 and then our staff members of the public. All right, there we go. Well, again, welcome. So you can hear me now. The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss the proposed rulemaking package and associated guidance for the mitigation of beyond design basis events rulemaking. This activity stems from the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan in 2011. 11, as you may know, the commission has the proposed rule before it as a voting matter in today's discussions will aid in our deliberations on the issues presented in the paper, which is tagged SECI 15-0065 and which is publicly available on the NRC's external website. And we'll begin, as I said, again, with presentations from an external panel, which includes Tony Petrangelo, Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, Stuart Lewis, a program manager with the Electric Power Research Institute, Jack Stringfellow, Chairman of the Pressurized Water Reactor Owners Group, and David Lockbaum, the Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Following the external panel, we'll take a brief break and then hear from the staff. I think we all look forward to your presentations and the discussion that'll ensue. And before I begin, do any of my colleagues, I don't have anything to say. Okay, very good. Mr. Petrangelo, would you please begin? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, commissioners. Let's go right to slide two, please. I do want to spend a little bit of time on the importance of this proposed rulemaking. From an industry perspective, we believe this is the centerpiece of our U.S. response to Fukushima. In many respects, establishing the regulatory framework for beyond-design basis events actually implements recommendation one from the near-term task force report. This is setting the stage for what we do for beyond-design basis events. It's very, very important for a number of reasons. It also integrates the mitigating strategies that were implemented under the order with the reevaluated hazards that were requested under the 10 CFR 5054 F letter in 2012. I want to stress this is not a codification of the mitigating strategies order. This is fundamentally different from that in the following respects. When mitigating strategies order was implemented, there were assumptions made on the loss of all AC power and loss to the ultimate heat sink that provides a cooling source for three particular functions, core cooling, spet fuel pool cooling and containment integrity. When we look at the mitigating strategies assessment that the proposed rule is calling for that integrates those reevaluated hazards, that's not the starting point for these evaluations. We are starting with the entire plant with a real hazard or a real information and we didn't have it, not with where we started on the mitigating strategies where there were no assumptions regarding what hazard got you there. We didn't know what got you in that condition. We assumed the worst case with loss of all AC power and loss of ultimate heat sink. So these are different approaches and in that respect, this rule complements those orders and integrates those reevaluated hazards into these strategies. So it's very, very important that we understand the difference between the approaches. Also a key difference here is that this rulemaking will differentiate what we do for design basis events as opposed to beyond design basis events. Without this rulemaking and without the guidance that goes with it, I think we will just repeat what we've been doing for the last 40 years with respect to design basis events, treating them in exactly the same manner. This has to be treated differently. These are very low probability but potentially high consequence events. They need to be treated differently in the regulatory framework. This rulemaking provides that piece of the regulatory framework. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we're improving the safety margin at every plant by providing an additional layer of protection with not only portable onsite equipment, but portable equipment that we can get to any site within 24 hours of the onset of the event. So we think safety's been enhanced. As we stated at the April 30th briefing, we had a bias for action in implementing the mitigating strategies. I think there's elements of this particular rulemaking that we will be implementing before the rule is final, okay, throughout 2016. So my point here is that whatever goes out in the proposed rule, we are kind of betting on the common that that's gonna be what the final rule is close to looking like, okay? Because we wanna do this right once, okay? We wanna make sure we answer the bell on this particular issue. And so what goes into the proposed rule is very, very important. Next slide please. Given the importance of this, we think it's necessary to try to keep this as simple as possible. We're really trying to provide diverse means for the three key safety functions that I mentioned. This has to be a risk-informed performance-based approach. And by that I mean the sites are different, the designs at the sites are different, and the external hazards that these sites are subject to are different. We are developing guidance in NEI 1206, which was the implementation guidance for mitigating strategies on how to take the reevaluated hazards for flooding in Appendix G and for seismic in Appendix H and do the assessment with the approach that I stated before on taking the hazard information and bouncing that off of the mitigating strategies assessment. But the performance-based part of this is show me how you do the three key safety functions with either permanent plant equipment or portable equipment. At the end of the day, that's the bar that has to be met. We need a widespread understanding of this rule going forward. It does provide assurance for the key safety functions. It maintains that clear differentiation between design basis and beyond design basis, and we all need to understand that going forward. Next slide, please. Implementation dates. Thus far, the industry's met its commitments on the initial orders and requests for information. As I just talked about, there's a spectrum of responses that when you take the reevaluated hazard and assess the mitigating strategies at any given site, the results are gonna be different. So in the implementation of the rule that calls for many of these assessments, we can't just bet that we're gonna have the perfect scenario that the design basis will encompass the reevaluated hazard. There'll be a lot of different results. In fact, the initial work we've done shows there might be up to five categories of difference in responses to the reevaluated hazards and what a licensee may have to do. So we have to provide ample time to perform these activities with realistic assumptions about how long not only that it takes the industry or the licensee to perform the assessment, but also for the staff to review and approve the portions that we need to go forward with any particular revisions at the sites. We talked, I think, at the last commission briefing about the handoffs and the relay race nature of this. That's not going away. That's what this rule, I think, puts in place is a lot of series of activities that gets us to the finish line. And finally, we don't wanna seek, have to seek a lot of exemptions to dates that are established without being tied to some actions. I think that undermines the credibility of the whole process when we need exemption requests for extensions on the deadlines that are provided. If we build in that flexibility and the rule, I think our credibility is better off across the board. Next slide, please. We sent you a letter on severe accident management guidelines earlier this year. A little history, there was an industry initiative approved in 1994 that put Samgis in place. I think, as we've said previously, the argument here is not about whether we're gonna have Samgis or not. We've had them, we're enhancing them, and we will have them in the future and we will maintain them. We note that the temporary inspection that was conducted in 2011 didn't find any significant issues. Everybody had Samgis. Could they have been maintained better? Yes. We have measures in place now through what the owners groups are doing, what the CNOs on the ENSIAC are doing, and impose follow-up activities that we believe will shore up that response. Our main concern is the precedent set by using overriding the quantitative factors that were presented in the regulatory analysis for the imposition of Samgis and the rule. What was presented in the analysis was insufficient to impose the requirement. And qualitative factors, namely defense and depth, was used as the rationale. We don't think that's the way that was intended to be used when relevant quantitative factors suggest otherwise. We're prepared to provide documented commitments to Samgis, both they're having them, maintaining them, training on them, et cetera. We'll have report outs to the ENSIAC, again, in-po follow-up evaluations, and the NRC can periodically inspect them if they want to. That was done in 2011. There's no reason it can't be done again. So from our perspective, Samgis does not belong in this rulemaking. Next slide, please. As well as new plant design requirements. Really, the requirement that showed up in the proposed rule, there was no public interaction on this piece of the proposed rulemaking. This imposes new design basis requirements. They are not beyond design basis requirements. These are the same hazards that we are, for new plants that we're using on the current plants, but for the new plants, these will not be beyond design basis. So there's a confusing nature when you're establishing the regulatory framework for beyond design basis events, but for new plants, it'll be what their design basis actually is. And again, that complicates and confuses the intent of this proposed rule. It was noted in the Reg analysis that this is a lot like the aircraft impact and the revisions to the rule that were made. This is not like aircraft impact. Here, the threat is not specified. There are no design parameters about what the hazard will be. And there's no work done on showing in a quantitative nature what the risk reduction would be. So there's really an unknown risk reduction benefit. So again, I think we do not believe this should be included in the proposed rule. Last slide on conclusions. We think the timing's right for this rulemaking. We expect the proposed rule to be out before the end of the year and the final rule to the commission by the end of next year. We do know a lot more now from what we've learned in all our different analyses and implementation of the 2012 orders and requests for information such that we can now bring this all together and have a better understanding of what we need to do to complete the response. And the time that we spend on implementation next year will also help us better inform the implementation dates that go into the final rule. So this is a challenging effort on everyone's part and a lot of work on everyone's part, but we believe it does provide the right oversight and processes to resolve the remaining issues that make up the Fukushima response. Thank you for your time. Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks for this opportunity to talk about the Epri's technical basis report and the role it played in developing the original severe accident management guidelines and especially the updated guidelines that are being developed and implemented right now since the Fukushima accident. I can go to the next slide, please. Just by way of a very brief background to make sure we're all on the same page, the severe accident management guidelines and SAMGs are a set of actions that would not come into play after the onset of core damage. So it's a point at which you typically transition from the emergency operating procedures to another set of guidelines that are a bit more flexible than the procedures and can handle a wide range of accident conditions. So these are strategies more than step-by-step procedures. Traditionally, the original SAMGs in the current set have relied on existing equipment. Plants didn't install much in a way of new equipment to implement the SAMGs and used an existing instrumentation or combinations of instrumentation readings to understand the trends in the accident and the general nature sufficiently to know what actions to take. Next slide, please. The SAMGs are different from other procedures. Also in the fact that typically they're used more heavily by the emergency response organization, the technical support center to advise the control room staff rather than the control room staff taking step-by-step actions called for by their procedures. In terms of how the SAMGs came about originally, Tony mentioned this was an industry initiative back in the early 1990s. EPRI developed at that time what was called the technical basis report that provides the technical foundation for accident management. The information in that report was then used by the various owners groups. At that time, there were four different owners groups for the four reactor vendors. There are now two, one for PWRs and one for PWRs. They developed a generic set of guidance that was then translated into plant-specific guidance. The owners groups working with each individual utility to identify how the generic guidance would be implemented at a particular plant. So I'm gonna focus on the first step in this process, the technical basis report. The next slide, please. Just to give you a little more perspective on where the SAMGs fit into the overall context for procedures in a nuclear power plant, you can see there's a spectrum of procedures from the normal operating procedures at the bottom, the procedures that guide plant start-up and shutdown, the day-to-day operations of the plant, up through progressively more significant procedures depending on the challenges the operators are facing. And the SAMGs, again, are distinguished primarily because they're not specifically procedures. They are guidelines, again, because it's important to understand the nature of the accident that the operators are facing and to have the flexibility to respond to a variety of conditions. They do interface with other procedures, supporting procedures. Once a strategy is selected, the operators do have specific procedures that tell them how to align a system or to accomplish a particular action. They also interface with the FLEX guidelines. Although FLEX is designed primarily to prevent core damage, in fact, some of the capabilities can be used to respond if an accident proceeds to the point at which there's severe accident or severe core damage. The next slide, please. With respect to the update that we've performed to the technical basis report, primarily our intent was to address the insights that were gained early on from the Fukushima accidents to incorporate those insights into the technical basis report and to support enhancing the SAMGs. Along the way, we did review the information that had been collected over the 20 years or so since the last technical basis report was prepared to see what, if anything, needed to be reflected. It's not that that information had been ignored through that period, but the research and analysis that had been performed through the 90s and up to 2011 produced incremental insights into severe accident behavior, but nothing that really compelled taking a fundamental look at the technical basis report and making a major update. The Fukushima accident certainly highlighted some things that we thought were worth capturing and feeding into the SAMG process. Through this 20-year period or so, although the technical basis report itself was not updated, the owner's groups did maintain the SAMGs and the utilities made updates from time to time, so it's not like it was a static process throughout that period. We began updating the technical basis report in the summer of 2011. We formed a team to look at the existing guidance and to start evaluating what we already knew about in the accidents at Fukushima Daiichi. And we completed that process in the summer of 2012. And in order for the owner's groups to be able to make their updates in a really timely manner, we interacted throughout that process so that they could understand what we were proposing in terms of additions to the technical basis report and how that might affect the existing SAMGs. So when the updated technical basis report was published in the fall of 2012, the owner's groups had already made pretty extensive use of the information that we put out. They didn't have to wait for the report to know where to begin updating their SAMGs. And they certainly did have much of the work done by the time we actually published the TBR. Next slide, please. Just a quick note on the organization of the technical basis report. It's divided into two volumes. The first captures what are called candidate high-level actions. So these describe the strategies that might be implemented in the SAMGs. They identify the objectives of each of the strategies. They talk about where there can be issues where there might be some downsides, depending on how the strategies were implemented and what might vary from the expected response in a severe accident. The second volume is about 900 pages that describe the physics of accident progression. So there's a lot of information in there about various phenomena relevant to severe accidents. It's a volume one fed directly into the production of the SAMGs. Volume two provides a lot more background. It's used in training at various utilities and helps the people writing the SAMGs to understand why it is that they're describing the actions the way they are. I can go to the next slide, please. Just a few comments about what we put into the technical basis report in particular volume one. There were some cases where we added new candidate high-level actions. For example, we added actions pertaining to cooling of fuel in the spent fuel pool. The original technical basis report didn't address spent fuel pool cooling. Neither did most of the original SAMGs that were in place. And as you may recall from 2011, although it turned out not to be such an overriding issue, there was a lot of concern about what was going on and particularly in the spent fuel pool and unit four at Taiichi. There were a number of other new candidate high-level actions that were added and all the existing actions were revisited to see what might need to be done to enhance the guidance provided. In terms of more general aspects of what we incorporated, we addressed implications for external events which really hadn't been discussed in the original TBR. It's not that what you do to manage a severe accident is different if you have an external event, but it may be that you have different implications in terms of what equipment is still available. There are other aspects that were important. In interest of time, I'll go to the next slide please. So volume two has a much extensively revised set of discussions of severe accident phenomena. Again, largely reflecting insights from the early days after the Fukushima accident. For example, there's an extensive discussion that's been added to address injection of seawater or other less than ideal sources of water into the reactor vessel or into the containment building. But we describe a lot of the phenomena that were relevant to the accident and the implications for those phenomena as we've learned from the accident. If we can go to the final slide. I think it's particularly important to note that when we went into the really detailed review of the technical basis report, we were pleased to see that the guidance that was in there was still valid. We didn't find anything in the original TBR that provided inappropriate or incorrect technical bases for addressing severe accidents. We certainly were able to enhance a lot of the discussion and to address actions that hadn't been discussed in the original TBR. We worked very closely with both owners' groups to ensure that they knew what was going into the new TBR so they could use that information in a timely manner. And I will say that I think it will be a far shorter than 20 years before we update the TBR. Again, I expect that when we are able to go in and get real information from the state of the course and the reactor vessels and the containment that Daiichi will have, a lot of information will expect to reflect in a new TBR. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Stringfield. