provisions that prevent the Commission from delegating emergency management to one of its members, although delegations can be made to staff.

When a serious emergency arises, a politically accountable official should be designated to act as needed. Under the present system, several Commission members may try to deal with fast-breaking events requiring urgent decisions not susceptible to group deliberations.

Consequently, the plan makes the Chairman responsible for dealing with incidents at a facility or concerning materials licensed or regulated by the Commission. Such management functions include declaring an emergency, issuing orders, and advising the civil authorities and the public. The Chairman may delegate his emergency authority to any of the other Commissioners to provide for contingencies such as dual emergencies or the Chairman's temporary absence from the agency.

Of course, the delegations may continue to be made to staff. The Chairman is best suited to respond to an emergency because he best knows the organization capabilities of key staff.

Finally, the Chairman's authority in responding to an emergency is subject to prior Commission policy guidance and subsequent oversight. Advance planning for dealing with emergencies is developed within the Commission policy guidelines.

Upon termination of the emergency, the Chairman or other member delegated response authority shall render a report to the Commission on actions taken. If the Commission is not assured that the response was properly handled, it can initiate its own investigation.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, the greatest resource available to the NRC is its expert staff. This resource is being poorly served and poorly utilized under the unfocused management that has characterized the NRC. It needs to be supported by top management while subject to managerial discipline through clear lines of authority. It needs coherent policy direction which can only be provided by the Commission doing its job.

Through establishing the proper roles of the Commission, the Chairman, the Executive Director for Operations, and the staff, and having each concentrate on what each does best, nuclear safety will be advanced.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared testimony. We would be glad to take your questions.

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you very much.

What in this plan will insure more effective operations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?

Mr. WELLFORD. First, that we have established a more disciplined management system to see that the day-to-day administration of the agency is carried forward in an accountable and responsible manner. The Chairman is made chief executive officer in fact as well as name. Second, we have clarified the respective roles of the key elements of the Commission. The Commissioners are charged to devote themselves to policymaking, to adjudication, to rulemaking, which is what Congress originally intended that they do. The Chairman is responsible for supervising the staff. The EDO is given a clear line authority as the Chairman's delegate to help oversee day-to-day administration.

Finally, the reporting relationships are made clear. The emphasis on teamwork, on having the chief line officers of the agency report through the EDO to the Chairman and then to the Commission, is important. The fragmentation of present management has been described by all the studies of the NRC, and this system helps to clarify those relationships and provide a more efficient, direct management structure.

Mr. BROOKS. What authority will the Executive Director for Operations have over the various offices within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: the Office of Nuclear Safeguards, and the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, et cetera ?

Mr. WELLFORD. First, he has authority that derives from reporting relationships. These offices now are directed by law to report to the EDO and not directly to individual Commissioners.

Second, he has the additional status as the mandated delegate of the Chairman in the day-to-day administration of the agency.

Third, we have given him the authority to select certain key staff officers without further action by the Commission.

These are all changes in the law, or in the current practice of the NRC, and I think they are going to give the EDO a much clearer role. Mr. BROOKS. Will the Executive Director for Operations have responsibility for hiring any of his line officers? How will this responsibility be shared, if at all, with the Chairman ?

Mr. WELLFORD. He does have a very clear authority in selecting the staff officers. With respect to the program officers, the plan proposes that the Chairman, in initiating selection of these officials, consult the EDO. And then, of course, the Commission has final approval. Mr. BROOKS. In other words, the Chairman and the Commission will have to approve any of these appointments?

Mr. WELLFORD. That is correct.

Mr. BROOKS. He might well initiate some.

Mr. WELLFORD. That is correct.

I suspect that in the day-to-day affairs the Chairman will turn to the EDO to help with the recruitment, coming up with names for vacancies, and so forth.

Mr. BROOKS. How does the plan improve the ability of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to better meet its mission of insuring safety in the commercial nuclear power industry?

Mr. WELLFORD. The plan does this in a number of ways. The first and most important way is that we are preventing important safety issues from falling between the cracks by making clear who is responsible for particular areas of policy and management.

Second, we are clarifying reporting relationships so that internal accountability is understood.

Third, and probably most importantly in response to this question, the emergency management responsibility of the agency is no longer going to be turned over to a committee to run; it is going to be the responsibility of the Chairman.

Mr. BROOKS. All right. I want to thank you very much. I appreciate your bringing Mr. Dinsmore and Ms. Connor down. I appreciate your cooperation.

Mr. WELLFORD. Thank you.

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Horton?

Mr. HORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Harrison, it is good to have you back before the committee again. I have just a few quick questions I would like to ask you.

Why was the recommendation for a single administrator turned down by the President?

Mr. WELLFORD. The basic reason was the conclusion that nuclear safety is an area of such extraordinary controversiality in this country that a Commission framework which provides for diversity of opinion, provides for a number of safeguards against precipitous and unwise action, was necessary to reassure the public that nuclear safety was going to be managed with the proper care and deliberation.

That has been a conclusion reached by the Congress when the NRC was set up and we found that, all things considered, it was better to try to improve executive management within a collegial system than go through the trauma of trying to convert an independent regulatory commission into a single executive agency.

Mr. HORTON. One of the criticisms of the plan is that the Chairman will become too strong and he will have increased control over administration, staff, and flow of information. Is this a backdoor attempt to get a single administrator?

