<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:29895.wais]
A REVIEW OF THE NRC'S REACTOR OVERSIGHT
PROCESS
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JUNE 19, 2006
Serial No. 109-104
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
JOE BARTON, Texas, Chairman
RALPH M. HALL, Texas JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida Ranking Member
Vice Chairman HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
FRED UPTON, Michigan EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia BART GORDON, Tennessee
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico BART STUPAK, Michigan
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
CHARLES W. "CHIP" PICKERING, Mississippi ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland
Vice Chairman GENE GREEN, Texas
VITO FOSSELLA, New York TED STRICKLAND, Ohio
ROY BLUNT, Missouri DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado
STEVE BUYER, Indiana LOIS CAPPS, California
GEORGE RADANOVICH, California MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire TOM ALLEN, Maine
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania JIM DAVIS, Florida
MARY BONO, California JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREG WALDEN, Oregon HILDA L. SOLIS, California
LEE TERRY, Nebraska CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey JAY INSLEE, Washington
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
C.L. "BUTCH" OTTER, Idaho MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
SUE MYRICK, North Carolina
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
BUD ALBRIGHT, Staff Director
DAVID CAVICKE, General Counsel
REID P. F. STUNTZ, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky, Chairman
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida BART STUPAK, Michigan
CHARLES W. "CHIP" Ranking Member
PICKERING, Mississippi DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado
CHARLES F. BASS, New JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
Hampshire JAY INSLEE, Washington
GREG WALDEN, Oregon TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee (EX OFFICIO)
JOE BARTON, Texas
(EX OFFICIO)
CONTENTS
Page
Testimony of:
Wells, Jim, Director, Natural Resources and the
Environment, Government Accountability Office 10
McGaffigan, Jr., Hon. Edward, Commissioner,
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 37
Gunter, Paul, Director, Reactor Watchdog Project,
Nuclear Information and Resource Service 54
Additional material submitted for the record:
Wells, Jim, Director, Natural Resources and the
Environment, Government Accountability Office,
response for the record 62
McGaffigan, Jr., Hon. Edward, Commissioner, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, response for the
record 65
A REVIEW OF THE NRC'S REACTOR OVERSIGHT
PROCESS
MONDAY, JUNE 19, 2006
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:05 p.m., in
Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Whitfield
[Chairman] presiding.
Present: Representatives Whitfield, Burgess, Barton (Ex
Officio), Schakowsky, and Inslee.
Staff Present: Dwight Cates, Professional Staff Member;
Matthew Johnson, Legislative Clerk; Edith Holleman, Minority
Counsel; Elizabeth Ertel, Minority Senior Staff Assistant; and
Jonathan Brater, Minority Staff Assistant.
MR. WHITFIELD. If I could have your attention, it was our
intent to begin this hearing at 4:00 p.m., and as you can see, it is
about five after. There has been a delay in some transportation as
members come back to the District, and we do expect a couple
Members will be here in about 5 or 10 minutes. And when they
arrive, we will get started. So I apologize for the delay, and we
will get started as soon as possible. Thank you.
The hearing will come to order. It didn't take as long as I
thought, Jan. Today we are going to review the status of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Reactor Oversight Process.
Initiated in the year 2000, the Reactor Oversight Process was
intended to create a risk-informed tiered approach to ensuring plant
safety by focusing on three key areas: reactor safety, radiation
safety for plant workers and the public, and physical security of the
plant against sabotage or security threats.
The NRC developed the reactor process to apply more
objective, timely, and risk-informed criteria in assessing plant
performance while seeking to more effectively and efficiently
regulate the industry. Given the fact that it has now been in place
for almost 6 years, last spring I, along with several other members
requested the GAO, the General Accountability Office, review the
effectiveness of the NRC's Reactor Oversight Process.
We asked for this review in part because there have been a few
very serious safety incidents that have raised questions about
NRC's ability to identify and resolve significant safety issues
before they occur. For instance, in February of 2002, a very large
hole was discovered on the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse
plant in Ohio. Up until that point, NRC inspectors had given the
Davis-Besse plant "green" findings for all aspects of plant
performance. For those of you who are not familiar with NRC's
color coding system, a "green" finding indicates that performance
objectives are fully met.
Unfortunately these green findings were entirely wrong. For
several years, NRC failed to identify near catastrophic boric acid
corrosion so severe that less than one half of an inch of metal
remained on the reactor vessel head. Clearly, the NRC's Reactor
Oversight Process failed to anticipate the significant safety issue.
To its credit, NRC has made significant strides in the Reactor
Oversight Process in the years since the Davis-Besse incident. I
understand that new revisions are about to be implemented to the
Reactor Oversight Process to address safety culture issues that led
to the problems at Davis-Besse.
NRC is also working closely with industry to improve selected
performance indicators. These reforms are critical, particularly in
light of the nuclear industry's renewed interests in the development
of a new fleet of nuclear reactors. We need the nuclear industry to
construct several new reactors to meet growing energy demands.
However, we must also maintain the aging fleet of existing
reactors. I expect that many of the 103 domestic reactors will be in
operation decades beyond their initial 40-year design. Thus, NRC
must continue to adapt the Reactor Oversight Process to anticipate
new safety challenges presented by new reactor designs and also
adapt to new safety challenges associated with the aging
component issues that NRC and the nuclear industry have yet to
discover.
We look forward to the testimony today of all the witnesses.
And at this time, I'd like to recognize Ms. Schakowsky of Illinois
for her opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Ed Whitfield follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. ED WHITFIELD, CHAIRMAN,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
This hearing will come to order. Today we will review the
status of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Reactor Oversight
Process. Initiated in the year 2000, the Reactor Oversight Process
was intended to create a risk-informed, tiered approach to ensuring
plant safety by focusing on three key areas - reactor safety,
radiation safety for plant workers and the public, and physical
security of the plant against sabotage or security threats.
The NRC developed the reactor oversight process to apply
more objective, timely, and risk-informed criteria in assessing
plant performance, while seeking to more effectively and
efficiently regulate the industry. Given the fact that it has now
been in place for almost 6 years, last Spring I along with several
other Members requested the General Accountability Office
review the effectiveness of NRC's reactor oversight process.
I asked for this review, in part, because there have been a few
very serious safety incidents that have raised questions about
NRC's ability to identify and resolve significant safety issues
before they occur.
For instance, in February of 2002, a very large hole was
discovered on the reactor vessel head at the Davis Besse plant in
Ohio. Up until that point, NRC inspectors had given the Davis
Besse plant "green" findings for all aspects of plant performance.
For those of you who are not familiar with NRC's color coding
system, a "green" finding indicates that performance objectives are
fully met. Unfortunately, these "green" findings were entirely
wrong. For several years NRC failed to identify near-catastrophic
boric acid corrosion so severe that less than one half of an inch of
metal remained on the reactor vessel head. Clearly the NRC's
reactor oversight process failed to anticipate this significant safety
issue.
To its credit, NRC has made significant strides in the reactor
oversight process in the years since the Davis Besse incident. I
understand that new revisions are about to be implemented to the
reactor oversight process to address safety culture issues that led to
the problems at Davis Besse. NRC is also working closely with
industry to improve selected performance indicators.
These reforms are critical, particularly in light of the nuclear
industry's renewed interest in the development of a new fleet of
nuclear reactors. We need the nuclear industry to construct several
new reactors to meet growing energy demands. However, we must
also maintain the aging fleet of existing reactors.
I expect many of the 103 domestic reactors will be in operation
decades beyond their initial 40-year design basis. Thus, NRC must
continue to adapt the reactor oversight process to anticipate new
safety challenges presented by new reactor designs, and also adapt
to new safety challenges associated with aging component issues
NRC and the nuclear industry has have yet to discover.
I look forward to the testimony of today's witnesses, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
MS. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for holding today's hearing on the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's Reactor Oversight Process, the ROP. A number of
recent incidents at nuclear plants in Illinois and throughout the
Nation have put in doubt whether the NRC's safety standards and
inspection processes are adequate. I'm interested to know whether
the NRC has learned from incidents like Davis-Besse and
restructured its oversight process sufficiently to prevent their
recurrence.
Since President Bush has proposed new nuclear development
as a signature part of his energy policy, we must ensure that the
NRC safety procedures are foolproof and that they deter future
incidents. Since the Reactor Oversight Process was implemented
in 2000, safety inspections found plants or employees had failed to
comply with safe operating procedures in over 4,000 instances.
And while many of those incidents were classified as "green"
under the system, "green" doesn't mean all clear. It means that a
plant or an employee failed to meet the NRC safety standards.
I look forward to hearing whether that number is an
improvement over the number of incidents that occurred before the
ROP was in place and whether the ROP has promoted a culture of
safety and accountability in our Nation's nuclear plants.
In Illinois, which has 11 nuclear reactors, several incidents at
Exelon plants has demonstrated that even after the implementation
of the ROP, there have been a number of safety hazards and
radioactive leaks that have threatened public health. This
February, Exelon disclosed to the public that between 1996 and
2003, two Illinois plants spilled radioactive cancer-causing tritium
on four occasions. Not only did this expose holes in oversight, it
also highlighted the nuclear industry's failure to disclose threats to
public health. One of the most immediate ways the Energy and
Commerce Committee could promote nuclear safety would be to
consider the Nuclear Release Notice Act, sponsored by Senator
Obama and Congressman Weller, which would force the nuclear
industry to notify the State, county, and public, whenever there's
an unplanned release of radioactive material in excess of legal
limits.
Illinois enacted legislation this year which requires nuclear
plants to report leaks of radioactive material that contaminate
groundwater, surface water, and the soil to regulators within 24
hours. In addition to these unannounced radioactive leaks, on
February 20, there was a rare onsite emergency at Exelon's
LaSalle facility involving control rods that are used to shut reactors
down. The NRC has subsequently released a report that states that
the side area emergency declared at LaSalle overstated the
problem, but the incident raised several questions.
First, shouldn't there be Federal standards regulated by the
NRC which outline what constitutes a nuclear emergency and
mandates a particular Federal response? In addition, under the
ROP, individual plants are inspected more or less regularly based
on their individual histories. The incidents at Davis-Besse and
LaSalle beg the question, aren't all of the nation's 103 nuclear
plants inspected and regulated with the highest possible frequency
and standards?
Mr. Chairman, the residents of a town like Seabrook, New
Hampshire; Salem, New Jersey; and Braidwood, Illinois, want to
know definitively things have changed since Three Mile Island.
They and their families want to believe that they have nothing to
fear from the nuclear plants in their towns and from the water
supplies which feed the plants. Over the past several years, there
have been over 4,000 unsafe incidents at the Nation's 103 nuclear
plants. I ask our witnesses, is the ROP the best and safest reactor
oversight system that we could possibly have? Knowing that so
many plants have failed to meet the NRC's current safety
standards, do we have the capacity and oversight system to safely
expand the number of reactors in this country?
Today we should not only judge whether the ROP has been
effective, but we should also take a broader look to determine
whether the President's plan to expand nuclear development in this
country is safe and warranted. Thank you.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Ms. Schakowsky. At this time,
Dr. Burgess, do you have an opening statement?
MR. BURGESS. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I will
submit what I have for the record, and we'll go right on to the
witnesses.
[Additional statements submitted for the record follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOE BARTON, CHAIRMAN,
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing.
Nuclear power is a critical source of approximately twenty percent
of the electricity we generate each year. I want that number to
increase over the next decade, and many of the provisions in the
Energy Policy Act we passed last year will help pave the way for
the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants.
Principal among these provisions was the reauthorization of the
Price Anderson Act.
The public has a strong and growing confidence in nuclear
power because it is proven to be reliable, and it is proven to be
safe. The nuclear industry has demonstrated a willingness to adapt
quickly when new safety or design issues are discovered, and it has
worked closely with the NRC to resolve these issues quickly.
The reactor oversight process at NRC continues to evolve, and
I am pleased with the Commission's willingness to seek feedback
from external stakeholders. All groups ranging from nuclear
power supporters to environmental activists have a seat at the table
when NRC seeks feedback on its reactor oversight process.
The future of nuclear power will depend on whether we can
maintain the public trust that NRC and the industry have developed
over the years. I feel confident that the Commission and the NRC
staff are committed to this task.
With respect to licensing new power plants, there is a lot of
work yet to do at NRC. The Commission will be challenged with a
significant workload as new license applications arrive. It is
critical that NRC maintain the public's trust by keeping a clear
focus on safety.
I understand that GAO has a generally positive review of
NRC's reactor oversight process. I look forward to hearing from
both NRC and GAO on what we can do to further improve the
process.
I thank the Chairman, and I yield back.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. CLIFF STEARNS, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. Chairman, today's hearing on the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's (NRC) gives us an opportunity to learn more about
the efficiency and effectiveness of the reactor oversight process
(ROP). Six years after its deployment, I am eager to see if the
development of objective, risk-informed, and timely measurement
criteria of the ROP has brought some improvement in safety and
efficiency.
The NRC fulfills a vital role in safeguarding our health and
environment. Our nation boasts the safest reactors in the world--
and the nuclear industry shares our desire to keep it that way.
The ROP was developed in order to improve the performance,
reduce unnecessary regulation, while improving the NRC's
management of reactor safety. The ROP focuses on three key
areas: reactor safety; radiation safety; and security of the plant
against sabotage and other physical threats. Combining these
performance indicators with NRC inspections, we end up with a
color-coded rating system. Green indicates good performance, red
indicates sub-par performance, yellow indicates a reduction in
safety, and red indicates a serious reduction in safety. A plant
earning any rating less than green triggers further inspections and
reviews. Without improvement, the NRC can resort to civil orders
or even the suspension of the reactor's operating license.
The color-coded system appears to offer improvements in
compliance and safety, but we must be wary of simplifying
regulation too far--we have no wish for a trite oversight program.
Nor do we want to see a color-coding system as useless as the
Department of Homeland Security's color-coded alert system.
Of course, while I share the concerns of our witness from the
activist group Nuclear Information and Resource Service that the
NRC vigilantly protect our nation, I do not equate the number of
enforcement actions with the quality of oversight or the level of
safety improvement.
Indeed, the NRC appears to be exercising greater flexibility in
methods of safety improvement. For instance, following the
discovery of severe corrosion on the reactor vessel head at the
David Besse (pronounced BESS - EE) plant in 2002, the NRC
evaluated the problem, and adapted its findings to expand the ROP
performance indicators into new areas, and to tailor new
recommendations for plant operators.
Mr. Chairman, we have devoted significant time and effort in
this Committee to expanding America's supply of nuclear power.
I hope our witnesses this afternoon will help us see how far we
have some on the safety of our 103 nuclear reactors, and what
factors we still must address as we seek to add many more.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you very much. Today we're going to
have two panels of witnesses, and in the first panel--I welcome
you--we have Mr. Jim Wells, who is the Director of Energy in the
Natural Resources and the Environment, at the Government
Accountability Office. And I certainly welcome the Honorable
Edward McGaffigan, who is the Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. Mr. Wells, you are accompanied today
by Alyssa Hundrup. Will she be testifying?
