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Commission Recommendations
A. THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
The Commission found a number of inadequacies in the NRC and,
therefore, proposes a restructuring of the agency. Because there is
insufficient direction in the present statute, the President and Congress
should consider incorporating many of the following measures in statutory
form.
Agency Organization and Management
The Commission believes that as presently constituted, the
NRC does not possess the organizational and management capabilities
necessary for the effective pursuit of safety goals. The Commission
recommends:
1. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be restructured
as a new independent agency in the executive branch.
a. The present five-member commission should be abolished.
b. The new agency should be headed by a single administrator
appointed by the President, subject to the advice and consent of the
Senate, to serve a substantial term (not coterminous with that of the
President) in order to provide an expectation of continuity, but at
the pleasure of the President to allow removal when the President
deems it necessary. The administrator should be a person from outside
the present agency.
c. The administrator should have substantial discretionary
authority over the internal organization and management of the new
agency, and over personnel transfers from the existing NRC. Unlike the
present NRC arrangement, the administrator and major staff components
should be located in the same building or group of buildings.
d. A major role of the administrator should be assuring that
offices within the agency communicate sufficiently so that research,
operating experience, and inspection and enforcement affect the
overall performance of the agency.
2. An oversight committee on nuclear reactor safety should
be established. Its purpose would be to examine, on a continuing basis,
the performance of the agency and of the nuclear industry in addressing
and resolving important public safety issues associated with the
construction and operation of nuclear power plants, and in exploring the
overall risks of nuclear power.
a. The members of the committee, not to exceed 15 in number,
should be appointed by the President and should include: persons
conversant with public health, environmental protection, emergency
planning, energy technology and policy, nuclear power generation, and
nuclear safety; one or more state governors; and members of the
general public.
b. The committee, assisted by its own staff, should report
to the President and to Congress at least annually.
3. The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS)
should be retained, in a strengthened role, to continue providing an
independent technical check on safety matters. The members of the
committee should continue to be part-time appointees; the Commission
believes that the independence and high quality of the members might be
compromised by making them full-time federal employees. The Commission
recommends the following changes:
a. The staff of ACRS should be strengthened to provide
increased capacity for independent analysis. Special consideration
should be given to improving ACRS' capabilities in the field of public
health.
b. The ACRS should not be required to review each license
application. When ACRS chooses to review a license application, it
should have the statutory right to intervene in hearings as a party.
In particular, ACRS should be authorized to raise any safety issue in
licensing proceedings, to give reasons and arguments for its views,
and to require formal response by the agency to any submission it
makes. Any member of ACRS should be authorized to appear and testify
in hearings, but should be exempt from subpoena in any proceedings in
which he has not previously appeared voluntarily or made an individual
written submission.
c. ACRS should have similar rights in rulemaking
proceedings. In particular, it should have the power to initiate a
rulemaking proceeding before the agency to resolve any generic safety
issue it identifies.
The
Agency's Substantive Mandate
The new agency's primary statutory mission and first
operating priority must be the assurance of safety in the generation of
nuclear power, including safeguards of nuclear materials from theft,
diversion, or loss. Accordingly, the Commission recommends the following:
4. Included in the agency's general substantive charge
should be the requirement to establish and explain safety-cost
trade-offs; where additional safety improvements are not clearly
outweighed by cost considerations, there should be a presumption in
favor of the safety change. Transfers of statutory jurisdiction from the
NRC should be preceded by a review to identify and remove any
unnecessary responsibilities that are not germane to safety. There
should also be emphasis on the relationship of the new agency's safety
activities to related activities of other agencies. (See recommendations
E.2 and F.l.b.)
a. The agency should be directed to upgrade its operator and
supervisor licensing functions. These should include the accreditation
of training institutions from which candidates for a license must
graduate. Such institutions should be required to employ qualified
instructors, to perform emergency and simulator training, and to
include instruction in basic principles of reactor science, reactor
safety, and the hazards of radiation. The agency should also set
criteria for operator qualifications and background investigations,
and strictly test license candidates for the particular power plant
they will operate. The agency should periodically review and
reaccredit all training programs and relicense individuals on the
basis of current information on experience in reactor operations. (See
recommendations C.I and C.2.)
b. The agency should be directed to employ a broader
definition of matters relating to safety that considers thoroughly the
full range of safety matters, including, but not limited to, those now
identified as "safety-related" items, which currently receive special
attention.
c. Other safety emphases should include:
(i) a systems engineering examination of overall plant design
and performance, including interaction among major systems and
increased attention to the possibility of multiple failures;
(ii) review and approval of control room design; the agency
should consider the need for additional instrumentation and for
changes in overall design to aid understanding of plant status,
particularly for response to emergencies; (see recommendation D.I)
and
(iii) an increased safety research capacity with a broadly
defined scope that includes issues relevant to public health. It is
particularly necessary to coordinate research with the regulatory
process in an effort to assure the maximum application of scientific
knowledge in the nuclear power industry.
5. Responsibility and accountability for safe power plant
operations, including the management of a plant during an accident,
should be placed on the licensee in all circumstances. It is therefore
necessary to assure that licensees are competent to discharge this
responsibility. To assure this competency, and in light of our findings
regarding Metropolitan Edison, we recommend that the agency establish
and enforce higher organizational and management standards for
licensees. Particular attention should be given to such matters as the
following: integration of decision-making in any organization licensed
to construct or operate a plant; kinds of expertise that must be within
the organization; financial capability; quality assurance programs;
operator and supervisor practices and their periodic reevaluation; plant
surveillance and maintenance practices; and requirements for the
analysis and reporting of unusual events.
