Upcoming Conferences
On this page:
All conferences are open to public observation unless noted otherwise. Items and dates of conferences may change at the last minute. To attend a conference, please either call or e-mail the listed NRC Contact to verify the date and time.
Upcoming Predecisional Enforcement and Regulatory Conferences
Upcoming Predecisional Enforcement and Regulatory Conferences are noticed on the agency's Public Meeting Schedule page.
Note that the decision to hold a conference does not mean that the agency has determined that a violation has occurred or that enforcement action will be taken. If the NRC subsequently concludes that significant enforcement action is warranted, the action will be posted on the Significant Enforcement Actions Web page.
About Predecisional Enforcement Conferences
A predecisional enforcement conference is a meeting that the NRC may conduct with a licensee or individual before making an enforcement decision if significant enforcement action appears to be warranted and if the NRC concludes that it is necessary or the licensee requests it. (Significant actions, otherwise known as escalated enforcement actions, are Severity Level I, II, or III violations, civil penalties or orders.)
The purpose of the conference is to obtain information that will assist the NRC in determining the appropriate enforcement action, such as (1) a common understanding of facts, root causes and missed opportunities associated with the apparent violations, (2) a common understanding of corrective action taken or planned, and (3) a common understanding of the significance of issues and the need for lasting comprehensive corrective action.
Section 2.4.1 of the NRC Enforcement Policy addresses predecisional enforcement conferences. Although most conferences are open, conferences will not normally be open to the public if the enforcement action being contemplated:
Would be taken against an individual, or if the action, though not taken against an individual, turns on whether an individual has committed wrongdoing;
Involves significant personnel failures where the NRC has requested that the individual(s) involved be present at the conference;
Is based on the findings of an NRC Office of Investigations report that has not been publicly disclosed; or
Involves safeguards information, Privacy Act information, or information which could be considered proprietary;
In addition, conferences will not normally be open to the public if:
The conference involves medical misadministrations or overexposures and the conference cannot be conducted without disclosing the exposed individual's name; or
The conference will be conducted by telephone or the conference will be conducted at a relatively small licensee's facility.
Notwithstanding meeting any of these criteria, a predecisional enforcement conference may still be open if the conference involves issues related to an ongoing adjudicatory proceeding with one or more interveners or where the evidentiary basis for the conference is a matter of public record, such as an adjudicatory decision by the Department of Labor.
About Regulatory Conferences
The NRC conducts regulatory conferences with commercial nuclear power reactor licensees and construction permit holders to discuss the significance of inspection findings evaluated by the reactor oversight process's or cROP's significance determination process (SDP). Regulatory conferences are conducted (in lieu of predecisional enforcement conferences) when apparent violations are associated with findings evaluated by the SDP. Regulatory conferences without enforcement implications are included on the Public Meeting Schedule page.
For more information on the agency's policy on open meetings, see the Public Meeting Frequently Asked Questions page.