Opinion ID: 6984389
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: NRC Enforcement Actions

Text: Consistent with its stated enforcement policy, the NRC’s enforcement actions demonstrate that safety violations come in varying degrees of severity, and that not all violations compromise public safety to the same extent. Many reported enforcement actions involved individuals who deliberately omitted infonnation from background questionnaires that they were required to fill out in order to gain “unescorted access” to nuclear facilities. The questionnaires are administered by licensees as part of their NRC-mandated access authorization programs, which, in turn, must allow the licensee to provide the NRC with “high assurance” that individuals to whom unescorted access is granted are “trustworthy and reliable” individuals, in compliance with 10 C.F.R. § 73.56, the same regulation that the Company relies on in this case. In a number of these cases, individuals who misrepresented information on security questionnaires received a five year ban from involvement in NRC-licensed activities. See, e. g., Order concerning Jeffrey Lee Barnhart, dated June 23, 1997, IA 97-049, 1997 WL 896225 (N.R.C.) (five year ban imposed where applicant falsified questionnaire to omit past criminal and drug history by assuming identity of his deceased brother); Order concerning Finis Scott Bandy, dated Nov. 19, 1997, IA 97-087, 1997 WL 896224 (N.R.C.) (five year ban imposed where applicant lied on questionnaire about the severity of his pri- or criminal convictions, altered copies of court records, and lied to investigators about his past criminal record); Order concerning Lonnie Randall Wilson, dated June 27, 1997, IA 97-050, 1997 WL 896230 (N.R.C.) (five year ban imposed where individual was convicted for lying repeatedly on background questionnaires by omitting prior positive drug test results and fading to note prior denials of unrestricted access; when caught the individual boasted to investigators that “it took three plants to finally catch” him, that he’d “made 30-40,000 dollars by lying” and that he “would do it again” if given the chance); Order concerning Douglas D. Preston, dated Apr. 5, 1994, IA 94-004, 1994 WL 876718 (N.R.C.) (five year ban imposed where individual lied repeatedly on access questionnaires by omitting past criminal history, and told investigators that he would do so again in the future if given the chance). In these cases, in which the violators were dishonest about past criminal activity and sometimes indicated that they would continue to lie in the future, the NRC found that public safety would be compromised by any licensee’s future employment of these individuals. The NRC often summarized its findings on that score by noting that it “lack[ed] the requisite reasonable assurance that licensed activities can be conducted in compliance with the Commission’s requirements and that the health and safety of the public would be protected” if the offending individual “were permitted at this time to be involved in NRC-licensed activities.” See, e. g., Barnhart, 1997 WL 896225. In other cases, however, dishonesty based infractions are classified as Severity Level III” violations of “significant regulatory concern,” see 63 Fed.Reg. at 26,-634, but are not accompanied by orders prohibiting continued involvement in NRC-licensed activities. In such cases, the NRC notices the misconduct, communicates how seriously it views the violation, but stops short of banning the individual for any period of time. One such case is particularly relevant here, as it involves a security guard’s malfeasance with respect to the cause and reporting of an alarm. Notice of Violation to Donald Smith, dated July 23, 1997, IA 97-056, 1997 WL 896242 (N.R.C.). While Smith was working as a security guard at a nuclear facility, he intentionally triggered an alarm and thereafter lied to cover up his transgression. The NRC issued a Notice of Violation to Smith, categorizing his violation as Severity Level III. The notice made plain that the NRC viewed his initial misconduct and subsequent dishonesty very seriously, and noted that Smith had failed to uphold the “special trust and confidence which places nuclear employees in the position where their performance is expected to be above reproach.” 1997 WL 896242. Although putting Smith on notice that “similar violations in the future could result in more significant enforcement actions,” the NRC specifically chose not to ban Smith from NRC-licensed activities for any period of time. Id. Other NRC enforcement actions have also stopped short of banning the violator from continued involvement in NRC-licensed activities and, in some cases, the NRC has afforded the offender an opportunity to satisfy the NRC that he could, in fact, be trusted to comply with regulations in the future. See, e. g., Notice of Violation to Steven R. Allent, dated Sept. 5, 1996, IA 96-050, 1996 WL 902684 (N.R.C.) (finding deliberate misconduct of Severity Level III where worker taped radioactively contaminated particle to underside of table and directing violator to provide “reasons as to why the NRC should have confidence that [he] will comply with NRC regulatory requirements in the future”); Notice of Violation to Michael Redlin, dated Dec. 8, 1997, IA 97-088, 1997 WL 896237 (N.R.C.) (finding Severity Level III violation where individual deliberately failed to report previous marijuana use on application for unescorted access authorization, warning that future violation could result in order “prohibiting involvement in NRC-licensed activities,” and requesting individual to submit statement explaining how the NRC could be confident of his “future trustworthiness while engaged in licensed nuclear activities,” and that he would “abide by regulations and procedures pertinent to [his] work”); Notice of Violation to John R. Raskovsky, dated June 18, 1997, IA 97-037, 1997 WL 854927 (N.R.C.) (finding individual’s deliberate omission from security questionnaires to constitute a Severity Level III violation, reminding individual that the “public health, safety and trust demand that nuclear power plant personnel conduct themselves with integrity at all times,” and informing individual that “in the future, any similar violation may result in more significant enforcement actions, including your removal from NRC-licensed activities”). 6