NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

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US Department of Health and Human Services

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

146th Meeting

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

The Advisory Board convened via teleconference at

11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Henry A. Anderson, Chair, 

presiding.
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Members Present: 

Henry A. Anderson, Chair

Josie Beach, Member

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

R. William Field, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

James E. Lockey, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member

Phillip Schofield, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Paul L. Ziemer

Also Present: 

Rashaun Roberts, Designated Federal Official

Nancy Adams, NIOSH Contractor

Bob Barton, SC&A

Kathy Behlinh, SC&A

Finn Black, SC&A

Nicole Briggs, SC&A

Ron Buchanan, SC&A

Grady Calhoun, DCAS

Chris Crawford, DOL

Joe Fitzgerald, SC&A

Al Frolas

Regina Kelleher, DOE

Steve Ostrow, SC&A

Michael Rafky, HHS

LaVon Rutherford, DCAS

Tim Taulbee, DCAS
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Contents

US Department of Health and Human Services 

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 146th Meeting 

Wednesday, June 15, 2022 1

Roll Call 4

Welcome 5

Update on Cybersecurity Modernization 

Initiative 5

Plans for the August 2022 Board Meeting 6

Adjourn 11
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Proceedings

(11:01 a.m.)

Roll Call

Dr. Roberts: Good morning and welcome, everyone. 

I am Rashaun Roberts. I'm the Designated Federal 

Official, or DFO, for the Advisory Board on Radiation 

and Worker Health. And, of course, I'd like to 

welcome you again to this teleconference.

The meeting agenda for today is posted on the 

NIOSH website for this program under schedule of 

meetings. You can look at this month and get the 

agenda off the website.

Since this is a telephonic meeting, I just want to 

discuss our use of this basic technology. So, in 

order to keep things moving efficiently without

interruption, I just ask that everybody make sure 

that their phones are on mute, unless they're 

speaking, of course. If you do not have a mute 

button, you can press *6 on your phone to mute. If 

you need to take yourself off, you can press *6 

again. And because we will be unable to see each 

other for this meeting, it would be helpful if you 

would identify yourself before your comments or 

questions.

With that, I'd like to formally start. The primary 

purpose of this Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health meeting is to prepare for our August 

17th to 18th Board meeting, although there are a 

few other items on the agenda for today.

And I can hear someone, so if we could again make 

sure that the phones are on mute, that would be 

great.

So, with that, let me go ahead and move into roll 

call. I'll start with the Board Members in 

alphabetical order. We don't need to address conflict 

of interest since this is primarily an administrative 

meeting. 
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(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: Thank you very much, everyone. Let's 

go on and move into the agenda. Again, I have 

heard some interference with the line, so you do 

want to make sure that you're keeping your phone 

on mute throughout the meeting unless you want to 

speak. Again, if you don't have the mute button, 

press *6 to mute. If you need to take yourself off, 

press *6 again.

And, with that, without any further delay, I'll turn 

the floor over to Dr. Henry Anderson, who is our 

Board Chair. Andy?

Welcome

Chair Anderson: Good morning. Welcome, 

everybody. This is the 146th meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

Let's move right on to getting our update on the 

cybersecurity modernization initiative. Grady, or 

whoever.

Mr. Calhoun: Are you ready for me, Dr. Anderson?

Chair Anderson: Go ahead.

Update on Cybersecurity Modernization Initiative

Mr. Calhoun: This is going to be short and sweet, 

too, but basically what we're doing, we're still in the 

process of what we call documenting the processes 

of our systems. As many of you know, NOCTS and 

our other systems were very complicated, and so 

we're actually having to go through and document, 

if you do this, then that happens, and if we need 

this and then that happens. And it's a step-by-step, 

if/then kind of flow path. And then once we get that 

documented, the rebuild will begin. 

