.
And then if we want to come back 24 and tell people what it is we think we're doing and make 25 sure that everyone is comfortable with it, then that's a (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE, N.W.
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good way to go.
2 MS. GIL:
Could I speak for just a moment?
3 April Gil, Department of Energy.
4 John, I would backup 100 percent what Claudia 5
just said.
I'd also mention to the folks in this room 6
that May 8th, which is next Wednesday, we're having a 7
management meeting, DOE and NRC, which is an open meeting.
8 One of the agenda items the NRC has specifically requested 9
is the administrative record and how we document 10 decisions.
The NRC is going to be talking to us about 11 some of their concerns.
I would say that we would be more 12 than happy to cosponsor such a meeting with you that would 13 focus on discussing this issue in more length and more 14 detail than will be possible next Wednesday.
15 MR. GREEVES:
I'm ready to move on unless some 16 of the other parties --
17 MR. HOYLE:
Let's move on.
18 MR. GREEVES:
Okay.
The topical guidelines, 19 and this should be quick.
Again, I think this has been 20 worked on over time.
People have commented on these 21 topical guidelines.
We have a final version of this that 22 include those comments and I'm going to basically publish 23 this as a new reg document.
Does everybody know what I'm 24 talking about around the table?
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. ECHOLS:
Hard to hear you over here.
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MR. SILBERG:
You know what he's talking 2
about.
You don't need to listen.
3 MR. GREEVES:
It's a reg guide called "Topical 4
Guidelines for the Licensing Support System. "
It's my 5
understanding it's been out for comment.
DOE has 6
commented on it.
Others have commented on it.
7 MR. MURPHY:
The same old list?
8 MR. GREEVES:
Yes.
9 MR. HOYLE:
And this panel has - -
10 MR. GREEVES:
The panel has commented on it.
11 MR. HOYLE:
When the Senior Management Team 12 was established last year, this was kind of put on hold as 13 one of the items to be considered in the process.
And now
~~ f-14 you're taking a hold~of it.
15 MR. GREEVES:
Yes.
It sort of got short-16 stopped.
I don't need to go into why.
But the point is, 17 it needs to be out there.
It's a guidepost.
So we will 18 publish it as a new reg document.
19 Now the only thing I'd like to point is, it's 20 based on -- a lot of it what you will find in Part 60.
21 Anybody who sat through this high-level waste meeting who 22 spent any time with me knows that there are some changes 23 coming with Part 60.
So I'm happy to put this out, but I 24 want people to recognize when something else changes in 25 the Part 60 requirements for Yucca Mountain, this thing (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 will get revised.
That's all. I'll just leave it with 2
that.
I just wanted to report to the panel I will be 3
putting it out and I just wanted to make sure everybody 88 4
heard that to the extent Part 60 changes, the document is 5
going to change, and that'll just take time.
6 7
8 MR. DAVENPORT:
Let me --
MR. GREEVES:
Go ahead.
MR. DAVENPORT:
at this juncture make my 9
standard speech about changing any part of the negotiated 10 rule, which the topical guidelines, if I recall, were 11 part.
12 The negotiated rulemaking arrived at a rule by 13 a consensus of the parties to that and any amendment to 14 that rule should be done with the same sort of proceeding.
15 And to the extent that the NRC wants to change a 16 negotiated rule by a unilateral act, we think that's in 17 violation of the process by which you got there and we 18 could contest that.
19 MR. GREEVES:
I hope you didn't hear me say I 20 was changing Part Two version of the rule.
I was 21 referring to Part~-
22 MR. DAVENPORT:
And you just said that the 23 amendments in 60 would amend that, did you not?
24 MR. GREEVES:
Well, the English language is 25 that this refers to things that are in Part 60 and I think (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 it would be inconsistent with Part 60 or the new rule.
So 2
I think we'd have to bring it back to this group and talk 3
about it.
4 MR. CAMERON:
If Part 60 was changed so that 5
vulcanism was no longer an issue or something like that, 6
then if it couldn't be an issue in the licensing hearing, 7
then it wouldn't need to be in the topical guidelines.
8 That's all that John is saying.
9 MR. MURPHY:
It would need to be in the impact 10 statement.
11 MR. CAMERON:
Possibly, depending on what the 12 issue was.
13 MR. MURPHY:
We don't want to reopen that can 14 of worms.
15 MR. CAMERON:
Yes.
We're ready to move on to 16 your presentation, Bill.
17 MR. ECHOLS:
Just one point on the negotiated 18 rulemaking.
If you look at the statements of 19 consideration that accompanied the final rule, the 20 negotiated process was input to the Commission in arriving 21 at its decision regarding Subpart J but it was not a 22 consensus rulemaking in the traditional sense of a 23 negotiated rule.
In other words, this was input but the 24 Commission reserved for itself the right to change the 25 rule.
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MR. OLMSTEAD:
I don't want to talk about 2
changes that are not on the table.
We're not talking 3
about changing anything.
As far as the consensus process, 4
whether we hit consensus or not, we did make commitments 5
to people who came to the table based on those 6
commitments.
7 MR. ECHOLS:
But I think the Commission in the 8
final rule defined what the level of those commitments 9
were.
10 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I understand all that history, 11 but as long as I'm running the rulemaking process at NRC, 12 we're not going to go do something without telling 13 everybody what we're doing.
And you'll at that time have 14 the opportunity to say what you think about it.
So I 15 think that's as far as we can go now because I don't even 16 know what statute I'm going to be administering in 17 September.
18 MR. ECHOLS:
Maybe you can ask at the end of 19 the table.
20 MR. SILBERG :
We don't even know if there's 21 going to be a September (indiscernible) 22 23 MR. HOYLE:
Okay, John.
MR. GREEVES:
That was really the end of that 24 particular topic.
Bill has rescued me and maybe he'll 25 give us a few moments here with some more slides.
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MR. OLMSTEAD:
I never rescue anybody.
I just 2
build fires.
3 My staff wanted to make sure that this high 4
tech didn't fail me.
So they made these slides.
So I'm 5
going to pass them out.
If the high tech had worked, you 6
didn't need (indiscernible).
Since the high tech worked, 7
you don't really need (indiscernible).
8 One of the things I want to tell you about the 9
Senior Management Team and the high-level licensing 10 support system is that you're going to see stuff on these 11 slides that not everybody is going to agree with.
I'm not 12 wanting to argue about what the precise date was when 13 certain things happened.
But I think what everybody will 14 agree with me about is that things happened.
15 When the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1983 16 passed, one of the things that was made absolutely clear 17 to me was that NRC was going to meet the three-year 18 licensing goal.
Of that three-year licensing, an 19 agreement was struck between the hearing division, which I 20 then headed, and the technical staff.
That 18 months 21 would be given over to the licensing proceeding and 18 22 months would be given to the review of the application.
23 So the Licensing Support System had a 24 (indiscernible) in trying to save time in traditional 25 litigation discovery.
Discovery as was conducted in the (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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NRC and the time frame ran between 12 and 18 months, of 2
which half the time was associated with what I would call 3
pleading and motion practice.
Most of that associated 4
with mail because the United States Post Office, due to 5
tests we've conducted in the office at that time, was 6
averaging between six and seven days to get mail from the 7
West Coast to the East Coast.
And so we had changed our 8
rule to allow five days for mail tacked on to every piece 9
of paper that was filed in the proceeding.
10 The other thing that we thought we could 11 reduce time for was document discovery because the theory 12 was if we could get all of the textual documents into full 13 text and provide some kind of full text search engine for 14 the attorneys and boards to use, we could eliminate 15 multiple rounds of interrogatory document discovery.
In 16 the traditional cases, it took three and four rounds of 17 document discovery before the attorneys accepted the idea 18 that they had all the documents.
19 So those two time-saving components were in 20 the original LSS.
As you all know, we negotiated a rule 21 and we thought sometime in 1991 we would have some kind of 22 document database engine up and running.
And the parties 23 would start to have access to it so that we could begin to 24 bring the bugs out.
Of course, here we are in 1996, 25 whether you agree with the 1991 date or not, the fact is (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE, N.W.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 UNITED STATES AMERICA OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + + + +
ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL MEETING LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM
+ + + + +
- THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1996
+ + + + +
+ + + + +
The Advisory Review Panel met at Clark County 13 Government Center, 500 Grand Central Parkway, Pueblo Room, 14 at 8:45 a.m., John C. Hoyle, Chairman, presiding.
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PRESENT:
(202) 234-4433 JOHN C. HOYLE CLAUDIA NEWBURY
'9<;.l.RK BM.l@M STEVE FRISHMAN ROBE°itrI. HOLDEN LQBET~A METOX~
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93 1
in 1996 we still don't have what we assumed we would have.
2 Not only that, the technology, as we saw this 3
morning and as everybody knows, have changed.
The cost 4
estimates have been unreliable.
In the huge litigation 5
that just concluded with some of the computer companies, 6
Apple, Intel, et al., on the infringement of Apple's 7
Macintosh operating system, the total document litigation 8
discovery costs for converting everything to full text for 9
those systems was $60,000.
So if you know what you're 10 doing, you can do this on the cheap.
I'm talking only 11 about the litigation support piece of it.
I'm not talking 12 about the historical database.
13 How did we get here?
Well, we had a Nuclear 14 Waste Poli cy Act targeted schedules.
We had assumptions 15 since 1991.
One assumption that was very critical was 16 that we couldn't all afford to build a Licensing Support 17 System.
So we would share the cost by having DOE pay for 18 it and we would satisfy the other parties' concerns about 19 their proprietary documents by having NRC administer it.
20 As you saw with the World Wide Web and hypertext and 21 distributed databases this morning, we don't have those 22 worries anymore if people can maintain their own document 23 databases but give access to people with security through 24 the Internet.
In addition, at that time we had to develop 25 custom software and there's a lot of off-the-shelf (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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software now that can be used that wasn't available then.
2 Options for the future.
I'm here to tell you 3
t hat the way the rule now reads is if the LSS is not 4
available and you can't go under Subpart J, everything is 5
off and we go under Subpart G.
But by the time we get 6
there Subpart G isn't going to be the Subpart of 1983.
7 We're going to be recommending changes to Part Two.
Tony 8
Cotter of the Licensing Support Board has up - - you can 9
see this on the Internet under the down in 10 Charlottesville areas the National Center for the State 11 Courts and they have a courtroom of the future.
Tony has 12 been a big part of developing a project called JEDI, which 13 is electronic document filing and exchange using value 14 added networks and third party processors.
He's pushing 15 very hard to do all electronic filing in all Subpart G 16 proceedings in the future.
I think that's likely to be 17 the case in the next year to year and a half.
If that's 18 the case, that's 50 percent of the cost savings that the 19 original LSS was supposed to realize.
20 The other thing that we'll be doing in Subpart 21 G is using a lot of the software that you saw this morning 22 or other companies that have similar things and showing 23 people how they can convert their software into these 24 litigation support platforms.
