Being an
Effective
Regulator
By Stephen G. Burns, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
Stephen G. Burns
Stephen G. Burns
The Honorable Stephen G. Burns was
sworn in as a Commissioner of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC)
Nov. 5, 2014, to a
term ending June
30, 2019. President
Obama designated
Mr. Burns as
Chairman of the
NRC effective Jan.
1, 2015.
Mr. Burns has a
distinguished career
as an attorney for
over 30 years both
within the NRC
and internationally.
Before returning
to the NRC, he
was the Head of Legal Affairs of the
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of
the Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development in Paris.
In that position, which he held since
April 2012, Mr. Burns provided legal
advice and support to NEA management,
carried out the legal education and
publications program of the NEA, and
provided advice and secretariat services
to the Nuclear Law Committee and to
the Contracting Parties to the Paris
Convention on Third Party Liability in
the Field of Nuclear Energy. He retired
as the agency’s General Counsel.
Mr. Burns received a bachelor’s degree,
magna cum laude, in 1975 from Colgate
University in Hamilton, New York. He
received his law degree with honors
in 1978 from the George Washington
University in Washington, D.C.
An interview by Newal Aghnihotri,
Editor of Nuclear Plant Journal.
1.
Is there a plan to implement the
“trust culture”, similar to what we did
with the “safety culture at the US NRC?
I think that the idea of enhancing trust
culture and safety culture are very much
complementary. I think in my speech at
RIC 2016, I was talking about it particu-
larly in that context. I think there are as-
pects within safety culture, there is a high
value to trust or enhancing trust to ensure,
I think, a good safety culture within an
organization, whether that’s an industry
organization or within the regulator itself.
When I was speaking, I think I was ad-
dressing primarily outside of the agency,
and that is enhancing
trust in the agency,
how it works, what it
does, how it reaches
its judgments. I was
addressing enhanc-
ing that trust in vari-
ous communities –
the public at large,
government officials
at the state, local
or federal level, as
well as in the indus-
try that we regulate
which may know us
more – in terms of
confidence in our
de c i s i on -mak i ng
process and the ba-
sis for our decisions.
I didn’t have a chance at the RIC to go
see Commissioner Rogers on the panel
on Principles of Good Regulation, but
certainly, I think, that the theme of trust
was in the principles when he developed
them with the commission 25 years ago.
I was the Chief of Staff to then chairman
Carr, who Commissioner Rogers served
with, and I can recall the development of
the principles there. So, I think it is com-
plementary to safety culture, and I think
that this notion of trust culture is, we
build it through openness, transparency,
with those we engage with outside of the
agency showing or creating confidence in
terms of the decision-making process that
we have and the best judgments we make
on technical and other regulatory matters.
2.
What are the priorities in addition
to “trust” which you believe need to be
practiced by the industry to bring public
confidence in the industry?
Apart
from
openness
and
transparency, I think it is an engagement
with people outside the organization,
which is very important. And I’ve seen
this in terms of what companies have told
me when I’ve visited the plants, either
power plants or other facilities. And
some of what they do is their presence in
the community. It’s their willingness to
explain their operations, how they think
through challenges that might arise or
how they work through plant transients,
how they’re prepared for things we
hope don’t happen, such as requiring
offsite emergency response. What I’ve
been impressed by is the number of
companies where you have that kind of
engagement with the community, and
that goes more than just saying openness
and transparency. That’s really reaching
out to the community, helping them
understand what they do and how they
do it, building cooperative relations.
We have seen this in a number of areas,
and it certainly provides the benefits
to the company. Building cooperative
relationships with educational institutions
is also very important because it helps
them in getting new workforce that they
may need. I think those are things that,
importantly, they can do, and be forthright
in their communications about what it is
that they do, how they’re prepared for
what we hope doesn’t happen in terms of
unexpected events.
3.
Does the NRC provide options to
the public to choose a direction the NRC
should approach a specific issue?
We do. Sometimes I think it’s
more explicit than on other occasions.
Sometimes we might, in soliciting
comments, say, for example on a
proposed rule, we might lay out a couple
different options. And it may be, here
is the approach, we plan to take, give
us your comments on that. Sometimes
we highlight questions. It may not be
phrased in terms of an alternative option,
but it might be phrased in terms of, if we
do this, what do you think the impact on
XYZ may be. And I think that can be
helpful, especially if we’re developing
new regulations or new guidance type
criteria.
20
NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2016