MR. WELLS. Yes, she will, Mr. Chairman.
MR. WHITFIELD. As you know, this is an Oversight and
Investigations hearing, and it is our practice to take testimony
under oath. Do either of the three of you have any difficulty
testifying under oath? And do you intend to be represented by
legal counsel today?
MR. WELLS. No.
MR. WHITFIELD. If you would stand, I will swear you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
TESTIMONY OF JIM WELLS, DIRECTOR, ENERGY, NATURAL RESOURCES, AND THE
ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND HON. EDWARD MCGAFFIGAN,
COMMISSIONER; U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you. You are now sworn in. And
Mr. Wells, we'll call upon you for your 5 minute opening
statement.
MR. WELLS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee.
MR. WHITFIELD. Be sure to turn your microphone on.
MR. WELLS. It's on, but it's not recording. Light's on. Hello.
Testing, one two. Testing, one two. Okay. We've got it now.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you.
MR. WELLS. The safe operation of commercial nuclear power
plants is a private industry responsibility. The law says that the
NRC as the regulatory commission must ensure that this happens.
A lot is riding on how good a job NRC is doing. Some of us
remember Three Mile Island in '79, the 2000 steam pipe leak at
Indian Point, and Davis-Besse in 2002. Avoiding accidents is
paramount to achieving public confidence that the industry and
NRC are doing a good job as we think about advancing the future
of nuclear power.
Given how complex and how hard we are using these plants to
produce 20 percent of our Nation's energy needs, the safety record
is pretty good. Prior to 2000, NRC was criticized for doing
oversight that was redundant, inefficient, overly subjective, and not
always focused on the most important safety issues. GAO, the
Congress, the industry, and even many in NRC were not happy
with the old inspection program. NRC's new process, based on
what we've been able to learn, is similar to the old in terms of
physical plant inspections, but it's now more objective,
predictable, and risk informed. The unexpected discovery at
Davis-Besse plant as, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the
pineapple-sized hole in the reactor vessel head, I think it was a
wake-up call that the ROP did not work as planned.
Some good came out of this, as NRC has changed and
improved its operations, and improved oversight as a result and
incorporated new things in the ROP process which we can talk
about later. As mentioned, NRC has identified over 4,000
inspection findings in the 5 years of the new operation of the ROP
program. About 97 percent of those findings, 3,900, were for
actions or failures NRC considered it was important to correct, but
they were of low significance to overall safety operation. The
good news is that these findings have been corrected. In contrast,
12 of the findings that have occurred, or less than 1 percent, were
the highest level of significance to safety, that still allows
continuous operation at those plants. All of these caused NRC to
immediately inform the public and increase the levels of inspection
in oversight. Some of these are still outstanding 3 and 4 years
later, due to the significance of the finding or the time it's taken to
resolve them.
Nothing has been found to date to warrant a shutdown of a
nuclear power plant. This possibility, however, was debated
within the Commission during the early days at Davis-Besse as the
plant was experiencing problems. GAO, when it did its work at
Davis-Besse, told the NRC that we thought that their procedures
for knowing when to shut a plant down should be revised. Overall,
the ROP process has worked to subject more than three-fourths of
the Nation's 103 operating plants to some oversight level beyond
the regular baseline inspection over the last 5 years.
When we issue the report later this September, it will give good
marks to what appears to be good quality inspections being
performed by regional and on-site inspectors, and that NRC is
being responsive to independent reviews and feedback from
stakeholders like GAO. The new risk process based on our
assessment is better focusing its current inspections on areas that
are most important to safety, and NRC is showing willingness to
continuously improve.
One significant shortcoming in the ROP is that it is not as
effective as it could be in identifying early indications of
deteriorating safety cultures within the plant before problems
develop. Clearly, safety culture attributes, such as attention to
detail, adherence to procedures, and effective, corrective, and
preventive actions have a significant impact on safety
performance. The findings of Davis-Besse showed this.
Although somewhat slow to act, NRC is beginning to get the
safety culture worked into the oversight process, even though it's
somewhat controversial as we talk about it today. There is
pushback from the commercial nuclear industry about its
workability. Having a regulatory body, such as NRC, getting into
issues that have traditionally been viewed as the purview of the
licensee such as maintaining a safety-conscious work environment,
human performance, and problem identification and resolution can
be viewed by some as adding undue subjectivity to the NRC
oversight as a regulator. On the other hand, providing NRC better
tools to address safety culture to detect deteriorating safety
conditions, such as existed at Davis-Besse, before an event occurs
can be a positive thing. GAO's conclusion is that the evidence
says that NRC needs to do safety culture reviews.
The verdict is still out as to whether they can do that or not. I
will stop here and say that NRC is devoting considerable effort to
its oversight activities. The current and changing process to GAO
appears logical, well structured, and rigorous. This does not mean
that the NRC process is perfect. NRC's safety culture may be the
most important improvement in the future ROP program. As we
complete our work, we will be examining whether NRC needs to
do more, and we think there are some areas of improvement in
how information on how well nuclear power plants are operating
safely can be presented to the public and other stakeholders in a
more understandable manner, and we look forward to issuing our
report in the next few months. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Wells.
[The prepared statement of Jim Wells follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JIM WELLS, DIRECTOR, NATURAL
RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
<GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
MR. WHITFIELD. At this time, Mr. McGaffigan, you are
recognized for your 5 minutes.
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure
to appear before you today on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to discuss the Reactor Oversight Process. I should
say at the outset, I find myself in almost total agreement with
almost everything that Mr. Wells said. So you won't see a lot of
disagreement today.
When Chairman Diaz and I came to the NRC in 1996, our
Reactor Oversight Process needed serious attention. It was not as
transparent or risk informed as it could be, and the watch list of
problem plants, which I think grew to as many as 13 plants, did not
integrate the results of performance indicators, although we had
performance indicators. The process was criticized by the public,
by the industry, and as Mr. Wells just added, by the Commission
itself.
Therefore, the Commission unanimously decided to develop a
new process that would be better than the one the staff was using,
and we decided to involve the industry and other stakeholders in
the development of the process from its very beginning. The new
process was piloted in 1999 and was fully implemented in April of
2000. Since implementation, we have continued to improve the
process by incorporating lessons learned from our experiences.
We know we're not perfect, and we know we have a long way to
go to achieve an even better product. The Commission believes
that the Reactor Oversight Process is one of the NRC's most
important achievements over the last 10 years.
I have a few view graphs up there, and they're in my
testimony. There are five columns in an Action Matrix. That's the
viewgraph on the left. We have no plants in the far right, or
unacceptable performance column, at the current time. We have
89 of 103 plants in the far left licensee response column. Every
quarter we produce an updated summary that is two clicks away
from our home page for every plant in America. We happen to
have the Seabrook plant up there. I guess we thought
Congressman Bass might be attending. And you can see the
performance indicators and the inspection findings for that plant
and for all 103 plants are at our Web page, and you can click on
that and understand what the inspection findings were for that plant
during that quarter, and you could also go back to previous
quarters.
So we have constructed a program that we're very proud of in
terms of its transparency. I would contrast it to, say, the FAA's
program. Mr. Stupak's plane, he probably could have gotten on
time-data from FAA if he had clicked on their Web page for
whatever airlines he was taking back here today. He would not
have any data about the maintenance on that plane. This industry
is unique in having data on maintenance and every aspect of these
plants, other than security, very publicly available, and we're very
proud of that.
The performance indicators and inspection findings determine
what level of oversight a plant receives. You receive more
oversight as you move down the columns. Very, very
infrequently, we'll make a deviation from the so-called Action
Matrix and do more or less inspections at that plant. But most of
the time, it's to do more. Seven out of nine times during the 6
years, we've made numerous improvements to the Reactor
Oversight Process. The three most important recent ones are the
safety culture change that's going to be implemented on July 1 that
Mr. Wells referred to, a Mitigating Systems Performance Indicator
that is going to give us deep insight into the performance of
mitigating systems at these plants, and we're going to have several
white findings in the first quarter.
That's implemented this quarter, and the data will become
available in July. And the third is a very robust change to our
engineering inspection program that was advocated by Chairman
Diaz and that we believe is providing very good insights into the
engineering aspects of the plant. The Reactor Oversight Process
will continue to improve and evolve. It is our intention to take
criticism from wherever it comes, Government Accountability
Office, our Inspector General, the industry, the public, and try to
make improvements based on that criticism.
As I say, we're going to continue to improve as we go forward.
We do not set ourselves a perfection standard, but we set ourselves
a very high standard, and we know that the process that we have
today is far, far better than the process that Chairman Diaz and I
inherited when we joined the Commission in 1996.
If I could just, for one moment, just say one thing,
Mr. Chairman, about Chairman Diaz. He couldn't be here today.
He's in his last 11 days as Chairman of the NRC. I happen to be a
Democrat. He happens to be a Republican. But he has done an
absolutely outstanding job during his 10 years working for the
American people, and he deserves all the credit that he's going to
get in these last 11 days in office, probably far more than he wants
to get. And it's been an honor serving with him. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Edward McGaffigan follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD MCGAFFIGAN, JR.,
COMMISSIONER, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, it is a
pleasure to appear before you on behalf of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) to discuss our Reactor Oversight
Process (ROP). When Chairman Diaz and I came to the NRC in
1996, the reactor oversight process needed serious attention. It
was not as transparent or risk informed as it could be, and the
watch list of problem plants did not integrate the results of
performance indicators (PIs). The process was criticized by the
public and the industry. Therefore, the Commission unanimously
decided to develop a new process that would be better than the one
the staff was using and to involve the industry and other
stakeholders in its development. The new process was piloted in
1999 and fully implemented in April 2000. Since implementation,
we have continued to improve the process by incorporating lessons
learned from our experience. The Commission believes that the
Reactor Oversight Process is one of NRC's most important
achievements in the past 10 years.
The ROP is a risk-informed process that focuses inspections on
activities or areas that are most important to plant safety based on
each plant's design and that increases the level of regulatory
oversight as a licensee's performance declines. The ROP requires
that inspections be performed by NRC inspectors in seven
fundamental areas that we call cornerstones, to measure plant
performance and maintain safe plant operation. These inspections
routinely evaluate plant design, modifications, maintenance, and
operations. The ROP also uses PIs which are reported to the NRC
each quarter by the licensees. The NRC uses a four color system
to characterize inspection findings and performance indicators.
The color of an inspection finding or PI is determined by a defined
significance determination process. Green inspection findings or
PIs indicate very low risk significance and therefore have little or
no impact on safety. White, yellow, or red inspection findings or
PIs represent increasing degrees of safety significance.
The performance indicators and inspection findings determine
what level of oversight a plant receives. For example, the NRC
determines if a plant should be in a column requiring greater
scrutiny of its performance. If so, it receives more inspections. A
plant is assigned a column based on its performance as indicated
by the inspection findings and PIs. Therefore, the licensee's
performance ultimately determines the column in which a plant is
placed, it is not based on a subjective determination by NRC
managers. Currently 85 of the 103 operating reactors are in the
lowest, or licensee response, risk column of the Action Matrix and
are receiving the baseline inspections. Eleven plants are in the
second column, while 4 plants are in the third column, and 3 are in
the fourth column; all of these 18 plants are receiving additional
oversight. No plants are in the fifth or unacceptable shutdown
performance column.
The NRC has focused on improving the transparency of the
ROP to the public from its inception through stakeholder
involvement and open communications. The staff has used a
variety of communication methods to ensure that stakeholders have
access to ROP information and results, and have an opportunity to
participate in the process and provide feedback. The ROP web
page provides the public with easy access to PIs and the latest plant
assessment results and other useful information about the ROP.
For example, these posters, which reflect the information posted on
our web site, provide the latest information for the Seabrook plant
in New Hampshire, including PIs and inspection findings, with
links to the plant's inspection reports, assessment letters, and other
ROP-related information. The ROP has allowed us to provide the
public better and more current information on the safety of the
nuclear plants than is provided to the public for other elements of
the infrastructure. I should also add that the NRC staff conducts an
annual meeting near each reactor to share the staff's assessment
with the public.
Very infrequently the NRC staff decides to modify the amount
of oversight that is prescribed by the Action Matrix. This has
happened nine times in five years, and in seven of the nine cases,
the staff has decided to do more than prescribed. Any deviation
from the ROP is first proposed by one of our four regional
Administrators, and a public and well documented process is used
to decide on the deviation. Deviations from the ROP must be
approved by the Executive Director for Operations, and the
Commission is informed. An example of a current deviation
involves an increase in NRC oversight for the Salem and Hope
Creek plants in the area of safety conscious work environment.
The staff reviews each deviation to determine if changes to the
ROP program are needed. Deviations are described and their
significance is explained during a public Commission meeting held
annually.
The NRC has made numerous improvements to the ROP since
its initial implementation, many as a result of independent program
evaluations and feedback from internal and external stakeholders.
The inspection program and associated resources have been
adjusted to better focus on risk-significant issues, with significant
enhancements in the areas of problem identification and resolution,
fire protection, safety culture, design engineering, and in-service
inspections of safety-related components. Some of these changes
were based on lessons learned from the agency's experience with
the Davis-Besse reactor vessel head degradation. The timeliness
and consistency of determining the significance of inspection
findings have notably improved over the past several years due to
program enhancements and an increased management focus. The
plant assessment process has been modified to improve its
predictability, particularly in the treatment of cross-cutting issues
such as human performance, old design issues, and plants with
significant performance deficiencies.
Three recent improvements to the ROP are the use of a new
performance indicator, a greater focus on licensee safety culture,
and a strengthened engineering inspection. This quarter, we have
implemented the Mitigating System Performance Index (MSPI), a
risk-informed performance indicator that combines component
reliability and availability with plant-specific probabilistic risk
assessment (PRA) information to arrive at a single performance
index for five important systems. This performance indicator is
complex, but it will give us real insights into key systems for
mitigating accidents. Most importantly, it has brought the entire
industry to a needed level of quality for so-called Level 1, internal
initiating event probabilistic risk assessments. The MSPI replaced
the safety system unavailability PIs, and licensees are scheduled to
submit their initial data sets in July 2006. The NRC has also been
working with internal and external stakeholders to enhance the
ROP to more fully address safety culture. We have enhanced
inspection procedures and developed processes to determine
whether an assessment of safety culture is needed for plants with
recognized performance deficiencies. The NRC staff is nearing
completion of this effort and plans to fully implement the
enhancements on July 1, 2006. The NRC recently undertook a
substantial effort to strengthen its engineering inspection to
increase the scrutiny of risk significant components and operator
actions. The new component-based inspection ensures that the
selected components are capable of performing their intended
safety functions by verifying that the design bases have been
properly implemented and maintained. The review includes
evaluating the adequacy of the engineering calculations and
analyses, the installed configuration, operating procedures, and
testing and maintenance activities. A similar process is used to
inspect risk significant operator actions.