So the different between a 25 litigation under Subpart G and Subpart J might not be (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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really significant.
2 So the Senior Management Team has recommended 3
or will recommend -- we haven't got the paper ready 4
because of the strategic planning initiative that 5
underway.
But I think that the Senior Management Team 6
will be recommending an LSS reexamination.
A lot of the 7
issues we've been talking about today are what we're 8
talking about when we talk about an LSS reexamination.
We 9
will be recommending consultation with the LSSARP.
And 10 some of the things that Moe was showing you this morning 11 about how we can do that much cheaper than having meetings 12 like this through video conferences or hypertext on the 13 Web are the kinds of things that we're thinking about.
14 As many of you know, we have two new 15 commissioners who have to be familiarized with this and we 16 will have to crank their views in.
As we have done those 17 three things, we're going to develop a paper with options 18 in it and hope to have a Commission decision by -- I've 19 got mid-summer here but I was really thinking August or 20 September.
21 MR. SILBERG:
Are you assuming that decision 22 will be made before or after consultation with this 23 committee?
24 25 (202) 234-4433 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The decision on how to proceed?
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by August 1996?
2 MR. OLMSTEAD:
On the recommendations that 3
we'll make.
But as far as the input from this committee, 4
the purpose of this meeting is to get input and ideas from 5
you all either offline or online concerning what you think 6
we ought to do and where we ought to go from here.
7 MR. SILBERG:
This paper that you're going to 8
develop, are we going to be asked to comment on that 9
before you go to the Commission?
10 MR. OLMSTEAD:
You're not going to be asked to ll comment on the paper, no.
You're being asked to give us 12 input or thoughts or whatever it is you would like to have 13 us think about and we will take that into due 14 consideration.
But I don't plan on having another meeting 15 like this or sending the paper out before I send it to the 16 Commission to get comment.
17 MS. NEWBURY:
You're looking at a Commission 18 decision sometimes in August/September of 1996?
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes.
20 MS. NEWBURY:
And then we reexamine LSS?
21 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, it depends on what their 22 decision is.
23 MS. NEWBURY:
Well, I mean assuming that they 24 want to do this.
25 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The way the Commission papers (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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kind of work, we probably will give them three or four 2
recommendations.
We won't say pick recommendation A, pick 3
recommendation B because the chairman prefers not to have 4
staff recommendations.
She prefers to have staff options.
5 MS. NEWBURY:
Well, assuming she picks an 6
option where we do change the LSS, what time frame are we 7
talking about in terms of knowing what an LSS will look 8
like and when we can start procurements for having a 9
system in 1999 as our schedule requires?
10 MR. LEVIN :
Let me ask another question.
When 11 do you need to have it in?
12 13 MS. NEWBURY:
January 1997.
MR. LEVIN:
I would think that's realistic for 14 us to have an answer by then.
15 MR. ECHOLS:
It sounds like what you're saying 16 is that -- and we don't have sort of a transparent view of 17 what your or the Commission's thoughts are on where 18 Subpart G is going to go.
But it sounds like what you're 19 saying is, given the state of technology, and given where 20 G is going to go anyway, that there's a real possibility 21 that given the state of technology and the state of how 22 part G may evolve but you don't really need a separate 23 identifiable LSS and the certification of the LSS and all 24 the bureaucracy that was created under Subpart J that was 25 attached to the LSS process, putting in data, all of that.
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l You may, in fact, have a fairly streamlined Subpart G 2
process that in itself will be electronically based.
3 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Right.
One of the things I 4
didn't put up here that you all know, is that law with 5
respect to the hearing process at NRC under Section 189 6
has changed in the last 15 years.
The kind of hearings 7
that the Commission has to have under 189 are entirely 8
different.
98 9
So there are a lot of things in Part Two that 10 have to be modified.
Right now the Commission doesn't 11 conduct any proceedings really under Part Two in the sense 12 of the notice.
They customize the notice each and every 13 time that they put out a notice of hearing.
Paul always 14 take issue with me when I make this statement because the 15 boards themselves still use Part Two to guide the 16 evidentiary rulings and that sort of thing.
But in terms 17 of the traditional civil court-like proceedings, the 18 Agency hasn't used those kind of proceedings in the better 19 of 10-12 years.
20 MR. ECHOLS:
You bring up another interesting 21 point, and that is, if you're taking a more broadly based 22 view of Part Two itself, I recall in the Energy Policy Act 23 of 1992 --
I mean, this group has focused -- the program 24 has on Title VIII, which was going to promulgation of the 25 new standard.
But there was also a section that was (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 looking to streamlining licensing for reactors and there 2
was a recommendation that maybe Subpart G be scraped and 3
you go to maybe a paper hearing process as opposed to 4
trial type nearing and that was rejected.
But in the 5
House report accompanying the Energy Policy Act of 1992, 6
the rationale was interesting in two respects.
One it 7
said the reason they were staying with Subpart G for 99 8
reactor licensing was that it was only at the time of the 9
filing of the license application that the effected 10 parties or potential parties would become aware of the 11 proceeding and they didn't have a long lead time to 12 develop an understanding of the issues.
13 Of course, in this proceeding there is decades of an 14 opportunity to become aware.
15 The second one they said that not only was it 16 the issue of notice and the opportunity to develop 17 positions on the issues, but also the reactor is a fairly 18 complex animal.
And had it been a materials license, that 19 might make more sense to not follow the Subpart G but to 20 still be able to develop a record that would be appealable 21 and upon which the Commission could base its decision on a 22 simpler hybrid or paper type hearing as opposed to a trial 23 type hearing.
24 And if you're going to take a broader view, 25 why do it piecemeal.
It might be an opportunity to kind (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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of review the whole process say, well, based on the 2
rational that Congress is articulating relative to a 3
reactor license, there's certainly a long lead time and 4
opportunity for people to understand the issues.
And this 5
is, in fact, a materials license as would be the interim 6
storage facility, which is also a materials license.
7 So there may be a chance to have other 8
simplifications of the process beyond which you're looking 9
right now.
So you might want to open it up.
And while 10 you're at it, you also might take a top-down look at the 11 entire TNCFR.
For instance, you've got Part 51.
There 12 are portions of that, that are relevant.
You've got Part 13 72 and 71 relevant to I mean, if you're looking at the 14 High-Level Waste Program as an integrated whole.
Is there 15 such a move to maybe take an integrated look at all the 16 relevant pieces of the NRC regulations to see how you can 17 effectively streamline the process while still maintaining 18 your role as making the public health and safety finding.
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The short answer to that is 20 that there are such movements underway in the Commission.
21 MR. ECHOLS:
Beyond Part Two or including Part 22 Two?
23 MR. OLMSTEAD :
Well, I think it's common 24 knowledge.
There is a massive strategic planning 25 initiative underway at the Commission that the chairman (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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has directed.
Some of that activity involves taking broad 2
programmatic looks at the way we regulate things and the 3
subissues within that are being looked at.
Now what 4
recommendations may come out of that process, who knows 5
except the people that are doing it.
Some of us are 6
involved in some pieces of it but nobody knows what the 7
entire package is that's going to come before the 8
Commission.
And the Commission is not going to be dealing 9
with that as near as I can tell until June/July, I would 10 say, on the current schedule.
So by the time this piece 11 of paper gets to the Commission it will fit into that --
12 13 larger work.
14 15 MR. ECHOLS:
I see.
So it'll fold into the MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes, right.
MR. ECHOLS:
Okay.
What is the timeline from 16 that point on if they're taking the strategic look that 17 something would come out the other end that would be 18 relevant?
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Moe probably knows that better 20 than I do.
21 MR. LEVIN :
Yes.
I'm not sure.
The schedule 22 hasn't been solidified yet.
We would expect maybe 23 sometime final decisions by the end of the calendar 24 before the end of the calendar year.
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repository license application.
2 3
MR. LEVIN:
Yes.
I think that's safe to say.
MR. ECHOLS:
I'm thinking this would be 4
applicable to such things as transportation and interim 5
storage as well.
See, that's why I say an integrated view 6
of the program where Part 51, Tables S-3 and S-4, for 7
instance, come to mind.
That kind of thing.
This could 8
be a very timely exercise going through this because, for 9
instance, ISFSI clearly would be a prime candidate for a 10 simplified non-Subpart G licensing proceeding even if the 11 repository perhaps may not be.
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes, but let me -- before 13 everybody jumps in and jumps on you, let me point out that 14 the balance that somebody in my position in advising the 15 Commission about process of procedure has to strike is 16 when you don't do things in the adjudicatory process of 17 the Agency.
You then make it more likely that it will be 18 done in the adjudicatory process of the courts.
So the 19 trick with administrative law is to get the balance right.
20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. SILBERG:
Could I just get back, Bill, to the point that you made about the input of this group on the recommendations to the LSS?
I listened to your description of some of the things that have been going on, and being a computerly challenged person, I didn't understand two-thirds of what you said in terms of some of (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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these developments and what they mean.
Maybe those around 2
the table who are much more computerly literate than I am 3
understood it.
4 But it seems to me that you and the NRC folks 5
have given a lot of thought to what the alternatives are, 6
and to expect this group, without a lot more thinking and 7
discussion, to be able to focus on some alternatives and 8
then come up with pluses and minuses of various 9
alternatives, is really asking a lot. It seems to me that 10 you could benefit and the Commission could benefit from 11 developing your two or three options and then exposing 12 them to this committee's views.
13 It doesn't have to be another meeting like 14 this.
It could be your Rule Net, it could be done on 15 snail mail paper, it could be done by teleconference, but 16 it seems to me that giving people the option of seeing 17 some flushed out alternatives and reacting to them may be 18 a much more useful approach than just asking everyone to 19 create their own options while we sit around the table.
I 20 think if you go to the Commission with options that 21 reflect some of the reactions of the people around this 22 table, the Commission will have a much better sense of 23 what is doable and what is likely to please the world than 24 if you don't.
Particularly is you do this without input 25 from DOE, which has an obvious major role in the LSS (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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system.
2 I really think that you're going into the 3
Commission naked as opposed to at least having a little 4
bit of clothes around the proposals.
5 MR. LEVIN:
We fully intend to ask for input 6
and take that input.
I think what we don't plan to do is 7
send the document, the paper that we send up around for 8
any kind of review of concurrence or anything.
But as a 9
part of forming that paper, we will be discussing it with 10 the ARP. I think that's --
11 MR. SILBERG:
I don't care what form the 12 information is, and obviously there are things you wil l 13 provide the Commission that would be predecisional, and 14 we're not entitled to see and probably don't want to see, 15 but descriptions of the various options and what they mean 16 and how much they cost and how long they'll take and who 17 gets what and does what to whom would be things which I 18 think this group could easily provide some useful input.
19 I think the Commission would be missing a good bet if they 20 didn't get that information around somehow before it goes 21 to the Commission.
22 MR. LEVIN:
I agree.
Like I say, our intent 23 was not to do that.
Our intent of what we were saying is 24 just as far as the final paper and the final text of the 25 document.