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In addition to pressurized water reactor owners' group, I'm also here representing the activities of the Boiling Water Reactor Owners' Group with respect to severe accident guidance as well. The, could I have the next slide, please? The two owners' groups have worked side by side in the area of developing severe accident guidance. And we've worked side by side in the, particularly in the area of emergency response. We've provided our members with recommended changes to the emergency operating procedures, flex support guidelines and severe accident guidance. This has been a hallmark effort in terms of coordination between the two owners' groups and NEI and EPRI. And given that this is going to be a living document, we're going to continue to incorporate lessons learned. We expect to continue that level of coordination within the industry. Next slide, please. As Mr. Lewis has already mentioned, both owners' groups were heavily involved in the EPRI Technical Basis Report Update. The key thing I want to mention about that is that between the BWROG and the PWROG, we represent every operating reactor in the United States and many of the operating reactors in Europe and Asia as well. So we're able to bring a broad base of operating experience and lessons learned to this activity. We recognize that we will, this was going to be, as I said, it's going to be a learning process. We're going to continue to incorporate lessons learned and we're committed, I want to emphasize, we're committed to maintaining these documents as we learn more from the event at Fukushima and operating experience from the implementation of this enhanced guidance. Next slide, please. With respect to the Pressurized Water Reactor Owners Group, our activities for SAMGs have consisted of two phases. Within the Pressurized Water Reactor fleet, there are three sets of severe accident guidance, intra-plus specific sets of severe accident guidance. And so phase one consisted of taking the lessons learned from the Fukushima event and using the EPRI technical basis report, providing additional guidance to our members regarding spent fuel pool cooling, ex-containment hydrogen, use of raw water and containment leak behavior. And in particular instrumentation, we incorporated guidance into the severe accident guidance document to assist our members in validating instrumentation indications using available alternative information. Next slide, please. Phase two of the program takes a page from the Boiling Water Reactor Owners Group. We recognized that it would be more efficient to combine the three intra-plus specific guidance documents into one enhanced generic guidance document. So we undertook to develop a common guidance document addressing, again, addressing lessons learned from the implementation of the original SAMG programs, incorporating best practices from those three guidance documents, and of course, continuing to monitor Fukushima lessons learned. All of the US PWR sites have committed to implement the phase two update. Next slide, please. This is a graphic that shows our schedule of activities. The initial update was completed in January 2013. I just like to say that this pile of paper right here that I have my hand on is the combined enhanced guidance document that is currently under validation. If you look down, that is scheduled to be completed in September of this year. All right, and then we'll take the results of that validation, also incorporating results from the boiling water reactor owner's group and their validation activities as well, and produce rev zero of this guidance document and make that available to our members in January 2016. Ultimately, we expect sites specific generic, severe accent guidance implementation in July of 2018, and of course, the maintenance of this document will be a continuing effort. Next slide, please. With respect to the BWROG in similar fashion, they in February 2013 produced an update to their severe accident guidance that incorporated features such as the preservation of steam generator reactor injection systems, anticipatory containment venting to remove decay heat and reduce suppression pool temperature, integration of portable equipment in their EOP and severe accident guideline steps, changes to reflect a reduced emphasis on containment flooding and guidance to preserve the wet well vent as appropriate, and in similar fashion, instrumentation guidance that will allow them to validate indications using available alternative information. Next slide, please. With respect to ongoing BWROG activities, they will be working to resolve revision three implementation topics identified by member utilities through their emergency procedure committee. Both owners groups have procedure committees and we attend their meetings and they attend our meetings, so we share information in that fashion. They will also be developing severe accident water addition and severe accident water management strategies to be incorporated into their severe accident guidance with a planned issuance of REF-4 of their severe accident guidance anticipated in 2017. Next slide, please. For the BWROG, their schedule, the order 109, in particular, the order 109 and other flex implementation lessons of approved interactions is anticipated this year with the issuance of REF-4 of their severe accident guidance anticipated in 2017 with ultimate implementation approximately 2021. Next slide, please. So in conclusion, I'd just like to reemphasize that both owners groups are gonna continue to work together closely in this area. We're going to remain thoroughly coordinated with NEI and EPRI. This will enable us to incorporate insights from each other's SAMG validation exercises as well as other lessons learned. Our activities have supported the mitigating beyond design basis event rulemaking. We have, we developed the NEI 1401 guidance document that was submitted to the staff. We also held two workshops last year for the benefit of the staff in an effort to walk staff, the staff through how the severe accident guidance would be implemented using a scenario as an example. And finally, both owners groups, and I really wanna emphasize this in closing, both owners groups are thoroughly committed and maintain strong ownership of the severe accident guidance. We're committed to a rigorous process of maintaining this guidance and the incorporation of lessons learned and operating experience in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Lockebaum. Good morning. We appreciate this opportunity to share our views on this subject. Next slide, please. Slide two. The question we seek to answer today is not whether the proposed rulemaking language is adequate or not. The question we attempt to answer is whether the proposed rulemaking package is ready to go out for public comment. Next slide, please. First and foremost, we're not implying that there are only three positives in the proposed rulemaking package. Instead, we're highlighting three especially good aspects of the package. Extending the normal comment period to 75 days helps stakeholders review and comment on an awful lot of information. Next slide, please. This proposed rulemaking largely codifies requirements previously imposed by orders. It follows the process used by the NRC to compel security upgrades following 9-11. This process is unfair to stakeholders. Opportunities to comment on upgraded requirements should be provided before they are imposed, not afterwards. Next slide, please. Figure ES1 from the NRC staff's regulatory analysis illustrates that stakeholders are about to get a chance to comment on preexisting requirements not likely subject to very much change. Next slide, please. The NRC bypassed rulemaking in these cases to fast track measures it felt necessary. Instead of denying stakeholders due process and making a mockery out of the Administrative Procedures Act, the NRC should figure out how to conduct expedited rulemaking. The NRC's expedited rulemaking process seems tailor-made for such applications, yet it was not applied. The NRC must figure out how to apply it for urgently needed upgrades in the future. Next slide, please. Many trees gave their lives to make the reams of paper used by the NRC staff chronicling its way from the near-term task force recommendations through the prioritizing SECI paper through the March 2012 orders, through the draft guidance documents, and so on leading up to the proposed rulemaking. SECI 1565, with its enclosures, alone totals 446 pages. There are lots and lots of pieces to this puzzle. Next slide, please. It's a huge burden on stakeholders to find all these pieces and put them together to see the full picture. Stakeholders need the full picture if they're to provide meaningful and constructive comments on the proposed rulemaking language, yay or nay. The NRC staff should develop a plain English brochure, something like Newregg 1649 for the reactor oversight process for inclusion in the proposed rulemaking package that explains that full picture. Next slide, please. The NRC staff merely assumes that all information needed to be known will be fully and reliably known during every conceivable beyond design basis event. After three-mile-in, the NRC ordered water level and hydrogen-oxygen concentration instrumentation to be installed to fill information gaps. After Brown's Ferry's partial scram, the NRC mandated that scram discharge, header level instruments be installed to fill information gaps. After LaSalle's power oscillations, the NRC required instruments to be installed to fill information gaps. After Fukushima, the NRC ordered spent fuel pool level instruments to be installed to fill information gaps. Next slide, please. The commission should direct the staff to research information needs during beyond design basis events and the related dependence of SAMG's unreliable instrumentation to be successful. The research would transform the assertion into reality, likely with a few adjustments and additions along the way. There are almost certainly other information gaps that need to be closed. Safety dictates that the NRC seek to close them proactively rather than waiting for more events to reveal the remaining gaps. Next slide, please. The NRC staff has put considerable effort gathering a very fine proposed rulemaking package because stakeholders have not put in as many hours to date and lack the time needed to create a retrospective. The package would benefit greatly from a concise, plain English brochure explaining the problems and the solutions being proposed in the rulemaking package. And research should examine whether key instruments providing reliable indications under extreme environmental conditions that may occur, will occur, during beyond design basis events. Thank you. Oh, thanks. I was looking at it. Thanks, Nick. Well, thank you all for your presentations of last, beginning questioning this morning. Tony, a couple of questions. Obviously, I mean, one of the issues we've had a lot of discussion on the severe accident mitigation guidelines or SAMGs, as they're known, this morning. And that, in terms of at least a preliminary issue in terms of the anticipatory comments, I would say on a proposed rule, if it went out in this form, is the area that may garner much of the discussion. But again, I appreciate if you could elaborate, again, your view of the staff's qualitative arguments related to the defense in depth and support of the imposition of SAMGs. And I know that there's a letter in from NEI with respect to that. But if you could summarize that again and make sure I understand the position the industry's taking with respect to that. Yeah, the position was that there wasn't adequate quantitative analysis that was relevant to this issue to support imposition of the requirement. When I go into the regulatory analysis that the staff provided, they did some quantitative analysis, largely based on what was done for the containment protection and release rulemaking. And they got a conservatively high estimate, a frequency weighted individually in cancer fatality risk of approximately seven times 10 to the minus eighth per reactor year. This was recognized as a conservative estimate as the maximum possible risk that could be removed or reduced through regulatory action. They go on to say in the reg analysis, the quantitative metric for individual latent cancer fatality is approximately two times 10 to the minus sixth per reactor year. And it's well below a level that equates to 1 tenth of 1 percent that's in the safety goal. In addition, when they would use more realistic assumptions in the regulatory analysis that were more plant specific, would push that potential risk benefit even lower by approximately two hours of magnitude. So this thing failed from a quantitative analysis that was performed to pass the backfit test and failed miserably. It didn't even come close. So to simply use qualitative factors based on defense and depth that I can inform emergency planning recommendations and help my management of the accident, I think largely on the defense and depth principle, I understand it. I just disagree with how it was applied in the regulatory analysis. From our perspective, it sets a bad precedent for future regulatory analyses when there's quantitative information that's relevant, that's prevented, that is that far away from being able to pass the requirement and then use it. This is what I think former colleague, Commissioner Magwood said when we were talking about vents in the first order back in 2012. I mean, you can use the defense and depth argument to practically justify anything if this is allowed to go through. So that's our concern here. It's not about Samjee's themselves. I think you can tell from the two presentations you got from Stuart and Jack that we put a lot of effort into Samjee's. We'll continue to look at Samjee's going forward. The staff can look at Samjee's going forward. But from a precedent-setting perspective, this is not appropriate. OK. So I mean, I hear there's, and I appreciate and I respect the philosophical underpinning for what you say. It says, I guess one practical question is what is the additional burden if Samjee's were required by rule versus being covered by a docketed regulatory requirement? Tell me the difference. You have to have an equal playing field when you do the cost-benefit analysis. You can say we've already implemented Samjee's, which we have. So therefore, there's no further financial impact or cost impact beyond the maintenance of the Samjee's going forward. But that's not an equal playing field, then, for the cost-benefit test. If it's not required per rule, then you can't take credit for it in one space. And on the benefit side, say you're going to get this. So you have to look at the cost that we're already put into this. It's not as expensive as hardware, obviously. So I think from a cost perspective, that's not the real test on this one. It's the principle. OK. If we decided not to impose a requirement to have and maintain Samjee's, and of course, we haven't even published a proposed rule. So we're aware this is anticipatory. And again, my concern goes to this issue is that how would we integrate the Samjee's with the emergency operating procedures and other types of procedures? Is it possible to require the integration of those procedures if Samjee's are outside of the rule or having a footprint, which is something other than the requirement and the rule? Yeah, our guides will speak to the integration of Samjee's with the rest of the suite of emergency planning documents. So I don't think that's an issue for us. We will integrate that in the response. So our guidance will call for that. I also want to talk about the importance of documented commitments. This is a regulatory footprint. We've been doing them for years. You can inspect them. And from a licensee perspective, if you make a documented commitment, say, this is what I'm going to do and you don't do it, you undermine your own credibility with a regulator, which is far more significant than a minor violation on some other administrative thing. So we take them seriously. There's a commitment management guideline that we developed in the 90s that the staff endorsed on how to review commitments. So if we make any changes to the Samjee's, the staff will be notified. So there is a regulatory footprint in place to assure that severe accident management guidelines will be maintained, trained on, and updated as required. Mr. Chairman, could I add just a little bit? Yeah, sure. It wouldn't be my preferential way to link these things together. But the one analog that might template that might work would be the voluntary groundwater protection initiative that the industry undertook. In that one, there were some checks that the industry did with reporting back to the NRC to ensure that even though it was a voluntary initiative, there were some checks and balances or transparency, however you want to package it, that seemed to address those issues. Okay, thanks, Sam. That's an interesting comment. Let me talk, the other issue sort of raised, Tony, with respect to new plant design. And I'd appreciate if you could elaborate a little bit more on the statement that in effect this injects a confusion into the intent of the proposed rule and how it is fundamentally different than the aircraft impact rule. Sure. This rule is about mitigating strategies, or mitigating beyond design basis events for new plants. It's the same regulatory guidance that they're using for the design basis for new plants. So this has nothing to do with beyond design basis for new plant designers. So there's some confusion in what this framework does. It's not a design basis rule. I think it's important, as I said in one of the initial slides, to differentiate very carefully between what one does for design basis events versus beyond design basis events. There's a significant difference in the risk profile of those and we should treat them differently, commensurate with their risk significance. So injecting design basis considerations for new plant designs into this rule, we believe is inappropriate. It's fundamentally different from the aircraft impact rule because in that instance, you specified, and it was, I believe, safeguards what the size, speed, weight of the aircraft was that hit a part of the plant. I think we did it in quadrants. There's nothing specified for this. It's basically back to square one with, how are you going to enhance the coping duration and how are you going to minimize human interaction in that? The current rule will make indefinite the coping duration. Now we're starting to put qualifiers on what kinds of coping duration. Is it based on human interaction or is it based on some design principle? And I think the last thing I'll say on this is that I think this is where we differ sometimes from our European counterparts in the response to Fukushima is to think that we can design ourselves out of these beyond design basis events on its face. It's a beyond design basis event. How do you design for the unknown unknown? I get trying to provide in the new design interaction point where you can plug portable equipment into the permanent design. That might make sense, but that's not what they're asking you to do in this instance, okay. This is about trying to design for the unknown unknowns and we believe there's a much more durable response to provide operators with additional tools in their toolbox to respond to those potential conditions that no one can predict, right, and provide those three key safety functions. Okay, thanks. David, just one thing. Obviously, I think part of your, or the way I look at your comments with respect to order versus rule, and some of this is obvious, I think comments are sort of in retrospect. In this circumstance, and this is probably more a hypothetical or maybe philosophical type question, or maybe it's a tactical question, is that if going back, how would you see it doing differently proceeding by rule versus order? Because one of my concerns would be, and this is really, I'm trying to think of this in terms of future. One of the things I would concern is when you have situations where you feel that there is a need for some immediate safety response, how do you deal with that? Just for a minute. I think in those cases, orders are the proper way because they're the fastest way to get to the outcome that you want. I'm not sure. I think that process has been used, expanded to uncover a lot of things that are just inconvenient, or it's just easier. I don't think security, or security probably, but I don't think Fukushima did because some of the orders are taking 10 years to implement. Is there really an urgency if a decade is the response time to implement them? So I think the staff used the order process to keep the public out of the way why it, and now we're being invited in after 98% of it's nailed down. I don't think that was the right way. I think expedited rule-making process which might have delayed the initial implementation of some steps, the low-hanging fruit, it would have been worth the trade-off in our view to include a wider perspective, more views, more stakeholders, getting to probably a similar outcome, but we had no shot at the Apple. We got to watch you and the industry juggle. We were out. That does not fair to the stakeholders. So I think the expedited rule-making, when's the last time the staff used the expedited rule-making process? Why not use it and see if it works instead of this? All right, thank you. Commissioner Semeniki. Good morning and thank you to each of you for being here today. I guess I'll begin by following on the exchange that the chairman just had with Mr. Lockebaum. I do observe, and I'm getting to have quite an observation period of a number of years now of NRC. I do think that the staff is turning more readily to orders and when you ask about that often, you're told, well, it will allow us to put something in place quicker. Without more, that's not a reason to do orders simply because it is quicker. It does short-circuit a number of steps. And I think it's like any person or organization, if you do something enough, it becomes kind of a reflex. And so I've been trying to be kind of vigilant and ask tough questions about that myself. So I think it's important that we raise that today. And I also think as I listen to the presentations, particularly for Mr. Petrangelo and Mr. Lockebaum, this is an appropriate moment to pull back a little bit and think about the entirety of our response to the events in Japan, which as we watched them, the imagery was, of course, very disturbing, very emotional for many of us to see that the natural events cause that kind of devastation. As I remarked at our regulatory information conference