 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Regulatory Information Conference began in 1989 as a small conference on nuclear safety regulation. Today is a large public meeting with more than 3,000 attendees from some two dozen nations. The conference, which is coordinated by the offices of Nuclear Regulatory Research and Nuclear Reactor Regulation, touches on all aspects of nuclear regulation. It is the one annual public event where regulators, industry officials, and concerned citizens come together for a collective dialogue on nuclear reactor and material safety. Hi, I'm Tom Wellock, the historian for the NRC. In this video, NRC staff and former employees recall how the RIC began and why it is important to the NRC's regulatory mission. I believe it was 1988, and Tom Murley was the director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. In the mid-1980s, many of the post-3-mile island regulatory fixes were being imposed, and it was a immense burden on the industry. It seemed to us sitting there talking to Tom that there was a place for addressing broader issues and bigger issues, not only at some technical level, but also from the perspective of what are the plans, what are the processes, how is this agency moving forward? Keep in mind that the relationship between the NRC regulator and the industry is inherently adversarial. So this was thought to be a means for communications in a non-adversarial, non-confrontational setting. In the beginning, the conference agenda was developed to address the major issues of reactor plant safety, such as safety culture, the use of operating experience and regulation, plant inspections, enforcement, and human factors. Conference presentations were given only by NRC staff, and their presentations focused almost exclusively on reactor regulation. Just 500 participants came to the first RIC, mostly from industry. Nevertheless, the first RIC was an immediate hit with participants. I think they appreciated hearing from the staff, people that were making the day-to-day decisions, what the rationale was, and what options were available to meet safety improvements. Encouraged by the response, the NRC set about improving the RIC so that they spent less time talking and more time listening. In 1990, industry representatives were invited to participate in discussion panels, which is still a key feature of the conference today. RIC participants were keenly interested in policy issues, as well as regulatory matters. As a result, the NRC chairman and commissioners were more prominently featured in plenary sessions. Industry critics also joined some panels. Last year we had a session on spent fuel storage. We had a member from the Union of Concerned Scientists who raised a number of technical issues. And the perspective that he brought, I think, helped clarify in the staff's mind different issues that they needed to make sure that we can explain what we're doing to ensure that those issues are not safety issues. New issues, especially in a post-911 environment, have brought the spotlight on additional perspectives, including state and local officials who are part of emergency preparedness and incident response for the plants in their communities. Following 9-11, the next major crisis was Hurricane Katrina. Most of the public probably is not aware, but Hurricane Katrina impacted three nuclear power plants. And because of the work that we had done based on 9-11 and the outreach, we were prepared. The outreach better prepared for Hurricane Katrina. We brought everybody to the regulatory information conference, and we had sessions where we had people from St. Charles Parish, local responders, came and gave presentations. In the last 10 years, international interest and presence at the conference has also increased. When I first became director of international programs and I started to travel more extensively, it struck me how impressed the international community was by the RIC and how effective they found their visits. Many foreign countries in the new reactor area had never stopped. They actually had better interest and information for developing new reactor construction programs, more implementation of advanced designs than the U.S. had since we had not really been building plants for several years. And so what that facilitated was us learning from the international community. In my interactions with the international community, they've expressed to me that there are really three aspects that are of significant benefit to them. The way that we communicate with our licensees, our responsibility for export import licensing and how we carry that out, and how we cooperate with other countries. I don't know of any other country that has such dialogue amongst all the stakeholders like we have here in the U.S. A few years ago, they had seen such a benefit to our RIC that they wanted to develop one in Europe. While the conference began as a way for the agency to speak to its constituents, it has also improved communication within the NRC, particularly between the headquarters and its regional offices. There was a wide gulf between the headquarters offices and the regional staff. They just ignored each other pretty much. That had to change. And so I deliberately invited the regional administrators and made them an integral part of these conferences from the very beginning. And I think it worked. Well, during the time that I was a regional administrator, we were really implementing the reactor oversight process. And that was a major revision to the way we regulated licensees, particularly in our inspection areas. It really served a good dialogue to make sure we implemented it consistently. NRC's safety research benefited from the greater visibility offered by the RIC. I think it really enhanced our ability to get our message out to the nuclear community. A lot of people may ask, why does NRC have an office of research in the first place? And I think this gave us an opportunity to show how the research was integrated into the regulatory structure of the agency, how it contributed and how we work hand in hand with the regulators to provide them with the information they need to make their regulatory decisions. As the conference expanded in scope, the audience grew as well. By 2004, it had nearly tripled in size with almost 1,400 participants. New venue, new communication tools, and the use of advanced technology make the RIC more accessible to public participation. One of the things that we did was we moved the conference. It facilitated additional breakout sessions. It facilitated a greater plenary sessions. And when we merged with research, I think one of the things that they did that we hadn't been doing was what they call the poster board sessions or having the panels during breaks where licensees, members of the public could in fact come and look at key topics. So it really became a very large scale information exchange. We wanted to become more and more accessible to the public. Now, of course, the RIC is open to the public. It's free. All we ask is that folks register. But to make it even more accessible, we've done a number of things using technology where we're doing web streaming. People can watch our plenary sessions live. They can watch the commissioners speak. We do a number of different sessions where you can watch it on live or you can go to our website and we have those sessions archived so the public can see it after the fact. The RIC was an outgrowth of the NRC's desire in the 1980s to improve communication on regulatory activities. Even as the conference has grown in range and size, its purpose has not changed. Now looking back after 25 years, I think from my point of view, it's been a great success. It's done what we set out to do, which is to have a dialogue. If you're looking at broad operating issues, RIC is the place. I think bringing all these people together, diverse folks with a different perspective on the issues, getting to hear what does the industry think about the issue? The interested members of the public think, what are the international regulators doing about the issue? I think hearing all those perspectives helps the staff focus better on the safety issue at hand. It helps us get to a better answer. I think that's what makes the RIC so valuable.