We would not be sending that down for any kind (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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of concurrence.
But as a part of developing that, we 2
would like to have as much input as possible.
That's one 3
of the things the panel is all about.
4 MS. NEWBURY:
I think I agree with Jay.
I was 5
a little concerned when Bill said that this was our 6
opportunity to have input and that we would not see 7
anything further.
Certainly the various options that you 8
choose --
9 MR. OLMSTEAD:
In this program you'll always 10 see something further.
The point I'm trying to make 11 MS. NEWBURY:
Well, let me finish first.
What 12 I want to say is certainly the impacts of each one of the 13 options that you might come up with are impacts on DOE 14 unless we just go to Subpart G, in which case we don't 15 have to worry about developing an LSS.
So you might want 16 to consider our input in terms of impacts on the licensing 17 process for MGDS before developing or putting forward the 18 options.
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I would hope that's one thing 20 that you think about very seriously.
21 MR. GANDI:
I have to reiterate what Claudia 22 is saying.
We have a very tight schedule.
We're trying 23 to get funds committed not only to producing what we saw 24 in the phase two functional requirements that we all 25 participated in but also a reprocessing of a million (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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documents on both sides of the coast.
Those types of 2
decisions we have to have soon before we commit funds in 3
that direction.
4 MS. NEWBURY:
Which is not to say that we 5
don't like the concept.
It's just that we need a lot more 6
information.
7 MR. CAMERON :
I think you were sympathetic to 8
the fact that you need to know whether there's going to be 9
a major redirection because of your procurement.
10 MS. NEWBURY:
That's right.
11 MR. CAMERON :
Is the January 19 -- in order to 12 meet the schedule that you laid out this morning, which is 13 first quarter -- or by the end of 1999 to have it 14 operational, you need to initiate the procurement by 15 January 1997?
16 MS. NEWBURY:
By January 1997, we need to know 17
-- correct me if I'm wrong, John -- the hardware and 18 software that we will have to procure and start our 19 procurement if we're going to have it in 1999.
So it's 20 kind of we better know what it looks like at that point or 21 you won't have i t if we have to do it.
22 MR. CAMERON:
We won't have it by the schedule 23 that you laid out this morning at any rate.
24 MR. DAVENPORT:
Bill, may I ask you a 25 question?
Is there any way if you were to abandon Part J (202) 234--4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE, N.W.
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altogether and to go Part G, is there any way that Part G 2
wouldn't be written so that it would require DOE to 3
capture all the same documents electronically.
4 MR. SILBERG:
Subpart G has nothing to do with 5
capturing anything electronically.
6 MR. DAVENPORT:
I know that, but he's saying 7
that's where it's headed.
He's saying that it's going to 8
be an electronically-based Part G.
9 MR. SILBERG:
But that just means that when 10 you file documents with the licensing board and the 11 Commission you do it electronically.
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
No, it means more than that, 13 Jay.
There is a carefully articulated balance in Subpart 14 J that does not have anything to do with the electronic 15 system.
That has to do with the topical guidelines and 16 the question of what is relevant.
If you go Subpart G, 17 you don't have any definitions of relevance.
The 18 relevance is determined in the proceeding at the time.
So 19 there is nothing down.
20 If you want to game that there will be a 21 narrower scope in the proceeding, you would be better off 22 saying NRC goes Subpart G.
If you want to game it'll be 23 broader, you would be better off saying let's fix Subpart 24 J.
But those are the kinds of things that people who 25 litigate cases are going to have to advise their (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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respective parties and figure out what they think.
2 What I'm going to do is, I'm not going to pay 3
attention to either one of those things.
I'm going to be 4
saying to the Commission here's where the state of 5
litigation support technology is, here's where the state 6
of the hearing process is, here's what the law currently 7
requires that's different, and that gives rise to a 8
question as to whether you want to reconsider these 9
issues.
10 MR. CAMERON:
One of the things that I think 11 we might be looking to the advisory panel for in terms of 12 comment is what effect new directions for the LSS might 13 have on the so-called functionalities of the LSS that were 14 important.
And Jim's question may have been going to the 15 functionality of would documents that are normally 16 discoverable be available before the license application 17 came in or would the process be the same as it is under 18 Subpart G now, which is that document discovery doesn't 19 occur until after the license application.
20 MR. LEVIN:
Claudia, let me ask you to see if 21 you think this would be workable.
Assuming the Commission 22 would make a decision sometime in early fall about which 23 way to go, if we could convene some working groups like we 24 had in Dallas and in Kansas City and just have some 25 concentrated intensive effort on nailing down revised (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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functional requirements, I would think that would be the 2
way we could get it done by January.
Does that make 3
sense?
4 MS. NEWBURY:
It makes sense to me.
That 5
would work if whatever the Commission decided was what the 6
rule was going to be.
I mean, if that was the end of the 7
story.
If we enter into some kind of a renegotiation of J 8
or something like that where we still don't know the 9
answer, the answer may be changing with time, then we're 10 really going to be in a bad situation.
11 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I want to add one other caveat 12 that Paul just reminded me of.
He and I have tended to 13 disagree in the last few weeks on this subject.
So I want 14 to bounce some ideas off.
The 18 months -- remember the 15 18 months?
It is my view that I don't care about the 18 16 months anymore.
There are people that still worry about 17 it.
18 MS. NEWBURY:
It's still in the rule.
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I understand that, but we 20 haven't met any other date.
Why is that the - - date?
21 22 MS. NEWBURY:
These guys will kill me.
MR. MURPHY:
(Indiscernible.) has no three-23 year licensing (indiscernible).
24 MR. CAMERON:
Bill, you may want to be more 25 specific about what the 18 months is because I'm not sure (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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everybody understands it.
2 MR. OLMSTEAD :
The original Waste Policy Act, 3
as I had on the slide, gave us three years, of which 18 4
months was for the adjudication after the staff review.
5 And that's what drove us to an awful lot of decisions.
6 There is no reason given the fact that no other schedule 7
in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to-date has been met in 8
the statutory time --
9 MR. SILBERG:
Except for DOE collecting our 10 fees.
11 MR. DAVENPORT:
(Indiscernible.)
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, I know because I was 13 being told then that I had to treat that data 14 (indiscernible).
I'm merely saying nobody anymore tells 15 me that the most important thing to do in the High-Level 16 Waste Program is to meet the 18-month l icensing schedule.
17 So when you're evaluating these options, one 18 of the things that Paul says is that if you go Subpart G -
19 I should let him speak for himself but you can't 20 possibly meet 18 months.
But I say, well, you know, 21 that's not a big decision criteria anymore.
I don't think 22 it's going to be 36 months.
23 MS. NEWBURY:
(Indiscernible) to leave us 24 (indiscernible) the LSS six months ahead of time, too?
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. SILBERG:
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(indiscernible).
2 MR. LEVIN:
But Subpart G would repl ace that 3
with some other requirements for some kind of electronic 4
mechanism.
5 MS. NEWBURY:
And would there be that same 6
similar prelicensing or prelicense submittal certification 7
or --
MR. LEVIN:
No.
8 9
MR. OLMSTEAD:
Every part would be responsible 10 for meeting their electronics submission requirements 11 their own way.
12 MS. NEWBURY:
But only in time for - -
13 MR. OLMSTEAD:
For whatever they had to do in 14 the proceeding.
The board 15 MS. NEWBURY:
No six months ahead of time 16 certification - -
17 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The board would tell you where 18 you had to file the documents and when.
19 MS. NEWBURY:
It looks like we need 20 (indiscernible).
21 MR. OLMSTEAD :
Look, I am not recommending 22 options here.
I'm merely saying that if you're going to 23 rethink it, these are the things you ought to rethink and 24 the kinds of directions you ought to think about going.
25 When I say I think you ought to do that, I'm really (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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speaking as a staffer whose developing a paper for the 2
Commission to say here are the kinds of options you ought 3
to think.
I don't want anybody to think the Commission 4
has decided any of these things.
5 MS. NEWBURY:
I understand that.
I hope 6
everyone else does too.
7 8
9 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Okay.
MR. HOYLE:
Harry, did you have a point?
MR. SWAINSTON:
Bill, let me just say one 10 thing.
We've always taken the position that the LSS 11 system was very important to us.
It's as important to us 12 as it is to the NRC, I would think, because we're going to 13 be very much reliant on what we find in the Department of 14 Energy's documents.
It's kind of hard for us to sit here 15 and see the system kind of just starting to unravel and 16 crumble before our eyes without at least expressing the 17 fact that that system, or something very equivalent, is 18 very important to us.
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Right, and unravel is not the 20 right word.
21 MR. SILBERG:
It never raveled.
22 MR. OLMSTEAD:
What I hope to do or what I 23 hope that reasonable people will do ultimately, and what I 24 hope to persuade reasonable people to do, is to rethink 25 how we give people access to this information so that they (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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get better access to information on a more cost effective 2
way.
One of the things that I've talked offline to some 3
of people in the room is how to get documents --
they've 4
been waiting breathlessly for this LSS to turn over so 5
they could get them in the system.
And I've talked to Moe 6
about, for instance, can we make an offer to the State of 7
Nevada under the TDOC system to put some of their 8
documents up so that they're accessible now.
So I think 9
to move off the past and into the future we need to talk 10 more freely about the options that are available to us and 11 what makes more sense.
I don't mean at all to imply that 12 we're saying there won't be some way to retrieve 13 information that's electronic and efficient.
14 MR. HOYLE:
Let me comment that it's 3:00 15 o'clock.
I wanted to give Mr. Murphy an opportunity to 16 say anything he would like to say if he wants to say 17 anything before -- he's got a plane to catch, I think.
18 MR. MURPHY:
I don't have to leave for an 19 hour2.199074e-4 days <br />0.00528 hours <br />3.141534e-5 weeks <br />7.2295e-6 months <br />.
Have you ever known me not to take the opportunity 20 to say what I want to say?
21 MR. CAMERON:
You knew he had about an hour's 22 worth of stuff he's usually going to talk about.
23 MR. HOYLE:
I didn't know whether the plane 24 took off at 4:00 or you took off at 4:00.
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at 4:00.
2 MR. HOYLE:
Okay.
3 MR. CAMERON:
Do you want five minutes?
4 MS. NEWBURY:
A break.
5 MR. CAMERON:
Oh, a break.
6 MR. MURPHY:
Let's take a five-minute break.
7 MR. CAMERON:
Thank you, John, for that --
8 VOICE:
We've got a request for a five-minute 9
break.
10 MR. HOYLE:
All right.
Let's take a five-11 minute break.
12 (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)
13 MR. HOYLE:
All right, why don't we begin 14 again, please.
I think the ball is back in SMT's court.
15 John?
16 MR. GREEVES:
Yes.
You might want to just 17 look at my second page of these notes that I think most of 18 you have.
At this point what I want to do is just talk 19 through what we have at NRC.
I don't have out equipment 20 hooked up here, but it's pretty much the same sort of 21 thing you saw this morning that DOE has available with 22 their RIS system.