this year, and I think what was exactly the four-year anniversary of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, I indicated that upon broad reflection, I'm very proud of our country's response beginning, I think, with the early expressions from President Obama that sought to calm public fears and say that the United States was going to do through the NRC, its independent regulator, a very structured look at any possible risks and put measures in place. This draft proposed rule is the broadest expression, I think, encompasses the broadest set of those actions, and it is a very impressive piece of work. I think that there's been tremendous participation. The staff across the board has contributed a lot of different expertise. It is kind of a manifestation of a lot of the work that was done to implement the order, but I agree that it is not a rigid codification of that order, so it needs to be looked at through its own paradigm, and I think we'll ask all those tough questions. I do think it's unfortunate that there are a couple of issues that I think distract from, perhaps, and will be talked about in our importance. Sam Jesus has been raised the forward fit for new reactors, but I hope the staff at the end of the day can keep calibrated on how proud they should be of the broad accomplishment here because those are just two elements, and I would argue that they are not the significant elements of this draft proposed role, which as a whole is, I think, an embodiment of an extremely prudent and thoughtful regulatory response on the part of the United States to Fukushima as someone who visited many nuclear power plants or at least a good number prior to the events in Japan and visited three U.S. nuclear power plants as recently as last week. This, our regulatory response through flex and mitigating strategies is real. It is visible. It is concrete. It is in place now or being put in place, and so we didn't wait. We are catching up through a rulemaking now that is simply how the system works. I've been rather outspoken about my deep concerns in what I consider to be kind of the contortional acrobatics of the regulatory analysis on the SAM GP site. I don't see any point in revisiting that today that will be fleshed out through the commission's consideration of the draft proposed role. I've also expressed my concerns on the forward fit piece. I think we're at least three steps out of process on that thing. It's not generally that a new approach to something is first seen by the commission in a draft proposed role. We have a process whereby the staff comes forward with policy options for us. We set a course, and then it manifests three steps down the road in proposed rule language. But again, I'll have a time to explore those concerns and look more deeply into that as the commission deliberates what we have in front of us right now. On the SAM GP, I do think a little of that suffers from the term voluntary industry commitment or program or initiative because while accurate, those terms are certainly accurate when strung together in that way. It has much more heft than I think that the term voluntary industry initiative. Mr. Lockebaum mentioned the groundwater initiative. Industry actions, going back to the agency's last strategic re-baselining of its regulatory framework in 1996, I think it was, in direction setting issue 13, the commission at that time did a wholesale re-examination of how the regulatory framework will always have some integration with industry activities and if nothing else, inspection that we do is sampling. You will never resource a regulator in a way that they will look at every single action and every single initiative. So they do have a place, industry initiatives have a place in every country's regulatory framework. We haven't looked at that systematically for, well, next year it'll be 20 years since we've looked at that in the United States. But I think of necessity, things frequently have to reside principally on the industry side of the fence. I would hate to see us. There's a discussion with the chairman about principle. It's interesting to me. I would never frame it to say, well, setting aside the principle, what's the difference between achieving it this way or that way? The advisory committee on Reactor Safeguard spoke to that very specifically with Sam Gs and at least as a group of close to 15 experts who would advise this commission over the years, they said, we think as important to doing something is how you do it. So I agree with that statement that the ACRS put forward about the basis for Sam Gs and I do think that's important. Would anyone from the industry like to talk about voluntary industry initiatives? How voluntary is it? Once 80% of the sites agree to do it. Does it feel terribly voluntary? No, it doesn't, to be fair. And it can be, you mentioned a little bit about our ability to inspect. Is it not true that we can inspect and then mandate that you put findings into your corrective action programs to have that correct? Well, a performance deficiency within the reactor oversight process is not necessarily against an NRC requirement. It can be against your own procedure or what you put in place and that you didn't do. So performance deficiencies can be evaluated under the current ROP. But going back to industry initiatives, they started with the Nuclear Management Resources Council, which was a predecessor to the Nuclear Energy Institute. It is a vote of the chief nuclear officers in the industry. If 80% agree on the action, it is binding on all of the membership. I would emphasize it's a commitment to each other and not to the NRC. If we docket that commitment, then it's a commitment to the NRC, but the initiative is intended not to supersede or replace or in lieu of regulatory requirements. We want the NRC to regulate when there's a regulatory basis that supports the requirement, you should regulate it, not the industry should self-regulate it. These are more reserved for cases where there's a need on our part to devote resources and attention to an issue that's not gonna be addressed in the regulatory process from either an asset management, reliability, or business perspective. David noted the Groundwater Protection Initiative. There wasn't a lot of safety element to that, but there was a huge public perception issue over tritium and groundwater that went well beyond what the NRC requirements for that were and we put the initiative in place, we think it's been very successful. So we follow up on the initiative, we now use IMPO and a much more follow up mode for industry initiatives to ensure that they get implemented appropriately. Again, mentioning groundwater, we're doing our second five year survey of the implementation of the Groundwater Protection Initiative to make sure that everyone's still in line on that. So we take them very seriously, they are our silver bullet, we don't have initiatives every year that we do, but when there's a real need, I think, to direct the attention and resources of the industry that's gonna require a resource commitment on the part of the membership, then we get the CNOs to vote and that's a binding vote. Well, I've encountered that same, people have confronted me with the same thing based on some of the statements that I've made about my concerns on the regulatory analysis for the, which is the basis for the staff's inclusion of SAMGs in the draft proposed role. People have said to me, commissioners Savineke, why are you against SAMGs? I'm not against SAMGs. I think the greater paralyze for, perhaps for our Republic, this will sound very sanctimonious, but just because something's beneficial doesn't mean that the government should be able to mandate that people do it. And so I'm very supportive of SAMGs and they play a very important role. The greater paralyze, and I think beginning to feel perhaps, is parallel to rushing to orders when you really have time to do a rulemaking. Same thing is that if you just want to find something beneficial and then craft the answer that allows you to mandate it, that maybe at the end of the day gives me more profound concerns and I think that's what's behind the ACRS statement of sometimes it's not what you do as important as what you do is the basis for doing it and how you go about it. So I think all of this bears looking at really closely for its implications down the line. We cannot simply have one-off kind of principles and philosophies day by day because the staff needs some consistency of messaging from this commission about what is adequate protection, about what is an appropriate use of qualitative factors in an SRM and that takes calibration over time but the commission needs to send a consistent message about that. That's the only way for the staff to be able to carry out its important work efficiently. So I think one way or another we're going to give the staff some instruction on these matters as we vote on this proposed role. So with that, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Commissioner Ostendorff. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for your presentations. Each of those I found very helpful. I'm gonna start out by going to Mr. Petrangelo's briefing and just maybe make some comments on some things that you said because this is a public meeting and this is one of the few opportunities the commission has to share views. I'm gonna share a few views here and then I'll follow up with a question. There's three points on a latch on to Mr. Petrangelo's presentation. One was the rule is not a codification of the orders from three years ago when the Law of the Commission of Spenike having been involved in this from day one. Going back to Fukushima, we've had long-term continuity on watching this and I can recall Senator Carper before Senate Environment Public Works Committee oversight hearing in Fukushima. This has been on at least two occasions, late 2011 or early 2012, asking the commission for their thoughts on some of the highest priority items to deal with and I think most of us talked about reevaluation of seismic hazards, flooding hazards, station blackout and I'm gonna focus on the station blackout just for a moment. And so I go back to November 2011 and look at the station blackout priority as a tier one item to look at the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking direction to Marty Virgilio at that time in his position as predecessor to Mike Johnson. And I see that the scope of this rule as David Lottbaum has noted is much bigger, is expanded significantly from the original origins and station blackout issues. And so it looks to me having watched the evolution that it is a complex rule Dave and I agree with your comments that it's maybe hard for some people to understand so I appreciate the clear language brochure piece that you've provided today. But I think it's a much more encompassing rule and much broader scoped and covers a lot more safety items than were envisioned almost four years ago. So that's the first point, I appreciate Tony making that. The second one is your commentary on the performance-based approach, site-specific nature and I'll just, I think I mentioned this in a previous commission meeting earlier this spring, maybe in May, I was at Monticello back in the third week of April this year and Monticello for flooding had built a 40-foot bend wall to provide protection against high levels of Mississippi River right at their site boundary. And I heard from Mike Johnson and staff in the last few weeks that perhaps that bend wall was not required because of reduced flood level threats at Monticello from the Army Corps of Engineers. I see this as a success story in that we've taken the site-specific lessons learned in the in situ data for flooding but there's an extrapolation to other parts of this rule emphasizing the performance-based risk-informed site-specific nature in a good way. And I think this is part of the complexity that Mr. Lottbaum has referenced is it is very complex. And I go back to, unless some of my colleagues are very patient as I tell sea stories but it frames a lot of my perspectives when I was captain of a 688 submarine 20 years ago there were 55 submarines the same design. We didn't have site-specific flooding analyses. The ocean was the ocean. We didn't have site-specific steam line rupture response because the S6G reactor plant was the S6G plant and it was all the same. That is not the case we face with commercial power plants so the site-specific nature is extremely important. And the third point is that we know a lot more today that this is what Tony had said and again looking at the evolution of the growth of this rule in a very constructive way and I applaud the NRC staff for having thoughtfully recommended to the commission how might we emerge from the emergency preparedness, emergency response, multi-unit source issues into one rule. I think that was absolutely the right call. Albeit it is more complex and maybe a little more difficult to understand but I am very complimentary of our staff in that respect. So along with Commissioner Svanicki while we may have some points in our votes and I'm not going to discuss my vote today but on the SAMGPs, qualitative fighter discussion, the new reactor piece and other aspects that should not obscure the broader picture, the broader commentary that this is a very positive development for the NRC and for the industry and I think for all American citizens that's a very responsible approach to dealing with a tough set of issues. So now I'm going to ask a question and I'll direct it to Mr. Petrangelo while I'll ask others to comment if they care to. In the spirit of the, we know a lot more now and a lot has been required in the seismic flooding, spent fuel pool level instrumentation, mitigation beyond design, basis event proposed, rulemaking, et cetera. In the spirit of looking at what else is there left to be done that would add safety significance, that would add safety value to existing commercial nuclear power plant safety and I'm using the tier three Fukushima action items as a reference point. What else from the industry standpoint, from UCS standpoint needs to be done because quite frankly, I think that we've done a lot and I'm questioning what does the safety value of some of these things have not been finished? Thank you, Mr. President. If I look at it macroscopically, we always thought the bulk of the safety benefit associated with the near term task force recommendations was tied up with the tier one activity so we think and in particular the mitigating strategies piece of that so I think we've gotten the major piece of the safety benefit out. I think the rest is more residual risk items. While this rulemaking again will put those safety benefits in place, I don't think they necessarily by themselves obviate the rest of the tier three activities unless you looked at it from the whole piece of the pie. I think from our perspective, we do need to look at the remaining tier two activity which is the high winds for the external hazards. I think there's some tier three recommendations that already have been disposition and others that could be disposition today. I'm not gonna go into the specifics but there are a few that I think could be disposition now but last thing on the codification and what was done, I was very sympathetic to David's remarks on process and I totally agree, I think it's in line with my keep it simple slide that the plain English version of this should accompany the proposed rule but there was a lot of public interaction in the staffs and the NRC's defense I think before the orders went out and before the request for information went out. As I recall, there was 90 days of near term task force deliberation, then the staff and the public and us got a chance to weigh in on the recommendations in the report and then I think the commission ultimately decided after a lot of those interactions what was tier one, two and three, what got orders and 50, 54, F letters, et cetera. So while that's not a substitute per se for a more open or expedited rulemaking, I think there was an effort made to try to get input from all parties and I'm sure Tim Reed will tell you later that in putting the proposed rulemaking package together there were umpteen public meetings on different pieces of that and I know they put out drafts available for comment even just made them available to the public before the formal package went to the commission. So I think given what transpired in 2011 the agency's response has been very responsive I believe and I think the industry has been to when three quarters are damaged I think it's it may be easy to not pay attention to process I think you did the right balance though in terms of what had to be done in the near term of what could take a longer period of time. Thank you. We're gonna give you a chance there Dave. Steward Jack comments on remaining safety significance for things that have not been decided by the commission, tier three. I don't know that I'm in the best position to comment on those things that we haven't done a technical evaluation of that. I'm glad that Tony mentioned high winds because from our looking at where we need to provide better methods and better guidance to address possible risks that's one area where we think some work remains to be done and given that there's been so much done over the last 20 or 30 years to reduce many sources of risk things like high winds may stick up above some of the other remaining risks on a relative basis if not as a really important absolute contribution. So that's one that I might highlight as well. Okay. And I have nothing additional I had to thank you. David. I only have two things. One I agree with your presenter earlier about the need to look at instrumentation and perhaps the reliability of the SAMGs on instrumentation. I think there's still some work to be done there. I don't think it's equal value to what's being done but I still think there's some things there that need to be looked at and there's some instrumentation that we probably need to enhance or increase the reliability of. The other area is even further out of the box or even further maybe now you can see the box but I think from a policy level it'd be good for the federal government to look at how to incentivize safety upgrades. New interactive designs you could build some of this in maybe not everything. I agree with Tony's remarks about it's hard to, the unknown unknown it's hard to design for but if a vendor could do that right now there's no incentive for providing a reactor that's even safer beyond the NRC's regulations. There's no incentive for anybody to come up with SAMGs that are better than anybody else's because it just costs you money. It doesn't save you anything. So if the federal government in terms of reduced reliability insurance expanded capabilities to recognize that you're safer in these areas that would allow vendors and owners to come up with ways that are beyond the NRC's requirements that do have safety value and do result in a benefit to their bottom line. Right now we don't have that and I think that's an obstacle to safety upgrades. Okay, thank you. Student let me ask you one question at a time remaining. On your slide nine you talk about the technical basis report and allude to some potential future learning from forensics at Fukushima. Is there anything that comes to your mind as a particular key area that we have not closed a loop on from Fukushima that you expect to learn from? Well I think that some of the some of it may be more interest to some of us who spend a lot of time on severe accident analysis but we really do want to understand how if in fact the reactor vessels for example were penetrated as we believe is the case at least in one, well what does that look like? Is there anything that could have been done differently to preserve the integrity of the vessel and keep the core even after it was severely damaged in the reactor vessel beyond what we currently do? So there are things like that like how the contaminants respond and where there were really significant leaks. We've addressed some of that information already but I think there may be some new insights we'll gain when we can do a better job of physically inspecting those kinds of things. Again it's gonna be an incremental improvement in our knowledge I believe and there's only so much you can do when you get to a certain point to prevent those things anyway but the more we understand the better we can do to prepare people to deal with these things in the future. Thank you. Thank you Chairman. Thank you. Commissioner Bear. Thanks again to all of you for being here we appreciate it. Tony I wanna start by asking about the relationship between the flex support guidelines and the SAMGs. If there was a severe accident that required the use of the flex equipment how likely is it that a plant would be using the SAMGs along with the flex support guidelines in response to such an event? I think that flex gives additional tools in the two box for SAMGs part of the revision I believe to the owner's group and plant specific SAMGs look at the broad expansion of available options that flex provides in severe accident management space so there's a communication between those two guidelines. Okay so if we're doing this right there's kind of an integration there there's a synergy between the flex equipment and the flex support guidelines and the SAMGs. As well as the other permanent plant EOPs and EDMGs and so forth. So I think again that what flex did was provide another suite of options a diverse means for the key safety functions at the SAMGs and I think Stuart did a good job of explaining the nature of these and