POLICY ISSUE 

INFORMATION 

January 25, 2008 SECY-08-0011

FOR: The Commissioners 

THRU: E. Roy Hawkens 

 Chief Administrative Judge 

FROM: Daniel J. Graser 

Licensing Support Network Administrator 

SUBJECT: LICENSING SUPPORT NETWORK PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION - 

SEMIANNUAL REPORT 

PURPOSE: 

This is to inform the Commission, in accordance with 10 C.F.R. § 2.1011(c)(5), of the status of 

the Licensing Support Network (LSN) and the activities of the LSN Administrator (LSNA) for the 

six-month period ending December 31, 2007. 

BACKGROUND: 

The Commission’s Staff Requirements Memorandum (SRM) dated January 31, 1992 directed 

the submission of a semiannual report on the activities of the LSNA (formerly the Licensing 

Support System (LSS) Administrator). The scope of this semiannual report includes LSN 

program activities from July 1, 2007 through December 31, 2007. 

 

DISCUSSION: 

I. Activities 

A. Licensing Support Network Administrator (LSNA) and Staff

Ms. Patricia Hall was hired as LSN Quality Assurance Auditor to replace Mr. Roy Hardin, who 

accepted a lateral transfer to the Office of New Reactors, Division of New Reactor Licensing 

(NRO/DNRL). 

CONTACT: Daniel J. Graser, LSNA/ASLBP 

 301-415-7401 
The Commissioners - 7 - 

B. Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)-Related Activities

Dr. Andrew Bates of the Office of the Secretary (SECY) continues to serve as the LSN Advisory 

Review Panel (LSNARP) Chair. 

C. LSN Advisory Review Panel (LSNARP) Activities

No LSNARP meetings occurred during the reporting period. 

D. LSN Administrator Guidelines

No LSNA Guidelines were revised, and no new Guidelines were promulgated, during the 

reporting period. The technical bases for LSN operations, including participant organization 

technologies, remain stable. 

E. Interactions with Other NRC Offices and Entities

1. The Commission 

The previous LSNA semiannual report (SECY-07-0130) was submitted to the Commission on 

August 7, 2007. 

2. Office of Information Services (OIS)

Interactions with the Office of Information Services (OIS) staff on LSN matters dealt primarily 

with operations within the NRC information technology (IT) environment. In July 2007, LSN staff 

met with representatives of OIS to resolve issues caused by uncoordinated renaming of the 

agency’s document collection server. That activity resulted in the LSN no longer being able to 

point to image and text files, because the link placed by NRC into the LSN indexes was an 

actual IP address rather than a “virtual” or “proxy” address. 

On September 20, 2007, the LSN was granted a Federal Information Security Management Act 

(FISMA) Authority to Operate (ATO) certification, discussed in greater detail in section I.H.3, 

below. 

In December 2007, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP) received the results 

of the review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the materials submitted by the 

OIS under annual reporting requirements in Part 7 of OMB Circular A-11 “Planning, Budgeting, 

Acquisition, and Management of Capital Assets,” commonly referred to as the 300B report. The 

LSN and the Digital Data Management System (DDMS), also managed by ASLBP, tied for 

second place among agency IT systems with a score of 36 points out of a possible 50 points. 

Both systems continue to be carried on the OMB management watch list consistent with OMB’s 

attention to overall agency performance. 
The Commissioners - 7 - 

3. Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards

Interactions with staff in the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards (NMSS) on LSN 

matters dealt exclusively with routine document collection maintenance issues and responding 

to requests for advanced training in the use of the LSN. 

4. Office of the Inspector General

The NRC Office of the Inspector General was advised of a situation at the Department of 

Energy (DOE) that is being investigated by the DOE Inspector General regarding the discovery 

by the LSNA and project staff of prohibited access, non-official-business documents submitted 

by DOE to the LSN for indexing. 

F. Interactions with DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management 

on Its Efforts and Readiness to Meet LSN Commitments

DOE certified its document collection on October 19, 2007. On December 12, 2007, the PreLicense Application Presiding Officer (PAPO) Board rejected a challenge to the certification 

brought by the State of Nevada and the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force (NNWTF). 