The Reactor Oversight Process continues to evolve and
improve. The staff performs an annual self-assessment of the
reactor oversight process to evaluate the overall effectiveness of
the process. In addition to the annual ROP self-assessment
program, several independent evaluations have been performed
since the beginning of the ROP to analyze its effectiveness and
identify improvements. The Office of the NRC Inspector General
(OIG), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), our
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), and a task
force formed as a result of the Davis-Besse vessel head
degradation have all performed evaluations related to the ROP.
These evaluations have generally provided favorable results but
have also suggested potential areas of improvement for the agency
to consider. The Commission welcomes these critiques. For
example, the OMB Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)
evaluation of the ROP in 2003, resulted in a score of 89 percent,
which corresponds to an "Effective" rating of the management of
the program. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its
work following the Davis-Besse vessel head degradation incident
has suggested areas for improvement in the ROP and is currently
performing an independent evaluation of the ROP. The GAO has
completed numerous staff interviews, reviewed ROP guidance
documents, and performed a number of case studies over the past
several months. We expect to receive a draft report of the GAO's
findings in the next month or so with the final report later this year.
The NRC will continue to improve the ROP, increase its
transparency and incorporate additional risk informed measures.
Since I arrived at the Commission, the oversight process has
become a much better system. We welcome feedback from our
stakeholders and believe that such feedback will assist us as we
continue to refine the process.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and the
Commission looks forward to continuing to work with the
Committee. I welcome your comments and questions.
<GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
MR. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you, Mr. McGaffigan, and I
appreciate you mentioning Mr. Diaz because I think we all believe
that he's done a real good job and has made some significant
improvements in the agency. And we appreciate the testimony of
both you and Mr. Wells.
In the second panel today, our witness is Mr. Paul Gunter, who
is the Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service. And Mr. Wells, I wanted to
ask you a question about in Mr. Gunter's written statement, he
suggested that the NRC has cut corners in several of the safety
cornerstones, including reactor safety, barrier integrity, physical
security, and mitigating systems.
Now, you've had extensive research of the Reactor Oversight
Process and have been involved in this. Do you agree with that
statement? Or do you feel like that's inaccurate?
MR. WELLS. Mr. Chairman, I've not had the pleasure nor am I
aware that my team has had any opportunity to look at the
evidence that he's basing that statement on. I can tell you that the
GAO was aware of the old program that the NRC had. It is clear
that they had more inspection staff at the time. It's clear that they
had more findings than the current ROP program. They were
looking at different things, and sometimes that's what they were
being criticized for. They were more procedural or administrative
in nature and maybe not as significantly related to the actual safety
concerns. It's clear that the existing ROP has fewer inspectors
available, but from my understanding when I looked, they've been
better targeted in terms of what they're looking at. So I'm unable
to really comment on his conclusion without seeing his evidence. I
would be glad to seek him out after this testimony.
MR. WHITFIELD. Okay. Mr. McGaffigan, Mr. Gunter also
made the comment and he expresses serious concerns with NRC's
Fire Safety Program. Can you please explain the current status of
the NRC's Fire Safety Program and also explain whether you
believe the NRC has done everything they can do in this area.
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, we put very significant resources into
fire safety inspections. We are, at the moment, in a transition, we
hope, to a risk-informed fire safety regime based on National Fire
Protection Association Standard 805, which is a consensus
standard that we endorsed in a recent rulemaking. We have, I
believe, almost 40 plants lined up to try to utilize this new
risk-informed program. Fire protection has been problematic, in
all honesty, since the early '80s, when the NRC adopted a fire
protection rule 10 CFR 50.48, and then we were sued by the
industry, and the only way the appeals court said the rule could go
into effect was if we promised to hand out exemptions left, right,
and center, which we did promise, and we did do.
It's a very problematic area at the current time, because every
plant has its own fire safety basis. So we're hoping, and we have
invested our resources in recent years on making a transition to a
risk-informed fire protection system to replace 50.48 based on the
NFPA 805 standard.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you. Mr. McGaffigan, we have a list
here of each of NRC's "yellow" and "red" inspection findings.
And Mr. Wells, I guess, mentioned in his testimony, there are only
a total of 12 such findings issued since the beginning of the
Reactor Oversight Process. But of the five "red" inspection
findings, three were given to the Point Beach plant in Wisconsin
relating to problems with the plant's auxiliary feed water pumps,
and these problems date back as far as 2001, yet each of these
"red" inspection findings at Point Beach is still open, meaning the
underlying safety problems are unresolved.
So why has the NRC been unable to resolve these ongoing
safety issues at Point Beach over the past five years?
MS. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, before you get that answer,
I am just wondering--I'm sorry, I have to run. I'm wondering if I
could have permission to submit these questions to be answered in
writing.
MR. WHITFIELD. Absolutely. Without objection, absolutely.
MS. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you.
MR. WHITFIELD. And thank you for coming to help us. Thank
you.
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Mr. Chairman, the Point Beach facility has
been in the fourth column of our Action Matrix for several years
now. It is frustrating to the Commission and to the staff and I'm
sure to the licensee. We have closed out part of the issues. There
has actually been some internal controversy within the agency
about closing out one of the issues recently, and we have a process
for trying to resolve that. The hope is that they are now on the path
to resolving these issues. There were engineering issues. There
were issues in terms of follow-up that have beset that plant for the
last, as you say, 3 or 4 years.
It does not mean that the plant is unsafe. It is much better
today than it was when we first found these issues, but it has not
yet been released. Open means that they are not yet released from
the additional oversight in our process. They have not performed
all the actions required under a confirmatory action letter that was
issued to them, outlining what they had to do to close out all
aspects of their "red" findings.
MR. WHITFIELD. But I take it you don't see anything
fundamentally wrong or systemically wrong with the oversight
Reactor Oversight Process?
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. We don't see anything fundamentally
wrong. At the last annual meeting we had last month, we talked
about whether we needed to have licensees who were in this fourth
column of the Action Matrix appear before the Commission,
particularly licensees who had been in that for an extended period
of time, and we've asked the staff to come back to us and for next
year's annual meeting, that might be the extra push needed to
encourage people to not spend too much time carrying out the
corrective actions that we want them to carry out.
MR. WHITFIELD. Now, Commissioner McGaffigan, the NRC
recently briefed our committee staff regarding several ongoing
physical security problems at the Turkey Point plant in Florida.
And I understand that over the past few years, there have been a
series of security infractions at Turkey Point with respect to
security equipment. For instance, in one case, a security guard at
the site intentionally removed the firing pins from two weapons,
rendering the weapons useless. In another case, body armor was
tampered with. In another case, someone drilled a hole in a gas
mask used by one of the guards. And I was wondering if you
might just comment on how the Reactor Oversight Process found
what went wrong that allowed these chronic security problems to
go undetected for several years before NRC became aware of the
problem.
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, the security part of our process is one
where we have put enormous resources since 9/11. We believed
that we do find problems at these plants. We are particularly proud
of our force-on-force exercises in the post-9/11 environment that
are enormously better, infinitely better than what we did before
9/11. I'm not totally comfortable discussing the details of Turkey
Point in public because I don't want to put a finger on Turkey
Point. Turkey Point, we have said, that there was a very bad
incident publicly in which we brought in the FBI with a hole
drilled where it should not have been during a recent outage, but
Turkey Point is not an outlier by any means. I don't want to rate
the plants in security space because we haven't done that since
9/11 on our home page.
We have deleted the performance indicators, all of which were
"green" forever. They didn't provide useful information to the
public, and we deleted the inspection findings. What we have just
recently done--and I will admit I was in the minority--is that we
decided to put summary inspection reports about security findings
onto the Web page. Just a summary, not the details. And if there
are greater than "green" findings, we will note that without noting
the number or without noting what the exact nature of the security
findings were. For less than "green" findings--or for "green"
findings, we will simply note that there were "green" findings and
again, not discuss the details. So I'm not comfortable getting into
security details. We don't want to help terrorists target any
particular plant or know anything that is current information about
any security deficiency at one of our plants.
MR. WHITFIELD. And this looks like maybe some disgruntled
employee or whatever. I won't speculate on it. But I think overall,
this GAO report was quite positive, and I think you all should be
commended for the great progress that you're making. Obviously,
any infraction or a problem in this area is something we have to be
quite concerned about, but I appreciate it. My time has expired,
and I thank you for your hard work.
I recognize the full committee Chairman, Mr. Barton from
Texas.
CHAIRMAN BARTON. Mr. Chairman, I'm actually supposedly
chairing another meeting right now. So I just came to show
support for the hearing. I think the reports that have come out are
generally favorable. I share some of the concerns some of the
watchdog groups do, especially on anti-terrorist security. I think
we still need to be vigilant there, but we appear to be addressing
that.
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, the amount of resources that we're
putting into security today is a large factor of what we put in
before 9/11, and we believe that we have excellent force-on-force
exercises that we're now carrying out once every 3 years at every
site, and we're getting deep insights, we're finding problems, and
people are fixing them before we leave the site. I don't want to go
into the details, but we are finding problems, and we're fixing
them.
CHAIRMAN BARTON. I guess I should give the other two
witnesses an opportunity to comment on that.
MR. WELLS. We have been active in reporting on the NRC
security program in both classified and unclassified reports.
Clearly NRC, I would agree, has expended a tremendous amount
of resource and has come a long way in terms of testing the
security at our commercial nuclear power plants, but I too would
share some interest and concern that the NRC continue to seek
ways to inform the American public about the types of activities
that are underway and the types of activities that exist to help
improve the public's perception about the quality of security that
exists at our nuclear power plants. We have shared
recommendations with the NRC to look at ways in which more
information can be made available to the public and still protect
security concerns. We think NRC could still do a better job at that.
CHAIRMAN BARTON. Is she with you?
MR. WELLS. Yes.
CHAIRMAN BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Burgess.
MR. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McGaffigan, if
I could just ask you a question on the force-on-force exercises, and
if it is information that you can't tell us, then just so indicate. But
on a force-on-force exercise, are all sides aware that these
exercises are happening?
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Yes, sir. We have to. We are criticized
for giving too much lead time to the licensees. We have tried to
cut that back, but we have to conduct an exercise at one of these
sites, say, South Texas or Comanche Peak, the licensee has to have
enough lead time so that they can have two sets of security guards
there. One protecting the plant. One armed with so-called MILES
gear, laser target designator-type gear to play in the exercise. So
they have twice the normal security force there for the exercise.
We are increasingly doing night exercises because that would be
the time when the plant might be more vulnerable, if you were a
terrorist, you might have less to worry about in terms of being
identified as you approach the plant. So we give them about 8 to
10 weeks notice. They put together their plans. We table top with
them. We have some ideas for how to improve the table top aspect
by bringing in something called JCATS, which is used by the
military, which we're hoping to pilot soon. Joint combined arms
tactical simulation that's used by--Lawrence Livermore is the
keeper of that software.
We have vastly improved the quality of the attacking force that
we use. They are professional now. We used to have retired state
policemen or retired security guards from other plants serving as
the attacking force. We have a professional attacking force today.
They are under NRC's supervision. We have a very qualified
government contractor who comes in and helps us design the
attacks that we use. The typical exercise has three attacks on each
of three consecutive evenings, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
typically. And we exploit where our experts believe the
weaknesses in that plant's security strategy are.
And most of the time, the vast majority of the time our
attacking force is repelled. In some cases, the attacking force is
successful in reaching target sets, and we don't want that to happen
but very, very infrequently. But the vast majority of the time, I
will tell you--we're working on an annual report at the current
time, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Burgess, that will summarize last year's
results of force-on-force exercises, and that should be available to
the Congress next month. We're not going to identify individual
plants, but we will tell you what we found as a general matter, and
we will tell you examples of the sort of things that we did find and
that we did improve as a result of the exercises.
I will give you one example. We did this in a closed session
that Mr. Wells and I were at recently. I'm not going to name the
site, but this particular site had decided to use an armored
personnel carrier as part of its protective strategy. That's a pretty
bad thing in the hands of a terrorist adversary. And unfortunately,
the adversary managed to get control of the armored personnel
carrier for reasons that I won't go into now, but that will never
happen again. The licensee now understands why it cannot have
the armored personnel carrier, which is theoretically a good idea,
located where it was. They were using it for owner-controlled area
patrols outside the protected area. They are never going to allow
that armor personnel carrier to be overwhelmed again and seized.
MR. BURGESS. I hope not.
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Yeah.
MR. BURGESS. We've had a lot of discussion here in this
committee about the issue of cyber security. Can you address what
you're doing in that realm?
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. We have a program that we have worked
out with the experts and with the industry itself. The Department
of Homeland Security is very supportive of it. They have a draft
nuclear sector security plan out for public comment at the current
time that has cyber security and whether the industry implements
fully pursuant to the NRC guidance in cyber security as one of the
metrics that they're proposing. Our plants are not particularly
vulnerable to cyber security problems currently because all of the
safety systems are generally analog and separated. They're not
accessible. Some things like, you know, the grid--the
interconnection between the plant and the grid are accessible
because they have to be--but a terrorist, the plants are not
particularly susceptible to cyber security, and we have, we think, a
sound program that if fully implemented by the industry will
preclude problems with cyber security.
MR. BURGESS. I don't know whether I should ask this of
Mr. Wells or Mr. McGaffigan, but this list that the Chairman
alluded to earlier under the "yellow" indicator at Indian Point II,
four of seven operator crews failed to pass annual license
requalification exams. That, to me just as a layperson, that's a
little startling. Are we taking steps to address that and correct that?
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, those steps have been taken a long
time ago. If they don't pass, they don't run the reactor. We have a
very vigorous program both of initial qualification and
requalification for all of our operators. They all have to have an
NRC license to operate a power reactor. We take that very
seriously. The industry takes it very seriously.
MR. BURGESS. But you had a 50 percent failure rate according
to this.
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. One plant. One plant that was in trouble,
as you can see above, for other reasons in the same time period,
and that plant also has undergone a change in ownership since that
time period. Entergy Corporation now runs that plant. Indian
Point II in 2001 was--I forget whether it was Con Ed or NYPA, I
always got them mixed up, New York Power Authority--the
Consolidated Edison was then running Indian Point II, and
Entergy, which it runs a fleet of nuclear plants, holds itself to a
very high standard, is now in charge there.
And you know, as a general matter, I personally believe that
the consolidation that has taken place in the industry, getting rid of
people like Con Ed and NYPA and Boston Edison at Pilgrim and
lots of other folks who were single-unit utilities back when I joined
the NRC and having them instead now be part of large fleets run
by the Exelons and Entergys and Dukes and Constellations, it has
been a huge step forward in safety. These folks are serious.
They're committed to the nuclear business. When the CEOs of
some of those former firms used to come into my office, you could
tell that they were just figuring out how to exit from the nuclear
business, and they sometimes provided resources to the staff,
commensurate with their desire to not be in the nuclear business.
The new folks provide resources that are needed to maintain the
plant in a highly safe condition.