what they're attempting to do. So yeah there's a communication between those. Okay and so the commission has is requiring the flex equipment as a matter of adequate protection for public health and safety. Given the relationship between the flex equipment and the flex support guidelines and the SAMGs why shouldn't the commission also require SAMGs? Because SAMGs are for beyond adequate protection and beyond protecting the core you've already got core damage. I think adequate protection and the way that mitigating strategies order was put together was about preventing core damage. I think historically that's how it's been used although it's up to the commission to decide that's your purview. Okay SAMGs goes beyond protection and into a core damage state. Let me ask you this. So this touches a little bit on a question the chairman asked you earlier. What would the proposed rule require for SAMGs beyond what the industry is doing now or preparing to do? Nothing. Nothing. So there's no question here of added burden from requiring the SAMGs. It's a question of presidential concern. Correct. And this follows up a little bit on a comment you just made but then so I understand there's the you've expressed a concern about the quantitative analysis here. What's the argument against the commission determining that it's required for adequate protection? The SAMGs. Well if you look at the quantitative work that was done by the staff and compare it to what other risk insights you have for adequate protection things you'll see a big gap. This is like four orders of magnitude lower in risk. What about spend fuel instrumentation? Equally so. You didn't do that on adequate protection. Fair point. Given that everyone agrees that SAMGs are valuable and that they improve safety margins shouldn't the NRC staff be able to both inspect those measures but also take enforcement actions if there's a problem discovered? Yes. And so that just kind of brings us I think to the question of what kind of commitment is the industry proposing to make on SAMGs? To not only have them but to maintain them and train on them. I've never encountered an instance and I'll chuckle I think we've had some discussions over the years on enforcement basis. The staff lacking enforcement basis on anything that we do in the plan. There's always a way whether we violate our own procedures that we put in place whether they were per requirement or not. There's potential violations that said the reactor oversight process looks at performance efficiencies and they don't have to be driven by regulatory requirements. So from your point of view even in the absence of regulatory requirement the NRC staff inspectors could enforce the failure to maintain adequately. If one makes a docketed commitment and you do not follow that commitment I'm positive there's enforcement basis to take against the licensee on that finding. Let alone the reduction in credibility that licensee will have going forward which they guard mightily. Please, Dave. I've got a letter from the NRC that says commitments are not enforceable. So we being UCS Greenpeace and Neers submitted a petition to make all the commitments into enforceable things and that was denied by the staff. So it appears that commitments despite I've got a letter from the NRC saying they're not enforceable and attempted to make them enforceable and that was denied. So in our view if I can trust the NRC they're not enforceable. What do you think about that Tony? I think that they're enforceable. I meant Dave's specific comment. I mean as a general matter of talking to staff folks would feel it's pretty tough to enforce something that isn't a regulatory requirement. When you docket a commitment under oath and affirmation and don't follow through on it there'll be an enforcement basis for the action take and I guarantee you. And in the 90s when you all made a commitment to implement, develop, maintain SAMGs was there a docket a commitment there or no? No in fact that's a good point Commissioner. I think we've learned that simply having them is not enough and this I think does bring up the treatment of the B5B equipment that was put in place after 9-11 and this rule takes care of that issue in terms of the treatment of such equipment. There are programmatic requirements to maintain update et cetera and we'll have those in place for SAMGs I think these guys went over that in great detail and we will follow up on them. So it's not the commitment was to have them I think the new commitment would be not only to have them but to keep them current and to train on them. And you know I guess one I suspect we can explore this more on the next panel that one of the motivating factors for potentially proposing to require SAMGs was that the staff's view when they conducted inspections of the SAMGs post Fukushima was that they I think took issue a little bit with your point that no significant issues were identified during those inspections. And I know I look back at the the near term task force report and then of course had a discussion of SAMGs and the task force view was as follows the results of the inspection under the SAMG temporary instruction reinforced the value of making SAMGs a requirement. The inspectors observed inconsistent implementation of SAMGs and attributed it to the voluntary nature of this initiative. So I think. What I based my statement on was the same report you read from but I'll read from a different part of it. While individually none of these observations pose the significant safety issue they indicate that while the SAMG procedures are available at every site there appears to be an inconsistent implementation in some aspects of this program. So I don't think it was a it's broken at all. Everybody had SAMGs. Could they be maintained better? Yes. I think you could find that with things required by regulation too if you went out and looked. So again there's no debate about having the SAMGs updating the SAMGs maintaining them training on them. For us it's about the principle in the regulatory analysis established in this. And I think things like the new plant requirement that got in there are what scares us when that's not done properly. Well, let me ask this because this is really taking a step back and asking the kind of broader process question because there has been a lot of focus on process today. So we're at the stage now of considering a proposed rule a draft proposed rule. And the commission will be voting on whether or not we should or what the proposed rule should look like that we take public comment on. And obviously there are a range of views on SAMGs whether they should be required or not required and whether that commitments are adequate without a requirement whether they analysis done in the regulatory analysis or if there are all these questions surrounding that. And what we need to decide at this stage is should the public have an opportunity to comment on a proposal to require SAMGs? What is the argument against inviting the public to comment on whether we should require SAMGs? We're not requiring at this stage we're just asking what do you think? Should we require them? Certainly you could use the rulemaking packages of forum to do just that. And I suspect that's might be what the commission ends up deciding. On other elements of this though, I think that and it's the other 99% of the rulemaking we're implementing now in many respects. That's why I said earlier that we try to get alignment through our guidance documents and endorsement by the agency on the actions we're gonna take so that we're in compliance with the rule whenever it's finalized. And in this case you could invite public comment it's been out there before on SAMGs. It's not gonna change the quantitative work done in the regulatory analysis is my point. Okay, if the staff presents a different quantitative analysis that at least gets you to a marginal where qualitative factors I think legitimately could be brought in to decide a difference that's on the kind of threshold, fine. At least that's consistent with the process as we see it. But in this case when you're that far below what you needed to do to impose the back fit it was inappropriate to decide qualitative factors. And that's not gonna change with public comments. It could change if additional regulatory analysis is performed by the staff or somebody else. The staff is proposing and as drafted the proposed rule would seek specifically comment on the regulatory analysis for SAMGs. So I don't wanna reach any conclusions about what those comments may or may not include. Dave just to close out what's your view about whether the commission should allow the public to comment on a possible requirement of SAMGs. I think the way the question is, I think it's a valid point for not just the public but all stakeholders to comment yay or nay. And to be honest UCS hasn't formed own opinion. It's not black and white. There are some downsides to requiring SAMGs and we wanna work through those our own before we think it's, whether it's in there or not we always would have the opportunity saying it should be in there. And we're not yet at the determination whether that's should or should not be part of the final rule. But to answer your question more directly I think it's ready yet to go out for that external stakeholder vote or comment. Great, thank you. I think Commissioner Sebedek, yeah. I just, Commissioner Barron raises a really intriguing point and I just wanted to add one dimension from my role in looking at a draft proposed rule and my time on the commission. The way I answer the question which is different than the public involvement question that you posed, but for me until it's decided that the commission should have no role in shaping the proposed rule before it goes out for comment. So the question would be if we don't shape the proposal why do we even look at it at all? But the question for me is no matter the public comment if I find that the proposed provision is so flawed for some other reason that it cannot be nothing that is brought to light in public comment can rehabilitate my inability to support that when the final comes before me that would for me be a basis where I would say well I would propose to not have that in the proposed rule when it goes out. So it's different than the question you asked but it's a very, very intriguing point of well maybe it would illuminate something but that's generally in my vote saying I would vote to strike this particular provision before it even goes out for public comment that is generally the basis of why I would do that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Osvill. I feel compelled to add to that comment because my philosophy in voting has been at the proposed rule stage to put out the best product that represents the thoughts of the commission. Thank you. Mr. Barrett, anything else? All right, let's thank again the panel for your presentations as we proceed through the process consideration of the staff's proposal and we'll take a break, try to get back about 25 of 11 and then we'll hear from the staff panel. Thanks very much. Well, we'll rejoin the discussion and we'll start with our and have our staff panel now and Mike Johnson, Deputy Executive Director for Reactor and Preparedness Programs and the Fukushima Steering Committee Chairman will let you start, Mike and you can introduce the panel and the staff presentations. Thanks. Thank you and good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. We are pleased to be here today to discuss the staff's efforts on developing the proposed rule for mitigating strategy, mitigating beyond design basis events. This proposed rule is an important regulatory action and it is one of the tier one post-Fukushima activities that we briefed the commission on in April of this year and we are pleased to report that we're on schedule with this proposed rulemaking. As has been discussed, the proposed rule would integrate and make generically applicable a significant number of ongoing actions undertaken by the agency in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi event. In preparing the proposed rule, I do want to note that we benefited, I would say benefited greatly actually from our experiences in implementing mitigating strategies, order and other actions and we have continued our practice of, as was pointed out in the first panel, conducting numerous formal and informal interactions to engage stakeholders, including the ACRS, the industry and the public over two dozen meetings by our account many more perhaps and we will continue to seek feedback from all stakeholders during the proposed rules, public comment period. We are, as was also pointed out in the first panel, already realizing safety benefits from implementation of these mitigating strategies, order and the other actions that have been undertaken to address lessons learned and I want to acknowledge the actions of the staff engaged in the post-Fukushima initiatives including this proposed rulemaking for their continued dedication and technical competence and hard work that has enabled us to make the progress that we've enjoyed to date. The proposed rule from our perspective is consistent with the cumulative effects of regulation, process changes approved by the commission, talk more about that in the presentation and includes a thorough regulatory analysis consistent with the NRC's up-to-date standards. Our current schedule is to have the final rule package including the supporting guidance available to the commission in December 2016. And of course that would be after issuance of the proposed rule for comment, full consideration of whatever comments we received during that period and changes as appropriate based on those comments. The schedule for this rulemaking is aggressive but that schedule is also consistent with this rule and its priority as a tier one action. Next slide please. Slide two. Today several staff from the NRC will discuss various aspects of the proposed rulemaking package. They are Bill Dean and Tim Reed and Eric Bowman from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and John Monninger from the Office of New Reactors. And so now I'll turn it to Bill to begin the presentation. So thanks Mike. Chairman, commissioners, it's a pleasure to be with you here this morning to talk about what we were calling the mitigating beyond design basis event rulemaking but after this morning's discussion I think we're gonna change it to the SAMGs rulemaking. So next slide please. Before I talk about this graphic I do wanna recognize a tremendous effort of a number of people, some of who are represented by the panelists and the offices of New Reactor Regulation and NRO and NRO, but also a lot of support from the Office of General Counsel, Office of Research and Nuclear Security Incident Response. It truly is a collective effort to get to this very tremendous milestone and as many of the commissioners have recognized on their remarks today, quite I think a monumental event for this agency and for this country. As Mike mentioned, the proposal has been a significant undertaking considering its scope. Along the way we have looked at ways to be more efficient and in doing so we have identified activities that should be combined and we're careful to balance the desire for efficiency with the amount of consolidation that was practical. And the graphic that's on the slide on slide three, the staff views this proposed rule as addressing a substantial portion of the near term task force recommendations and that's reflected in the box on the left most side of the slide. We also combine two rulemaking efforts and align the rule with current implementation of ongoing Fukushima regulatory actions as shown in the top center box on this slide. The two rule makings that were combined were the station blackout mitigation strategies rulemaking and the onsite emergency response capabilities rulemaking. The commission approved this consolidation in its response to Secchi 140046. The result of this effort is a coherent set of proposed requirements that we believe will also enable informed stakeholder feedback. As noted in the center yellow box, the proposal also makes generically applicable two orders that were issued on March 12th, 2012. Those orders are the mitigated strategies order EA-12049 and the spent fuel pole level instrumentation order EA-12051, which are currently being implemented by the nuclear industry. Most notably, the mitigation strategies order is being broadly implemented as a site wide response to a beyond design basis external event. It results in greater demands on staffing, communications and command and control and is supported by requirements for training and drills. And as a result, ongoing implementation order EA-12049 results in a significant portion of the proposed rule being addressed and is one reason the integration of the two ongoing rulemaking efforts made sense and was achievable. Box in the lower part of the slide contains several items that reflect areas that were not part of the orders, but are near term task force related issues. The commission requested information from licensees in accordance with 10 CFR 5054F regarding the capabilities of their staffing and communications to address a beyond design basis event that impacts an entire reactor site. Those capabilities align very well with the mitigation strategies that are contained in this proposed rule. In addition, aspects of the enhanced on-site emergency response capabilities associated with drills and training also align well with the mitigation strategies that are contained in the proposed rule. In Comsecchi 140037, the staff proposed approaches to address reasonable protection of mitigating strategies equipment from the reevaluated hazards determined under recommendation 2.1 of the near term task force report. Accordingly, the proposed rule contains a provision to address the reevaluated hazards. And another ongoing regulatory action addressed in the proposed rule is the upgrade to source term assessment capabilities. This will be discussed in more detail by Tim, but implementation of this action by the industry has been largely completed at this time. Finally, as described in the box to the right, this proposed rulemaking also addresses a number of petitions for rulemaking that were submitted in the aftermath of the events of Fukushima. Although this proposed rule has a large scope as reflected in the package we provided you, which I think was about yay, high paperwork, we believe it is coherent and comprehensive. The staff also considered the recent direction on the use of qualitative factors and regulatory analyses and back-fit analyses provided by the commission in March of this year in their SRM on Secchi 140087. The staff ensured that the back-fit analyses provided a complete set of information with respect to both quantitative and qualitative factors for the commission's consideration and ultimate decision on the appropriate weight to place on those factors. With that objective in mind, we believe that we have provided the information necessary to support the commission's decision in which I believe appropriately considers the direction provided to us in your SRM. I would also like to reinforce a comment that Mike made in his opening remarks and that you also emphasize, Commissioner Savinike, the majority of the proposed rulemaking scope is currently being implemented by the nuclear industry. So as a result, we are already realizing many of the additional safety gains on operating reactors that have been identified through insights from the Fukushima event. Next slide, please. As I mentioned earlier, this proposed rule also contains new requirements. First and foremost, the proposed rule includes new requirements for severe accident management guidelines, otherwise known as SAMGES, as part of an overall integrated response capability. These guidelines are already in place as voluntary initiatives and industry has done considerable work to update their SAMGES to reflect lessons learned from Fukushima that was discussed in the earlier panel. We will discuss our rationale within the context of the backfit criteria in 10 CFR 50.109 for proposing a requirement for SAMGES as opposed to a continued voluntary industry initiative. Secondly, the proposed rule includes new requirements for a multi-source term assessment capability. The industry is currently implementing the necessary upgrades to their source term assessment capabilities and are almost complete. So the focus of our presentation will be on our rationale for establishing this as a requirement within the context of the backfit criteria. Finally, the proposed rule includes new requirements for future reactor designs. These new requirements are constructed to be forward fit and therefore we believe they do not constitute backfits. We also believe that these unique provisions for future reactor designs are consistent with the commission policy on new and advanced reactors and John will elaborate on this part of the proposed rule in his presentation. So now I'd like to turn a presentation over to one of the major architects of this rulemaking, Tim Reed, to provide you with more specific information on the proposed rule. Tim? Thanks, Bill, chairman, commissioners. I'm Tim Reed. My plan today is to provide a brief overview of the proposed rule. I'll focus on the two more important portions of it, that being proposed 50.155, and then our proposed changes and additions to a Benix E to part 50. Then following that, I'll have a discussion on the SAMGs and the supporting backfit justification. So starting with the proposed 50.155 begins with an applicability paragraph is noted on the