G. Interactions with Other Participants in Conjunction with Their Efforts to be 

Ready to Meet LSN Commitments

As of this date, the following organizations have submitted LSN certification/compliance 

statements to the high-level waste (HLW) repository licensing proceeding Electronic Hearing 

Docket (EHD): DOE; NRC staff; the Nevada counties of Esmeralda, Lincoln, Churchill, Lander, 

White Pine, Eureka, and Mineral; Inyo County, California; and the City of Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Potential parties not yet having certified their document collections include State of Nevada, the 

Nevada counties of Nye and Clark, the Nuclear Energy Institute, NNWTF, and the Timbisha 

Shoshone Tribe. Regarding the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, on July 29, 2007, the Interior 

Department certified the Timbisha Shoshones as the first Native American Indian Tribe affected 

by the government’s effort to put a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. On July 17, an 

attorney representing the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe contacted the LSNA requesting information 

on how to participate in the LSN and how to get added to the service list for the HLW EHD. No 

interaction has been initiated by the Timbisha Shoshones since then. 

LSN training was provided to the following organizations: 

NMSS-OR (Summerlin office) (Basic) August 2, 2007 

Clark County and City of Henderson, Nevada (Basic) August 3, 2007 

NMSS (Advanced) September 24, 2007 

NMSS (Advanced) October 2, 2007 

NMSS (Advanced) October 9, 2007 

Lincoln, Lander, White Pine, and Eureka Counties (Basic) November 15, 2007 
The Commissioners - 7 - 

The LSNA met in Las Vegas with Mr. Steve Frishman of the State of Nevada and Ms. Judy 

Treichel of NNWTF on December 20, 2007 - - the same day Mr. Frishman and Ms. Treichel met 

with Chairman Klein - - to discuss their complaints about LSN usability. Neither Mr. Frishman 

nor Ms. Treichel was receptive to the LSNA’s offer to conduct an advanced LSN training 

session for them. 

 H. LSN Project Plan Implementation

 1. Ongoing Upgrades and Expansion to the LSN

There are no upgrades to or expansions of the LSN production system currently underway. 

 2. Administration of the LSN

Project management performance by the LSN staff continues to achieve planned system 

milestones for user access, participant support, and document loading timeliness. Project 

spending for FY 2007 was within one percent of the planned budget for the year, and all 

budgeted funds were committed well in advance of the end of the fiscal year. 

The following table presents cumulative performance metrics for the LSN during the reporting 

period: 

Licensing Support Network System Performance Metrics for the Reporting Period 

 July August September October November December 

Number of Participants 16 

 (1 hidden)* 

16 

 (1 hidden)*

16 

(1 hidden)*

16 

 (1 hidden)*

16 

 (1 hidden)* 

16 

(1 hidden)* 

Number of Documents 3,500,296 3,534,559 3,577,440 3,599,151 3,610,124 3,620,866 

System Availability (Against 

Schedule) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 

Number of Days with Outage 

More than Four Hours 0 0 0 0 0 0 

 * Nye County LSN collection not publicly available throughout reporting period. 

The following table presents the net document additions/deletions per month, by participant:

Licensing Support Network Documents Added/Deleted by Participant

Added 

July 

Added 

August 

Added 

September 

Added 

October 

Added 

November 

Added 

December 

Total Added 

7/1/07 

Through 

12/31/07 

Churchill Co. 0 0 0 31 0 0 31 
The Commissioners - 7 - 

Licensing Support Network Documents Added/Deleted by Participant

Added 

July 

Added 

August 

Added 

September 

Added 

October 

Added 

November 

Added 

December 

Total Added 

7/1/07 

Through 

12/31/07 

City of Las Vegas 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Clark Co. 0 0 0 0 0 33 33 

DOE I -54 3 -328 -160 15 2 -522 

DOE II 8,412 34,260 48,258 21,818 10,566 10,415 133,729 

Esmeralda Co. 

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Eureka Co. 

0 3 1 0 0 1 5 

Lander Co. 0 1 1 0 2 0 4 

Lincoln Co. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Mineral Co. 0 0 11 0 0 0 11 

State of Nevada 0 0 0 3,372 0 0 3,372 

Nuclear Energy 

Institute (NEI) 0 0 0 2 61 271 334 

NRC 124 0 0 0 271 19 414 

Nye Co.* 0 0 0 0 13 0 13 

White Pine Co. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

Inyo Co., CA 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 

Total 8,483 34,267 47,943 25,063 10,928 10,742 137,426 

 * Nye County LSN collection not publicly available throughout reporting period. 