23 Within the staff we have a system we call 24 CDOCs.
The name really isn't important but it's -- what 25 we call it, it is our document management tool.
It's is (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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full text retrievable.
It is image storage.
It does have 2
some image storage and all of this is retrievable 3
information.
We have it up and running on about 20 PCs 4
and some stations at NRC. We use commercial software, 5
namely Oracle, in terms of database and topic is a search 6
engine.
7 In this system we're keeping track of what we 8
call open items in the High-Level Waste Program.
We are 9
also keeping track of technical documents that we have 10 plugged into the system.
They're full text documents.
11 And also the regulatory documents.
Part 60 is in the 12 system.
Some of the chapters in our standard review plan 13 are in the system.
In fact, there's a number of other 14 documents in this particular system that relate to low-15 level waste, decommissioning.
It's basically an 16 electronic system we've developed for us in NMSS.
17 What we are thinking about is making this type 18 of a system available through a Web site.
We could 19 provide access to what we call the CDOCs system to other 20 users.
And the thought process is, should we start a 21 pilot program where we would put up relevant data for the 22 High-Level Waste Program and let members of the review 23 panel exercise the system including submitting some of 24 their data to exercise this system.
There'd have to be 25 some specifications on how to do that.
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But we just come to this meeting letting you 2
know we do have this electronic system and we'd like to 3
think about putting it up on a Web site. It's not a 4
commitment.
It's an itch that we have and we wanted to 5
get some feedback in this particular meeting and would 6
people be interested in exercising this.
I think this is 7
probably one of those options that will show up in any 8
Commission paper.
To the extent that we've got some real 9
time experience with it, it might help us characterize 10 those options, which would include state outside groups 11 having the ability to enter their data into such a Web 12 site.
13 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I would add here if -- I don't 14 know where Nevada and the counties and tribes are with 15 respect to their own computer systems, but if you do have 16 Internet hookups and you do have Internet databases and 17 you are concerned about the security issues on that, the 18 idea here is to distribute what needs to be distributed 19 but to store for you things you don't care about.
Am I 20 making myself clear?
21 MR. DAVENPORT:
You mean the security which we 22 don't care about.
23 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes.
I mean, in the old days 24 we argued about the LSS administrator because we were 25 concerned about the person who had the keys to the system (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 had access to the documents.
You don't have to design 2
systems that way anymore.
So the documents you're 117 3
concerned about are not documents we're talking about for 4
this.
5 6
7 8
MR. MURPHY:
For the exercise.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
For the exercise.
MR. MURPHY:
They eventually would be.
MR. LEVIN :
Also, given - - if we decide to do 9
this, given the right resources, it's not a big 10 technological stretch to think that we could create one 11 kind of home page, front home page that would not only tie 12 into CDOCs but would also tie seamlessly into the RIS 13 system and that would tie NRC documents and DOE documents 14 together through a home page.
That's realistic if we 15 could come up with the resources to do it to pilot it.
16 MR. SWAINSTON:
We have a couple of problems, 17 one of which is money.
And we're trying to participate in 18 a program where we really don't have anymore federal 19 funding.
I don't see any problem on the security thing.
20 I think the state's position has always been to try to get 21 as much of its data and as much of its technical position 22 out in published reports and out in the public domain as 23 we can for everybody's benefit.
So if you wanted to 24 include us on that type of program, I think we would -- to 25 the extent that we could participate, I'm sure we would.
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MR. OLMSTEAD:
Right.
I want to also add to 2
that, as I've done a lot of work down at the national 3
performance review and because NRC is a fees-based agency, 4
it doesn't quite have the problem that a lot of other 5
agencies have had going to the World Wide Web.
But the 6
reality is that people have gone to the World Wide Web in 7
the last two years.
And with all of the stuff that you 8
see.
The White House home page, all the various agencies' 9
home pages, the databases, the Yucca Mountain project, 10 they're doing that within existing budgets and with 11 declining funds.
The reason they're doing it is because 12 it's actually cost efficient to do it that way.
13 So if you can get your IRMADP people in state 14 and local governments to understand that in some way, I 15 think we can help everybody do it within existing budgets.
16 If by funding you mean FTE and staff positions, then 17 that's something that obviously we can't address.
But 18 there are efficiencies to be realized by these 19 technologies when they're properly designed.
20 MR. SWAINSTON:
One of them just has to do 21 with -- just as an aside - - publication of documents with 22 colored photographs.
You can make an electronic image of 23 that and it's much less expensive than going to a copy 24 outfit and you get a much wider distribution.
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Like that?
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house, I want you to know.
2 MR. SWAINSTON:
Yes.
And I meant to add the 3
final footnote.
That Bill would do all the copying on his 4
$400 machine.
5 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The interesting thing is, don't 6
get me started on how much you spend.
7 MR. SWAINSTON:
It was a joke, Bill, in case 8
you hadn't noticed.
9 MR. MURPHY:
Let me make a couple of comments 10 and start off seconding Harry's consideration.
One of our 11 probably the biggest problem, the biggest concern that 12 we have right now, and I think this is probably equally 13 true for state - - well, you'll notice, for example - - let 14 me just start this way.
You'll notice that there are no 15 other local governments here at the table.
Clark is here.
16 We're in their home.
I'm here by a stroke of good luck 17 recently.
And the state is here.
The other local 18 governments are out of business.
They are absolutely out 19 of business in this program.
20 You know, you mentioned that the White House 21 was achieving efficiencies with declining budgets.
We are 22 not talking about declining budgets.
We're talking about 23 disappearing budgets for the state, for the effective 24 units of governments.
25 So I think that the proposals you are (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 recommending here, just on a very preliminary tentative 2
basis, make a great deal of sense, John and Bill, and I 120 3
think Nye County would be very much willing, as Harry has 4
indicated on behalf of the state, to participate in at 5
least some sort of a testbed to see if we couldn't 6
efficiently make some use out of the TDOC system.
But 7
everybody has to recognize that at least for the remainder 8
of this fiscal year our ability to participate in the 9
regulatory process in its entirety is going to be very 10 limited.
We will be involved only on a very minimum basis 11 and that means that we're going to be doing -- I will be 12 doing, as directed by my Nye County principals, only the 13 things that have the absolute highest priority between now 14 and October 1st.
15 And so how much time we would be able to 16 devote to even thinking about these kind of things is 17 questionable.
But they're very good ideas.
I think that 18 we certainly need to follow up on them.
We need to 19 recognize that technology has significantly changed since 20 we negotiated the rule.
It's passed us by essentially and 21 we need to make some modifications to the LSS in order to 22 not only achieve efficiencies but recognize the current 23 reality.
But how much Harry and Jim and I and Dennis are 24 going to be able to do about that in the next several 25 months is questionable.
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Now if you want to help out in that regard, as 2
soon as you get home you contact your congressman.
I'm 3
serious about that.
Congress needs to recognize more than 4
they obviously have in the past eight months at least the 5
benefit that we bring to this program so that we can 6
continue to function in it.
7 MR. BECHTEL:
What is the time frame of the 8
pilot study that you're considering?
9 MR. LEVIN:
We don't know yet.
We've just 10 started looking into it.
This is all relatively new to 11 us.
We just started looking into see what it would take 12 to put CDOCs on the Web.
13 MR. GREEVES:
Or at least a piece of it.
14 MR. LEVIN :
A piece of it.
I coul dn't even 15 guess right now.
16 MR. BECHTEL :
From our perspective, obviously 17 the sooner the better if there are to be some efficiencies 18 gained in the program.
We still have resources now.
So 19 now is when we should be participating and maybe perhaps 20 providing some guidance or understanding how the system 21 works because later we're not going to be able to do 22 anything.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, I will say 23 24 (indiscernible ).
I apologize to you all for not occurring 25 to me, but one of the things in this national performance (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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review net results thing I'm looking for, for the follow 2
on to Rule Net is a state, federal, sister federal project 3
where we can use those same tools to integrate.
Now Moe 4
and I had talked about the hypertext but we hadn't talked 5
about the whole larger thing that we call Rule Net and 6
using those development tools to do that.
But as long as 7
states and local governments were willing to work with us 8
through Internet access, we probably can design a project 9
that pilots all of those tools within the umbrella of the 10 net results submissions.
11 MR. LEVIN:
The point was, and this is one of 12 the reasons we wanted to bring this up here.
We wanted to 13 see if it was worth pursuing.
That's why we hadn't put a 14 lot of energy into it because -- and we're getting a good 15 strong feeling or a sense that everybody thinks this is 16 definitely worth doing.
So as soon as we get back we'll 17 start looking at it more to see what it would actually 18 take to do it, to scope it out to see.
I don't think it 19 will take a lot of money or a lot of time.
I think when 20 we look into it we're going to find it doable.
I just 21 don't know yet.
But now we will definitely look into it.
22 MR. DAVENPORT:
The kind of project you're 23 talking about won't be a greater cost of participation to 24 those who have a greater number of documents to put in the 25 system?
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1 MR. LEVIN:
It depends on whether those 2
documents are electronic already or not.
If they're 3
electronic, if they're already in electronic format, it 4
really is not going to be that MR. DAVENPORT:
Right.
123 5
6 MR. LEVIN:
There's not that much incremental 7
cost over setting the system up in the first place.
The 8
real cost is when all the documents are not electronic and 9
you have to scan them, you have to prepare them and get 10 them in the system and those type of things.
11 MR. DAVENPORT:
Right.
12 MR. LEVIN:
So it's not the number of 13 documents. It's the form they're in.
And then there's 14 also the question of generating the headers.
No matter 15 what format the documents are in it's all the labor-16 intensive things that cost.
And if we have to go in and 17 create headers, that may be a labor-intensive thing and 18 then the volume would add to the cost.
19 MR. MURPHY:
It shouldn't be that significant 20 for just a small pilot program.
21 MR. LEVIN:
Not for the pilot project, no.
As 22 a matter of fact --
23 MR. MURPHY:
Even if you have to create 24 headers -- so take Nye County, for example.
If we 25 submitted -- I was going to say 15.
Just put in 15 (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 documents.
We aren't going to bust the bank making 15 2
3 4
desk --
5 6
MR. LEVIN:
Exactly.
Bill could sit at his MR. MURPHY:
Bill will (indiscernible).
MR. LEVIN:
Yes, Bill could do it.
124 7
8 MS. NEWBURY:
He does have a scanner, right?
MR. LEVIN:
He's got a scanner.
He has the 9
software and --
10 MR. OLMSTEAD:
One of the things he didn't 11 tell everybody and I didn't tell everybody until now, but 12 because of that crack, I have to tell this.
Rule Net 13 debuted on January 5th.
I don't know if you know what was 14 going on in Washington on January 5th, but everybody was 15 staying home because of the blizzard.
16 MR. MURPHY:
Not Bill Olmstead, though, by 17 gosh.
18 MR. OLMSTEAD:
It turned out I was the only 19 one on the whole damn team who had an Internet connection 20 from my home.