slide. Really there, we're trying to accomplish two major things, ensure that the proposed provisions apply to only power reactor licensees and applicants and not to others, as noted. So for example, it does not apply to research and test reactors or non-power reactors and it does not apply to independent spent fuel storage installations, notably. Second objective, really, we're trying to accomplish here is to denote one of these provisions with no longer apply and it would no longer apply as you enter into the decommissioning process. So there you'll find we try to build in provisions that allow these to be removed as you proceed through that and those aligned with the recent commission decisions on decommissioning. So moving to the next bullet on the slide, what's where we move to paragraph B and this is our integrated response capability requirements and as noted on this slide, our entire rulemaking really did center on integrated response capability. This is where we began when we put this rulemaking together and at a high level, really what we're trying to achieve here is to put in place a framework that enables a more seamless response capability and using basically three guideline sets that are all in place and available with the symptom-based DOPs and I said with and it's underlined on the slide with and that's important because one of the things we do not want to do is impact any of the regulatory infrastructure that supports the EOPs. So that's one of the intensives of what we're trying to accomplish here. So the three guidelines sets themselves. In fact, it was mentioned a little bit this morning especially with Guard to Sam's. They are a little different than the step-by-step procedures. They are strategies and guidance and that such they have a level of flexibility that's necessary when you're addressing beyond design-based events. You need to adapt these to whatever conditions develop and so that makes them a little different than a step-by-step type of procedure. They were developed in different times for different purposes, that's true and as such, they do have to consider the extreme events. They obviously are taking mitigation actions in the facility. You have to be concerned about the events of effects. So those attributes sometimes make it seem like apples and oranges and that we can't do this integration but in fact, we can. They are fundamentally function-based and a function-based approach to these guidelines very well with a function-based approach to DOPs and that's why we can achieve this integration. So to talk through the three guidelines sets a little bit, the first guideline set, as you're well aware, it's the Flex Support Guidelines Implementing Order EA12049 as a course to address mitigation and beyond design-based external events. The second guideline set that we would include is that what it's commonly referred to as extensive damage mitigation guidelines or EDMGs. Those implement the provisions that are currently in 5054 HH2. Those, of course, went into place following the events of 9-11. They are to address the loss of large areas of the plant due to explosions and fires. We would propose moving that into this paragraph as B2. And finally, the third set is the Sear Accident Management Guidelines or CMGs. Those, of course, are implemented at the onset of core damage. They're also in place right now as you've heard this morning but they differ, of course, in a very important way from the other two. They're not currently required by order or role, of course. So then we would support that integration with a staffing requirement and a command and control provision. Clearly, if you're going to mitigate something that's as extensive as a beyond design-based external event that affects the entire facility, entire site, you need obviously a sufficient level of staff to implement the mitigation strategies and then a command and control structure to direct that staff to take those actions. So you'll find that as that's part of paragraph B. So that is the centerpiece. So if you go to the last bullet on this slide then, basically that's really paragraph C. That's where we have our equipment requirements that support this integrated response capability. And it's worth noting they only come from two sources. They come from the two orders, E8-12049, in which case that's C1, C2, and C3. Those equipment requirements are coming from that order and C4 are the level instrumentation requirements that come from the spent fuel pool order, E8-12051. That supports making those orders generically applicable and they also directly support the integrated response. So next slide, please. I'm gonna jump past the net. If you're walking through 50.155, you come to D. John Monitor is here to talk about that. Those are new design features for new reactor designs. I'm gonna go to the next three paragraphs in 50.155, EF and G. So if you look here, you see training drills and change control, those are EF and G. And I creep these together for the simple reason that these are really all regulatory assurance requirements. They're put in place really to provide an initial and then continuing level of assurance that this integrated response capability is there, okay? So when you think about regulatory assurance, I think it's important to think about balance or the level of assurance that should be applied and clearly in our regulations, what we try to do is apply the appropriate level of assurance given safety significance. So we were mindful of risk. We were mindful of the fact this is a beyond design basis application. So we tried to have the correct balance and hopefully you agree we've achieved that. So I'll walk through it and try to make note of that balance as we go through it. So to go to the training requirement first, this is straight up basically just a requirement to have licensee staff trained and qualified to perform the duties required under the integrated response capability. And in this regard, licenses can use all applicable and available training and there's quite a bit substantially, particularly after year 12049 is done and completed. But in fact, it may not be entirely complete. For example, we would expect SAMG training not to be completely in place right now. So what's not in place, we directed that follow the systems approach to training. And the idea there is to ensure that a proper balance is achieved and in fact good training is put in place. So to give an example, I wouldn't want to licensee staff who has say EOP training and also has SAMG training. I don't want to inordinate displace the EOP training with SAMG training. I want the balance correct. So that's the idea in using systems approach to training. The next provision then going to the next paragraph is drills or exercises. Here the minimum requirement is a drill. And now of course licensees have the flexibility to do as part or in conjunction with exercises clearly, but the minimum is a drill. And what we're trying to achieve here is to have a demonstration on initial and continuing basis again that you can transition to and use one or more of the strategies in each of these guidelines set. So that's the idea. And so it's drill. And then we also set it in an eight year calendar frequency. And we think those two set the right balance for this application beyond design basis. And finally going to F, then our G, excuse me, that's the change control provisions. There are no effective change control provisions in place that would govern the kinds of changes the licensees may wish to make in implementing these provisions. We noted that. And so what we tried to do is put together something that would get the job done with a minimum amount of impact. And so clearly you want to maintain configuration management over these capabilities. And you also clearly want to ensure compliance with the provisions. So that was what we're trying to achieve. We think we have something that does that. Eric will talk here in a moment about our efforts to complete the guidance and have all that feedback lessons learned and all turners built into the supporting guidance licensees then can use that as the information set to try to judge whether changes they may want to make are acceptable. Cause clear if you're following Doris guidance that ensures compliance that change would be acceptable. So that's the practical way you'd go about doing it. So next slide, please. This moves me to paragraph H and this is where nominally we have our implementation or I didn't think of the really compliance requirements if you will. We've, if you note there, we established a four year period for compliance with the rule. And unless otherwise specified cause there is a more demanding compliance statement in 50.155 C2 as I'll get to in a minute. Now that four year period was established focusing on current licensees and what we view to be a reasonable period of time giving, taking what you heard this morning an extraordinary amount of work and outstanding work and CMG space and taking that and making that plan specific first of all and then also obviously meeting our proposed requirements. So four years to us seem reasonable, okay. And also you got to recognize that these same resources are very likely working mitigation strategies right now. So we thought that was a reasonable period of time. Of course, if we hear feedback on CRR process we'll make adjustments as appropriate. I said default compliance and that's important. If you go to 50.155 C2 you'll find there in terms of reasonable protection of the flex equipment that's the equipment that's mitigating beyond Zimbus external vents. We have another compliance date and that's two years, okay. So this is a challenge for those licensees who have seismic and flooding reevaluate hazard information that exceeds the current external event design basis. They have to address that information in terms of reasonable protection of this equipment and it could have impacts, okay. So it can range in our view from something that could be mitigation strategies changes maybe new strategies, small modifications or even large modifications. I think Tony mentioned this morning it could even go into five bins for example. That's kind of feedback is good to know. So we understand that's a challenge. I'm actively soliciting feedback on that to try to further inform that and maybe build some flexibility into the rule while still maintaining an expedited approach to the rule. And I think it's worth noting that unfortunately we're not in an optimal position on guidance at this point in time but we would prefer and Eric will talk about this moment also. We would prefer to have a complete set of NEI guidance including appendix H for seismic information and to endorse and review that. We don't have that so we're building it on our side of DG 1301. So I think we're following our CER process and we can hit the mark at the final rule stage. I'll just mention a couple other scheduler requirements in terms of we're thinking schedule. There are schedules associated with drills and exercises. I just mentioned the eight year calendar frequency, okay. And there's also schedules associated with the staffing and communications applications in section seven, Appendix C and that brings me to the next slide. So I'm gonna go to the next slide and I'm gonna apologize. I went way too fast going through 50.155 but probably staying here all day and do that. There is a lot in there. And I'm gonna go to the second part of my presentation and talk about Appendix E. Here I'm just gonna focus on the two more significant aspects of our changes to Appendix E that being our proposal to update or upgrade if you will the source term assessment monitoring capabilities there. And then secondly our efforts to make generically applicable to staffing communications requirements. First I think in terms of the multi-source term we're proposing to amend the existing regulations that require licensees to have the means including supporting equipment to determine the magnitude and assess the impact of radiological releases from multiple source terms. Right now the language is not explicit. It is in fact implemented as a single source term. So what we're being is being more explicit to reflect the fact that beyond Zion-based external events the most probably the most likely way today to get the core damage and implement AP would in fact affect all units, all source terms. And so this is upgrading that capability to reflect that. These provisions, this is another good example Bill mentioned earlier are going into place right now. In fact I believe by the end of this month July it may be fact complete. Certainly by the effective day of the rule this will be in place. So this is another safety enhancement happening now. It is in our view a new imposition. It's a new back fit. So we addressed it as part of our back fitting justification and you can find that. And our proposal is that it fits really within the adequate protection basis of EP and its entire original intent to upgrade this capability to reflect what in fact can happen from the wide range of accidents that EP focuses on, in fact, affect more than one source term. So that's our back fit supporting justification for that. Then moving to the second part that I want to talk about it in PENIC-C and that's the staffing and communications capabilities. And here this is a great example where it came out in a request for information at the same day as the order. We joined these two together. They were done in conjunction with the order implementation because it's staffing for mitigating a beyond sign business external event and it's communications onsite and offsite to support those activities. So that became really part of the order implementation and that's how that's been done. So this is another example where this will also be done by the effective data rules. So another great safety enhancement happening now. Next slide please. So this is probably the most interesting slide. This is Sam G's. And I'll just walk through basically our thoughts on the Sam G's here. So starting first of all with the regulatory impetus for why we're talking about Sam G's today. It was mentioned this morning a little bit. This began with a temporary instruction, 2515 SLAM 184 that was done in 2011 at the request in the return task force to look at the voluntary niche and understand its status. That inspection found inconsistencies associated with licensee implementation, maintenance and training for Sam G's and this resulted in the NTTF concluding that Sam G's should be part of an integrated response and that having this program within such a regulatory framework could substantially improve the effectiveness of Sam G's and address the inconsistencies. Now Sam G's as I think you heard this morning a lot of great information on that were developed in the 80s, late 80s and into the 90s. They were addressed as developed as a means to extend the capabilities that merge the operating procedures past the point of core damage. A great work was done then by the industry in terms of the EPRI, the owners groups, the vendors and the NRC was actually involved throughout the entire process. By the end of basically by December of 1998, Sam G's were real, there were guidelines set that were in place at all facilities. That in the NRC's mind met the objectives set for Sam G's in Secchi 8912. And so we went into place and this is important as an industry initiative without regulatory requirements ever being imposed and with full cognizance of the commission. And so one of the things I tried to do was provide that history. I think that's a very important piece of information for your deliberations because there was a lot of thought given to that at that time and if we're changing course now I think we should be aware of that information. Now the more important perhaps information was the quantitative and qualitative insights that we also provided. And here at Burley of the Spirit I think Bill mentioned it, was to try to provide a complete set of information. The idea is, it's your call, your decision, and you place the weight as appropriate. So that's the spirit in which it's done with. Starting with the quantitative risk insights, unfortunately we did not have a PRA. In fact, it's a measure of Sam G benefits. In fact, I think it would take a number of PRAs and certainly something more expansive than some of the PRAs we have available to us today. I think more core damage sequences would have to be in the PRAs for example. So it would have been in our view a pretty large undertaking. And as a practical matter, we simply couldn't do it in our schedule. So we did want to risk inform this. We thought that was very important. We looked around for what was available. Fortunately, I think the containment protection release reduction work is a very good set of information that supports our efforts to risk inform this. And we found it good for several reasons. First, the CPRR work is looking at whether actions, in that case severe accident water addition management as I'm sure you're well aware, taken after core damage and that's when Sam G's are the command and control set and they'd have their benefits, so that's why this makes sense. Whether those actions can achieve enough of a safety enhancement that they meet the 510983 substantial additional protection standard. So that's important. And they do that in view of looking at what's the available risk, okay? Is there enough risk there to remove? And that's another very important aspect of that work and we like that. They also modeled the Fukushima mitigation strategies and that's important because I drive down the core damage frequency, takes risk off the table if you will, makes it even more challenging to achieve that substantial additional protection. And also they include the effects of our regulations. So they include the effects of the EP, which is also makes it more challenging to achieve the substantial safety enhancement. We fully understood that they were limited and we were challenged as such. We knew they were limited because they first of all they were never intended to measure SAMGs. We understood that from the get go. It was limited in terms of this was only a Mark I and Mark II designs, clearly. I mentioned they don't look at all the core damage sequences so they weren't complete. So we were challenged by ACRS on that. We also took a look at the state of the art reactor consequence analysis. Now that's one PWR, one BWR, but we looked at it for, see what that could do in terms of informing our risk insights. And if we look at the really our risk, what we concluded from the two of these, I think we can conclude first and foremost and most importantly that from a safety perspective, the risk to nuclear power poses to the public health and safety today in the United States is very, very low. And that's a great, great safety story, of course. In fact, it appears to be well below the quantitative health objectives of the commission's safety goal policy. So that's a great safety story. And now in terms of what we, when I look at it now and think about it, if we were to try to complete that PRA, in other words, try to do a number of PRAs and extend in everything, do I think or do we think we would measure something substantial? Our conclusion was it would probably be a measured, quantified, small benefit. And so that's why we thought that was reasonable to provide that risk insight to you as part of this backfitting justification, even recognizing the limitations of the work. So that's why we provided it to you. So we then tried to look at the qualitative arguments or qualitative factors, if you will, to support that backfit analysis. And here we focus primarily on the relationship of the SAMGs to, I think, two key and undisputable portions of our regulatory approach, containment and EP, emergency preparedness. So I wanted to stay in lane with that. And so first of all, the relationship of the SAMGs to containment. SAMGs, as I was mentioned this morning, when you have core damage, you transition to SAMGs, they are the command and control guidelines set at that point of the accident mitigation. They are used, as I'm sure you understand now, as a means to provide a lot of great information to decision makers in terms of how best to use all the resources, equipment, humans, everything you have at your disposal at that time to mitigate the accident. Clearly, one of the best things you have, hopefully, is your containment. And so that will be basically the guideline is making maximum and best use of the containment itself in terms of mitigating radiological releases, hopefully stopping them, but certainly minimizing them. So this is a very direct link between the SAMGs and the containment. And that was, we thought, a very strong qualitative argument, if you will. Secondly, another part of this argument was there's more of an indirect link to the actions of the emergency response organization who's taking on-site and off-site protective actions. In this regard, SAMGs can, in fact, enable better information to be available to understand the progression of the accident. For example, where the core damage is, whether it's efficient product barriers are failed or about to fail, like containment, for example. And that could be useful supplemental information to that organization trying to take protective actions. And I said indirect because I think those actions would be primarily informed by the immediate activities to assess and monitor the source terms that I just spoke to that we think we ought to upgrade to multi-source terms. So I think there's a link there, I think it's valid, but I don't think it's anywhere near as strong as the containment