Nuclear Regulation, Openness and Transparency:

Answers to Some Questions

I have already reported on my visit to Japan a couple of months ago and the presentation I gave to some Japanese executives.  In that talk, I focused on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as an example of an agency that behaves in an open and independent manner.  I got a couple of interesting questions on NRC's openness and independence at the conclusion of my talk.  I tried to answer them at that meeting, but I have been wanting to expand upon my answers and share them with a wider audience.

The basic question was, "How can NRC say it is independent and open when individuals in the NRC meet privately with people in industry?"

In thinking about the question and the reason behind it, I feel that sometimes, people interpret the word independence too literally.  Especially as Japan implements the changes to the way its regulatory system works, it is important to keep several things in mind.

In fact, NRC addressed this very concern when its Principles of Good Regulation were written.  They explicitly state that "independence does not imply isolation."  Therefore, independence should not be viewed as requiring regulators to cut off all contact with the rest of the world.  Rather, it should be viewed as a process that allows regulators to have access to all information and all points of view and assures that decisions take all relevant information into account and treat it appropriately.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has a tutorial on the regulatory control of nuclear power plants on its website that gives a great explanation of regulatory independence at the NRC.  They outline 8 elements that facilitate regulatory independence (I have provided somewhat abbreviated versions of most of their descriptions of these elements):

Separation of functions:  NRC has no responsibility for promoting or developing nuclear energy, and is completely separate from government bodies having such mandates.

Political influence:  No more than three of the five NRC Commissioners can come from a single political party, and Commissioners may also only be removed for "cause."  Acceptable causes for removal are limited to inappropriate behavior, and not based on a Commissioner's viewpoints. 

Conflicts of interest:  Neither the NRC Commissioners or staff can have any financial or personal interest in organizations that may be subject to their regulatory decisions.   I would also add that neither Commissioners or the NRC staff can accept gifts, meals, or other favors from anyone subject to their regulatory decisions.

Openness:  NRC’s decision-making process is conducted in public.  The Government in the Sunshine Act requires advance public notice of meetings, with a right of attendance by interested parties. The Freedom of Information Act requires broad public access to any materials used in the decision-making process.

Reporting:  NRC provides extensive information related to all aspects of its activities and decisions to the public, media, other governmental bodies, without the need for review or clearance from any other government agency.

Budget and finance:  Almost all of NRC's budget is covered by fees paid by licensees, as authorized in an annual appropriations act by the Congress. The IAEA asserts that this "full cost recovery" approach is believed to provide at least some insulation from political pressures that could result from having its resources derived entirely from tax revenues.  (As an aside, I want to point out that the cost recovery provision was not instituted for this reason, and I think the pros and cons of this provision could be debated--but that is not the subject of this discussion.)

Technical capabilities:  NRC has a large staff with a high degree of technical competence that  covers cover a wide range of technical areas.  This gives them adequate scientific, engineering, management, financial and legal expertise to regulate a complex technology like nuclear power, and assures that they can assess information provided by licensees independently and competently.

Oversight mechanisms:  NRC is subject to several layers of review and oversight. These include the Office of Inspector General (an independent, internal body), Congressional oversight, and reviews of NRC decisions by the courts. 

The IAEA discussion notes that these measures, taken together, are designed to help assure that safety decisions are not influenced by political, economic or social considerations.  Having such assurance   helps maintain public confidence in the safety of nuclear energy, which is critical to the continued use of nuclear power in democratic societies.

Tellingly, the IAEA list is preceded by a discussion saying that it is somewhat difficult to "define" regulatory independence, and followed by a discussion that acknowledges that the system is not perfect.  I think these comments reflect the dilemma I felt when tried to address the question in a public forum.

There is always a balance.  I have to admit that, on the surface, someone who sits alone in an ivory tower and doesn't talk to anyone else clearly cannot be influenced by anyone else.  That is easy to see.  Once someone meets with other people, it is much harder to be sure that they are not unduly or inappropriately influenced by others. However, if they do not meet with other people, they will not have all the facts to allow them to make good decisions about complex and difficult issues.  The two needs, independence and access to information, must both be satisfied. 