MR. BURGESS. It seems like whenever there's an incident or an
accident, it wasn't just one event that caused it but a chain of
events, and the Navy's been so successful with their nuclear
submarine program within their culture of safety that just will
accept no deviation. I just wondered if we would be better served
if we sought to achieve that high a safety standard. Now,
Mr. Wells, you point out that the NRC, over 5 years has over 4,000
inspections and 97 percent of these were considered of low
significance to the overall safe operations of the plant. And in fact,
if we have such a low level of findings, is it because the plants are
doing a good job or we're not looking hard enough?
MR. WELLS. Could be both.
MR. BURGESS. Yeah. And therein is part of the problem. And
that's when it wasn't part of this committee, but it's part of the
investigation for the space shuttle disaster 2 years ago, reviewing
the nuclear submarine program in the Navy, again, they've
compiled a remarkable safety record since 1963, and one that
they're rightly very proud of, and it stems from an unwillingness to
accept any deviation, any deviation from standard. And I just
wonder if our Nuclear Regulatory Commission should achieve to
strive for that same high standard.
MR. WELLS. Mr. Congressman, you know, my first reaction is
that clearly, we've heard debate within NRC as well as in the
industry. The industry itself talks a lot about excellence and a lot
of their inspections are designed to excellence, which is a little
different than what you were talking about in the Navy program,
even within the NRC circles, they're talking about the safety
culture, which, in their mind, is a little different definition than
excellence. Clearly the results that we've seen, the three plants
that are in the highest level of safety oversight, the four plants that
are in the second highest level of oversight, and the 11 plants that
are currently in increased levels of oversight, in each and every one
of these plants there are issues relating to repeating and recurring
type of events, and repeating and recurring examples where
corrective action has not been as timely or corrected the first time.
So there seems to be a theme across the industry in terms of what
causes some of these plants to be less good performers than other
plants, and it seems to be this cross-cutting environment where
there's a safety culture out there that they're not, in fact, doing the
types of things that maybe you've experienced and seen in the
Navy program.
MR. BURGESS. Mr. Chairman, this is an important aspect. I
hope this is not the last time we'll visit it. With that, my time's
expired. I'll yield back.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Dr. Burgess. And one other
comment I would make, Commissioner McGaffigan, I touched on
this earlier about the Reactor Oversight Process, but I will just ask
you in closing, are you confident today yourself as a commissioner
that this Reactor Oversight Process can proactively identify
emerging safety issues like the one at Davis-Besse before similar
major safety problems occur?
MR. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, I don't think I can honestly answer
that in the affirmative. I think that's too high a standard for a
program. Will we ever make the Davis-Besse mistake again? No.
But the problem is we do not have a leading indicator of bad
performance.
When I first came to the Commission and we were designing
the Reactor Oversight Process, Mr. Edward Jordan, who was one
of our most senior staff and had been with us since the day the
NRC was created, gave us new commissioners a lecture about
leading indicators, and the then-two-decade-plus effort by the NRC
staff to find leading indicators and to find ways to get ahead of
problems; and every time we find one, or we think we find one and
we pilot it, we find out it's a leading indicator of both good and
bad performance.
So we don't have a magic indicator. Do we have the best
program that human beings can design at this stage? Yes, I will
affirmatively answer that. But will we always be ahead of
degrading performance? I think that is a standard that a human
institution is probably not going to achieve. Are we doing all we
can to try to achieve it? Yes. But I cannot promise you there will
not be another incident in the future where we get surprised.
We're doing all we can to prevent it, but I cannot promise you that
the system is infallible.
MR. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you all very much. We
appreciate your being here. We appreciate your testimony. And as
I said earlier, the GAO report on this was generally positive with
some areas of concern, obviously. But we look forward to
maintaining contact with you as we continue efforts to improve
nuclear safety in the country. So with that, you all are dismissed.
At this time I'd like to call up the second panel, which consists
of one person, and that is Mr. Paul Gunter, who is, as I said,
Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service.
Mr. Gunter, it's good to see you this afternoon. We appreciate
your being here.
MR. GUNTER. Thank you very much.
MR. WHITFIELD. As you know, in Oversight and
Investigations, we take testimony under oath. And do you have
any difficulty of testifying under oath today?
MR. GUNTER. I do not.
MR. WHITFIELD. And do you have legal counsel with you?
MR. GUNTER. I do not.
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Gunter. You are now under
oath, and I would recognize you for your five-minute opening
statement. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL GUNTER, DIRECTOR, THE REACTOR WATCHDOG PROJECT, NUCLEAR
INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE
MR. GUNTER. Good afternoon. My name is Paul Gunter. I am
director of the Reactor Watchdog Project.
MR. WHITFIELD. Do you have your microphone on,
Mr. Gunter?
MR. GUNTER. I believe it is on. Is it on now? It's on now.
Thank you.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to share with you today
some of the public interest community's concerns and insights
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's current Regulatory
Oversight Process. Whether you are for or against nuclear power,
we can all agree that safety and security must be regarded as top
priorities at all of the Nation's atomic power plants. While the
new Reactor Oversight Process represents an improvement over
the old systematic assessment of licensee performance, NIRS does
not have confidence that this latest version is being fairly applied
to hold the public safety and security in the highest regard. The
public is concerned with evidence that the regulatory agency is
cutting corners at safety and security cornerstones under the new
process, particularly in the areas of assessment, inspection and
enforcement. In March 2002, the Davis-Besse nuclear power
station 20 miles outside of Toledo had not one greater than "green"
finding when the worst reactor safety condition in the United
States since Three Mile Island accident was discovered. The
public became acutely aware with the discovery of the severely
corroded hole in the head of the reactor pressure vessel that a lack
of greater than "green" finding under the new oversight process
does not necessarily equate to an assurance of safety. The NRC
technical staff, in fact, had identified a potentially significant
safety issue at Davis-Besse where six of the seven operating
Babcock & Wilcox reactors had received inspections identifying
cracking in susceptible material that fabricated the control rod
drive mechanism penetration sleeves.
Davis-Besse was the only other Babcock & Wilcox reactor not
inspected. Using its regulatory guidance, the NRC technical staff
quantified the uncertain but growing risk of continued operation of
Davis-Besse and found the risk to be unacceptable. An order was
drafted and finalized in November of 2001 by the staff of the
Nuclear Reactor Regulation to shut down the reactor in December
2001 for a safety inspection of the reactor vessel head. However,
the final order was never issued. Instead, according to the NRC
Office of Inspector General report, quote, "during its review of the
potentially hazardous condition at Davis-Besse, the NRC staff
considered the financial impact to the licensee of an unscheduled
plant shutdown" which "was contrary to the goal of NRC bulletin
2001-01 to have at-risk reactors conduct timely inspections to
ensure that NRC regulatory requirements related to reactor coolant
leakage were met."
The OIG went on to state that, "with respect to Davis-Besse
specifically, OIG reviewed a November 21, 2001 internal NRC
memorandum related to a discussion between the nuclear reactor
regulation director and First Energy Nuclear Operating
Corporation president. The document conveyed that the NRR
director had spoken to FENOC president and was aware of the
licensee's financial concerns pertaining to an unscheduled
shutdown. According to the memorandum, the FENOC president
told the NRR director that the impact of shutdown prior to
February 2002 would be significant, and Davis-Besse would be
better positioned for a shutdown in February because of the
availability of replacement fuel. The FENOC president confirmed
to OIG that this discussion took place."
The NRC order was pulled. Moreover, the OIG reported that
"NRC appears to have informally established an unreasonably high
burden for requiring absolute proof of a safety problem versus lack
of reasonable assurance of maintaining public health and safety
before it will act to shut down a power plant. The staff articulated
this standard to OIG as a rationale for allowing Davis-Besse to
operate until February 16, 2002, even in light of information that
had strongly indicated Davis-Besse was not in compliance with
NRC regulations and plant technical specifications and may have
operated with reduced safety margins." When the reactor was shut
down in February 2002, not only did the licensee find cracking in
the identified trouble spot but corrosive reactor coolant had been
leaking through a crack over an extended time period and eaten a
cavity into the reactor vessel through 6 3/4 inches of carbon steel.
A Federal laboratory study postulated that if a reactor
continued to operate for as little as 2 additional months, the reactor
pressure vessel may have ruptured during operation. To date, there
has been not a more compelling case for shutting down a reactor
for safety-related inspections under any NRC regulatory oversight
process and, in this case, occurred under the new oversight
process.
A NRC lessons-learned task force was formulated to address
the many mistakes that led up to the near miss accident at
Davis-Besse and looked extensively at how to avoid similar
accidents in the future.
However, the task force leaves one glaring omission
unaddressed and unanswered in its mission: how in order to shut
down Davis-Besse for safety inspections based on the agency's
technical staff's risk informed and study judgment was canceled
subsequent to the meeting between NRC senior management and a
Davis-Besse executive officer.
Furthermore, the Davis-Besse task force still leaves open the
issue of how the new oversight process informally requires, quote,
"absolute proof of a safety problem," unquote, to shut down a
reactor for safety inspections, while the same oversight process
only requires reasonable assurance to start up that reactor.
In view of the identified public safety concerns and findings of
the OIG report, an effective ROP should not set the bar so high for
the burden of proof of the safety problem to be beyond the reach of
timely regulatory action so as to first consider the financial
interests of a licensee.
Similarly, NIRS' written testimony reflects that the public has
no confidence in the security cornerstone for the ROP that is more
determined by the regulators' assessment of how much the nuclear
industry is willing to afford rather than a set of requirements of
what is realistically needed to defend these potential radiological
targets against existing threats.
My written testimony also looks at how under both the old and
the new ROP widespread noncompliances with critical fire
protection regulations for qualified fire barrier protection of the
safe shutdown of the reactor in the event of fire have lingered
unresolved for more than a decade, without resolution and without
Federal enforcement action to require compliance. In the
meantime, more firebearing materials are emerging as inoperable.
Congressman Dingell stated the obvious at a 1993 Oversight
and Investigations hearing on fire protection noncompliances and
the NRC oversight process more than 13 years ago. He said, "One
must inquire whether a regulatory process which approves matters
as a matter of courtesy is serving the public interest or, in fact,
whether it is in fact a regulatory system. The question is, how does
this happen. It results from a curious blind faith of NRC regulators
and assurances made by utilities and by the industries they
regulate."
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Paul Gunter follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. PAUL GUNTER, DIRECTOR,
REACTOR WATCHDOG PROJECT, NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND
RESOURCE SERVICE
The public must look to the United States Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's (NRC) oversight process to establish and uphold the
safety and security standard in the day-to-day operation and
maintenance of nuclear power plants through a rigorous process of
assessment, inspection and enforcement. While the new Reactor
Oversight Process (ROP) represents an improvement over the old
Systematic Assessment of Licensee Performance, NIRS does not
have confidence that this latest version is being fairly applied to
hold the public safety and security in the highest regard.
The public is concerned with evidence that the regulatory
agency is cutting corners at safety and security cornerstones under
the new process particularly in the areas of assessment, inspection
and enforcement.
In view of identified public safety concerns, an effective ROP
should not set the bar so high for the burden of proof of a safety
problem to be beyond the reach of timely regulatory action so as to
first consider the financial interests of a licensee.
The public has no confidence in a Physical Protection
Cornerstone of the ROP that is more determined by the regulator's
assessment of how much the nuclear industry is willing to afford
rather than a set of requirements of what is realistically needed to
defend these potential radiological targets against existing threats.
Under both the old and new ROP, non-compliance with critical
fire protection regulations for the safe shutdown of the reactor in
the event of fire has lingered unresolved for more than a decade
without resolution and without federal enforcement action to
require compliance.
Congressman Dingell stated the obvious at that 1993 hearing
on fire protection non-compliances and the NRC oversight process
more than 13 years ago, "One must inquire whether a regulatory
process which approves matters as a matter of courtesy is serving
the public interest or, in fact, whether it is in fact a regulatory
system. The question is, how does this happen. It results from a
curious blind faith of NRC regulators and assurances made by
utilities and by the industries that they regulate."
Good afternoon. My name is Paul Gunter. I am Director of the
Reactor Watchdog Project for Nuclear Information and Resource
Service in Takoma Park, Maryland.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to share with you today
some of the public interest community's insights and concerns
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's current Reactor
Oversight Process.
Whether you are for or against nuclear power, we can all agree
that safety and security must be regarded as top priorities at all of
the nation's atomic power plants. It is all the more true with aging
reactors in the Post September 11th world where safety margins
and the security bar must be regarded with the highest standard.
Today, the public must look to the United States Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's (NRC) oversight process to establish
and uphold that standard in the day-to-day operation and
maintenance of nuclear power plants through a rigorous process of
assessment, inspection and enforcement. Unfortunately, we do not
have confidence that the latest version of the oversight process is
being fairly applied to hold our safety and security in the highest
regard.
Following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, NRC
developed the Systematic Assessment of Licensee Performance. A
significant drawback to the SALP process was the fact that the
program did not have a rating for unacceptable performance.
Following a near-miss accident in 1985 at Ohio's Davis-Besse
nuclear power station, NRC established a "Watch List" of reactors
that warranted heightened safety-related regulatory attention.
Public confidence steadily eroded under the old SALP where
reactors like the two units at the Dresden nuclear power station
outside of Chicago were allowed to remain on the agency's
"Watch List" for eight years of an eleven year period all the while
NRC management knew that reactor safety margins were
significantly eroded. As the U.S. General Accounting Office
pointed out, "NRC has not taken aggressive enforcement action to
force the licensees to fix their long-standing safety problems on a
timely basis. As a result, the plant's condition has worsened,
making safety margins smaller." NRC senior management's
repeatedly failure to address declining safety performance at
nuclear reactors eventually emerged on the cover of TIME
magazine.
In April 2000, NRC implemented the current reactor oversight
process. In the view of industry the revision of the oversight
process came about as the result of improved reactor performance
and the need to remove overly burdensome regulatory oversight
process. In the view public interest and safety groups the revised
process was necessitated by the repeated failure of NRC
management to address documented and declining reactor safety
performance.
The obvious question today is whether or not we have a better
reactor oversight process that accurately assesses reactor safety and
security conditions, timely captures problems without gambling
public safety and security and carries out enforcement actions to
assure that problems are effectively remedied and not recurring.
The Reactor Oversight Process is only as effective as the agency is
able and willing to accurately assess safety and security problems
and take timely enforcement action when violations occur and
problems are not addressed.
The public is concerned with evidence that the regulatory
agency is cutting corners at a safety and security cornerstones
under the new process particularly in the areas of assessment,
inspection and enforcement.
Cutting Corners in Reactor Safety and the Barrier Integrity
Cornerstone
In March 2002, the Davis-Besse nuclear generating station, 20
miles outside of Toledo, Ohio had not one greater-than-Green
performance indicator or inspection finding when the worst reactor
safety condition in the United States since the Three Mile Island
accident was discovered. The public became acutely aware with
the discovery of the severely corroded hole-in-the-head of the
Davis-Besse reactor pressure vessel that a lack-of-greater-than-
Green finding under the new Reactor Oversight Process does not
necessarily equate to an assurance of safety. In fact, disturbing
photographic evidence of extensive corrosion was available to the
NRC oversight process when the reactor was allowed to restart in
April 2000, the same month that the new ROP was initiated.