And so I was responding for five straight 21 days to every comment to the NRC on Rule Net.
22 MR. LEVIN:
Well, like I said, Bill could do 23 it on weekend at his home.
24 25 (202) 234-4433 MR. OLMSTEAD:
And that's what I was doing.
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concerned, in my wildest dreams I wouldn't envision enough 2
documents to make it a costly thing no matter what.
I was 3
thinking more further on down the line if we decide to go 4
this way and that's when I was answering your question 5
about volume and everything.
But for the pilot, I think 6
what we would look at is, we'd have to set some 7
parameters.
We ' d look and see what kind of funds we had 8
to devote to and we'd say, hey, we can accept X number of 9
documents in certain formats from you.
That's the way 10 we'd approach it, because under the original concept for 11 the LSS, the LSS administrator was going to have to take 12 documents from the other parties other than DOE and see 13 that they got in the system anyway.
So this is something, 14 you know, part of the model, part of the pilot we'd be 15 doing anyway.
16 MR. OLMSTEAD :
Is there something that you 17 would like to pilot particularly?
I think if we can - -
18 MR. MURPHY:
Challenge the system with images 19 and text.
20 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes.
I mean if there are some 21 documents you particularly would like to start with - -
22 MR. GREEVES :
For example, we could challenge 23 the system with text because we could submit 10 to 15 24 documents from our joint program data.
25 (202) 234-4433 MR. MURPHY:
(Indiscernible. )
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MR. GREEVES:
(Indiscernible) documents, 2
right.
Everybody gets them anyway.
So we don't have any 3
security problems with that.
4 MR. MURPHY:
I think they may already be in 5
our system.
6 MR. GREEVES :
Well, they probably are.
No.
7 I'm sure they are.
They ought to be, but we could still 8
put a couple of them in under our headers just to test.
9 10 MR. MURPHY:
Yes.
MR. GREEVES:
That's just an example.
We may 11 decide to put something else in.
12 MR. HOYLE:
The rule calls for -- if you're 13 following the LSS, it calls for an image and a header and 14 an ascii text if it's (indiscernible) 15 think you would be asking for?
Is that what you 16 MR. LEVIN:
I'd have to think about it.
I 17 don't know.
In a pilot we'd want elements of all of it.
18 I mean, we might get some documents that are just images, 19 some that are just ascii text.
I don't know.
It depends 20 on how far we want to go with the pilot.
21 MR. OLMSTEAD:
We do it under the Rule Net 22 umbrella, we're going to want people using the Web Browser 23 technology to do it.
So we'd have to think about how we 24 wanted that done.
25 MR. LEVIN:
But the point was, would we ask (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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127 1
people to send us images of the document or 2
if it's already in ascii, if it was created obviously, 3
electronically, there are no images.
4 MR. OLMSTEAD :
Ideally, I'd like them to send 5
you a TIFF image in the electronic text.
6 MR. LEVIN:
For those documents that were 7
OCR'd.
8 MR. MURPHY:
A what kind of image?
9 MR. LEVIN:
It's a format for storing images, 10 TIFF.
11 VOICE:
(Indiscernible.)
12 MR. LEVIN:
Like I say, we'll have to work 13 out -- we would lay out those parameters in the plan for 14 the pilot.
15 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Incidentally, you just said the 16 magic word, fax.
There is technology that will accept 17 MR. GREEVES:
(Indiscernible. )
18 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The next generation of that 19 software you saw this morning will convert a fax image to 20 a TIFF image.
21 MR. CAMERON:
John, you and Moe have said a 22 lot of the details would have to be worked out and I guess 23 one of them would be if we put this up on a Web site who 24 would be given access to the Web site?
Were we thinking 25 about all LSS participants or open to the public (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1 generally?
2 MR. MURPHY:
For the pilot, I think the 3
public.
4 MR. LEVIN:
For the pilot, you just want to 5
make available to the LSSARP members.
6 MR. OLMSTEAD :
The way Rule Net is designed 7
well, if you used those tools, the way it's designed is 8
the public has access to whatever the public has access 9
to.
But the people who can post and comment are 10 restricted.
11 MR. LEVIN:
If we use just Netscape -- we 128 12 didn't use Rule Net.
If we used Netscape Mosaic type news 13 group, I'm not sure how easily we can restrict.
14 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, I know.
That's why I was 15 suggesting what they're discussion here, which is how they 16 would actively participate may require some of those other 17 tools.
18 MR. MURPHY:
Well, no.
I wasn't concerned 19 about how gets to look at it.
I was referring only to who 20 gets to participate.
21 22 MR. LEVIN:
Okay.
Yes, that would just MR. MURPHY:
Let the public have access to 23 look at it. That's fine.
24 MR. LEVIN:
Good.
Misunderstood the question 25 because that makes it easier.
Certainly it would be the (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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parties represented by the ARP.
That's all we'd be 2
talking about in the LSS.
3 MR. CAMERON:
Jay, do you have any documents 4
yet so you could throw something on here too?
5 6
with you.
7 8
MR. OLMSTEAD:
He's got a contract he'll share MR. SILBERG:
I missed that.
I'm sorry.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
He asked you if you had any 9
documents you'd like to share with us and I said you have 10 a contract you'd like to share with us.
11 12 MR. SILBERG :
I'm sorry.
We were offline.
MR. MURPHY :
We want Chris to deliver his 13 legislative files so we can (indiscernible) into the 14 system.
15 16 MR. HENKEL:
What legislation.
MR. GREEVES:
Can I maybe interject another 17 thought, and that is, if -- and it is important for DOE to 18 sort out what they need to do by January of 1997.
Part of 19 this pilot process ought to include some sort of interface 20 with the DOE system if we can.
21 22 do.
23 MS. NEWBURY :
I think that's pretty simple to MR. LEVIN:
I mean it's just the URLs.
We can 24 imbed them as links into some home page and we wouldn't be 25 accessing anything that wasn't available to the general (202) 234--4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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public anyway.
Right?
2 MR. GANDI:
You could do a search on the Rule 3
Net (indiscernible) actually search our database and get 4
the results (indiscernible).
5 MR. LEVIN:
That's open to everybody as it is 6
right now.
We would just link into it.
7 MS. NEWBURY:
I don't think linking the two 8
systems is a problem at all.
I think that would be a good 9
idea.
I would kind of like to see CDOCs on a system that 10 I can look at too.
I hear about it but I haven't been 11 able to play with it.
12 MR. GREEVES:
So real time would be doing that 13 also, trying to interface with the DOE system.
14 MS. GIL:
May I ask a question? April Gil, 15 DOE.
I have a question for John.
I see on your notes 16 here on page two at the bottom you've mentioned the Open 17 Item Tracking System.
The OIT system that now has been 18 combined into CDOCs.
Here's my question, John.
We get 19 access to CDOCs, we would be able to how has it been 20 combined?
Has it been subsumed?
Is it a separate system?
21 The reason I'm interested is because this system tracks 22 the regulatory open items and we have a similar system 23 called Tracer that we've been tracking the status and 24 progress and closure of.
For instance, the SCA open 25 items, regulatory open items related to study plans, et (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 cetera.
And we've been interested in this system for 2
quite sometime because we wanted to do a comparison, 3
accounting comparison between the open items that we're 4
tracking and what you say are still open.
So if this 13 1 5
comes to pass what you all are discussing here, we would 6
get access to CDOCs, would we be able to see that in the 7
system?
8 MR. GREEVES :
What we're launching in this 9
meeting is a concept.
I think we wanted to hear from the 10 panel as to do you have an interest in this type of a 11 program.
The answer to that is yes.
So we will continue.
12 We also want ed to find out if DOE would participate in a 13 pilot program of talking back and forth on these issues.
14 We're still having trouble getting all this stuff up and 15 online internally.
So what I ' m suggesting is we have a 16 pil ot program that at least exercises the models.
Whether 17 you have full access to these things, I'm not proposing 18 that at this point in time.
I want to see if there is a 19 Web-run system that we, DOE, others can be one that might 20 serve in the future.
So I think you're question is a 21 little bit more detailed than the commitment to start that 22 up.
I think we could probably maybe address that in the 23 management meeting on the 7th of -- the meeting you talked 24 about next week.
25 (202) 234-4433 MS. GIL:
Okay.
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MR. GREEVES:
Frankly, I don't have the depth 2
myself to give you the answer today.
3 MS. GIL:
Okay.
That's fair.
Thank you, 4
John.
5 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I might also add that one of 6
the thing that I'm trying to lure people into if you want 7
to use this Reg Net approach is that when Lawrence 8
Livermore helps us put this together it works best if the 9
people who are users are engaged with them while they 10 start putting the design together.
So by your saying yes, 11 I'm assuming that means you're willing to be guinea pigs a 12 little bit as they tweak the system to make sure it does 13 what you want it to do.
14 15 16 17 MR. DAVENPORT:
(Indiscernible. )
MR. OLMSTEAD :
What?
MR. DAVENPORT:
(Indiscernible.)
MR. OLMSTEAD:
For Lawrence Livermore.
The 18 computer design people who help us put it together.
What 19 they usually do is, they set up a threaded discussion so 20 that they'll say we've got this working this way, is this 21 what you want.
You have to come back and give them 22 feedback on how it's working and what you want to be 23 different.
24 MS. NEWBURY:
Have we shifted?
Are we talking 25 Rule Net now instead of CDOCs?
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MR. OLMSTEAD:
We're talking about CDOCs being 2
a piece of what you're accessing, but the engine that's 3
laying over this are the tools that we were looking at 4
this morning.
When you put those libraries together so 5
that they work together, it helps if the people that are 6
writing the code that link them all together know you're 7
getting access to what you want to get access to.
And 8
you've got to be willing to give them the feedback while 9
they're putting it together.
10 MR. CAMERON:
I think what the discussion over 11 here had evolved into the fact that John's idea of putting 12 CDOCs up on a pilot would be done under a Rule Net type of 13 concept that would be implemented through NRC's Rule Net 14 contractor Lawrence Livermore.
And as part of that, there 15 would be documents from other parties also put up on that 16 system and there would be a link to RIS.
17 MR. LEVIN:
That's just one option because we 18 have to look at the current state of that contract and the 19 funding and everything.
But that is an option.
As a 20 matter of fact, if we could do it that way, that would be 21 the easiest 22 23 MR. CAMERON:
Sounds like a good option.
MR. LEVIN:
Yes.
If you can do it that way 24 because the contractor is poised to do this and it would 25 be relatively simple to do if we can do it that way.
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MR. CAMERON:
Right.
2 MR. OLMSTEAD:
And they know a lot about the 3
experience they've had with the open meeting and with Rule 4
Net and with other initiatives.
So it would be good.
I 5
threw it on the table just because I'm in the process of 6
casting around for another agency that's willing to engage 7
in this.
It hadn't occurred to me to use DOE until the 8
state's and local governments expressed interest.