In the end, independence without isolation is achieved by a variety of checks and balances designed to help assure that NRC staff and Commissioners can obtain all the information they need, but that their decisions remain independent and technically sound. 

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External Hazards at Nuclear Power Plants:

A New Study

I recently learned of a report from the European Commission on external-hazard related events at nuclear power plants.  I will caution that, to date, I have read only the summary of the report, so my observations are based on what is in the summary.  

In light of Fukushima, everyone has been sensitized to the fact that an external event has the potential to trigger a serious accident at a nuclear power plant.  For the Fukushima event, the external events were an earthquake and a tsunami.  However, those who follow event reports at nuclear power plants also know that there are a variety of other ways that the external environment can impact nuclear power plant operations, including severe weather events, floods, and the clogging of intake pipes.  For that reason, a report such as this can help provide some perspective on the kinds of accidents possible.
 
This report provides some useful pie charts showing the percentages of different kinds of accidents in the data base of the IAEA-OECD/NEA Incident Reporting System (IRS), as well as pie charts for the same types of events for French reactors and for German reactors.

It is interesting to note that the percentages of some of the types of accidents differ significantly.  The reasons for this are not completely clear.  It may be due in part to differences in environment in individual countries that might, for example, make the nuclear plants of one country more or less vulnerable to clogging of intake pipes.

I should note that the report says that it does not address earthquake hazards, as they have already been addressed in other reports.  I also note that the report doesn't separate different types of events within a class of events.  For example, they say they have taken tsunamis into consideration, but there is not a separate category for tsunamis.  Rather, they are considered a type of flooding event.  While this may be reasonable in terms of the similarity of most of the consequences, given the post-Fukushima concerns about tsunamis, it might have been useful to see a more explicit breakout of such events within the flooding category.

A key conclusion of the report is that, for the IRS database, the main external phenomenon affecting nuclear plant operation is extreme weather conditions. The next most frequent phenomena affecting nuclear power plants are water intake fouling (mostly of biological origin) and lightning.  (The most frequent events were different for France.)  The external hazards, in general, had no severe actual impacts on nuclear safety based on the events reported to the IRS database.

The authors also observed that, where events had previously occurred, corrective actions had often been taken, and those corrective actions noticeably reduced the effects of a recurrence of the event.  This reinforces the importance of studying events, such as they have done, and of making sure the lessons learned have been assimilated.  Such studies can also help assure that the money and effort spent on corrective actions go toward changes that will reduce the recurrence of events with the greatest potential consequences.

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IAEA and NEA:

Are Both Needed?

Shortly after I published my post on Russia announcing its intent to join the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, I received the following message from a friend who follows my blog:

Gail,

Your argument for the positive aspects of the NEA is persuasive. However, you have not addressed the separate issue as to why is is necessary to have both organizations, the NEA and the IAEA. The NEA seems too closely allied with OECD, which, despite the membership of South Korea, is still seen as a European-only organization with all the "old (read irrelevant) Europe" baggage associated therewith.

-[name removed]

P.S.: Even though I am an non-Nuc, I still love your stuff.

Since he has chosen not to post his comment directly to my blog, I have respected his apparent wish for anonymity and removed his name, but left the rest of the comment intact.

First, I want to assure him that his comments are always welcome, either privately or to the blog. I am delighted to have readers with a variety of perspectives--including readers who are outside the nuclear field, and readers who are from outside the US. The real purpose of a blog is to try to share perspectives with a variety of people, and I'm pleased that he is a regular reader.

Second, I want him to know that he asked an excellent question. It is a question that has been debated from time to time in capitals of several of the member countries, the United States among them. And I am sure it is an issue that will continue to be debated. The question is a very perceptive one. He should not feel that he is a second-class citizen in this venue simply because he works in a different field.

There is, indeed, overlap between the two agencies. My friend is far from the first to wonder if the functions couldn't be consolidated into one organization. Naturally, whenever that question has been raised, the assumption has always been that any consolidation would absorb the activities of the NEA into the IAEA, which is much larger and has a much broader mission. After all, all members of the NEA are already members of the IAEA.