and SAMGs link. So as I'm sure you're well aware, our proposal is that we concluded that a combination of a small quantitative risk benefit that if we were to complete it, we think it would still be small. And in conjunction with this qualitative factors argument, which is a close tie between SAMGs and the containment, could be viewed to meet the substantial additional protection criteria under 5109.83. And I think that's the matter at hand here. So now from the very beginning, I think we fully understood that commissioners decided not to change the course. And so we constructed this. I committed to construct it such that I can remove it. We can remove it. And so I just let you know that if you direct now or direct later, we can remove it. It's a lot more substantive than I thought it was to be, but we can do it. Also, I think it's important we certainly recognize the offer or recent proposal from the NEI that was provided at the ACRS full committee in April of to upgrade or improve, if you will, the voluntary initiative. I think they mentioned it in May letter. It was also mentioned this morning. That's certainly interesting. One of the things we would offer if in fact we do pursue that approach is that we ought to consider whether the reactor oversight process should be part of it. In other words, what would be the check on it? And that also came up today this morning too. So we think that would be an important part of that. So that completes my discussion of the SAMGs and my presentation. I'll now turn it to John Monitor and he'll discuss the provision I jumped ever 155D. Thanks, Tim. Good morning, Chairman and commissioners. I'm John Monitor. I'm the director of the division of safety systems and risk assessment and NRC's office and new reactors. My presentation will cover the proposed approach for new reactors, the basis for that proposed approach and the unique opportunities that the staff use that exist with new reactors. Broadly speaking, the proposed requirements that Tim went through fully cover both operating reactors and new reactors. The specific requirements are applied to new reactors based upon the type of application. Some of the requirements apply to design certification applications, others apply to combined licenses. In addition, the proposed requirements include a provision that would impact the design of new reactors. That provision being paragraph D. And that paragraph D is the focus of my discussion today and paragraph D is what we believe to view to represent the unique opportunities for new reactors. Over the past three years, the staff has gained considerable experience with reviewing mitigating strategies for new reactors. As a result of that experience and as discussed in a briefing to the commission on the new reactor business line in September 2014, the staff has been reevaluating the approach for mitigating strategies for new reactors and how to best apply that approach consistent with the commission's policy for advanced reactors, which was recently revised in 2008. That policy established some fundamental approaches to nuclear safety based upon decades of experience in reactor design and operation. I'll briefly discuss three of those approaches. The first being providing enhanced margins of safety and simplified means to accomplish safety functions. Second being extending time constants to allow more time for diagnosis and management before reaching safety system challenges. And third, simplifying systems to reduce required operator actions and facilitate operator comprehension. The staff concludes that these approaches should apply to how the mitigating strategies safety functions are met for new reactors. The staff has used these approaches in the past in developing requirements for new reactors. For example, the staff followed this approach in the aircraft impact assessment rulemaking, which was issued in 2009. In the end, the staff will assure that the same safety functions are met for both operating reactors and new reactors. However, the manner in which those safety functions are met could be different. Next slide, please. The design stage of new reactors presents unique opportunities to address mitigating strategies. For example, practical and reasonable design changes, such as increasing the capacity of water storage tanks, increasing the capacity of DC power supplies, installing different types of reactor cooling pump seals, or providing enhanced cooling for rooms, is relatively straightforward and cost effective during the design stage of the new reactor when compared against similar changes to an operating reactor. Considering the NRC's adequate protection determination requiring mitigating strategies, in addition to commission's advanced reactors policy out there and the opportunities that exist during the design stage, the staff develop paragraph D of the proposed rule. This paragraph would require design features that enhance coping durations and minimize reliance on human actions to maintain or restore core cooling, containment and spent fuel pool cooling. These safety functions for new reactors are the same safety functions for operating reactors. The difference for new reactors is the focus on design features to prolong achievement of the safety function during the initial phase of mitigation. The staff please this can reasonably be achieved and that such an approach provides significant safety and operational benefits. Whereas operating reactors have an initial phase on the order of four to eight hours using installed systems, the staff please it is readily achievable for new reactors to have the initial phase on the order of 24 hours using installed systems with reduced reliance on operator actions. In responding to complex and unknown events, the staff believes that providing operators with additional time to diagnose, plan and respond is beneficial, especially as an event is unfolding. As such, the staff develop guidance for potentially acceptable timeframe for the initial transition and final phases and the equipment used during those phases. Next slide please. As I previously mentioned, the proposed requirements in paragraph D are focused on the design stage of new reactors, such as design certification applications. As such, the proposed requirements would not impact existing certified designs. For example, the AP1000 and the SBWR. In a similar manner, they also the requirement would also not impact existing combined licenses. For example, the Vogel site, summer and firming. Currently, there are no requirements for new reactors to address the NRC's post-Fukushima regulatory positions. As a result, and as discussed in Secchi 12-0025, the staff has been reviewing new reactor applications to ensure that they address the commission-approved Fukushima actions prior to certification or licensing. In effect, we're doing it in parallel with the licensing. In the commission paper supporting the proposed rule, the staff discussed pursuing a parallel path where we would engage now with applicants for design certifications to address the intent of paragraph D as part of the licensing process. This would occur in parallel with the 50.155 rulemaking process. As I mentioned, we're currently using a parallel path for other other Fukushima-approved recommendations such as spent fuel pool instrumentation. In the event of design certification application was complete and proceeded to rulemaking, part of finalization of 50.155, the staff would address the issue in the design-specific certification rulemaking. For the past six months, the staff discussed in our normal interactions with applicants the provisions, the proposed provisions within paragraph D. Earlier this month, we had a stakeholder outreach meeting to more fully discuss the proposed requirement and the guidance. The meeting was productive and provided a good opportunity to exchange views. In general, the nuclear industry does not support paragraph D, nor the supporting basis. They view it as being duplicative to other parts of 50.155 as not holistically addressing the commission's policy for advanced reactors and that the basis for it underestimated the costs. During the meeting, the staff was able to clarify several areas of concern. The staff believes that the potential impacts of paragraph D run from essentially no impact or minimal impact given the overall scope of a new reactor design. For passive reactor designs, our experience with the AP1000 and the ESBWR leads us to believe that there would be essentially no impact in addressing paragraph D if it was to apply to those designs. For new reactors that rely more upon active safety systems, there could be more impact in terms of pursuing practical and reasonable design changes such as the sizing and capacity of already proposed systems to ensure that their mission time was extended. Similar to other aspects of the role and consistent with NRC's values, the staff, the development of paragraph D benefited considerably from the diverse views of the NRC staff. I note that a staff member followed a non-concurrence and the proposed role in particular paragraph D. The individual believed that the proposed provision paragraph D was not necessary. The NRC provided an opportunity for the individual to address the NRC's Japan Lessons Learn Steering Committee and the NRC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to further understand the concerns. In addition, various senior members, in addition, various senior managers within the agency met with the individual to understand those concerns. After fully considering the view, the staff concluded that paragraph D should remain within the proposal for the commission's consideration and decision. This concludes my remarks and I'll turn the presentation over to Eric for discussion of the guidance. Thank you, John. Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. My colleagues have presented you with a great deal of information on the development of the proposed requirements and the rulemaking. I'm here to discuss how we are interacting with industry and external stakeholders to implement the safety gains under the current existing orders and how we would be interacting to implement the safety gains under the rule. This is an important compliment to the information they've provided you for use in your consideration of the proposed rulemaking. Next slide, please. Oh wait, that's the right slide. Accompanying the proposed rule when it's published in the Federal Register for Public Comment will be three draft regulatory guides. These guides and the supporting industry guidance documents represent the synthesis from a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders gained through numerous public meetings. The lessons learned through the implementation of the orders that Bill and Tim discussed and the consideration of the innovative alternative approaches that our licensees propose to meet the requirements of the orders. Our ability to include these lessons learned in the guidance is a direct result of the commission having extended the due date for the delivery of the proposed rule package. That extension allowed us to come closer to a resolution on several of the items, in particular the appropriate treatment of the re-evaluated hazards under the proposed rule. The first of the guides that would be published with the proposed rule is draft guide 1301, the flexible mitigation strategies for beyond design basis events. That guide would endorse the NEI document that Tony Pietrangelo mentioned, NEI 1206, which provided guidance for meeting the requirements of the Mitigating Strategies Order. We worked with industry and other external stakeholders extensively throughout 2011 and 2012 to develop the original version of NEI 1206. After a series of public meetings and use of noticing comment in the Federal Register, we endorsed the use of NEI 1206 for the order in our Interim Staff Guidance Document, JLD ISG-2012-01. I would note that we got comments from a number of stakeholders and about two-thirds of the comments that we received resulted in changes to that Interim Staff Guidance Document before we published the final guidance document. There were 54 individual comments that we considered. As I mentioned earlier, the revision to NEI 1206 and the publication of draft guide 1301 are being made to reflect what we learned in implementing the order. And the purpose of draft guide 1301 will be to simplify the change process for the Mitigating Strategies by including documentation of alternative approaches that licensees have proposed and we have found acceptable for meeting the order requirements. There are a few additional appendices that are being added to NEI 1206 in order to address portions of the proposed rule. Those are the appendices for the treatment of the reevaluated hazards with appendix golf being added to address the reevaluated flooding hazard appendix hotel being added to address the reevaluated seismic hazard. Additionally, draft guide 1301 includes the guidance for the new reactor design features that John discussed as appendix A to the draft guide. Next slide, please. As I mentioned, appendix golf for NEI 1206 is to address the reevaluated flooding hazard and appendix hotel is to address the reevaluated seismic hazard. We've got a fairly complete version of appendix golf and have scheduled a meeting next week to discuss it with external stakeholders. Appendix hotel is still under consideration, under development by industry and we'll continue to hold public meetings on that. In order to allow for a full public comment during the comment period, we've added a portion to our draft guide 1301 on high level areas that would need to be addressed by licensees in addressing the seismic reevaluations. These appendices are intended to provide guidance for licensees on how to evaluate the strategies they developed for the mitigating strategies in order to confirm that those strategies will work for the reevaluated hazards or to identify what they will need to change in order to make strategies that will work in the context of the reevaluated hazards. Of particular note is the inclusion in the NEI 1206 appendices of the targeted hazard mitigation strategies. Those represent what we discussed in Comsec-E-14-0037 as a recommendation two, as targeted or scenario specific mitigating strategies possibly including unconventional measures to prevent fuel damage in reactor cores or spent fuel pools. In addition, the new appendices to NEI 1206 include what they've termed alternative mitigating strategies which is a hybrid approach that Tony mentioned relying on a combination of the mitigating strategies equipment and installed safety related structure systems and components that would be protected to the reevaluated hazard in order to mitigate the effects of that hazard. As I said before, the purpose of DRAVGUIDE 1301 is providing guidance for compliance with the proposed rule. Consequently, the final guide will not be published until we get to the final rule stage which is currently scheduled for delivery to the commission in December of 2016. As you've heard from the external panel, the improvements are going on right now. And as you reaffirmed, it was always the intent of the mitigating strategies in response to the order to address the reevaluated hazards under the 5054 letters of 2012. All of our licensees recognize that fact as well and they included a boilerplate statement in their integrated plans that were in response to the order. That statement said flood and seismic reevaluations pursuant to the 10 CFR 5054 F letter of March 12th, 2012 are not complete and therefore not assumed in the integrated plan. As the reevaluations are complete, appropriate issues will be entered into the corrective action system and addressed on a schedule commensurate with other licensing basis changes. The guidance that's in NEI 1206 will assist the licensees in coming to closure on those corrective actions that they've entered for the reevaluated hazards. And in order to provide a greater degree of regulatory certainty for the licensees and for all external stakeholders, we plan on updating the interim staff guidance we issued in 2012 to reflect the acceptability of the appendices to NEI 1206 for that purpose. Next slide please. The other two draft guides, draft guide 1317 and 1319 address the remaining portions of the proposed rule and would endorse industry develop guidance as indicated on this slide. NEI 1202 and NEI 1201 were developed for the spent fuel pool instrumentation order and the staffing and communications assessments under the 5054 F letter respectively. We're making no modifications in the draft guide to the previous endorsement of those documents and those documents have not been changed since they were issued. NEI 1306 is a new document that was developed by industry for guidance for training drills and exercises, command and control and multi-unit dose assessments. And finally, NEI 1401 provides the guidance on the integration of mitigating strategies that previously developed extensive damage and mitigating guidelines and severe accident management guidelines with the existing emergency operating procedures. It also includes some guidance on the development and implementation of the severe accident management guidelines themselves, as well as some additional guidance on command and control structures for use with the severe accident management guidelines. That concludes my presentation and I'll turn the mic back over to Mike. Thank you, Eric. And so as you've heard today the proposed rule does represent a culmination of several years of effort on a part of the staff with extensive outreach and engagement of external stakeholders and their internal stakeholders. The proposed rule has been crafted to solicit targeted feedback during the public comment period and it'll be issued with draft implementation guidelines that will help with that in accordance with the CER. We have talked extensively about what the purpose of the rule is. I won't go further in that. We are realizing additional safety benefits as a result of actions that have already been taken and the point has been well made and I think I just wanna reemphasize that. We discussed new requirements in the rule. We believe that we've provided a comprehensive and transparent rationale for those requirements in the materials, in the rule and the materials that support it within the context of the back fit criteria. But also with sensitivity to the direction that we receive from the commission with respect to how we should consider for example, quality of factors. We believe the proposed rule will fully enable informed stakeholder feedback and will support the staff's efforts to produce a high quality final rule. That completes our presentation and we look forward to addressing your questions. Thanks, Mike. Again, I'll start off just again I appreciate the presentation by the staff and certainly the work that's gone in to this effort in response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident. As you know, I was here at the time as general counsel. We first initiated some of these or many of these efforts and try to assist then, assist. Two of my fellow commissioners who were on the panel then as they work through the initial responses and again, as some of my colleagues have acknowledged the substantial work that's gone in by the staff and by the industry and by the thoughtfulness of our other stakeholders like Dave Lockbaum in terms of thinking through some of the challenges that we saw and how we meet them and how we incorporate them as appropriate into regulatory guidance, into regulatory requirements and the regulatory framework whether it be for the current operating fleet or as we think of potential for new reactors. One of the things, another perhaps philosophical issue or me as in terms of hearing some of the discussion a lot of that I think a lot of discussion which has been healthy, it does bear on the question of how does an agency proceed? What is the best way of the agencies proceeding? And we've touched on a number of issues in terms of how between, for example, the question that we face in the SAMG area, the question of reliance on industry initiatives, how those are incorporated, how we look at those from a regulatory perspective. And I think that's an important question. One of the other questions, and this comes to, and I actually took a law school course not on NRC but on the Food and Drug Administration with respect to the implementation of requirements and the questions of, for example, implementation by rule versus order. And it's an interesting development. I know one who we struggle with and for example, this is an area in which we have gone forward first by order looking back or taking more perspective or now looking at areas in terms of implementation by rule. In another area, for example, recently, I think the cyber area on fuel facilities if I've got that one right, the commission decided this is no, the approach we ought to be focused on the order going forward. For those, the audience and it may be mainly my colleagues and the general counsel's office appreciate this more than anything, but the choice of order, there's a case called the Securities and Exchange Commission versus Chennery. It's issued about 75 years ago. Within the first couple years of the Administrative Procedure Act being or enacted by the Congress and the Chennery case, the Supreme Court says that essentially the choice of rule versus order is essentially to the discretion of the agency. Both orders and rules, we have procedures that conform the Administrative Procedure Act that and we have certainly done that in the issuance of the orders here and