So we're getting really close on that. We've actually 

stood up a few of our minor applications, and we're 

in the process of testing those to make sure they 

work. 
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And so, ultimately, the goal is going to be to have 

all of our systems in a secure environment and 

they'll be accessed by everyone who needs them, 

rather than right now we had a system that ORAU 

was operating and we had a system that we were 

operating. But we're working towards the pool of 

one system in this secure environment.

And so we're still managing to get the cases out as 

quick as they're coming in and we're meeting all of 

our goals of no significant delays with cases and all 

of our expedited cases we're getting out just as they 

were prior to the pause.

So that's it.

Chair Anderson: Any questions for Grady?

(No response.)

Chair Anderson: Do you want to give us an update 

on how the schedule is looking?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. There's something that's going 

wrong with my computer. Let me -- if you will just 

give me a moment, I can pull that up.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Plans for the August 2022 Board Meeting

Dr. Roberts: Okay, I just kind of wanted to give an 

overview of the agenda items right now and just 

make sure that I'm including everything that needs 

to be included and then we can move on to other 

issues related to the meeting.

So some of the standard agenda items are still on 

there, the NIOSH program update, the DOL/DOE 

program update. There's an agenda item, as Josie 

had said, for the Subcommittee for Procedures 

Review, and opportunities for them to present the 

documents that they're looking to finalize. 

There is the Sandia agenda item to follow up on the 
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SEC discussion and I think we per phone doing the 

vote on that, but that's an agenda item. 

There's the SEC petition status update. There's an 

agenda item to present RPTR-89 for Argonne 

National Lab West. And then there's the Board work 

session and then also the public comment session 

on the agenda so far.

So that's a brief overview. Is there anything that 

should be on the agenda that I may have missed?

Chair Anderson: You do have the Sandia vote on 

there, right?

Dr. Roberts: Yes, that is on there.

Member Beach: Do we have a location for the 

meeting?

Dr. Roberts: Well, that sort of segues into the next 

piece of the conversation. So again, if there's 

anything else that needs to be added to what I've 

already described, you know, speak now. 

If there's nothing, then what I'm finding is that if 

those are the only agenda items that we have, we 

really only have enough to make up for a one-day 

meeting.

I know that we had tentatively discussed doing a 

face-to-face meeting in Idaho Falls I think was the 

location that we agreed upon back in April, but we 

are -- the agenda is just to cover one day, so that 

meeting.

The other issue and I've only recently become 

aware of this is that there are a few Board 

Members, for legitimate reasons, are anticipating 

that they will not be able to make it to this Board 

meeting. So there's that factor.

Another factor that we have discovered in trying to 

find meeting locations and hotel rooms for folks is 

that apparently this is a popular time in Idaho Falls 
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for conferences and meetings. And so basically, we 

would have to go above per diem for meeting rooms 

which means that we would be spending more than 

anticipated to cover people's accommodations out 

there.

So all of these things together has kind of made me 

revisit the notion of doing a face-to-face, you know, 

and consideration of doing this virtually again. 

Another development that I think is somewhat 

relevant to this is that I did get word from CDC that 

there has been some movement in terms of 

identifying new Board Members to come on. Things 

with that are not finalized, but it sounds like we're 

getting close to identifying those new folks coming 

on to the Board. It isn't clear at this point in time 

that we would have enough time to process 

everybody and get everybody onboard by August. 

It's sometimes difficult to tell how long it will take to 

get everybody, all the new Members situated. So 

that's kind of another variable that's out there.So I 

say all that to say just kind of get input from folks 

about your thoughts about doing this face-to-face 

versus virtually and we do need to come to a final 

decision about that today.

Chair Anderson: Right. 

Member Ziemer: This is Ziemer. I'll make a 

comment. As much as I love going to Idaho, we're 

talking about a full day of travel prior to, and a full 

day of travel afterwards, so that's a lot of travels for 

a one-day meeting.

Chair Anderson: Yes, I would agree with that, Paul. 