But it 9
gives us a vertical and a horizontal dimension that I 10 think everybody would like that's involved in the project.
11 MR. LEVIN:
It's something to look into.
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
It's just something for us to 13 throw into the mix.
14 MR. MURPHY:
There's a couple more points here 15 because I've got to leave in about five minutes.
Just so 16 that everybody is clear in their own mind about what I'm 17 saying, I think I can safely say that Nye County would be 18 very, very anxious, you know, happy to participate in that 19 kind of a test.
But don't interpret that to mean that our 20 enthusiasm for the LSS and its functionalities is in 21 anyway waning.
We recognize the technology is different.
22 That we don't have to spend the kind of money that some 23 people were talking about in the early days of the 24 program.
But we are still very much committed to the idea 25 that we need something like the LSS for us to be able to (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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function with any degree of efficiency in a licensing 2
process.
We need it early.
We're not interested in just 3
abandoning the LSS and the proceeding under Subpart G, 4
even if Subpart G is reworked in your image, Bill, because 5 it doesn't give us -- unless you change Subpart J into 6
Subpart G.
Everybody in the universe is then required to 7
meet the provisions of Subpart J, which is fine with us.
8 But particularly the early access to discovery, by that I 9
mean discovery prior to the docketing and to the filing of 10 the (indiscernible) are very, very important to us.
So 11 we're not by any means suggesting that we're ready to give 12 that up, but I'm willing to work however I can with 13 everybody to make the thing efficient and work in light of 14 today's technology.
15 MR. SILBERG:
Your comments that go really to 16 the functionalities of the LSS and not to the specific 17 technological details.
18 MR. LEVIN:
Right.
19 MR. SILBERG:
What you want is a full text 20 system that's online, that's earlier, that you can have 21 access to that people's documents are in and you don't 22 care whether it's a distributed system or a centralized 23 one.
24 MR. LEVIN:
No, I don't care about that.
But 25 I do care -- I'm not going to give up our concept of (202) 234--4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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relevancy.
I don't want to go to the Subpart G relevancy 2
concept.
I like the relevancy provisions of Subpart J 3
that we shed blood to negotiate.
I'm not going to give 4
them up.
A few other things I can't think of right now.
5 There's other things in there that I'm not going 6
(indiscernible).
7 MR. CAMERON :
He'll know them when he sees 8
them.
9 I just had a clarification for April.
You 10 mean DOE doesn't know whether the open items, its tracking 11 is the same as the open items NRC is tracking?
I mean, it 12 sound amazing to me --
13 MR. SILBERG:
Does that surprise you?
14 MR. CAMERON:
Well, sadly, no, but I think 15 that if one thing comes out of this meeting, if you can 16 pull that amazing feat off to compare those, that would be 17 a great idea.
18 MR. OLMSTEAD:
That's the old (indiscernible) 19 tracking system again.
20 MS. GIL :
Well, I would be pleased to say that 21 this group has helped us with that, if I could, Chip, 22 because we have a system that we've had in place for about 23 seven or eight years a database system in which we keep 24 track of all what we consider to be open items with our 25 potential regulator.
These include the SEC open items, (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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study plan responses that we've made that may include 2
commitments to do* certain work or write specific study 3
plans, and we would like to compare that list just because 4
of some of the problems that Bill has articulated.
We'd 5
like to compare.
We have our record system.
We have the 6
supporting documentation.
So we believe we know what 7
items are considered open.
Of course, we sent this 8
correspondence to the NRC over the years, but we would 9
like to compare the two systems just to make sure that lO we're both tracking the same items.
ll John, I apologize for bringing this up.
I l2 know this has been kind of a thorn.
I tend to nag John l3 about certain things at public forums.
One of them was l4 video conferencing and the other is the Open Item Tracking l5 System.
So I guess we've solved one and we'll continue to l6 work on the other.
l7 MR. MURPHY:
(Indiscernible) video l8 conferencing --
19 MR. CAMERON:
This is not the same John 20 Greeves, you know.
This one doesn't have the beard.
21 Things have changed.
22 MR. MURPHY:
You can get on a video conference 23 and talk about open items.
24 MR. DAVENPORT:
Chip, we don't have the same 25 problem (indiscernible) commitment out of NRC that all (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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items are open.
You don't have to look through how many 2
file (indiscernible) to find what we don't have because we 3
know it doesn't matter what lists are out there because 4
they're all open.
Am I still right?
Am I still correct?
5 MR. CAMERON:
This item is already been put in 6
the transcript because we knew you would raise it.
7 8
MR. DAVENPORT:
Am I still correct on that?
MR. CAMERON:
Yes.
Right, John?
No.
The 9
point is all items are open until they're resolved by 10 either the licensing board or through a rulemaking.
I 11 think the NRC response is that items are "resolved" 12 perhaps in terms of the staff's understanding of them 13 they're not going to be ultimately resolved until the 14 licensing board signs off on them.
15 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I think that's correct but but I'm 16 not sure that I would push that as far as you.
I mean, 17 this topical guideline list that has been sent around is a 18 list of permissible issues but the licensing board still 19 has to find that there is an issue there in order for 20 there to be a litigation.
If there's no litigation on it, 21 the fact that licensing board doesn't issue a decision on 22 it doesn't mean that there's some flaw in the process.
It 23 was never the idea, I don't believe, that the topical 24 guidelines required a decision on each and every issue.
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on them it does.
2 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, yes.
If it's a 3
legitimate controversy and the board so finds, but that's 4
why I don't see a big difference anymore between Subpart G 5
and Subpart J because I think the Subpart G litigant would 6
hold the same position.
7 MR. MURPHY:
Can the Subpart G litigant obtain 8
discovery before their application is docketed?
9 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Look --
10 11 MR. MURPHY:
That is important to us.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
I understand that point and we 12 will take that back and factor it into the 13 recommendations.
I will not overlook that.
14 MR. MURPHY:
Good.
15 MR. HOYLE:
All right. It's approaching the 16 witching hour of 4:00.
One of our members has indicated 17 he needs to leave.
Do we usefully have another 30 minutes 18 to talk or have we reached the point where we're going to 19 be thinking about it and maybe calling Bill at his home 20 late on a Saturday evening.
21 22 23 MR. GREEVES:
Via Internet.
MR. HOYLE:
Via Internet.
MR. DAVENPORT:
Can we address the issue set 24 for 8:30 tomorrow morning?
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is in a way, yes, in a way, no.
It had two aspects.
2 One was how can we continue to communicate in the absence 3
of funding and we talked about that.
The other is what is 4
our future agenda for talking on the Internet or any other 5
activity.
Usually when we complete one meeting we 6
forecast, well, what do we need to talk on at the next.
7 So that's the other part of future activity.
I take if, 8
from what we've heard today, it's getting material from 9
the SMT which will become part of the Commission paper and 10 giving a reaction to it.
11 MR. SILBERG:
I take it, it too early for Bill 12 or John to describe any of the thoughts that are 13 percolating around in terms of these options.
14 MR. MURPHY:
Whether or not it's too early, 15 they're not willing to today.
16 MR. SILBERG :
Well, that's part of being too 17 early.
18 MR. OLMSTEAD:
No.
I think we have laid out 19 on the table what the options are.
What we're unwilling 20 to say is how we're going to articulate those in the paper 21 before we give the paper to the Commission.
You know, 22 there is a difference between saying I'm going to say X, 23 Y, and Zin the paper and actually giving you the paper 24 where it says X, Y, and Z.
If it's not apparent to you, 25 it is apparent to me.
So just trust me.
There is a (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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difference.
2 MR. CAMERON:
One point that I think should 3
not remain ambiguous here is will the SMT provide through 4
some manner a written description of the options and the 5
implications for the functionalities that are now in the 6
LSS.
I think that's what people are concerned about so 7
that they would have a shot at that before the Commission 8
paper go out.
9 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I think that we have made a 10 commitment to ask for anybody to give us input on that who 11 wishes to.
In order to meet these timetables that 12 everybody wants us to meet, I don't know how fast we're 13 going to be able to do some of the technological sides of 14 it.
If we can get the hypertext links up so that people 15 can start giving us feedback electronically, I'll be glad 16 to interact with anybody and all comers if they have 17 questions.
I'll even tell them what I'm thinking as we 18 move along.
What I'm unwilling to do is, when the Senior 19 Management Team gets together and say this is what's going 20 to be in the paper and we start drafting the paper, I 21 can't give you the paper.
22 MR. LEVIN:
I wanted to clarify, we have 23 discussed here everything that we've discussed internally.
24 That's literally as far as our thinking has gone.
There 25 is nothing more to tell you.
What I would offer to do is, (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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if we get everybody's e-mail address, what I'd like to do 2
is start trying to converse with the e-mail and then try 3
and set up this threaded conversation, this electronic 4
forum, and see if we can't start developing options and 5
getting ideas through that.
The first I will do when I 6
get back to the office is take the e-mail addresses we 7
have and try and contact everybody, send a message just to 8
make sure we can make contact, and then we'll go from 9
there.
10 MR. OLMSTEAD:
For anybody who wants to talk 11 to me offline or online, I have business cards that have 12 both Internet addresses on it.
So if you don't want to go 13 through NRC's machine, you can go through my private 14 machine and I will respond.
15 MR. MURPHY:
You got your private machine in 16 your office or at home?
17 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, it's actually run by a 18 third party provider but that's neither here nor there.
19 MR. CAMERON:
It's a distributed system.
He 20 can access it from anywhere.
21 MR. LEVIN:
As part of the e-mail, I sent out 22 as the first draft contact, I'll also include the e-mail 23 addresses for the three of us just so you'll know.
24 (202) 234-4433 MR. OLMSTEAD:
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mail is always forwarded to me wherever I am.
2 MR. HENKEL:
John, I have a question on this.
3 We heard earlier that Chairman Jackson is not real open to 4
recommendations from the staff, but I would presume -- she 5
wants options from the staff not recommendations, right?
6 7
VOICE:
Right.
MR. HOLDEN:
I would presume that she's still 8
open to recommendations from advisory panels.
I'm 9
wondering on a yet to be determined basis whether might 10 be a recommendation we might want to make in this regard.
11 MR. HOYLE:
If I could clarify, I think it's 12 on the issue of the strategic planning and rebaseline that 13 the staff is giving.
That a team is working together 14 separate from the staff that's giving our options, giving 15 the Commission options.
Normally the decision-making 16 process in the Commission is still the staff develops a 17 recommendation, pros and cons, and gives it to the 18 Commission with the recommendation in it. It's not like 19 there aren't any recommendations anymore to the 20 Commission.
21 MR.
22 (indiscernible) 23 MR.
24 the Commission 25 just suggested (202) 234-4433 HENKEL:
Either way, I still if we can reach a consensus here.
OLMSTEAD:
In terms of the chairman and and the way staff papers are read, Chip to me that people might be interpreting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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that as being somehow negative.
It's not.
It's really 2
designed to give them unadorned recommendations so that 3
the Commission has a complete set of alternatives before 4
it.