certainly as we promulgate the rules we conform to them. I think one of the strengths of the agency has been quite frankly that we go beyond, I say we go beyond the mere minimum requirements of the APA and that is part of reflected in the engagement both that was noted with respect to the orders, the development of the orders. That sort of public engagement on that was beyond what the minimum requirements are. Even here in a sense we could be arguing that this is a final rule discussion, it isn't. I say that somewhat facetiously but the additional discussions we have in terms of development of this rule as to whether we should issue it in proposed form then get the more formalized comment. That is something that goes beyond the mere minimums of the APA. And I think again and I'll leave it here a couple articles I try in the recent literature in some of the law journals I looked at is almost that one of the critiques of administrative agencies these days is almost regulation by insinuation, if you will. And that is not desiring to proceed with the formalities of imposing regulatory requirements through rule, through the processes. But I think that's something, it's challenging in terms of the timeframe and all that takes us to do that but it is certainly something that we've been willing to do. I think the commission facing in the cumulative effects and over the years the backfit rule, the requirements even on things like generic letters in terms of a discipline in the process speak well to the agency and the processes. With that I'll ask a couple of questions about the proposed rule itself. I wanna touch on a couple things at the ACRS, we touch on a little bit on the ACRS's comments. I think one of them with respect to new reactors, I think John you're in the best position to answer this, they sort of withheld judgment till they see the reg guide. So any comments from the staff with respect to that? So yes, we had probably five or six different briefings for the ACRS at the time that they wrote the letter, the only thing that they had seen was our draft proposed rule language. They had not seen the guidance documents. Subsequent to that in June, we have met with the ACRS on the guidance. So they have not written a letter. We, you know. So what I think what you're saying is that there'll be additional engagement with them as we go through the process and if we come to the point depending on the content of the rule or possible proposed final rule, there'd be further engagement with them on that aspect. Yes, sir. The other thing that they talked about was in terms of integration of fire protection procedures. And I think this, when I read the, I think the letter back from the EDO essentially spoke to is that this is, I'm gonna paraphrase it quickly, but that this is in a sense something we're really gonna look at at tier three. Can you elaborate more on what the staff's rationale is in response to the ACRS comment? We had addressed this in SECI 120025 when we had initially, that's how we reported to the commission what we did when we initially received the recommendation from the ACRS in 2011. I believe it was a ACRS review of the SECI 11-09-3, the NTTF report that recommended also integrating the fire response procedures. We established a disciplined process to consider additional recommendations looking to things like is there a nexus to the events that happened at Fukushima Daiichi and potential safety significance of the event and what wound up happening is we took the recommendation for the integration of the fire response procedures and ended in with the completion of the look at the NTTF recommendation number three, which was further research on seismically induced fire and flooding. In this last NTTF letter, they also included flooding response procedures in the scope of the recommendation. We went back and we've added that to the response to NTTF recommendation three as well. And given the schedule constraints of the rule and the difference between the motivation for the integration of the additional response procedures with the emergency response capability we're looking at now, we feel that it still should remain in a future work item. Okay, thanks. Again, I'll ask one Sam G question. I'll ask one Sam G questions and defer my colleagues and any others. But if Sam Gs were not required by the rule, how would staff's oversight change? Would we still, and how would it affect this integration with other rules? To other procedures, I didn't mean rules. Right. So one of the major effects of requiring this in the rule would be the ability to treat it in a regulatory manner. There was a discussion in the earlier panel about enforceability, non-enforceability, and Margie can probably provide a view on this as well. But if it's not a requirement or a regulation issued by the NRC, it's not enforceable. That doesn't mean in the reactor oversight process, if there was a commitment that was made by the licensee and that there was a standard that was identified, industry standard that they committed to through some ENSIAC 80% vote that we couldn't find a performance deficiency, right? So within the reactor oversight process, you could probably create a finding, but it would not have an enforceable nature to it. I will say that after the TI that was done, we didn't issue violations. Licensees put the issues that were found into their corrective action programs and have made progress. And to be honest with you, I'm not sure I'd have to check with the regions to find out what the statuses of the corrective actions. My guess is at this point, most if not all the licensees have addressed all the issues out of the TI. But again, we did not issue violations or had no findings as a result of that. It was basically our observations out of the TI. But these, the SAM-MGs are outside the scope of what it used to be, as I recall, section or chapter six of the tech specs where you have required to do adopt procedures, et cetera, et cetera. So they're not after six. They're not currently required in that way. So, and Bill's right about enforceability. We could not compel. Licensees have done a wonderful job in implementing the ROP and I'll just say in general, addressing performance deficiencies, I'll just make that statement. But we always understood in the ROP that if we were looking at something that was not a requirement and a licensee decided they would not absent a back fit on part of the agency plan specific back fit, absent that they decided they didn't want to do it, we would have to take action or be, the burden would be on us to take that action. So that's the difference between a commitment or a voluntary initiative and what is required by regulation or the requirements. Okay, thank you. Commissioners. Well, thank you for your presentations. And again, I want to acknowledge the tremendous amount of staff endeavor that has gone into the package that's in front of us and all that formed the foundation for the development of this work product. I find an interesting comment on page 67 of the draft regulatory analysis. It states, after Fukushima, the NRC mindset changed and I respect that every NRC employee has kind of had their own experiences since Fukushima. But I don't share that observation. I know that the near term task force through recommendation one advocated for a fundamental rethinking of a number of issues. But when I think about it as a decision maker on my side of the table, my observation is that we took the learnings of Fukushima. We prioritized actions. But at bottom, the commission departed from the near term task force by stating we're going to use the regulatory framework we have to process these priority actions. And we've done that. And by my commentary at the regulatory information conference and before the first panel today, I think I've communicated clearly that I think we arrived at a very solid response for the United States through that regulatory framework. So I just want to say I respect other people's views. But I don't share that observation at all. As a matter of fact, I might completely see the opposite that has occurred. So I wanted to note that. I appreciate, Mr. Bowman, that you made a comment that our ability to include lessons learned in the guidance is the direct result of the commission having extended the schedule for the staff's delivery of the proposed rule. We don't very often get a thank you for those extensions. So I do appreciate it. I tell this story perhaps a bit too often. But in our first commission meeting after the events in Fukushima, Mr. Richard William Borchert, Bill Borchert was our EDO at the time. And I asked him. I said after Three Mile Island, the experience in this country was that a number of actions over time were viewed as not helpful and a number of regulatory actions that were imposed. And they were rolled back. I said, why should I be confident that NRC will not find itself in that circumstance with Fukushima actions? And his answer was a good one. He said, we're not going to encounter that because we are going to take the time to do the analysis and provide a thoughtful response. And we're going to take the time to get it right. And if we're not sure about something, we're going to take the time to become sure before we put it in place. And so I think that is reflective of the commission where justified we have wanted to grant you the time to do that right. But I appreciate your explicit acknowledgment of it because we've been criticized for being dilatory. So I think it's great that you put that out there, that it's important that we have taken the time to be thoughtful. And I'm all for that. Mr. Reed, as you were talking, I thought of a funny story. I hope I didn't smile. But you covered a lot of information really quickly. And then you acknowledged how quickly you went. It'll be interesting for the transcriber to have to back up a lot. But the funny story was that our Chinese colleagues were kind enough to offer me an opportunity to visit one of the AP1000 construction sites. I'm embarrassed. And it is embarrassing. I don't remember whether this story happened at Sandman or Hayan. It doesn't matter because it's not relevant to the story, which of the sites it was. But I arrived. And I was on the walking tour of the construction site. And the individual walking me, the Chinese colleague, walking me through, was walking so fast. And he kept walking faster and faster. And I'm trying to keep up with him. And I'm getting a little out of breath. He seems to be getting a little out of breath. And at some point in a stairwell or a corridor, he turned to me. And I wasn't sure. I think we had a translator separately. So I wasn't even sure he spoke English. But he turned to me. And he goes, you walked so fast. Like I was making him. And I was desperately trying to keep up with him. So I thought that that was hilarious because I was stressing him out. But that can happen. So we give you limited time. And then I criticize you for talking fast. That's why this story is funny to me because whose fault is that, really. But I want to thank you. So getting serious for a minute, I want to thank you. You emphasized a number of times in the backfit issue and on the SAMGs that you just wanted to have a transparent discussion. And I've met with any number of NRC staff and said it's unfortunate when we get into the commission's approval or disapproval of something. And that has to be viewed as somebody was right and somebody was wrong. I don't see it that way. I see that NRC's technical experts have a role, but the commission has a different role. And the weighting of factors and the ability to say at my level, we set expectations for you. The Congress, our elected officials, set expectations for the people on this side of the table. And they want us to balance factors and consider and weight factors perhaps differently. And so what I've said to staff is I'm obligated to consider things that it would be inappropriate for you to make, sway your decision one way or another. So this giving decision makers enough of a transparent understanding so that they will decide is the first and highest objective. And thank you for doing that. Don't sell me something. Just lay it out for me. And then I will not only decide, I will be criticized for my decision and I will defend it, but you've equipped me with the knowledge to do it. Now that being said, I found the particular analysis, which I think was mostly by your hand here. I found it really refreshing because if I used a strong word, I would say I noted a little bit of almost ambivalence about, so you've laid it all out and kind of allowed us to decide. But Chairman, he was Commissioner Yatsko at the time. We were having a lively discussion at one point before the commission was the possible reinstatement of the construction permit for Bellafont. And he included, we had a number of discussions about it. Again, he was not chairman at the time. He was a commissioner. This was 2008 or 2009 or something like that. But he used a really colorful word picture and framing and his vote. We differed on this, but I always remembered it because I thought, boy, once he put it that way, at least I understood where he was coming from, which is kind of what we're talking about here. But he said, there is a difference between having a standard or laying your standard on the ground and carrying your requirement over it, making it so easy. And I wonder if you, just as a practitioner or not, I know you're getting waves of hostility from your office director and others. So forget that they are sitting there. But as a practitioner of this, how long have you worked at NRC? It's been since 89. So you've been doing this for a while. Do you think that it's not reasonable for me to worry about that notion of if you can wait and say it's an enhancement to safety, and then I know you've drawn a more nuanced connection to containment and to EP decision making and things like that. But I might posit to you that there's an awful lot of stuff that we could draw that same connection. And although I actually think Mr. Lockebaum had a wonderfully honest framing of this issue, he said, maybe the United States needs to think about how it is that you could incentivize, although I hate that word because it's turning a noun into a verb, but you could incentivize escalating safety standards. And I think no matter the sector of the economy, I think regulators and policymakers struggle with this. But the one thing that regulators need to have is a deep reverence for the law. And within the four corners of the Atomic Energy Act, I don't find a tolerance for continually escalated safety enhancements beyond what is needed for reasonable assurance of adequate protection. And so I know it's a struggle for us, but I do think there's significance in lowering your standards so far that you lay it on the ground and lift the analysis over the top of it. And I discerned from the very even-handed way that you laid this out that you at least think it's not crazy to worry about that. Is it crazy to worry about that? Well, I think the spirit was that obviously the weight on different parts of this thing is not our call. And so I wanted to try to be as objective and complete as possible and enable you to do that. That's your job, not our job. And so that's really what the whole thought process was. And to try to be, again, just complete and honest and provided to you and let you do that, do your job. And so that's the exact fact. I tell that to people, work on rule makings, all my rule makings, that any issue of policy, that's really what our job is, provide the entire picture to you and let you make that decision. It's not our call. Well, and I appreciate that. And on that point in my remaining time, I'm going to pivot to the forward fit for new reactors. I think it's flawed fundamentally on that point. And the non-concur, and by the way, I want to express, again, it takes a lot of courage to non-concur and have file a differing view, regardless of whether I agree or disagree, I have a deep admiration for all the NRC employees who participate in that process. I want to thank the individual who non-concured here for providing a contribution to this process. But at bottom, I find resonance with the concerns expressed by the non-concur, because that individual has laid out that we need to have that kind of laying out of systematic policy options and allow the Commission to decide for the staff to say, well, the Commission has a policy statement that, hey, we look favorably on X, Y, and Z. And then the next time the Commission sees that, you've plunked that in the form of you've air-dropped it as a mandatory requirement in a draft proposed rule. That's not the process that we follow here. And I feel that the non-concur, I interpret the non-concur as advocating for that process, whether or not it's a good idea, this shouldn't be the first time the Commission sees it, as you've manifested it in a proposed rule requirement. So I have that heartburn. I think there was a way to examine this forward fit issue. I don't think this was the mechanism through which it should have been done. And I'll stop there because I'm over my time. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Austin. Thank you all for your presentations. And I'll repeat something I said at the first panel that I think this is a really good new story with this proposed rule that there may be certain aspects that might have a different view on it than the staff. I would say that overall I think it represents a Herculean effort in a very positive way. And yes, it is complex, but necessarily so, to address complex issues. And so I want to thank the entire staff. I want to single out Mike Johnson, your leadership of the Japan Lessons Learning Steering Committee here in the last three years, because I think that this has been a marathon. And you have a lot of support from people at the table and people here behind you and people that are not here in this meeting. But I think from a regulatory standpoint, I'm very proud of the work that you and your team have performed here. So thank you for doing that, Mike. This paper also is a proposed rule presented, so I think for the commission, a great opportunity to take a holistic, reflective view on what's happened the last four years. At least that's how I'm treating it. And so while I look at the individual aspects of this proposed rule, and we'll come to some voting decision here in the coming days, I would also note that it's helpful for me to sit back and say, OK, what have we done since the near-term task force report came out? What have we learned about Fukushima? Have we achieved the safety benefit that we are going to achieve from the tier 1 action items, which I think we have, and will continue to do so? But also, there's other add-ons that have occurred over the last few years that I think we need to bring this to closure. And so my interest will, quite frankly, and I've discussed this with Mike in Periodics, I want to see, let's bring these remaining outstanding issues, primarily tier 3, but maybe some tier 2 to closure. And I wanted just to give Mike a chance to address your thoughts on how to move forward to a disposition of remaining items. Thanks, Commissioner. We have, in fact, a shared interest in terms of trying to move forward the tier 2 and tier 3 items. NRR, the JLD, Jack Davis, working with the rest of the team, have developed a plan to look at the remaining tier 2, tier 3 items in the context of what are the items that remain that could be subsumed in activities that have already been done? What are the actions that are tier 2, tier 3 potentially, that are obviated, the need for which is obviated based on safety benefit already achieved? And then what remains that we need to continue to do a little bit more work on? We're working through that process. We will get a chance to see that. Bill Senior Management Team will get a chance to see that. The Steering Committee will get a chance to see that. And we'll provide to you, the commission, in the October timeframe, laying out of what that plan is going forward. Again, our motivation being, let's get the rest of these activities behind us in a way that doesn't divert our focus from the tier 1 items. Thank you. I want to provide, for the purposes of public meeting, just a personal individual commission views on one item in tier 3, because I think this will be an example sometimes helps to provide a context. I want to give you an example. So I'm reading from the update on tier 3 activities provided in SECI 150059, dated April 9, 2015. And I'm reading from pages 5 and 6. And the subject of this is basis of emergency planning zone size and pre-staging potassium iodide beyond 10 miles. There's a couple of senses here that I found very interesting and very helpful to me as a commissioner. And I think the staff's updates to the commission have been extremely helpful to all of us. And I thank you for that. But I want to comment specifically on the emergency planning zone potassium iodide aspect. And this is under the bottom of page 5. NRC staff remains confident that the emergency preparedness programs in support of nuclear power plants provide an adequate level of protection of the public health and safety and that appropriate protective actions can and will be taken in the event of a radiological event. This includes evacuations and the use of potassium iodide. Available information studies from the Fukushima accident have not changed the staff's position. Emphasis added. Next page, I'm skipping some of the first paragraph. And I'm not chairing picking here from my standpoint. But I want to take a brevity. On December 25, 2014, the