Mr. WELLFORD. No; we are trying to have the best of both worlds. We are trying to preserve a proper collegial role for the Commissioners as a whole. They will continue to be the authority for rulemaking and adjudication and setting ultimate nuclear safety policy. But you must remember, the NRC has a number of other functions that are not quasi-judicial or quasi-legislative. It does operate in emergencies; it has a number of line functions that are much more analogous to those of an executive branch agency. Therefore we feel that in addition to having to a collegial decisionmaking process for policy, we need to have a stronger management system that is accountable to see that safety policy is carried out, that good staff are selected, and that reporting relationships are crisp and efficient.

Mr. HORTON. The NRC has had a long tradition of so-called open door policies where staffers can go to any Commissioner on important matters, particularly with regard to nuclear safety. Do you think that this new proposal is going to inhibit that in any way? Perhaps because the Chairman has more control over the staff, will the staff feel reluctant to go to some other Commissioner, do you think?

Mr. WELLFORD. Mr. Horton, I really do not think that this plan does anything to inhibit the open door policy. We specifically state that we expect that policy to continue. And. indeed by making the Chairman and the EDO specifically responsible for keeping the Commission members fully and currently informed, I think we may even have enhanced it.

Mr. HORTON. Will there be any staff increases or reductions resulting from the plan? The Chairman might very well want to have additional staffers. Has any thought been given to that?

Mr. WELLFORD. We do not anticipate that there will be any significant staffing changes as a result of this plan. There may be a very modest change, perhaps, in the immediate office of the Chairman. But that is not an area that we see as a major problem. It is not the number

of staffers; it is the authority of the people who are in those offices now and the lack of clarity about who does what.

Mr. HORTON. How about talking about efficiencies and economies for just a minute. Are there any economies or efficiencies in this proposalas a result of the proposal?

Mr. WELLFORD. Not that you can easily quantify, Mr. Horton.

If we have a more efficient system, if there is less unnecessary delay because people are performing their roles more coherently, then obviously the regulated industry and the public may gain in a financial sense, but it is very difficult to quantify that.

Mr. HORTON. It is hard sometimes to distinguish between policy and administration-what might be an administrative problem to one person might be a policy question to someone else. Who is going to decide on that type of question? Would that be the full Commission or just the Chairman?

Mr. WELLFORD. We expect that the question of whether an issue is one of policy or administration will not come up very often. If it does, and the Commission majority, acting as a majority, decides that an administrative issue does have some important policy principle involved, then they can act to bring that before the Commission. Mr. HORTON. I have one other question.

With regard to merit raise increases, would that be something to be determined by the full Commission, or would that be determined by the Chairman or the Executive Director for Operations?

Mr. WELLFORD. Depending on the office involved, it would be determined by the heads of those offices, by the EDO, and in some cases with consultation by the Chairman. It is not a situation where you would want to encourage the Commission as a whole to get deeply involved in that kind of personnel issue.

But again, there might be an extraordinary circumstance where there was some policy issue hidden within a personnel issue, and if the Commission as a whole, by majority vote, decides to get involved in it, the plan provides for that. But I would not think that would happen.

Mr. HORTON. In other words, the Chairman would and probably should consult with the Commission when he gets into some difficult question of employment policy?

Mr. WELLFORD. In a rare case, yes.

Mr. HORTON. Thank you very much.

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you very much; we appreciate your testimony. Mr. WELLFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROOKS. Our next witness is Chairman John F. Ahearne who was sworn in as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on July 31, 1978, to serve a 5-year term. He was named Chairman of the Commission by President Carter on December 7, 1979.

Before joining the Commission, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Resource Applications in the Department of Energy and held various positions in the Department of Defense and the White House. Prior to entering Government service, he was a professor of physics. He is accompanied by Victor Gilinsky, Peter A. Bradford, and Joseph M. Hendrie, Commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

We are delighted to have you all, gentlemen.

STATEMENT OF JOHN F. AHEARNE, CHAIRMAN, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION; ACCOMPANIED BY VICTOR GILINSKY, PETER A. BRADFORD, AND JOSEPH M. HENDRIE, COMMISSIONERS

Mr. AHEARNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROOKS. I understand your written statements address the original plan, and without objection, we will include these statements in the record.

Chairman Ahearne, you have some prepared comments on the amended version as it was transmitted to the Congress yesterday with which I think you and the Commission are now fairly familiar. Mr. AHEARNE. Yes, Mr. Brooks.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Commission appreciates the opportunity to state its views on Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1980, as amended by the President.

As you mentioned, the prepared statements which were earlier provided to the committee represent the views of the Commission and the individual Commissioners on the unamended plan.

We have had an opportunity only to give a very quick review of the amendments to the plan submitted to the Congress just yesterday. On the basis of that cursory examination, the majority of the Commission, that is, Commissioners Gilinsky, Kennedy, and Bradford, believes that the amendment moves well down the road in addressing and at least in some measure alleviating the concerns which the majority addressed in its testimony on the original plan.

The Commission would like the opportunity, however, to review the effects of the amendments more carefully before commenting in any great detail or reaching any final conclusion on them. Accordingly, the Commission requests the opportunity to submit to the committee additional views after completing a thorough analysis.

Mr. BROOKS. Without objection, they will be included in the record at this point.

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