The NRC technical staff had, in fact, identified a potentially
significant safety issue at Davis-Besse where six of the seven
operating Babcox & Wilcox reactors had received inspections
identifying cracking in a susceptible material that fabricated the
control rod drive mechanism penetration sleeves. Davis-Besse was
the only other B&W reactor not inspected. An Order was drafted
and finalized in November 2001 by the staff of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation to shut down the reactor in December 2001 for a safety
inspection of the reactor vessel head. However, the final Order
was never issued. When the reactor was shut down in February
2002, not only did the operator find cracking in the identified
trouble spot but corrosive reactor coolant had been leaking through
the crack over an extended time period and eaten a cavity into the
reactor vessel head through six and three quarter inches of carbon
steel. A federal laboratory study postulated that if the corrosion
rate had been allowed to continue for as little as two additional
months the reactor pressure vessel may have ruptured.
A subsequent investigation by the NRC Office of Inspector
General (OIG) concluded that "during its review of the potentially
hazardous condition at Davis-Besse, the NRC staff considered the
financial impact to the licensee of an unscheduled plant shutdown"
and "was contrary to the goal of NRC Bulletin 2001-01 to have at
risk reactors conduct timely inspections to ensure that NRC
regulatory requirements related to reactor coolant leakage were
met." The OIG went on to state that "With respect to Davis-
Besse specifically, OIG reviewed a November 21 2001 internal
NRC memorandum related to a discussion between the NRR
(Nuclear Reactor Regulation) Director and the FENOC (First
Energy Nuclear Operating Corporation) President. The document
conveyed that the NRR Director had spoken to the FENOC
President and was aware of the licensee's financial concerns
pertaining to an unscheduled shutdown. According to the
memorandum, the FENOC President told the NRR Director that
the impact of a shutdown prior to February 2002 would be
significant, and Davis-Besse would be better positioned for a shut
down in February because of the availability of replacement fuel.
The FENOC President confirmed to OIG that this discussion took
place." The NRC Order was subsequently pulled.
Moreover, the OIG also reported that, "NRC appears to have
informally established an unreasonably high burden of requiring
absolute proof of a safety problem, versus lack of reasonable
assurance of maintaining public health and safety, before it will
act to shut down a power plant. The staff articulated this standard
to OIG as a rationale for allowing Davis-Besse to operate until
February 16, 2002, even in light of information that strongly
indicated Davis-Besse was not in compliance with NRC
regulations and plant technical specifications and may have
operated with reduced safety margins."
In view of such public safety concerns, an effective Reactor
Oversight Process should not set the bar so high for the burden of
proof of a safety problem to be beyond the reach of timely
regulatory action so as to first consider the financial interests of an
operator.
The tendency for NRC to overlook significant safety warnings
signs under the current ROP remains a concern to the public
interest community today.
Cutting Corners in Safeguards and the Physical Protection
Cornerstone
Along the same lines, the security bar for nuclear power
stations should not be set so low so that Reactor Oversight Process
performance indicators can not accurately assess the adequacy of
reactor site security to defend against a terrorist attack and assess
site vulnerabilities in need of timely resolution.
For example, testimony given this year by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) before the Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations
in the House Committee on Government Reform, raises concerns
about the Reactor Oversight Process and the Design Basis Threat
(DBT), which sets the thresholds for adversary characteristics that
reactor sites are required to be able to defend against with a high
degree of confidence.
The GAO looked at the rigor of inspections and drills used to
test security force readiness that determine the findings of the
Physical Protection Cornerstone. GAO identified that NRC staff
analyzed intelligence information in determining adversary
characteristics including weapons that could be used in an attack as
well as exchanged information with the Department of Energy,
which has a DBT for comparable facilities that process or store
radiological materials and as such are potential targets for
radiological sabotage. GAO found that "NRC generally
established less rigorous requirements than DOE-for example,
with regard to the types of equipment that could be used in an
attack. The DOE DBT includes a number of weapons not included
in the NRC DBT. Inclusion of such weapons in the NRC DBT for
nuclear power plants would have required plants to take
substantial security measures."
The GAO report reflects the concern of a broad range of public
interest groups that the DBT as measured under the current Reactor
Oversight Process does not reflect staff recommendation as
formulated from intelligence information. Instead, GAO found
"the NRC staff made changes to some recommendations after
obtaining feedback from stakeholders, including the nuclear
industry, which objected to certain proposed changes, such as the
inclusion of certain weapons. NRC officials said the changes
resulted from the further analysis of intelligence information.
Nevertheless, GAO found that the process used to obtain
stakeholder feedback created the appearance that changes were
made based on what the industry considered reasonable and
feasible to defend against rather than on what an assessment of the
terrorist threat called for."
The public has no confidence in a Physical Protection
Cornerstone of the ROP that is more determined by the regulators
assessment of how much the nuclear industry is willing to afford
rather than a set of requirements of what is realistically needed to
defend these potential radiological targets against existing threats.
Cutting Corners in Reactor Safety and Mitigating Systems
Cornerstone
As stated on the NRC website with regard to the Reactor
Safety and Mitigating Systems Cornerstone "The objective of this
cornerstone is to monitor the availability, reliability, and
capability of systems that mitigate the effects of initiating events to
prevent core damage. Licensees reduce the likelihood of reactor
accidents by maintaining the availability and reliability of
mitigating systems."
Fire is potentially one of the highest risk initiating events.
NIRS has long been concerned with the regulatory oversight
process and specifically the protection of electrical cables for
control, power and instrumentation equipment necessary to safely
shut down the reactor in the event of fire. A nearly catastrophic fire
that burned for seven hours at the Browns Ferry nuclear power
station in 1975 resulted in the promulgation of new requirements
for NRC's fire code.
We remain concerned with the questionable adequacy of the
Reactor Oversight Process for post-fire safe shutdown
requirements, today.
In 1992, NRC declared Thermo-Lag 330-1 fire barriers
inoperable. Thermo-Lag 330-1 was then the most widely deployed
fire barrier system used throughout the nuclear power industry. An
industry whistleblower had exposed that the fire barrier wrap
system could not pass standardized industry fire tests and did not
meet the fire endurance requirements for protecting safe shut down
electrical cables from fire damage, specifically where redundant
safe shut down electrical systems were co-located in the same fire
zone and could be destroyed by a single fire.
In March 1993, this Subcommittee held a hearing on "Fire
Safety at Nuclear Power Plants" then chaired by Congressman
John Dingell. I attended that hearing on behalf of Nuclear
Information and Resource Service with particular concern for
public safety involving the inoperable fire barrier wrap system.
Congressman Dingell stated at that hearing "This is what Yogi
Berra might describe as d�j� vu all over again." As
Congressman Dingell further stated, "The regulators, again
appear to have exhibited some substantial failures in regulatory
oversight, in passivity and in paralyses." Congressman Dingell
went on to say, "NRC accepted the utility's assurances, apparently
without adequate scrutiny, and the material (Thermo-Lag 330-1)
was installed in about 80 reactors across the country. The
committee has received serious allegations that these result in
substandard fire protection in those plants. The certifications
continue to be accepted by NRC, in spite of the fact that NRC staff
was given ample evidence of problems over a period extending
over ten years."
The bogus fire barrier resulted in NRC staff reviews and
repeated meetings for five more years with nuclear power plant
operators and the industry lobby group, then Nuclear Utility
Management and Resources Council (NUMARC) and now the
Nuclear Energy Institute. During that time, fire watches, as
compensatory measures, were put in place for what would amount
to more than six years at some sites despite the 1993 testimony by
then Commissioner Ivan Selin before the same Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations stating that fire watches were only
intended for temporary durations of 6 to 9 months. "They don't
expect them for 2 years fulltime," said Selin. During that
extensive period of non-compliance many operators came to
agreements with NRC staff to bring reactor fire protection
violations into compliance with the applicable fire code (10 CFR
50.48 and 10 CFR 50 Appendix R III.G.2). About two dozen units
were finally issued NRC Confirmatory Action Orders in 1998 to
come into compliance by 2000 because of their inability to provide
an acceptable and timely corrective action program for the
inoperable fire barriers.
In 2000, the NRC implemented the new Reactor Oversight
Process which included a series of systematic inspections of
licensees' safe shutdown capability. A series of baseline fire
protection inspections were conducted at reactor sites by NRC
inspectors. During these baseline inspections, NRC inspectors
discovered that many licensees had in fact not upgraded or
replaced inoperable Thermo-Lag 330-1 fire barriers as agreed to
NRC staff in their Thermo-Lag Corrective Action Programs and
Confirmatory Action Orders. Between 1998 and 2001, licensees
that received NRC Orders sent NRC letters indicating completion
of the ordered Thermo-Lag corrective action. To date, those Orders
remain in effect, neither rescinded nor relaxed. What has
happened to the enforcement of those Orders under the Reactor
Oversight Process?
We now know that instead of complying with Thermo-Lag
Action Programs and Confirmatory Orders, licensees widely
substituted "operator manual actions" that were in large part
unreviewed and unapproved by NRC staff. These industry self-
initiated manual actions allowed electrical circuits required under
regulations as to be maintained free from fire damage to be
sacrificed in the fire by taking no action on installing compliant
fire barriers or establishing a minimum cable separation between
redundant systems. The operator manual actions would instead
send station personnel to the end piece of safety equipment and
manually operate it or turn off spurious operations. The manual
actions can be complicated, multi-tasked and require tools, ladders,
key cards and even breathing apparatus to accomplish safety-
related functions under duress of fire and potentially even attack.
Given the difficulty in predicting fire behavior, the manual actions
might not be achievable.
Enforcement Discretion and non-cited violations for non-
compliances were put into place by NRC for unapproved operator
manual actions. In 2005, NRC initiated a rulemaking to codify
operator manual action in lieu of coming into compliance with
physical fire protection design features; rated and operable fire
barriers and minimal separation requirements used in conjunction
with detection and automated suppression. After failing to get an
endorsement from either the nuclear industry or the public interest
community, NRC abandoned the rulemaking effort in March 2006.
NRC is now planning to accept "feasible and reliable"
Operator Manual Actions as "temporary" compensatory actions
(an additional three years on top of non-compliances going back to
1992) for inoperable fire barriers and failure to provide minimum
cable separation while licensees to submit a large number of
exemptions from fire protection requirements and move to a
voluntary risk-informed and performance-based fire protection
system. The public lacks confidence in such analytical fire
protection over physical fire protection features. To offer one basic
reason for this lack of confidence, fire protection is fundamental to
the security infrastructure in protecting the public from
radiological sabotage. Terrorism can neither be effectively risk-
informed or performance-based.
In the mean time, there is the recurrence of the Thermo-Lag
"d�j� vu all over again" with additional inoperable fire barrier
system materials widely employed by the nuclear industry for
protection of safe shut down electrical systems having been
identified. HEMYC and MT fire barriers, are now demonstrated
to dramatically fail the same standardized fire tests and do not
assure that safe shut down equipment can be maintained free from
fire damage in the event of a significant fire at a U.S. reactor.
NRC has set about to take regulatory action along the same paths
as its 1992 discovery of inoperable Thermo-Lag barriers that
remain an unresolved problem today under the new Regulatory
Oversight Process. Given the unresolved nature of the problem
created by inoperable Thermo-Lag, the public has little cause to
have confidence that the current Regulatory Oversight Program
will find closure any time sooner for HEMYC / MT fire barriers.
Congressman Dingell stated the obvious at that 1993 hearing
on fire protection and the NRC oversight process more than 13
years ago, "One must inquire whether a regulatory process which
approves matters as a matter of courtesy is serving the public
interest or, in fact, whether it is in fact a regulatory system. The
question is, how does this happen. It results from a curious blind
faith of NRC regulators and assurances made by utilities and by
the industries that they regulate."
MR. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Gunter.
Obviously, you have some real concerns about this process,
and I would ask the NRC and the GAO in its written testimony
point out that the NRC has a proactive approach to improving the
reactor oversight process and several mechanisms in place to
incorporate feedback from both external and internal stakeholders.
And I was just curious from your experience, do you provide
feedback and give-and-take with the NRC about these issues that
you find deficient? Do you feel like you have an open dialogue
with them or not?
MR. GUNTER. Yes, sir. We have been involved in meetings,
public meetings both with the staff and the Commission. It
remains a concern as to whether or not those meetings result in
actions that we believe serve the public interests, particularly with-
-an example is in the area of fire protection--
MR. WHITFIELD. Right.
MR. GUNTER. --where we have been in meetings for well on
13 years with this regard. And we remain concerned that the
issues are not only not closed, and the lingering safety concerns,
but we have more inoperable fire barriers emerging.
MR. WHITFIELD. I have never met you, Mr. Gunter, before,
and I am assuming that you are supportive of the use of nuclear
energy; but your organization and you, personally, feel that there
are some major safety issues out there that just have not been
addressed to the way that you would like; would that be correct?
MR. GUNTER. No, sir. We are openly opposed to the
continued operation of nuclear power and its expansion. This
industry has had 50 years to prove itself, and it not only has not
met the market tests, but it continues to raise growing safety
concerns as well as nuclear waste and environmental concerns.
MR. WHITFIELD. Okay. You also point out that the public has
no confidence in the physical protection cornerstone of the reactor
oversight process. So I am assuming that you feel like they are
vulnerable to attack, that it is just inadequate, the protection in
place is simply inadequate; is that right?
MR. GUNTER. There is the question, first of all, of design, and
it is hard to suggest that all reactors carry the same vulnerability.
They don't. We have recognized that there are some sites that are
more vulnerable than others, some designs more vulnerable than
others. And it also comes down to the question of how much
security is enough and how much security is to be afforded, and is
the industry willing to afford that, and is the agency in a position to
enforce such levels of adequate security?
So there are many aspects to this that, you know, make it a
Gordian Knot.
MR. WHITFIELD. Okay. We have a vote on the floor. We are
going to have three or four votes. And rather than keeping you for
the entire time, at this time I will recognize Mr. Inslee for any
questions that he may have.
MR. INSLEE. Thank you.
I just wonder, bottom line, how do you compare public safety,
the status, from before the Reactor Oversight Process was put into
place. Better? Worse? The same?
MR. GUNTER. You know, it is difficult to measure if, in fact,
the process is not picking up the significant safety issues. Again, I
go back to our concerns with the Davis-Besse finding that there
were no greater than "green" findings, that everything was running
along safely, supposedly, about three-sixteenths of an inch of
stainless steel was bulging off the top of the reactor vessel head.
It raises significant confidence in the current oversight
processes' ability to not only identify safety issues in a timely
fashion, but for technical assessments to be translated into
enforcement actions, which I think was a significant failing in the
Davis-Besse issue.
MR. INSLEE. Thank you.
MR. WHITFIELD. Is that all of your questions, Mr. Inslee?
Dr. Burgess, do you have any?
MR. BURGESS. I'll submit them in writing.