Japanese Investigation Committee on the Fukushima Health Survey released results on external radiation exposure, dose testaments, and thyroid doses. Using survey information from over 531,000 affected people in the Fukushima Prefecture, the dose estimates do not appear to call the EPZ or KI approach of the NRC into question. So I'm reading a selective portion of that, but I think it's representative of the overall theme. We've got really good information from the staff. Use this as one example. I think individual commissioners perspective, we need to bring these issues to closure that we can. There's a lot of stuff out. There's a lot of churn. We could continue research projects for the next 10 or 20 years in some of these areas that will not be helpful to anybody. We need to bring this to closure and focus our efforts on ensuring that these efforts from the regulatory standpoint are properly implemented by industry. So that's just my personal view. Bill, I want to mention I don't have time to go through all of this, but I would just thank you for the recent paper you sent to the commission on the implementation plan for flooding plan and evaluations. I know that's been a very difficult task. It's taken longer than anybody anticipated. But also, in the spirit of commissioners Finneke's earlier comments, we need to get this done right the first time. And so if it's taken us a little bit longer to get it done, so be it. I think there's a success story there, and I want to thank you and the NRO and NRO teams for your efforts in bringing that to what I think is a good place. I know there's a lot of work to be done. Wanted to turn briefly, I'm going to ask Tim and Erica a question. Dave Lockebaum had some thoughtful comments in his presentation, the first panel, about public engagement. As a comment made that I think I'm quoting correctly, stakeholders lacked meaningful input to the requirements. I had a chance to talk to Mr. Lockebaum at the break very briefly. I value highly Dave's input and his thoughtfulness that he brings to these meetings. I want to see if you can get any comment on that first panel comment. I do appreciate the discussion on orders or rules. I understand that. In terms of openness, though, I think is the most open process I've certainly I've ever been involved with. And there's been an extraordinarily large number of meetings, and particularly on the implementation guidance as we've gone through it. It's been, like I said, nothing like I've ever experienced before. Very open, very transparent. A lot of CER aspects built into it all the way. Eric? One thing I'd add is that we took what I believe to be the unprecedented step of engaging the public on what the orders should look like before we issued the orders. So we engaged with the public before that. And I was a little taken aback by Mr. Lockebaum's statement that they had no input into the orders or the guidance because we had a number of comments from Dr. Lyman that did affect what the interim staff guidance for the Mid-Gang strategies order said. So I think that we have tried to strike the right balance of public engagement with the safety significance and the need to get the requirements out there and achieve the safety benefits. I'd encourage you to just have a sidebar discussion, Mr. Lockebaum. I think he has some perspectives there that be helpful. And that's not one of those where somebody's right, somebody's wrong. There's different perspectives that are brought to bear. And so I think that discussion would be helpful going forward. We'll do that, Commissioner. In fact, I was just going to, I think Tim and Eric gave a great answer to a very good question. It's an area that we continue to focus on. I think actually we're probably one of the leaders in government in terms of our openness and our outreach to external stakeholders. We can obviously continue to work on that issue. We'll be particularly interested as we go forward on the proposed rule in whatever form the commission approves it on in. But also we've got some other actions that are coming before you that we were particularly interested in external stakeholder input. So we'll continue to do what we try to do in that area. Thank you. My last question, I'll go to John. I want to follow up a little bit on the same top galerias, Commissioner Svenike on the new reactor piece. And I was a little surprised by seeing this proposed rule. I'm just being candid and fully aware of the advanced reactor policy statement from 2008. Was there consideration given by the staff to propose a review of that, separate and distinct from the mitigation and beyond design basis event rulemaking? Can stress these issues on design of new reactors? So I may have been misinterpreted. You said consideration of the staff to redo the policy statement. Well, just I share, Commissioner Svenike's concern that I was surprised that this came up in this beyond design basis event rulemaking. And so I'm just curious as to what the process was, as staff utilized to determine, OK, we have this advanced policy statement that now the proposal is to take a significant action in the context of a different rule. So fundamentally, I think the staff looks at the rule as accomplishing the same safety function for both new reactors and operating reactors. So the safety standard is the same for both new reactors and operating reactors. The issue comes down to how do you accomplish that function? And what had happened in the issuance of the order and the development of the guidance, it is very operating reactor centric, the development of the guidance. There is nothing unique with regards to that guidance as to why that guidance then has to be applied to new reactors. When the guidance is developed, it reflects limitations that are inherent with operating reactors. You can only make reasonable enhancements to operating reactors because walls exist, rooms exist, systems exist. So it's in that context that coping strategies are developed. For new reactors, you do not have those same limitations. So do you want to use the same approach or is there potentially different approaches you want to use? I think what's important is the phase one response for operating reactors relies upon installed systems. And they are trying to prolong those installed systems as long as possible. So that shows the value in using installed systems and the level of knowledge and day-to-day familiarity that operators have of those systems. So then the question comes for new reactors. Do you want to apply the same approach? Let's take a second time. Let me cut you off on that. But did the team discuss a different approach to approach the commission by looking at a modification to the advanced reactor policy statement? Because it just seems... Yeah, no, we did not approach the commission. That's my real question. I'm sorry, I didn't object at it very clearly. And the answer is no. But John was getting to the answer or actually said the answer. We didn't start with a policy statement. We started with the fact that installed equipment had a lot of trouble at Fukushima. We had a set of installed equipment at operating plants. We asked ourselves then, what do you need so portable equipment, equipment from off-site for operating plants? But it also occurred to us that with designs that are being developed, that why does it make sense to continue to build batteries that have a limited coping ability, if you can do a little bit more to better address this hazard that exists, that was exposed at Fukushima. And so it was very germane in our minds and it was very much focused on the safety issue. And oh, by the way, it's consistent with the policy. That's how we approached it. Okay, thank you both. I appreciate it. Commissioner Barron. Thanks. I wanna join my colleagues by thanking all of you and the rest of the staff for your hard work on this very important draft proposed rule. I actually think it's a testament to the quality of your work that the questions you're getting are largely focused on just a couple of key provisions. And so I'm gonna focus my questions on a couple of key provisions. In the 1990s, as we discussed with the first panel, all operating licensees, operating reactor licensees, voluntarily committed to update, maintain, and train on the SAMGs. And 15 years later, following the accident at Fukushima, NRC inspected those voluntary initiatives. That was before my time on the commission. So my staff and I, we dug into the actual findings. And from my point of view, at least, the results were not reassuring. In region one, inspectors found that SAMG triggers at one site had not been revised since initial issuance in 1998, even though they were directly impacted by license basis changes over the years, such as power upgrades. Inspectors therefore concluded that the SAMGs were not maintained at that site. At another site, this one in region two, eight of the 33 emergency response organization members were not qualified on SAMGs. And two of the four site emergency directors didn't have any SAMG training. In region three, one site had not fully implemented the initial owner's group SAMGs from the 1990s or any of the subsequent revisions. Inspectors also found that no exercise or drill had been conducted at the site since 1998. And ongoing training on SAMGs did not exist at that site. So, Mike or Bill, based on this history, if NRC doesn't require SAMGs, can we be confident that they will be maintained and effective at every plant in this country in the event that they're needed? So my simple answer would be no, but with a caveat. It really, in my mind, as somebody that has some foundation and inspection activities, that if it isn't something the NRC is going to look at, the likelihood that it's gonna lose focus, right? And that was an issue that was actually raised to the commission when we had the dialogue on recommendation one. There was a big part in there about voluntary initiatives and what should the treatment of voluntary initiatives be. So absent, I think, an appropriate regulatory front framework that allows us to continue to focus on a particular area that we feel is important. I think it makes it difficult to provide absolute assurance that they're gonna be maintained. What do you think, Mike? And I just, I'm gonna say some things that have already been said, but I just can't stop myself since you asked the question. I think Bill's right, and it's not, we've heard a very balanced discussion, I think, about SAMGs and the context of will they be maintained. I think the industry has done good work. Even as we all learned about SAMGs, incidentally, TEPCO had SAMGs on the day of March 11 when the accident happened. Turns out there were problems with those SAMGs and the staff couldn't implement those SAMGs given the conditions they had, but they had SAMGs and to the extent they could use those, it benefited them. We all learned the importance of SAMGs and we've made changes to improve their importance or improve their usefulness as we go forward. It's because we see they're important and it's because we recognize what can happen if you have an accident and you don't have the ability to deal with, make decisions about what should happen in the plant post of their accident. It's because of that that we want a fair amount of assurance that plants will have them, they'll be trained on them, that they'll be maintained. That's the discussion that we're having. Nobody disagrees. All the lesson learns report talk about the importance of SAMGs and the importance of their training so on and so forth. If a veneracy doesn't require SAMGs and a plant chooses not to implement them or not to keep them up to date, what recourse would the agency have? I partially addressed this I think in an earlier remark relative to, for example, if it's a committed to initiative, it's like the groundwater initiative that Mr. Petrangelo talked about earlier where you have a vote by the membership and 80% say yay, verily, this will be a requirement we're gonna impose upon ourselves. And a licensee provides us something that commits to that on the docket. We could certainly have a finding in the reactor oversight process that would say they fail, but to compel them to do something is what Mike was saying earlier. We would have to, the burden would be on us then to develop some back fit analysis, site specific back fit that would compel them to have to impose whatever the requirements were. So as a practical matter, we wouldn't be able to enforce in the absence of a regulatory requirement we can't enforce. I know ACRS recommended that SAMGs be implemented as a voluntary initiative. How would that differ, that proposed approach differ from the current voluntary commitments that licensees have made on SAMGs? Would it? Is there any difference between what the ACRS is imagining and the status quo? So, Tim, you guys will really need to help me with this but I'll start it off. I think what the ACRS had in mind was each licensee writing in on the DACA, the commitment to the standard, in this case, NEI 1401 as it relates to SAMGs. I think that's what they had in mind. And then the rest of the approach from their perspective would be, again, that we would have some eyes on it through the oversight process. So we don't have a plant specific commitment today on SAMGs and we don't have oversight. We did at TI 184, but so those are sort of the differences, I guess. Do you want to add something? I think, and that was obviously the ACRS meeting there, that the proposal from ministry was really going down the path of making it, matching up the voluntary initiative with our proposal and making it basically the same thing. And I think that's what the ACRS was thinking. If it becomes basically the same elements of our proposed rule, then isn't that achieving the same regulatory end state? So I think that's important to have that context. Michaelville, or if somebody else wants to chime in. I mean, this is a little bit of a continuation of a question I asked from the first panel, but given that we know that the voluntary approach didn't result in fully updated and maintained SAMGs, how could we require flex equipment as a matter of adequate protection and then not require the guidelines necessary to ensure the effective use of that equipment in certain severe accidents? Why would that make sense? Well, I think on one level, I mean, I heard Mr. Petrangelo's response where he said, well, the flex equipment is intended to prevent core damage, SAMGs or procedures that would come into play or guidelines that would come into play after core damage occur, but that being said, you would still be relying upon, I would assume, in a core damage situation of flex equipment, and there would be aspects of the SAMGs guidelines that would be directed towards the flex equipment. Personally, I draw more of a parallelism to the fact that we've required in 5054 HH2, the extensive damage mitigation guidelines that's required by the rule to have those for a large fire explosion on the site. I see a lot of parallelism there in terms of we've required them to have procedures, the EDMGs, the guidelines for that rare and unusual beyond design basis event. So I see a lot of parallelism here in terms of, for other things that could cause beyond design basis events, wouldn't we want to have a requirement for the procedures that would dictate how a licensee would pursue recovery in response? And may I also just, the other item that I think guided us a little bit or at least provided a context for us, and it is true that when the commission decided to issue the mitigating strategies order, it was an ethical protection. So of course, those flex strategies have to be a part of that requirement. But we were thinking also, when we moved to hardened containment events for mark one and mark two contaminants and then making them severe accident capable, then the commission decided that to add on to this ethical protection requirement for hardened containment events to make them severe accident capable, a requirement that they'd be capable of performing their function post severe accident. So in our minds, the commission has already had already taken the step. There are already strategies, there are actions going on on a schedule to make those events be capable in a severe accident environment for mark ones and mark two in a limited narrow scope. I think I can say that the commission's already requiring for them, Sam Gs, if you will, a severe accident guidelines or procedures to be able to make sure that they can operate. So we were, in our minds, we weren't leaping forward, leaping to a different space with respect to requiring severe accident management guidelines. It was very consistent with where we've been marching, if you will, given what, again, the accident, the learnings about that accident told us about what needs to happen to ensure safety, add defense and debt, those kinds of things. I'm over on time, but I'm gonna ask just a couple of follow-up questions to close us out. During last month's commission meeting with the ACRS, I asked about the site-specific benefits of Sam Gs and the limited quantitative analysis in this area. And Chairman Stuttgart indicated that Sam Gs may very well be a case where the staff doesn't currently have the tools to do a full quantitative analysis. Do you agree with that? Do you lack the tools you would need to do a full? I certainly agree with that. In fact, I tried to bring it up during my presentation about, as a practical matter, what it would have taken for us to develop that. So, yes, I certainly agree with that. I'm holding right here the SRM on qualitative factors. And it says, use qualitative factors when quantitative analyses are not possible or practical due to lack of a methodology or data. And I think I can quote you, Tim. I think you said, as a practical matter, you simply couldn't do it. Is that right? Quantitative analysis. I think I probably did say that. I agree. I wrote it down. You're talking so fast. So this would appear to be a situation where the use of qualitative factors is warranted. Just briefly, because I know I'm over, when you all looked at qualitative factors, did you, I understand, you mentioned that when you look at it quantitatively, you think there's a small safety benefit. If you were able to do all the quantitative analysis you'd like to be able to do, that's what you think the outcome would be. As I read the proposed rule in the regulatory analysis, you found that when you applied qualitative factors as well, that there was a substantial safety benefit. Is that right? Yes. Requiring SAMDs would produce a substantial safety benefit. Yes. And we heard on the first panel that though it would require this, would yield a substantial safety benefit, it would yield essentially no burden to industry. Is that right? That's what we heard from NEI. That because of what they're doing, there's no burden. Yes, so just, yes, commissioner. I don't disagree with anything you said. As we step through, Fred Schofer in the room, step through with this team, step through every aspect, each of the attributes, some of which are quantitative and we quantitate it, we quantify them to the extent that we could, some of which are incidentally qualitative, but we step through every one of those attributes, including the attribute of other considerations, looking at the area of defense and debt, which could not be quantified. And it was a sum collection of all of those things that we offer up for the decision maker. And that's all we did. We did that, we, based on the insights of that, we offer all of that up and we'll go where the commission takes us with respect to that. But I think the way in which we approached it, including the use of qualitative factors, is consistent with the direction provided by the commission to the staff in the SRM. And so you've done some real work to justify, including this in a proposed rule to get public comment on this. Okay, well I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I went a little bit over there and I'm done. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Semenike. Just quickly, in listening to the engagement between Commissioner Austin Dorf and John and Mike on the forward fit new reactor provision, I just want to make the following observation. When Mike said, you know, the staff framed it to say, why does it make sense not to require more of a reactor that where walls aren't poured and rooms don't exist yet? I don't frame the question that way. I frame it as a first principle. What do my authorities allow me to compel or require based on the kind of analysis that I'm required to do? So it's a little bit different framing. And then I would put forward to you that there is a difference between a policy statement that encourages the simplified systems to reduce required operator actions and a regulatory requirement that requires the minimization of those actions. And I think there are steps in getting from one to the other that we skipped in this case. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Behr. Maybe press it like that. Okay, all right. Well again, thank you for the presentations from all our first panel and the staff panel today. The proposed rule will take under advisement. I know the commission is already thinking hard on it in terms of some of its content. It represents again a significant effort from our evaluation in thinking of the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. And it's important we continue through and as we do it, continue the dialogue with various stakeholders who have an interest in this rule as we go forward. And again, appreciate the informative presentations and with that we stand adjourned.