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, it's Dave. I agree, too. I 

agree, too, folks. I think everything points to the 

fact that we should have a Zoom meeting on one of 

those two days, and that hopefull we'll be able to 

have a good meeting, a good face-to-face meeting 

in the fall.
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Chair Anderson: Sounds good.

Dr. Roberts: And just to clarify, if it's done virtually, 

we would do the same thing we've been doing 

which is to do like a half day each instead of trying 

to do a full day on Zoom.

Member Ziemer: Fine.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, that would help the timing 

issue, East Coast to West coast.

Chair Anderson: I agree with you, Sean. And it 

would really be good to be able to have the face-toface when we have the new Members coming in and 

so forth, so that will give us better opportunity. I 

understand.

Dr. Roberts?

Dr. Roberts: Yes.

Mr. Frolas: This is Al Frolas. I'm the Petitioner on 

Lawrence Livermore. Is that issue that was 

mentioned earlier by LaVon, is that on the agenda 

for August?

Dr. Roberts: Are you referring to Sandia?

Mr. Frolas: No, Lawrence Livermore. I believe LaVon 

said that they're working on an addendum and it 

would be coming quickly. It's only been going on 

seven years.

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Roberts, this is LaVon 

Rutherford. No, that will not be ready by that time. 

And it will need, too, some time, even when it's 

approved, to get the Advisory Board to review it 

before we present it.

Dr. Roberts: Actually, just to advise you and others 

of the public, this meeting doesn't have a public 

comment session. So, I think we've responded to 

the question about that agenda item, but technically 

this is -- there's no allowance for today for public 
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comments or questions. But thanks, LaVon, for 

responding.

Chair Anderson: So it sounds to me like there's 

agreement to go with doing it by Zoom and virtual 

and we'll use both days and a half day of each of 

the days. We'll get the times on it and invites out 

when we get closer to the time.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So is there -- so it's settled, 

then. We're going to be doing the August 17th to 

18th virtually.

Chair Anderson: Good.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Great. 

Chair Anderson: And I guess we will decide on a fall 

face-to-face location. If we do have the new Board 

Members ready to go by that time, would the 

location make a difference? Just remembering a 

previous onboarding of getting your computer and 

getting the training and getting up to speed to do 

that and our remote area may be more problematic, 

so -- go ahead.

Dr. Roberts: Andy, we had talked about Pinellas. We 

had talked about Pinellas for the December 

meeting.

Chair Anderson: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: They should go to Cincinnati to get all 

that stuff set up ahead of time, though. If I 

remember correctly, that's what usually happens.

Chair Anderson: Because I know at one point we 

talked about doing some legal advisory as to how 

we deal with conflicts and other things, update 

everybody, which would include the new Members, 

rather than have them get a briefing and kind of 

training separately. 

But I guess it would be good to hear, if there's 

going to be a need to have the new Members, since 
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there will be more than one, certainly, have a 

training program for just them might well be the 

most efficient way to do some of it.

Dr. Roberts: Yes, I think in the past there has been 

some orientation with new Members. From my 

understanding, it's taken place in Cincinnati in the 

past. But, yes, I think we need to do a little more 

thinking about what that would look like this time 

around as we kind of get more information --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Anderson: -- Pinellas, going down to Florida?

Dr. Roberts: I think that Josie said that was the 

tentative suggestion for December.

Chair Anderson: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: But we can certainly revisit, perhaps at 

the August meeting.

Chair Anderson: Okay. Just knowing that wintertime 

is a Florida vacation period, too. You don't want to 

be caught behind finding a location and facilities.

Okay, do we have any other issues?

(No response.)

Chair Anderson: Okay, Rashaun, do you have 

anything else? Or Grady?

Dr. Roberts: That was it for me.

Adjourn

Chair Anderson: Thank you. Okay. So with that, I 

think we can adjourn. We have nothing else.

Member Beach: I'll second that.

Chair Anderson: Okay. Okay, thanks. We stand 

adjourned.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 
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record at 11:29 a.m.)