So the more the better.
5 MR. HENKEL:
I presume you still say that 6
here's your alternatives but we think you ought to go this 7
way.
8 MR. LEVIN:
Yes.
If the panel wants to do 9
that, you write a letter to the chairman of the panel and 10 just say the LSSARP recommends of all these options that 11 you choose this.
That's still 12 13 MR. OLMSTEAD:
That's certainly doable.
MR. HENKEL:
But in regards to a staff paper, 14 would you still make that kind of recommendation?
15 16 17 18 don't.
19 20 MR. LEVIN:
No.
MR. HENKEL:
Here's your options and --
MR. OLMSTEAD :
Most of the staff papers now MR. HENKEL:
It's used all for the options.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
As you well know, there are 21 different way -- since I've been in the government, there 22 are 100 different ways to write staff papers and the staff 23 always signals the one they like based on the pros and 24 cons.
Now we lawyers try to even them up.
You can't have 25 four pros and one con and four cons and one pro.
Try to (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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have three and three.
But the fact of the matter is that 2 it's not that way.
It's just a way of drafting staff 3
papers.
Right now the way that the staff papers are 4
usually drafted is options are put forward without 5
recommendation.
6 MR. SILBERG:
Do you anticipate that your 7
options will include the nondocument portions of Subpart G 8
or are you just going to look at the system?
In other 9
words, are you going to get into all the other parts of 10 Subpart G besides the LSS block?
11 12 13 MR. OLMSTEAD:
The Subpart G revision MR. SILBERG:
I'm sorry.
Subpart J.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
I think right now we're just 14 looking at the former.
15 16 17 MR. SILBERG:
Just the document system.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes.
MR. HOYLE:
All right.
So where are we?
Are 18 we going to have any further discussion or are we going 19 to -- as I hear it, you haven't said you're going to give 20 the panel anything in writing necessarily but you're going 21 to try to -- if there is something to put up on Internet 22 that people can react to, your thoughts, you're going to 23 do that.
You're willing to accept comments on what has 24 been said this afternoon.
I will circulate the transcript 25 to everyone.
They can reread it.
If they have some (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 thoughts to give, they can send them to me or to Bill.
2 I'll collect them and send them on.
3 MR. MURPHY:
When you circulate the 4
transcript, or even before you circulate the transcript, 146 5
why don't you circulate to everybody the e-mail addresses.
6 7
four.
MR. HOYLE:
Yes, I will.
By the way, I've got I've got NCAI, Clark County, Nye County, NEI.
Who 8
else do I need to state.
I need DOE.
9 MR. LEVIN:
Also the units of governments that 10 are not represented here, we should contact them and get 11 their address.
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I would also say that the best 13 processes in this regard, in my judgment, is if everybody 14 starts brainstorming ideas.
If you just let me know what 15 you're thinking, then as we develop options, we'll be sure 16 and take those things into account.
It's useful to me if 17 this has triggered ideas in your mind that you want to 18 communicate with us that you do so.
19 MR. DAVENPORT:
What's your timeline?
20 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I am currently -- a lot of this 21 depends upon the strategic planning timeline and where 22 it's going because of the multiple conflicts that people 23 had.
And that take priority over this exercise.
But 24 right now we're trying to get the paper done in the next 25 two to three weeks.
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1 2
3 MR. LEVIN:
I'm sorry.
Which paper?
MR. OLMSTEAD:
The SMT paper.
MR. LEVIN :
Yes.
We had committed by June, 4
sometime in June to have the paper.
So that will be 5
within the next four or so weeks.
147 6
MS. NEWBURY:
And that paper would lay out the 7
options in more detail?
8 9
MR. LEVIN :
Or recommendation.
MR. OLMSTEAD:
Well, the Senior Management 10 Team was convened to reassess the LSS and it would have 11 the recommendations that we - -
12 MR. LEVIN :
Well, I think it may or may not 13 have recommendations.
At a minimum, it will have our plan 14 of what we're going to do.
I think what we committed to 15 do, if I remember correctly, was tell the Commission what 16 our plan was for proceeding with the LSS.
So this may 17 just be the first of several papers.
I'm not sure of the 18 options.
Obviously - -
19 MR. OLMSTEAD:
It will communicate our 20 opportunities and challenges.
21 MR. LEVIN :
But the options we're talking 22 about we obviously would not have in place in four weeks.
23 That paper would come later.
24 MR. DAVENPORT:
We would ask that your paper 25 reflect the fact that the State of Nevada would claim the (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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benefits of the system we have at present until NRC 2
demonstrates that the system you put in place is at least 3
as good or better.
4 MR. OLMSTEAD :
I understand that, Jim, but I 5
also assume that the State of Nevada would not want me to 6
say that they want to stick with the current design.
You 7
don't have an opinion on that?
8 MR. DAVENPORT :
Until I see what the next one 9
is going to be to replace it, I have to say that, yes.
10 That we would stick with what we know we have until you 11 show us what better we're going to get.
We have a rule.
12 MR. SILBERG :
Well, you have a series of 13 functions. You don't have a system.
14 15 MR. DAVENPORT :
Right.
That ' s correct.
MR. SILBERG :
The rule, I think, has some 16 statements about a centralized versus a distri buted 17 system.
18 MR. DAVENPORT :
And we acknowledge its 19 problems as you do, but until there is something to choose 20 as against what we have now, we would take the position 21 that we claim the benefi ts of what we got.
22 MR. LEVIN:
This is the kind of input we need 23 and we would reflect comments like that in the paper 24 because we always talk about the pros and cons and the 25 impacts on the stakeholders.
That would certainly be an (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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impact.
2 MR. DAVENPORT:
I don't mean by that, that 3
we're not willing to help look for what is better, but 4
just for the sake of staking out a position, I think we'd 5
say we're not prepared to abandon what we have until we 6
know where we're going.
7 MR. ECHOLS:
Would you retain the current 8
division in J that allows to fall back to G?
9 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I was trying to be clear.
My 10 view I've given this privately.
Let me give it 11 publicly.
My view is that there is no party l ikely to 12 come before NRC in a licensing proceeding as of today who 13 could not succeed on a motion to go under Subpart G.
That 14 is my opinion of the current status.
It is also my 15 opinion that I don't see a technological fix for that 16 situation given the fact that the issue tracking system 17 was dropped.
That's my opinion.
I don't know what the 18 opinion of the rest of the panel are.
Given that that's 19 my opinion, the State of Nevada's position is interesting 20 to me, but I would advise my client to look for 21 alternatives.
22 MR. DAVENPORT:
I think I would too, but we 23 don't know what those alternatives are yet.
24 25 well.
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there were alternatives that you might find satisfactory 2
that would could develop and get us off this conundrum 3
where I'm in a damned if I do, damned if I don't position 4
with respect to Subpart J.
5 MR. HENKEL:
Correct me if I'm wrong.
We're 6
no longer in a negotiated rulemaking situation where we 7
have say over what happens or doesn't happen with the NRC 8
regulations.
9 opinions.
I mean we can advise.
We can offer 10 You would like to make us all happy.
I'm sure.
11 MR. OLMSTEAD:
That's true.
We have had this 12 advisory committee and we had the negotiated rulemaking 13 and we did all of this because we thought that decisions 14 that were jointly arrived at were better than dictated 15 decisions.
We, I assume, still think that.
So I would 16 prefer to find a way that everybody can agree to, to fix 17 what I consider to be a broken situation.
18 MR. ECHOLS:
But if you stay in status quo 19 there is still the options (indiscernible).
20 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes.
Not only an option, 21 that's probably what I would recommend at the current 22 state of affairs.
23 MR. GREEVES:
John, it's my sense we have a 24 recommendation to proceed with what I spoke to earlier 25 from the panel, is that correct?
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MR. HOYLE:
That's correct.
2 MR. SILBERG:
I'm sorry, John.
I couldn't 3
hear.
4 MR. GREEVES:
It's my sense that we have a 5
recommendation from the panel to proceed with the notes 6
that I outlined.
That the staff will attempt to put this 7
thing up on Internet and get feedback.
8 MR. SILBERG:
I don't think anyone is raising 9
any questions about the pilot system.
I think Jim's 10 question --
11 MR. GREEVES:
People tend to talk past each 12 other.
13 MR. SILBERG:
Well, Jim's questions I think go 14 to a permanent replacement for what's contemplated in the 15 rule.
I don't think anything you're saying has to do with 16 the pilot approach at all.
17 18 MR. GREEVES :
I just wanted to clarify --
MR. DAVENPORT:
The Agency has the flexibility 19 to proceed with any pilot project it wants to as far as 20 we're concerned.
21 MR. GREEVES:
But I suspect in our paper we 22 will tell the Commission that the review panel recommended 23 yes.
That it sounds like fertile ground.
Go forward.
24 That's not a commitment by anybody.
But I think the 25 Commission would like to hear that we asked, that's the (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 feedback we got, and the recommendation was try and put 2
that thing up and see if it works.
3 MR. SILBERG:
I think the issue that we've 4
been batting around here is not the pilot system.
It's 5
what comes after that.
152 6
MR. DAVENPORT:
And pilot systems have their 7
way of through inertia or becoming ultimate programs.
8 9
MR. LEVIN :
Becoming production systems.
MR. DAVENPORT:
I'm just saying that we 10 reserve our right to stick with the system we've got until 11 we go through some more formal process of changing it.
12 MR. OLMSTEAD:
I understand that, Jim.
The 13 problem is that my interpretation of Subpart J is that any 14 part of it, including the staff and the Agency, can make 15 the showings necessary to force the adjudicator to go to 16 Subpart G.
Okay?
Now I'm speaking strictly for myself 17 and as a litigator with some experience in NRC processes.
18 My recommendation as it sits today is go Subpart G.
19 MR. DAVENPORT:
Right.
You said that.
I 20 heard that.
21 MR. OLMSTEAD :
Given that, staying with 22 Subpart J doesn't get you much.
I just point that out for 23 whatever it's worth.
24 MR. HOYLE:
Okay.
Is there anything about the 25 future conduct of business that we need to talk any (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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further about?
Are there any comments that haven't yet 2
been made by those in the audience that anyone would like 3
to make?
4 MR. HENKEL:
One thing I'd like to add is, if 5
we're going to start conversing on e-mail (indiscernible) 6 that which I fully support, maybe there ought to be some 7
effort to speak with one voice from a given entity to some 8
extent.
Rather than having 40 voices online, maybe having 9
15 voices online.
It's just a thought I had that might 10 limit some of the confusion a little bit.
11 MR. LEVIN:
Right now we have a very limited 12 address list.
13 MR. CAMERON:
Are you saying that you'd only 14 like to hear from one person at the NRC, for example, and 15 one person at DOE?
16 MR. HENKEL:
Well, for example, I'm not going 17 to let -- Jay and I are going to send one e-mail to you 18 guys when we respond to something.
Jay is not going to 19 respond independently from me.