6. In order to provide an added contribution to safety, the
agency should be required, to the maximum extent feasible, to locate new
power plants in areas remote from concentrations of population. Siting
determinations should be based on technical assessments of various
classes of accidents that can take place, including those involving
releases of low doses of radiation. (See recommendation F.2.)
7. The agency should be directed to include, as part of its
licensing requirements, plans for the mitigation of the consequences of
accidents, including the cleanup and recovery of the contaminated plant.
The agency should be directed to review existing licenses and to set
deadlines for accomplishing any necessary modifications. (See
recommendations D.2 and D.4.)
8. Because safety measures to afford better protection for
the affected population can be drawn from the high standards for plant
safety recommended in this report, the NRC or its successor should, on a
case-by-case basis, before issuing a new construction permit or
operating license:
a. assess the need to introduce new safety improvements
recommended in this report, and in NRC and industry studies;
b. review, considering the recommendations set forth in this
report, the competency of the prospective operating licensee to manage
the plant and the adequacy of its training program for operating
personnel; and
c. condition licensing upon review and approval of the state
and local emergency plans.
Agency Procedures
The Commission believes that the agency must improve on prior
performance in resolving generic and specific safety issues. Generic
safety issues are considered in rulemaking proceedings that formulate new
standards for categories of plants. Specific safety issues are considered
in adjudicative proceedings that determine whether a particular plant
should receive a license. Both kinds of safety issues are then dealt with
in inspection and enforcement processes. The Commission believes that all
of these agency functions need improvement, and accordingly recommends the
following measures:
9. The agency's authorization to make general rules
affecting safety should:
a. require the development of a public agenda according to
which rules will be formulated;
b. require the agency to set deadlines for resolving generic
safety issues;
c. require a periodic and systematic reevaluation of the
agency's existing rules; and
d. define rulemaking procedures designed to create a process
that provides a meaningful opportunity for participation by interested
persons, that ensures careful consideration and explanation of rules
adopted by the agency, and that includes appropriate provision for the
application of new rules to existing plants. In particular, the agency
should: accompany newly proposed rules with an analysis of the issues
they raise and provide an indication of the technical materials that
are relevant; provide a sufficient opportunity for interested persons
to evaluate and rebut materials relied on by the agency or submitted
by others; explain its final rules fully, including responses to
principal comments by the public, the ACRS, and other agencies on
proposed rules; impose when necessary special interim safeguards for
operating plants affected by generic safety rulemaking; and conduct
systematic reviews of operating plants to assess the need for
retroactive application of new safety requirements.
10. Licensing procedures should foster early and meaningful
resolution of safety issues before major financial commitments in
construction can occur. In order to ensure that safety receives primary
emphasis in licensing, and to eliminate repetitive consideration of some
issues in that process, the Commission recommends the following:
a. Duplicative consideration of issues in several stages of
one plant's licensing should, wherever possible, be reduced by
allocating particular issues (such as the need for power) to a single
stage of the proceedings.
b. Issues that recur in many licensings should be resolved
by rulemaking.
c. The agency should be authorized to conduct a combined
construction permit and operating license hearing whenever plans can
be made sufficiently complete at the construction permit stage.
d. There should be provision for the initial adjudication of
license applications and for appeal to a board whose decisions would
not be subject to further appeal to the administrator. Both initial
adjudicators and appeal boards should have a clear mandate to pursue
any safety issue, whether or not it is raised by a party.
e. An Office of Hearing Counsel should be established in the
agency. This office would not engage in the informal negotiations
between other staff and applicants that typically precede formal
hearings on construction permits. Instead, it would participate in the
formal hearings as an objective party, seeking to assure that vital
safety issues are addressed and resolved. The office should report
directly to the administrator and should be empowered to appeal any
adverse licensing board determination to the appeal board.
f. Any specific safety issue left open in licensing
proceedings should be resolved by a deadline.
11. The agency's inspection and enforcement functions must
receive increased emphasis and improved management, including the
following elements:
a. There should be an improved program for the systematic
safety evaluation of currently operating plants, in order to assess
compliance with current requirements, to assess the need to make new
requirements retroactive to older plants, and to identify new safety
issues.
b. There should be a program for the systematic assessment
of experience in operating reactors, with special emphasis on
discovering patterns in abnormal occurrences. An overall quality
assurance measurement and reporting system based on this systematic
assessment shall be developed to provide: 1) a measure of the overall
improvement or decline in safety, and 2) a base for specific programs
aimed at curing deficiencies and improving safety. Licensees must
receive clear instructions on reporting requirements and clear
communications summarizing the lessons of experience at other
reactors.
c. The agency should be authorized and directed to assess
substantial penalties for licensee failure to report new
"safety-related" information or for violations of rules defining
practices or conditions already known to be unsafe.
d. The agency should be directed to require its enforcement
personnel to perform improved inspection and auditing of licensee
compliance with regulations and to conduct major and unannounced
on-site inspections of particular plants.
e. Each operating licensee should be subject periodically to
intensive and open review of its performance according to the
requirements of its license and applicable regulations.
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