So far, every time the issue has been considered by the government of one of the NEA members, the outcome has been to decide to continue funding that country's membership in the NEA. There are several reasons for this:

• The IAEA was founded as an organization to help assure the peaceful use of nuclear energy by helping support countries in their efforts to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Therefore, a large portion of the IAEA's resources is spent on efforts aimed at emerging countries. This is important, but it tends to create a different focus than exists in the NEA, where the emphasis is more on mutual support among equals to assure the safe use of nuclear energy.

• Because of the different focus, the work of the NEA is not as affected by political posturing as is the work of the IAEA. (I hasten to add that this is not to say that the NEA membership is in agreement on everything. In particular, several countries within the NEA are against nuclear power. However, this is a very targeted difference of opinion. Fundamentally, the countries of NEA are not seeking to wipe each other off the face of the earth, as is the case for some of the IAEA countries.)

• Because of the much smaller membership of the NEA, it is easier to come to consensus, and therefore, projects can often move forward faster.

Obviously, having two organizations involved in the same area of effort is not an ideal situation. It creates a strong risk of duplication, and pressure within each organization to grab any new "turf." There have, over time, been cases where the co-operation between the organizations has been less than perfect. They never get too far out of line, however, because the government accountants in each country have sharp pencils (excuse the slightly old-fashioned image here) and are eager to ferret out any duplication and use it as justification for wielding the budget axe. One of my on-going jobs when I was at NEA, in fact, was to negotiate with IAEA over areas where there was common interest in order to carve out logical and non-duplicative niches for both agencies.

As to the Euro-centric focus, you've hit another nail on the head there. That is an issue with which the OECD is currently struggling. However, I must note that the OECD is not completely Euro-centric. Non-European members include Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand (a member of OECD, but not of NEA), Canada, Mexico, the United States, and in the last year or so, Chile and Israel (both have joined the OECD, but not NEA, at least as of now). There are also several former Iron Curtain countries in the membership. It is true that the expansion from 30 to 34 countries was was a painful compromise for OECD, with Estonia and Slovenia added to assure that the addition of countries outside Europe did not appreciably dilute the European influence. So it is true that the European influence within OECD, while not absolute, is carefully being maintained at about current levels.

What is more important than geography, for both the OECD and the NEA, is the significance of non-OECD countries in the spheres within which each organization operates. (Note: NEA is part of the OECD, but we can discuss it separately because it is funded separately by the member countries and operates as a "semi-autonomous" agency.) Until recently, the OECD nations held most of the world's wealth, and were responsible for most of the world's commerce. Until recently, the NEA nations operated most of the world's nuclear power plants. Therefore, the perspective of the OECD and NEA memberships in their respective areas were indeed the perspectives of the dominant countries. Today, the OECD and NEA predominance in both of these areas is diminishing rapidly. That is why it is so important for these two organizations to find a way to include some of the most important "emerging nations" in their deliberations.

Membership is always the most difficult hurdle, especially for the OECD, which considers its members to be "market-oriented democracies" and wishes to limit new members to the relatively small circle of countries that could make such a claim. While that characterization could be debated for some OECD countries, both in the past and even today, a further valid point is that both organizations benefit by remaining relatively small. Therefore, instead of increasing membership, both organizations have long-standing practices of including selected non-member countries in activities of their committees, in meetings, and in other activities as an alternative means of accommodating other important viewpoints.

In addition to the kind of past involvement by Russia and other countries that I mentioned in my previous post, NEA serves as the Secretariat for several dozen research projects. Many of these include non-NEA member countries as participants and have done so for years.

So, as a somewhat long answer to your question, I would say that most people who have worked with the two organizations have come to see the different values each brings to the table. Is having two organizations a perfect system? No, of course not. It requires on-going attention by the management of both organizations. Would something be lost if the two organizations merged? Yes, most close observers think so, but it is an important question, and one that I am sure will continue to be debated.

[For anyone interested in the history of the NEA, I prepared a document, available as a review draft, covering the first 50 years of the agency as background for the celebration of that event several years ago.]

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