20 MR. SILBERG:
(Indiscernible) a way of 21 interfering with (indiscernible).
22 MR. CAMERON:
This sounds familiar.
23 MR. HENKEL:
Maybe I'm a bad example.
I just 24 think that Clark County ought to speak with one voice as 25 to what their opinion is.
I'm sure they would anyway.
I (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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just think as we're trying to decipher everybody else's e -
2 mail, I'd like to know that Dennis Bechtel's address means 3
Clark County says why, you know.
4 MS. NEWBURY:
Well, this is informal.
This is 5
a very informal discussion.
6 MR. HENKEL:
I understand that.
I understand 7
that.
8 MR. LEVIN:
Also let me make clear the e-mail 9
is a temporary mechanism.
What we hope to do is put up 10 this electronic forum which --
11 MR. OLMSTEAD:
But this was an issue that came 12 up in Rule Net and NEI chose to speak with one voice.
13 Some of the other industry participants didn't.
The staff 14 didn't.
I don't know.
I've been through the evaluation.
15 I've read all the evaluations.
I've been thinking about 16 this.
We posted quite a long, as you know, dissertation 17 on the merits of one approach versus the other approach.
18 We can design when we get into the Web pages.
We can set 19 aside a caucus area that is for official comments only.
20 But my own humble judgment is that unless there is really 21 an issue as to what the county position is or what the NRC 22 position is, as long as it's a discussion like we have 23 here it's more beneficial not to put the pall on people 24 who might have something useful to say.
That they've got 25 to go through some clearinghouse in order to post their (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
155 1
comment.
That's my view of it, but I understand the other 2
point of view because it was forcefully put forward in the 3
Rule Net by those who felt that they ought to be able to 4
know that when they see Jay Silberg's name that that 5
represents his client.
And I understand both points of 6
view and I don't know where I come out on it, although 7
I've spoke several times here today and don't want any of 8
you to think that it represents at all anything the 9
Commission has to say about it because they don't even 10 know I've said it.
11 MR. HENKEL:
Your points are well taken as my 12 only difference was that we're at a table.
It's a little 13 different when you're face to face than when you're 14 conversing electronically but that's my opinion.
15 MR. OLMSTEAD:
Yes, and that's an issue that's 16 bounced back and forth.
What I can tell we can do under 17 the tools we have -- I don't want to promise too much 18 because we need to take baby steps here, but we can 19 separate into two discussion, one official and one 20 unofficial, so that dialogue goes on.
But if we want to 21 place where we can find out exactly what the official 22 position is, we can post it there.
23 MR. DAVENPORT:
If you wanted to open an 24 interacted conversation, you can't limit it to official 25 spokesmen.
That's just counterproductive for the whole (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
156 1
idea of getting as wide and populous to view as you can 2
get.
3 MR. CAMERON:
I don't think you need to worry 4
at this point of the game.
There's benefits at some point 5
in a process to an "official" position.
But at this point 6
in the process I think that there's a real benefit to 7
having an exchange among a lot of people who are 8
knowledgeable about it.
9 MR. HENKEL:
I think you're focusing too much 10 that my comment has to do with official and unofficial.
11 My comment has to do with getting 60 e-mails in one week 12 from this panel and having to read 60 e-mails as opposed 13 to getting 10 that are already distilled by each 14 individual party to the relevant points.
That's where I'm 15 corning from.
16 MR. OLMSTEAD:
That's why we want to put it up 17 on hypertext in the dialogue space that you saw because 18 you don't have to read them all.
You look quickly at it 19 and you see what you want to read and you only read that.
20 MS. NEWBURY :
Figure up those opinions count 21 and go from there.
22 MR. CAMERON:
You just don't want to be 23 reading Jay's.
24 25 Bill's --
(202) 234-4433 MR. HENKEL:
Right.
I'll ignore Jay's and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1 MR. HOYLE :
Robert needs 2
MR. HOLDEN:
Just wanted to express 3
appreciation for members of the panel, folks at the NRC 4
for bearing with us and we're still representing the 157 5
nonplayers.
Some of the counties have come and are going 6
by the wayside, as well as the state, which has been 7
supportive of the tribes.
As we've said all along, we 8
don't know when the tribes will be viable parties to the 9
High-Level Waste Management Program, but by the grace of 10 the Creator, somehow they will become involved or somehow 11 their rights of what they see is important will be 12 protected, which means we don't know. But just something 13 that -- it's been another week of frustration in listening 14 to the progress and the illiquity of this program for the 15 past week over at the international high-level -- waste 16 meeting.
All the studies, all the impacts to parties 17 other than those people that have been here for a few 18 thousand years.
And by the grace of the Creator, they'll 19 be here for a few thousand more years.
The Creator put us 20 here, as I've said, and if it's the will of the Creator, 21 we'll disappear.
But until that time, always remember 22 that these are the people who this land was given to.
23 This land was given to these people.
And I appreciate 24 what you have to say in your support.
25 John Dossett is going to make a few comments.
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158 1
He's going to be the techi for the organization as well as 2
the Nuclear Waste Program.
Maybe in a few years we might 3
be dangerous too.
4 MR. DOSSETT:
All the proposals for putting 5
stuff on the Internet I think sound really good as far as 6
access for the tribes go.
I think you will have more real 7
meaningful participation by the tribes with Internet 8
access than any sort of a dial-up system because I know a 9
lot of particularly younger Native American people are 10 coming up to me all the time.
You know, what's your home 11 page on the Internet.
So that's really happening.
12 The other two things you seem to have 13 discussed here were more of a decentralized system and 14 more use of off-the-shelf technology.
I think that there 15 might be some redistributional effects there particularly 16 with tribes having to post their own information rather 17 than sending it into a centralized system where it could 18 be posted for them.
You know, you might want to consider 19 how to preserve meaningful access for the tribes.
There 20 could be some other very inexpensive technologies to take 21 22 23 24 25 care of that.
There's satellite hookups or offline readers.
I think these are problems not just for tribes but for any rural group of people to get involved in, in Internet access.
These are just more technology things consider as you're going through your process.
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159 MR. HOYLE:
Thank you very much.
1 2
Any other comment?
I see no reason to return 3
tomorrow morning.
I will distribute the Internet mailing 4
addresses.
Moe has volunteered to help on that.
I'll get 5
the transcript out the latter part of next week or the 6
early part of the following week.
I've given the 7
reporting company a little longer to put the transcript 8
together because I think earlier today we had some very 9
rapid cross-firing discussion here and I want to give them 10 time enough to pull that out of the tape recorder.
11 So unless there are any further comments, the 12 meeting is adjourned.
13 (Whereupon, at 4:24 p.m., the above-entitled 14 matter concluded.)
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM STATUS
- LSS Acquisition/Development Activities to Resume in FY 1997
- LSS is a Critical Path Activity in the Revised Program Plan
~
1
LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM STRATEGY & ASSUMPTIONS
- M&O will be the Procuring Organization for the DOE
- DOE, M&O, and NRC to Participate in System Certification
LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM SCHEDULE
- LSS Technical Specifications Delivered to M&O -
1st Quarter FY 1997
- LSS Make/Buy Analysis Completed - 4th Quarter FY 1997
- NRC Identification of LSS Center Site - 4th Quarter FY 1998
- LSS Acquisition/Development Completed - 1st Quarter FY 1999
LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM SCHEDULE (continued)
- Initiate NRC System Certification - 1st Quarter FY 1999
- LSS Installation and Test Completed - 3rd Quarter FY 1999
- LSS Operation.al - 3rd Quarter FY 1999
- LSS Certified by NRC - 1st Quarter FY 2000
LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY
- System Acquisition/Development Phase Reduced due to Change in Make/Buy Methodology
- Make/Buy Analysis Process to Incorporate more Extensive Evaluation of Commercial Products in Operational Mode at DOE Facilities
- Change in Make/Buy Analysis Process expected to Reduce Acquisition/Development Phase by 6 Months
1992 1
2 3
4 6
7 8
9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 Z/
28 29 30 31
NRC STAFF TALKING POINTS FOR April 25. 1996 LICENSING SUPPORT SYSTEM ADVISORY REVIEW PANEL State of HLW Program John Greeves Year of changes in the high-level waste program Challenge is to maintain a focus on disposal We have to focus the program on the most important aspects DOE needs to institutionalize its decision making process John Greeves Document decisions into some type of electronic. retrievable format Decision documentation must include underlying bases and appropriate supporting data Decision documentation must be communicated to the NRC and other potential parties Topical Guidelines John Greeves In March 1995. several questions were raised at the Commission level and issuance of the Regulatory Guide was placed on hold.
NRC has removed the hold on the publication of the Regulatory Guide.
HLW Licensing Support System Bill Olmstead Nuclear Waste Policy Act Objective o
NRC licensing goal set at three years o
Licensing proceeding to be completed in 18 months Goals - Licensing Support System o
System operational by 1991 o
Reduced time for pleading/motion practice (50%)
o Reduced time for document discovery (50%)
o Provide full text search engine for attorney/Board use Status o
1991 date not met - current estimate> 1999 o
Document database does not meet Subpart J assumptions o
Technology has changed o
Cost estimates unreliable o
Email now widely used for service How did we get here?
o NWPA targeted schedules for HLW program not met o
Original LSS assumptions no longer valid:
Full text database with images available 1991 Central repository essential to shared costs Custom software needed to accomplish LSS goals Options for the future o
Abandon Subpart J and use Subpart G o
Pursue off-the-shelf software o
Rewrite Subpart G and J and consider other hearing alternatives Developing a recommendation o
Senior Management Team (SMT) recommends LSS reexamination o
Consultation with LSSARP o
New Commissioner views o
Staff paper developed with SMT options o
Commission decision on how to proceed mid-summer 1996 Current status of NRC/DOE computer systems designed to support the HLW program:
John Greeves AGENCY/
NRC system is called the Consolidated Document Management System (CDOCS).
CDOCS is a document management. full text/image storage and retrieval. software program.
DOE system is its records management system not designed specifically for LSS support. The DOE system captures bibliographic headers. and some bit-mapped images.
The two systems are not directly compatible. System components are as follows:
SERVER/OPERATING SYSTEM DATA BASE SEARCH DEPARTMENT ENGINE NRC DOE SUN (UNIX)
ORACLE TOPIC VAX (VMS)
INGRES or FULCRUM BASIS+
In the past. the NRC was developing three separate database systems which have been combined in CDOCS:
o Open-Item Tracking System (OITS) o Technical Document Reference Database System (TDOCS). and o
Regulatory Program Database (RPO).
NRC Recommendation John Greeves Make respective data and existing systems available through the Internet via a web site NRC could provide access to appropriate CDOCS databases through commercially available Internet web servers such as Topic.
As a pilot program. NRC could load some relevant data and let the LSSARP members exercise the system.
Specifications would need to be developed for electronic document exchange State or outside groups could enter their data in a designated file on our host system Discussions would be necessary concerning appropriate distribution of waste fund money for continued support of the LSS.