MR. WHITFIELD. All right. Well, Mr. Gunter, I want to
genuinely appreciate you being here today to express your
concerns. We do have your testimony, and I want to thank the
other panel of witnesses again. As I said, this is a very important
area. Nuclear energy does provide about 20 percent of the
electricity produced in the U.S. today, and we do need to ensure
the safety so that hopefully we can expand nuclear energy. I know
that is not where you all are coming from, but we can continue to
have the dialogue and the debate, and thank you very much for
being with us today.
And with that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
RESPONSE FOR THE RECORD OF JIM WELLS, DIRECTOR, NATURAL
RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
The Honorable Jan D. Schakowsky
1. Four years ago, the fifth most dangerous nuclear reactor
incident in 25 years occurred at FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse
plant. The Reactor Oversight Process was already in place, and
Davis-Besse was in the green with its ratings. The public
obviously wasn't safe then. Is there any guarantee that this
type of incident wouldn't occur again? Are we safer now than
we were then?
<bullet> There is no question this event caught NRC and many
by surprise. The event did cause action and the
industry and NRC thoroughly explored the causes,
learned lessons, and NRC's ROP was improved. It is
not possible to guarantee that this type of incident
won't happen again, but it is unlikely there will be
another incident identical to that at Davis-Besse. I
think that NRC's oversight overall has improved as a
result of the wake-up call that it got from such a serious
incident.
<bullet> NRC's recent actions to assess and focus attention on
safety culture should better provide early indications of
declining plant performance.
2. Early this year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
staff raised questions about the effectiveness of the
performance indicator program, saying that if all the results
were "green," perhaps it didn't really measure anything of
value. What is your position on the performance indicator
program?
<bullet> I would respond that we share NRC's and industry's
concern that the existing performance indicators are
less than perfect. Performance indicators can be
valuable because they provide objective measures that
licensees can use for managing their plants.
Performance indicators also focus attention on areas
important to safety. However, if measures are always
green as they have been, you should question their
value. It's good that they are green if this means that
licensees are performing well nearly all the time. But
there have been cases where performance indicators did
not seem to accurately reflect performance (e.g. Davis
Besse or the issue with warning sirens at Indian Point).
We understand there are changes being made to
improve these indicators in the future.
3. Initially, NRC staff estimated that about 5 percent of the
findings under the Reactor Oversight Process would be greater
than green. But less than 1 percent have fallen into that
category. Does that mean all the reactors are safer than they
were five years ago, or are the findings not measuring the right
safety indicators?
<bullet> It is true that the industry has logged a pretty impressive
safety record over many years of operations and many
issues related to safety have been corrected and
improved. Nevertheless, NRC has acknowledged that
many indicators may need to be redesigned to serve as a
better measure of performance. In cooperation with the
industry, NRC recently introduced one new key
performance indicator, the mitigating systems
performance indicator, and they intend to assess others
as well.
<bullet> At the nuclear power plant sites we looked at, we found
that plant managers pay close attention to performance
indicators and manage their plants so as not to exceed
thresholds-that is, they stated they would take action
to fix the issue well before the indicator exceeded the
threshold. In reality a lot is riding on well these plants
perform, for example within the financial and
shareholder community as well as the public
perceptions of how safe these plants are.
4. At Davis-Besse, prior to the 2002 incident, the plant was all
green, but there were serious problems under this new system.
One of them was an overall poor safety culture. But it has
taken the NRC four year to make changes to the oversight
process to address safety culture. Why has it taken so long?
<bullet> Our 2004 report, which analyzed the events at Davis-Besse,
confirmed the findings that a poor safety culture played a
major role in the unfortunate events that played out. Based
on what we found, as well as others, we recommended
NRC take action to get involved. We concluded their
oversight should address safety culture issues. I think it is
fair to say NRC has been hesitant to become involved in
areas related to plant management. NRC officials told us
for years that their role as the regulator was to regulate and
not tell the industry how to run the plants. Their view was
safety culture perhaps crossed the line too far into
operations of the plant. Also, subjective issues such as
safety culture are difficult to incorporate into their objective
processes under the ROP. We think it is fair to question
how quickly NRC moves forward to incorporate this
change in oversight.
5. You stated in your testimony that overall plant performance
declines when there are ineffective corrective action programs,
problems related to human performance, or complacent
management. How successful is the NRC in uncovering these
kinds of "culture" problems?
<bullet> The case of Davis Besse illustrated that the ROP failed in a
sense, and did not have adequate tools for addressing
declining safety culture. The primary tool being used at the
time was the identification of substantive cross-cutting
issues. NRC was struggling somewhat in consistently
applying, identifying and watching these types of
indicators. As a result, the meaningfulness of these
determinations did not necessarily result in any real
consequences. A weakness of the ROP was an underlying
assumption that problems in these areas will be revealed
through inspection findings. As Davis-Besse illustrated,
however, this assumption is not always valid.
<bullet> NRC's new safety culture initiative should provide them
better tools to assess plant safety culture, but officials
acknowledge this initiative is only a first step, and further
modifications to the ROP may be needed.
6. What is the Government Accountability Office's view of the
new safety culture oversight process?
<bullet> As we have testified, NRC's ROP is not perfect, but we
believe it is getting better than it was when it was created in
2000. NRC's initial step to implement revisions or
modifications related to monitoring safety culture within
the plants is being met with resistance and a challenge to
NRC's existing authority. Even within the NRC there are
varying opinions on how or if this will work. It is an
important step toward preventing future problems like
those encountered at Davis-Besse. But NRC is just starting
its implementation and will need to carefully monitor this
initiative to ensure that it is achieving the goals for which it
was designed.
RESPONSE FOR THE RECORD OF HON. EDWARD MCGAFFIGAN, JR.,
COMMISSIONER, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
QUESTIONS FROM REPRESENTATIVE BLACKBURN:
QUESTION 1. Mr. McGaffigan, what advantage does a
risk-informed, performance-based approach to
fire safety have over the prior deterministic
approach?
ANSWER:
The advantage that a risk-informed, performance-based
approach offers is that it allows licensees to perform realistic
assessments of the risks to the public due to potential fires at
plants. The results of these assessments enable the licensees to
gain risk insights associated with specific fire protection issues and
focus their resources where the most risk-significant issues exist,
thereby improving the protection of the public health and safety.
Additionally, the NRC staff may independently consider such
insights to help focus its safety reviews and resources on the most
risk-significant issues. Consequently, a risk-informed,
performance-based approach enhances both the NRC and its
licensees' focus on safety, while simultaneously reducing
unnecessary burdens.
The deterministic Fire Protection Regulation 10 CFR 50.48,
"Fire Protection," was first published in 1981, in the aftermath of a
significant fire that occurred at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in
1975. The NRC required a large number of nuclear plants that
were already in operation or in advanced stages of construction in
1981 to comply with the deterministic requirements imposed by
this rule. At that time probabilistic risk tools were not sufficiently
mature to be used for this new rule, and some of the requirements
imposed undue hardship that was not necessary to achieve the
underlying purpose of the fire protection rule. As a result, many
licensees requested relief from certain of these new requirements
using the NRC's exemption process under 10 CFR 50.12 "Specific
Exemptions." NRC staff then reviewed and approved about one
thousand exemptions of specific requirements of the rule. These
reviews posed significant resource burdens on both the licensees
and NRC staff, in most cases without commensurate safety
benefits.
The fire protection inspections continue to reveal additional
findings, many of which have limited safety benefit, where
licensees do not meet some of the deterministic requirements.
Therefore, resolving these issues provides a very limited increase
in safety while continuing to pose undue resource burdens on the
staff and the licensees, and simultaneously diverting limited
licensee and NRC staff resources from more safety significant
issues.
QUESTION 2. The NRC advisory committee on reactor
safeguards state that only a few nuclear plants
have full scope fire risk assessments.
(A) How many plants have this assessment?
ANSWER:
Performance of a full scope fire risk assessment is not a
regulatory requirement. All operating reactors have performed
evaluations of the risk associated with fires as a part of their
response to Generic Letter 88-20, Supplement 4, entitled
"Individual Plant Examination for External Events." These
assessments used conservative bounding assumptions in their
analysis and identified the important factors that contributed to the
risk imposed by fires. Therefore, even though these analyses did
not constitute full scope risk assessments for most licensees, they
were of sufficient quality to identify "risk outliers," i.e., instances
where the relative risks were high.
The NRC has not collected information on the exact number of
plants that possess a full scope fire risk assessment. However, to
date 40 nuclear units have informed the NRC that they intend to
adopt the performance-based fire protection rule, 10 CFR 50.48(c),
"National Fire Protection Association Standard NFPA 805." This
performance-based rule is commonly referred to as the "NFPA 805
Rule," since it endorses a standard developed by the National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA) with a few exceptions. Most
licensees who have committed to adopt the NFPA 805 Rule,
committed to perform Fire Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRAs).
(B) Does your ROP contain a requirement for
nuclear reactors to have this assessment?
ANSWER:
At the present time, there are no NRC requirements for nuclear
reactors to have a full scope risk assessment and NRC
requirements do not require a fire PRA specifically. The ROP
defines the NRC's inspection and assessment activities for nuclear
reactors and does not impose regulatory requirements.
(C) (If no) Why not, especially since the
advisory committee says it is absolutely
necessary as plants move to the risk-informed
approach?
ANSWER:
The advisory committee's statement pertains only to those
licensees who voluntarily adopt risk-informed alternatives to the
current regulations, specifically, in reference to those licensees
who plan to adopt the NFPA 805 rule (10 CFR 50.48(c)).
Licensees that adopt the performance-based alternative to the
current deterministic requirement must use Probabilistic Risk
Assessment (PRA) tools to justify changes to the plant. The NRC
staff plans to review the fire risk assessment capability of licensees
that plan to adopt a performance-based alternative to the
deterministic regulations, prior to granting their request to adopt a
risk-informed, performance-based licensing basis for fire
protection.
QUESTION 3. It is my understanding that the NRC sent a
generic letter to nuclear plants that use Hemyc
and MT fire barrier systems to take corrective
actions.
(A) What is the status of compliance with this
letter?
ANSWER:
The NRC issued Generic Letter 2006-03, entitled "Potentially
Nonconforming Hemyc and MT Fire Barrier Configurations," on
April 10, 2006. This Generic Letter requested licensees to inform
the NRC whether they are in compliance with NRC's fire
protection regulation 10 CFR 50.48, in light of the new
information developed by the NRC during testing on the Hemyc
and MT fire barrier systems' performance.
Under 10 CFR 50.54(f), all licensees are required to respond to
NRC's request for information communicated via this Generic
Letter. All licensees have complied with the requirement to
respond to Generic Letter 2006-03.
(B) What penalties are available if they do not
comply?
ANSWER:
All plants have complied with the NRC requirements to
provide responses per 10 CFR 50.54(f), to the Generic Letter.
Most licensees have informed us that they are in compliance
with 10 CFR 50.48, primarily because they do not use Hemyc or
MT fire barriers in their facilities. However, some plants have
declared their Hemyc and MT fire barriers inoperable in light of
the new testing data developed by the NRC regarding the
performance of these fire barriers. Licensees may continue to
operate in certain instances where noncompliances are discovered
while such noncompliance are being corrected, as long as the NRC
has reasonable assurance that the noncompliance conditions have
minimal effects on public health and safety. Since all plants with
potential noncompliances have implemented compensatory
measures, and informed us of their plans to take corrective actions,
the NRC concluded that the plants may continue to operate until
they re-establish compliance.
As such, currently the NRC has no plans to take any
enforcement action. The NRC plans to use its periodic fire
protection inspections to ensure that the licensees are
implementing and following their corrective actions.
(C) What is the likelihood of a fire causing a
nuclear plant to meltdown or causing core
damage if the plants are using these inadequate
fire barrier systems?
ANSWER:
The NRC staff has assessed the likelihood of a fire causing a
nuclear plant meltdown or core damage of plants using these fire
barrier systems and determined that the likelihood is low for
several reasons.
As a 1-hour rated fire barrier, Hemyc is installed only in fire
areas where fire detection and automatic fire suppression systems
are present, or in fire areas where the licensee has previously
obtained an exemption from the automatic fire suppression
requirement because such suppression was deemed unnecessary
(for example in areas where there is a negligible potential for fire
due to low or no combustible material or ignition sources). The
Hemyc fire barrier systems used at these plants constitute just one
of several layers of defense-in-depth (fire detection, manual
suppression, and automatic suppression) designed to protect the
plant in the event of a fire.
For MT fire barrier systems, which consist of several layers of
materials, the outermost being Hemyc, the NRC staff also
concluded that the risk was low. In confirmatory fire testing, the
MT fire barrier system demonstrated nearly an hour of protection
in every test run. As such, the NRC concluded that the MT fire
barrier systems would provide sufficient time for a fire brigade to
reach and actively suppress the fire before cable damage is
expected to occur.
The NRC's tests exposed the Hemyc and MT material to
higher temperatures and more rapid temperature increases than are
expected in fire areas where Hemyc and MT fire barrier systems
are installed. The NRC considered the safety margins between the
test and actual conditions to be sufficient such that the installed
Hemyc and MT fire barrier systems are unlikely to be challenged
at a level where failure sufficient to cause cable damage would
occur.
QUESTION 4. What collaborations has NRC had with other
countries in developing an adequate fire risk
assessment of nuclear plants?
ANSWER:
The NRC is actively involved in a number of national and
international fire risk assessment programs. On the international
level, the NRC is a member of the Organization for Economic Co-
Operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency
(NEA) Fire Incident Records Exchange Project. In this project, the
NRC is partnering with members from Canada, Finland, France,
Germany, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Netherlands and
Switzerland to develop an international nuclear power plant (NPP)
fire event data base. This data base will provide insights on fire
frequency information and insights regarding international NPP
fire experience.
The NRC is an active member of the International
Collaborative Fire Model Project (ICFMP) with members from the
United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Finland. The goal of this
working group is to exercise the current fire modeling tools and
determine their merit for use when performing risk assessment of
NPPs. The NRC, in collaboration with the Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI) issued the draft joint report NUREG-
1824, "Verification and Validation of Selected Fire Models for
Nuclear Power Plant Applications," in January 2006 for public
comment. NUREG-1824 utilized experimental data from this
international project to perform the analysis of the fire models.
The final report, NUREG-1824 will be issued early in 2007.
The NRC, again in collaboration with EPRI, issued
NUREG/CR-6850, "Fire PRA Methodology for Nuclear Power
Facilities" in September 2005. This report documents state-of-the-
art methods, tools, and data for the conduct of a fire PRA in a
commercial NPP. The NRC and EPRI have held two public
workshops to date on this report. In addition to the US
stakeholders and NRC inspectors, the workshops have been
attended by foreign regulators and licensees from the United
Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, Korea, Finland and
Sweden. Feedback from these international attendees indicate that
the joint NRC/EPRI program is currently the most advanced NPP
Fire PRA program available today.