 3. Security Profile of the LSN

No system downtime was experienced during the reporting period because of hacker attacks 

directed against the LSN. A one-half-hour period of non-availability was experienced in 

November 2007, but was quickly resolved by the LSN technical staff and contractors. 

In January 2007, the LSN project team began the process of obtaining FISMA certification and 

accreditation (C&A) for the LSN. This process was completed on September 20, 2007. The 

LSN continues to be an extremely secure IT system, due in large part to its original design 

architecture, and the web hosting infrastructure and robust third-party security services included 

in the turnkey AT&T operations and management (O&M) contract. 
The Commissioners - 7 - 

I. Issues 

 A. Technology Refresh, Budget and Procurement Issues Affecting LSN 

Availability 

A number of items requiring management action or significant investment decisions will emerge 

during the next six-month period when there is likely to be a high degree of uncertainty about 

DOE’s ability to submit a license application and the NRC staff’s decision about whether such 

an application will be acceptable for docketing. The key factors include: 

• DOE may submit a license application between April and June 2008, and NMSS 

docketing review may take between 90 and 180 days. As a consequence, the initial 

prehearing conference to consider the admission of parties and contentions could begin 

as early as the first quarter of Fiscal Year (FY) 2009. 

• The period of performance for the current LSN O&M contract expires in July 2009. The 

decision to begin the process of re-procuring O&M services must be made in 

approximately July 2008. 

• The current hardware in the LSN production platform was purchased in 2004 and 2005. 

Technology refresh budgets originally included for FY 2008 were deferred until FY 2009; 

however, the technology refresh budget request for FY 2009 had to be stricken during 

the most recent round of FY 2008/FY 2009 HLW budget adjustments in response to 

reductions in HLW funding in the agency’s FY 2008 appropriations measure and the 

currently anticipated HLW program funding level under the FY 2009 President’s Budget. 

• The LSN C&A will expire in September 2010. 

The best management practice to optimize funding would be to craft a replacement O&M 

contract that includes tasks to implement a technology refresh, including acquiring new 

equipment in the fourth quarter of FY 2009, and then begin the triennial C&A activity for FY 

2010 based on the new hardware configuration. This avoids having to reinstitute the C&A 

process when new equipment is eventually installed as part of a technology refresh. Although 

continuing uncertainty about the DOE license application and staff docketing makes effective 

planning difficult, key decision points regarding reprocurement of an O&M contract will be 

reached before the upcoming presidential election. Moreover, even with the closest 

management, it is likely (if not inevitable) that the LSN will be undergoing some sort of 

technology refresh activities, as well as possibly transitioning to a new O&M vendor and going 

through a C&A effort, while evidentiary hearings are ongoing. 

III. Future LSN-Related Activities 
The Commissioners - 7 - 

Continue to provide advanced LSN training to parties and potential parties at their request. 

Currently scheduled courses include advanced training for Affected Unit of Local Government 

(AULG) and DOE representatives in Las Vegas on January 24, 2008. 

Stand ready to connect late-announcing participants who desire to certify document collections 

prior to January 17, 2008. 

Closely monitor activities related to submission of a license application by DOE as an indicator 

of actions that need to be taken to place the LSN on solid operational footing for 2009-2010 

hearing-related activities. 

COORDINATION: 

The Office of the General Counsel has no legal objection. 

 /RA/ 

 

 

 Daniel J. Graser 

 Licensing Support Network Administrator 

 Atomic Safety and Licensing 

 Board Panel 
The Commissioners - 7 - 

Stand ready to connect late-announcing participants who desire to certify document collections 

prior to January 17, 2008. 

Closely monitor activities related to submission of a license application by DOE as an indicator 

of actions that need to be taken to place the LSN on solid operational footing for 2009-2010 

hearing-related activities. 

COORDINATION: 

The Office of the General Counsel has no legal objection. 

 /RA/ 

 

 

 Daniel J. Graser 

 Licensing Support Network Administrator 

 Atomic Safety and Licensing 

 Board Panel 

Distribution: 

Commissioners 

OGC 

ASLBP 

CFO 

EDO 

SECY 

OPA 

OCA 

ADAMS: ML 080250081 *See Previous Concurrence 

ASLBP ASLBP/Editor ASLBP/OD OGC SECY 

*D. Graser:DG *P. Bollwerk:GPB *E. Hawkens:ERH *K. Cyr A.Vietti-Cook 

01/15/08 01/15/08 01/15/08 01/23/08 01/ /08 

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