While the Fire-Induced Damage to Electrical Cables and
Circuits - Working Group was active, the NRC along with
representatives from Germany, France, and Canada worked
together to improve the technical basis for understanding the
damage thresholds, damage mechanisms, failure modes, and
consequences of fire-induced cable failures in NPPs, and supported
the development of improved methods, tools, and data for
predicting fire-induced circuit responses.
The NRC has met twice this year with Germany, France, and
Belgium, to discuss conducting a joint research program to better
understand electrical failures and resulting explosions and fires
from High Energy Arcing Faults. These events have happened
world wide and have the potential to pose a significant challenge to
a NPP. Meetings are being scheduled for 2007 to finalize a work
plan to start this research. The NRC continues to collaborate with
national and international partners in the area of fire risk
assessment and actively seeks partners when projects can be
mutually beneficial to all parties.
QUESTION 5. What type of risk (low, moderate, high) does
your ROP assign to inadequate medium voltage
switch gear? (This type of gear can affect a
significant electrical fault and cause fires.)
ANSWER:
The Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) does not assign a
universal risk characterization for medium voltage switchgear.
The relative risk importance of this class of switchgear depends on
the specific type of power plant, the location of the switchgear
within the plant, the proximity to other plant equipment and
electrical cables, and/or the specific electrical loads being serviced
by the switchgear. The ROP contains a Significance
Determination Process (SDP) that provides a means for the NRC to
characterize the risk significance of licensee performance
deficiencies including those that may result in deficient medium
voltage switchgear. The SDP uses probabilistic risk assessment
methods and qualitative methods to characterize the potential
increase in plant risk using risk metrics such as change in core
damage frequency (CDF).
For switchgear failures that do not represent a potential fire
issue (e.g., an electrical breaker that prematurely opens and
de-energizes equipment), the SDP under NRC Manual Chapter
609, contains general guidance on how to assess the importance of
the issue. In these types of cases, the risk significance depends on
factors such as a switchgear defect indirectly causing a reactor
shutdown, unavailability of the service loads affected by the
switchgear in question, and in some cases the length of time the
condition existed.
Additionally, energized medium voltage switchgear in itself
creates a potential fire hazard. NRC regulations require fire
protection from these hazards when such switchgear is located in
important locations within nuclear power stations. For inspection
findings related to licensees' failure to meet federal fire protection
requirements, the SDP contains a dedicated section (NRC Manual
Chapter 609, Appendix F) to assess the risk significance of the
condition including technical guidance on the treatment of medium
voltage switchgear. Risk analysis for such cases are often complex
since issues involve numerous variables such as fire growth
modeling, time to fire damage of any adjacent equipment/cables,
automatic fire suppression capability, fire brigade response, and
plant operator's response to place the reactor in a safe shutdown
condition. However, it should be noted that in the five years of
the ROP, no fire protection issues have resulted in risk greater than
the low-to-moderate risk range. Issues that are of low-to-moderate
risk are called >White' findings under the color scheme used in the
SDP and is the second lowest color in the hierarchy of
significance.
QUESTIONS FROM REPRESENTATIVE STEARNS:
QUESTION 1. Would you please explain how the new ROP
system will improve the regulatory review
process for approving new nuclear power plants?
ANSWER:
The Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) is focused on operating
power plants. The ROP allows the NRC staff to evaluate and
respond consistently to licensee performance issues by using a
series of performance indicators and NRC inspections. Both the
performance indicators and inspections are focused on operating
reactors. As a result, the ROP has no role in the licensing review
and approval of a new nuclear plant. However, once licensed,
constructed, and operating, each new plant will be monitored using
the tools of the ROP, including the performance indicators and
NRC inspections.
QUESTION 2. With respect to "risk-informed" regulations, how
does their oversight fit into the new reactor
oversight process? Do you see the two efforts
complimenting each other? Are you happy with
the progress that you are making in this regard?
ANSWER:
The Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) assesses, through
scrutiny of carefully selected samples, whether licensee activities
are properly conducted; whether licensees comply with NRC
regulations; and whether plant equipment is properly maintained to
ensure safe operations. Because there are many aspects of facility
operation and maintenance, the NRC inspects utility programs and
processes on a risk-informed sampling basis to obtain
representative information. As regulations change and as we
pursue other risk-informed initiatives, we evaluate the ROP to
determine if changes need to be made in the oversight of licensee
activities. Therefore, the ROP and the risk-informed regulatory
changes will complement each other.
The NRC has made significant progress in the area of risk-
informing its activities over the last several years. Nevertheless, a
significant amount of work remains. NRC continues to pursue a
number of risk-informed initiatives, including rulemaking and
licensing actions. At the same time, the industry and the NRC are
working to develop appropriate standards for the probabilistic risk
analysis tools needed to support these activities. NRC is
continuing to work to expand its capabilities in this area.
QUESTION 3. I understand that the reactor safety aspects of the
ROP have a reasonably objective set of criteria
for determining safety impacts and associated
colors. However, it appears that the non-reactor
safety aspects (Emergency Preparedness,
Radiation Protection and Security) are far more
subjective, and can generate results that don't
make sense. This can confuse the public and may
contradict your own assessment. What steps is
the NRC taking to improve the objectivity of
these non-reactor aspects, to ensure findings are
colored more consistently with the reactor
findings?
ANSWER:
The creation of significance determination processes (SDPs)
across all seven cornerstones of safety, was a significant shift
toward improved objectivity and transparency from our previous
reactor assessment process. The SDPs for non-reactor safety
cornerstones, such as Emergency Preparedness (EP), Radiation
Protection, and Security, are not able to utilize probabilistic tools
as those SDPs associated with reactor safety systems do. In
establishing the SDPs for the non-reactor safety areas, it was not
possible to consistently relate deficient performance to quantitative
risk measures such as core damage frequency or large early release
frequency. From the start the staff has worked with industry and
public stakeholder input, to the extent possible, to define SDPs in
the non-reactor safety areas that result in agency responses that are
considered appropriate for a range of performance problems. We
continue to meet monthly with industry in public meetings to
discuss SDP issues and potential improvements.
For example, the EP cornerstone risk-informs the significance
of a finding by reflecting the potential impact on public health and
safety. A group of emergency preparedness subject matter experts,
including NRC staff, industry stakeholders and members of the
public, identified the most risk significant aspects of emergency
planning as (1) emergency classification; (2) notification of offsite
response organizations; and (3) public protective action
recommendations. Identification of the most risk significant EP
aspects established a reasonably defined hierarchy of the
significance of emergency planning findings consistent with the
risk-informed approach utilized by the reactor safety aspects of the
reactor oversight process.
With respect to the Security cornerstone, the NRC reviews all
security-related inspection findings before they are included in an
NRC inspection report. The review is conducted by an agency-
wide panel that is headed by a manager from the Office of Nuclear
Security and Incident Response. The Security Findings Review
Panel assures consistency between all licensees and all four NRC
regions, and helps assure that the significance of the security
findings are consistent, objective, and predictable. In addition,
findings that potentially could be greater than very low security
significance are forwarded to an NRC enforcement panel named
the Significance and Enforcement Review Panel to reach an
agency determination of significance.
The agency issued its current physical protection significance
determination process (PPSDP) for security in July 2004. The
PPSDP provides for consistent, objective, and predictable results.
Since then, the NRC staff has been continuously evaluating and
monitoring the results of the PPSDP, further ensuring an objective
and consistent approach. The end result of this evaluation will be
to make any noted improvements to the SDP for security.
QUESTIONS FROM REPRESENTATIVE SCHAKOWSKY:
QUESTION 1. The near-accident at FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse
plant in 2002 was ranked as the fifth most
dangerous incident in the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's (NRC) history. Boric acid leaks
had put a very large hole in the reactor vessel's
head. This occurred under the Reactor Oversight
Process reviewed in the recent hearing. The
Union of Concerned Scientists and the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service said this
failure occurred because NRC headquarters staff
did not back up the inspection staff who had
proposed a mandatory shutdown because
FirstEnergy refused to shut down voluntarily as
the owners of all of the similar reactors had done.
The NRC Inspector General found that the NRC
put the financial impact of the shutdown on
FirstEnergy above public safety. What has the
NRC done to change those priorities?
ANSWER:
Assuring the public health and safety is and always has been
the highest priority of the NRC. The NRC Chairman's response
to the Inspector General and the NRR Director's response to David
Lochbaum corrected factual inaccuracies in the referenced
documents.
In his January 8, 2003, response to the NRC Inspector General,
then NRC Chairman Richard Meserve stated:
"There are several significant failings in the report. First, and
perhaps most important, the report incorrectly indicates that the
decision to allow the brief period of continued operation was
driven in large part by the interest in reducing the financial
impact on the licensee. The underlying inspections of reactor
pressure vessel heads at all pressurized water reactors were
undertaken as a result of staff safety concerns about
circumferential nozzle cracking. And, as your report has
found, the NRC staff allowed the Davis-Besse reactor to
continue to operate only after the relevant expert staff reached
unanimous agreement that there was no significant safety
concern relating to nozzle cracks that would preclude the brief
period of extended operation. It is a significant failing that the
report does not acknowledge this fact in its findings. Assuring
the public health and safety is the highest priority of the NRC,
and we believe that the staff's action was consistent with this
requirement."
Similarly, in a letter dated December 13, 2002, Samuel Collins,
Director of NRR, responded to the assertions in David Lochbaum's
letter dated October 14, 2002, as follows:
"With regard to the NRC's regulatory activities, contrary to
your assertion in Item 4 of your letter, NRC management did
not overrule safety concerns of the staff in allowing Davis-
Besse to operate until February 16, 2002. Rather, the technical
staff recommended to management its conclusion, based on
risk-informed decision making criteria and the information
available to the staff, that the plant could operate until February
16, 2002, without undue risk to the public health and safety. In
addition, the
NRC sent Davis-Besse a closeout letter in response to Bulletin
2001-01. It provides much greater detail regarding the staff's
decision making process."
QUESTION 2. Have any changes been made in procedures used
by the NRC headquarters staff when considering
a shutdown recommendation from the inspection
staff? Because any unplanned shutdowns will
have a significant financial impact on the
licensee, is it now NRC policy that public safety
takes precedence over financial impact in a
situation such as Davis-Besse?
ANSWER:
Assuring the public health and safety is and always will be the
highest priority of the NRC. Following the Davis-Besse reactor
vessel corrosion issue, the NRC Executive Director for Operations
chartered a Lessons Learned Task Force which was charged with
conducting an evaluation of NRC's regulatory processes.
Significant improvements have been made to NRC processes and
procedures as a result of implementing the recommendations made
by the task force. These improvements include a more proactive
program for evaluating materials degradation; a revitalized and
robust assessment of operational experience; enhanced internal and
external communications and communications protocols; specific
and detailed inspections program enhancements including resident
inspector staffing; and the maintenance of a safety-conscious
attitude by the NRC staff.
As an example, a new office instruction was issued which gives
guidance on the performance and documentation of an analysis
conducted to determine the appropriate regulatory response to an
emerging issue. The guidance builds on the principles of risk-
informed regulation presented in Regulatory Guide 1.174, "An
Approach for Using Probabilistic Risk Assessment in Risk-
Informed Decisions on Plant-Specific Changes to the Licensing
Basis," and includes consideration of conformance with
regulations, maintenance of defense-in-depth and safety margins,
performance monitoring, as well as risk considerations. This
office instruction is intended to apply when there is not an
otherwise applicable NRC decision-making process.
QUESTION 3. In the Davis-Besse incident, the concerns of the
regulatory division staff over the effectiveness of
FirstEnergy's mitigation steps used to justify
keeping the nuclear plant open beyond the
proposed shutdown date were never documented.
Could that happen today, or does the NRC have
better procedures to track and document its
discussions and decisions?
ANSWER:
As a result of the examination of the Davis-Besse reactor vessel
corrosion incident, and the report generated by the Davis-Besse
Lessons Learned Task Force, NRC has made several key changes
to how it communicates both internally and externally. There has
been substantial advancement in the use of information technology
in making operating experience available to internal users and
members of the public. There is a new database for managing all
reported events, as well as a new operating experience information
gateway that consolidates a large collection of individual databases
and Web sources of information onto a single Web access page.
The NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation has a new
communication tool to promptly notify NRC staff of developing
operating experience in their areas of expertise. Users may also
use this tool to examine recent or developing operating experience
in their respective areas. The NRC issued improved guidance in
developing generic communications, establishing criteria for
acceptable responses from licensees, properly documenting
evaluations of licensee responses, and performing follow-up
verification of licensee information.
As an example, NRC developed Office Instruction LIC-504,
"Integrated Risk-Informed Decision-Making Process for Emergent
Issues," which provides a number of templates for documenting
both the analysis supporting a decision, and the decision itself. In
documenting the decision, the office instruction stresses the
importance of identifying the driving factors behind the decision,
the limitations of and uncertainties associated with the supporting
analyses, and providing the rationale behind the decision. LIC-504
has been issued for use and is expected to be invoked whenever
there is not an otherwise applicable NRC decision-making process
for dealing with a licensing issue.
QUESTION 4. In Davis-Besse, it was clearly a situation where
the licensee that protested got the NRC to back
off. Licensees that did the right thing and closed
down their plants in a timely manner were
penalized. Unfortunately, Davis-Besse had the
most serious corrosion and cracking problems of
all of the reactors. What has the NRC done to
prevent that from happening again?
ANSWER:
As indicated in the response to Question 1, the NRC staff made
the decision based on a determination that there was no significant
safety concern associated with the brief period of extended
operation. This risk-informed decision took into account
commitments by the licensee to reduce the proposed period of
operation by half and to institute additional compensatory
measures. The responses to Questions 2 and 3 detail the additional
procedural guidance provided to the staff since the event.
QUESTION 5. Critics have stated that the NRC's fine of $4.5
million against FirstEnergy, the owner of
Davis-Besse, was "paltry" and a "slap on the
wrist" for an incident in which the NRC later
calculated the odds of a nuclear meltdown were 6
in 1,000. What are your views on the size of the
fine?
ANSWER:
The total civil penalty was $5.45 million, and represented the
largest ever issued by NRC. When determining the amount of the
civil penalty, NRC considered several factors which included risk,
safety significance and the economic benefit that FENOC gained
by operating Davis-Besse with primary coolant pressure boundary
leakage, a Technical Specification (TS) violation. In addition to
the civil penalty, FENOC experienced substantial adverse
economic impact resulting from their extended outage to replace
the reactor pressure vessel head and to make improvements to
satisfy NRC requirements and concerns. NRC also referred
potential criminal aspects of the case to the Department of Justice
which resulted in FENOC's agreement to pay $28 million to defer
prosecution.
The NRC does not consider its approach in assessing civil
penalties to be punitive, but rather a deterrence to emphasize the
importance of compliance with requirements and to encourage
prompt identification and comprehensive correction of violations.
Therefore, the NRC determined that a civil penalty of $5,000,000
was appropriate for the violation of the Davis-Besse TS pressure
boundary leakage requirement. The TS violation was processed
under the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) and determined to be a
RED finding (a finding of high safety significance) under the
Significance Determination Process (SDP.) In addition to the TS
related violation, the NRC issued civil penalties totaling $450,000
for four willful violations of NRC requirements associated with
corrective actions, adherence to procedures, and incomplete and
inaccurate information.
This was the first time the Commission exercised its discretion
to issue a civil penalty for a violation processed under the ROP and
given a color under the SDP. While a civil penalty is not usually
considered for issues evaluated under the SDP, absent actual
consequences, the NRC considered this RED finding to be of
significant regulatory concern and, accordingly, issued the civil
penalty.
QUESTION 6. In order to have an effective oversight program,
the NRC needs adequate staffing and resources.
The Davis-Besse Lessons Learned Task Force
concluded that staffing and resource issues
"challenged the NRC's ability to provide
effective regulatory oversight" at Davis-Besse.
Has that problem been resolved? Does the NRC
have more budget and resources for reactor
inspections than it did in 2000 and 2001?
ANSWER:
The resource issues that challenged the NRC's ability to
provide effective regulatory oversight at Davis-Besse have been
resolved and the NRC has more resources for reactor inspections.
Reactor inspection resources were increased in FY 2004 as a
direct result of the Davis-Besse events. Resources for
supplemental and reactive inspections were increased by
approximately 15 full time equivalents (FTE) to provide for
inspection of a plant under NRC Inspection Manual Chapter 0350,
Oversight of Reactor Facilities in a Shutdown Condition Due to
Significant Performance and/or Operational Concerns, for follow-
up activities to verify licensees' improvement plans pursuant to
Inspection Procedures 95002 and 95003, and for reactor pressure
vessel head inspections. There is also increased interaction
between headquarters staff and regional inspection staff during
monthly conference calls and periodic workshops.
Additionally, in 2003, the staff revised the resident inspector
policy to allow early assignment of new resident and senior
resident inspectors to a site. The policy allows the regional
administrator to assign a permanent resident inspector up to 12
months before the planned departure of the incumbent resident
inspector. Similarly, the regional administrator can assign senior
resident inspectors up to six months before the planned departure
of the incumbent. Regional management also implemented actions
to reduce inspector vacancies through active recruiting; training
new hires; and over-hiring in anticipation of retirements, attrition,
and staff movement.
Resources for reactor safety and security inspections increased
approximately 15 percent, by 110 FTE, between FY 2001 and FY
2007.
QUESTION 7. In May of this year, you were recently quoted in
Nucleonics Week as asking if Davis-Besse could
be relieved of its independent assessment
obligations at an earlier date than prescribed.
Can you explain your reasoning in light of the
fact that this company is still under criminal
investigation, just paid a $28 million fine, and
had two former employees indicted for lying to
the NRC?
ANSWER:
To be more specific, Commissioner McGaffigan noted during
the NRC's May 16, 2006, Agency Action Review Meeting that
perhaps the NRC should consider whether some of the four
independent assessment requirements stated in the confirmatory
order could be suspended, particularly in those areas in which
Davis-Besse seems to be doing very well. The order states that the
regional administrator can suspend all or part of the requirements
for the independent assessments based on good cause.
Commissioner McGaffigan was suggesting that perhaps the
resources could be better spent in other areas. Commissioner
McGaffigan mentioned that at least two of the independent
assessments need to continue and should not be considered for
suspension, specifically the safety culture and corrective action
program assessments.
If the licensee believes that any or all independent assessments
are no longer necessary based on acceptable performance in those
areas, it can formally request relief from the requirements. The
staff specifically evaluates the progress of the order requirements
on at least a semiannual basis during the mid-cycle and end-of-
cycle performance meetings. In determining whether to suspend
all or part of the four independent assessment requirements prior to
the 5-year expiration date, the staff needs to consider the licensee's
position as to why these additional assessments are not necessary,
the results of the independent assessments, the robustness of the
licensee's programs in these areas, and whether those areas and the
specific issues are adequately covered by the NRC's baseline
inspection program. Any agency decision to relieve the licensee of
its independent assessment obligations ahead of the 5-year time-
frame prescribed in the order will only be achieved through
thorough analysis and a justified rationale.
QUESTION 8. One of the great failings at Davis-Besse was the
lack of a corporate "safety culture." Next month
- more than four years after the discovery of the
corroded reactor vessel head at Davis-Besse - the
NRC will put in place a process to evaluate a
licensee's safety culture. Why did it take so
long?
ANSWER:
The time required to implement the safety culture
enhancements to the NRC processes was due to a number of
factors, including that the staff sought to develop an approach to
assess safety culture in an objective manner by (1) staying within
the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) framework, (2) being guided
by the principles of the ROP (i.e., being objective, transparent,
understandable, predictable, performance-based and risk-informed)
(3) integrating information from inspections to develop an
objective conclusion about licensee safety performance, and (4)
seeking external stakeholder input throughout the development
process. The staff also sought and received direction at a number
of points from the Commission on safety culture initiative policy
issues. Safety culture, as a new area of emphasis, necessitated that
the staff expend considerable resources to develop an appropriate
process. Finally, the analysis of safety culture is very fact
dependent and is subject to the possibility of subjective outcomes
if it is not correctly developed and applied. Given the difficulty of
this area, the Commission wanted to take the time necessary to get
it right. The following is a summary of some of the NRC activities
over the past four years.
Summary of Activities:
The degraded reactor vessel head problem was identified by
the licensee at Davis-Besse on March 5, 2002. The NRC initiated
a number of responses to the problem, one of which was the
formation of the Davis-Besse Lessons Learned Task Force. The
purpose of the task force was to conduct an independent evaluation
of the NRC's regulatory processes related to assuring reactor
pressure vessel head integrity and to identify and recommend areas
of improvement for the NRC. The final task force report was
issued on September 20, 2002. While the recommendations
spanned a wide cross-section of NRC activities, further
information is provided below to describe the intervening actions
(between 2002 and 2005) that the NRC took with respect to safety
culture.
Several of the task force recommendations related to enhancing
the reactor oversight process. The staff initiated a number of
safety culture-related improvements in the inspection program
during the period 2002-2005 including:
1) Providing required web-based training on the Columbia
space shuttle accident for inspectors and their managers on
having a more questioning attitude in the conduct of
inspections toward safety and the potential consequences
when an organization's questioning attitude (a safety culture
aspect) is lost or compromised.
2) Modifying inspection procedures to include additional
inspection requirements to more closely inspect licensee
corrective action programs (a safety culture component) to
be alert for conditions such as repetitive equipment failures
or human performance issues that might warrant additional
follow-up inspections.
3) Modifying an inspection procedure to more rigorously
screen and review licensee corrective action program (a
safety culture component) deficiency information using a
semi-annual review to identify trends that might indicate
the existence of a more significant safety issue.
4) Providing more specific guidance for handling inspection
issues in the areas of human performance and problem
identification and resolution (which are related to a number
of safety culture components). These efforts were designed
to provide a more direct way to assess and react to licensee
performance weaknesses in these areas.
With regard to a licensee's Safety Conscious Work
Environment (SCWE), the staff proposed some options and
recommendations to the Commission and received further
Commission direction on how to proceed. A public workshop was
held in 2004 to discuss the development of a Regulatory Issues
Summary (RIS) which would provide guidance to the industry on
establishing and maintaining a SCWE. Following the public
meeting, a draft RIS was published in the Federal Register for
public comment. The RIS, entitled "Establishing and Maintaining
a Safety Conscious Work Environment," was issued on August 25,
2005. The RIS provided guidance and best practices for licensees
to establish and maintain an effective SCWE.
In support of Commission direction provided in 2004, the NRC
staff formed a Safety Culture Steering Committee, Working
Group, and Support Team to develop further improvements to the
ROP relative to safety culture oversight. Between November 2005
and February 2006 frequent public meetings were held with
external stakeholders where the staff, with the participation of
stakeholders, developed an approach to further enhance the ROP to
address safety culture. The enhanced ROP inspection documents
were revised based on this approach and were then provided for
further public review and comment. The NRC staff evaluated the
public comments and finalized the ROP inspection procedures and
other ROP documents. The enhanced ROP provides the NRC with
a range of regulatory responses to licensee safety culture issues
that include requesting the licensee perform an assessment of its
safety culture and for the NRC to assess independently the
licensee's safety culture. The staff developed and provided
training for inspectors and their managers on safety culture and on
the changes to the ROP prior to implementing the revised ROP
inspection protocols. The training included focused computer-
based training as well as in-depth classroom type training.
All but one of the revised ROP inspection protocols were issued
on June 22, 2006, and were implemented on July 1, 2006. The
remaining revised inspection procedure is expected to be issued in
August 2006. The staff is also developing a RIS to provide
operating reactor licensees information on the changes made to the
ROP to improve oversight of safety culture. The RIS is expected
to be issued shortly.
In summary, the staff has expended considerable resources
since the Davis-Besse head incident to make stepwise
improvements in the ROP inspection and assessment programs.
The staff will assess the safety culture improvements as part of its
annual ROP self-assessment, to ensure that they are meeting the
goals of the ROP and the Commission direction.
QUESTION 9. Three years ago, the NRC Inspector General did
a survey of 1,525 NRC employees and found that
only half of them felt it was safe to speak up at
the NRC. Twenty-four percent did not believe
that the NRC's commitment to public safety was
apparent in what the agency did on a day-to-day
basis. Has the NRC made any changes to
improve its own "safety culture"?
ANSWER:
Several press reports following the NRC Inspector General's
2002 safety culture and climate survey report highlighted the
survey's results in a single category, noting that nearly a third of
the agency staff question the agency's commitment to safety.
However, it is important to note that employee attitudes about the
effectiveness of the NRC as a regulatory entity were covered by
several other categories in the survey. As the report notes, the
results in these categories, "in whole, demonstrate a workforce that
has become much more positive about the NRC as an
organization."
In addition, the NRC has taken a number of steps to improve its
safety culture since 2002. This includes an increased emphasis on
better face-to-face and employee to supervisor communications,
development of better senior management communication tools to
reinforce the agency's safety consciousness, and enhanced
leadership training. The agency also reinforced the paramount
importance of the NRC's safety mission relative to its other
strategic goals in a number of communication vehicles.
The agency also revamped its Differing Professional Opinion
(DPO) program, which encourages employees to raise any
concerns and express differing views on any issue with their
supervisors on a regular basis. In 2005, the staff participated in
another safety culture and climate survey. On average, the NRC
improved its scores in virtually every category from the 2002
scores and 66% of the staff indicated they felt it was "safe to speak
up" in the NRC. The contractor who conducted the survey noted
that it is rare, in their experience, that scores improve to this degree
between survey iterations. In their evaluation report, they noted
that "Efforts to follow-up on the results from 2002 appear to be
successful and should be implemented once again in 2005." The
contractor also noted that in the 2005 survey, the results indicated
that employees are encouraged to communicate ideas to improve
nuclear safety, and the scores for continuous commitment to public
safety were greatly improved.
The agency recognizes that there is always room for
improvement. In response to 2005 survey results, to foster
continuous improvement in the agency's safety culture, individual
offices and regions are developing action plans to address specific
improvement areas. In addition, the agency has developed a non-
concurrence policy, so that individuals who may not agree with a
staff proposal may voice their opinion in a more informal manner
than is the case with the DPO program.
QUESTION 10. Early this year, NRC staff raised questions about
the effectiveness of the performance indicator
program, saying that if all the results were
"green," perhaps it didn't really measure anything
of value. What is your position on the
performance indicator program?
ANSWER:
The performance indicator (PI) program continues to provide
the NRC with objective indications regarding plant performance,
and it has met the goals and intended outcomes of the ROP. The
PI program has generally fulfilled the regulatory principles of
being objective, risk-informed, understandable, and predictable,
and it has accomplished the three applicable NRC strategic goals
(ensuring safety, openness, and effectiveness).
The acceptable "green" performance threshold was established
based on mid-1990's industry performance. However, the staff and
some public stakeholders remain concerned with the capability of
the current PIs to contribute to the identification of declining
performance. As a result, the staff is working with industry to
revise several PIs (changes to the voluntary program require
agreement by industry). A new risk-informed PI, mitigating
system performance index (MSPI), has been developed and is in
the initial stages of implementation. Also, the NRC/industry task
group is working on another indicator for monitoring complicated
rapid automatic or manual reactor shutdowns. The staff believes
that this new PI has the potential to be a leading indicator of
declining performance in that a plant that has a history of
complicated scrams may be more likely to have a risk-significant
scram. The staff plans to continue to work with the industry to
revise and/or introduce other PIs to improve the program's
effectiveness in contributing to the identification of declining
performance.
QUESTION 11. Initially NRC staff estimated that about 5 percent
of the findings under the Reactor Oversight
Process would be greater than green. But less
than 1 percent have fallen into that category.
Does that mean all the reactors are safer than
they were five years ago, or are the findings not
measuring the right safety indicators?
ANSWER:
Every year the staff provides an assessment of the reactor
oversight process (ROP) and the status of the industry trends
program to the Commission. As part of the ROP assessment, the
staff reviews the inspection program and how those resources are
being used. Based on the CY2005 review, the Commission
believes the ROP program is monitoring the correct safety
performance areas.
With respect to industry performance over the last 5 years, the
number of plants in each of the ROP action matrix columns has
remained relatively stable. The number of green findings has
increased 34%, but the number of findings that are greater-than-
green has decreased by 45% over the last 5 years. In addition,
most of the industry trend program metrics have shown stable or
improved trends over the last 5 years. Based on this information,
the Commission believes the NRC has seen some improvement in
licensee performance over the last 5 years.
U.S. General Accounting Office, "Nuclear Regulation: Preventing Problem Plants Requires More
Effective NRC Action," GAO/RCED-97-145, May 1997, pp. 2-3
A Special Investigation "Blowing the Whistle on Nuclear Safety: How a showdown at a power
plant exposed the federal government's failure to enforce its own rules," TIME, March 4, 1996, pp.
46-54.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Inspector General, "NRC's Regulation of Davis-
Besse Regarding Damage to the Reactor Vessel Head," Case No. 02-03S, December 30, 2002, p. 23
Ibid, OIG, p.17
Ibid, OIG, p.23
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), "Nuclear Power: Efforts Made to Upgrade
Security, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Design Basis Threat Process Should be
Improved," April 4, 2006,
Ibid, GAO, p. 9
Ibid, GAO, Introduction
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/cornerstone.html#MS
"Fire Safety at Nuclear Power Plants," Hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigation of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One Hundred
Third Congress, March 3, 1993, Serial No. 103-21, p. 1
Ibid, p.1
Ibid, p. 110.
NRC Regulatory Issue Summary 2006-XX, Regulatory Expectations with Appendix R Paragraph
III.G.2 Operator Manual Actions, Public Meeting, June 6, 2006
NRC Generic Letter 2006-03, "Potentially Nonconforming HEMYC and MT Fire Barrier
Configurations," April 10, 2006, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Accession No.
ML053620142.
Ibid, Subcommittee Hearing, p.2