Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
7/18/2014
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied a petition this week that would have halted all licensing decisions for nuclear plants. The petition, submitted by a group of 34 environmental activist groups in February, called for a halt to all reviews of new licenses and license renewals due to new findings the NRC staff reported in its Expedited Spent Fuel Transfer Proceeding that said a small nuclear reactor pool fire could render 9,400 square miles uninhabitable and displace 4.1 million Americans on a long-term basis. The petitioners deemed this new information that has not been considered in previous licensing reviews, and under the National Environmental Policy Act, “new” and “significant” information bears re-consideration. The NRC, however, argued this week that moving forward with the licensing reviews would not jeopardize public health and safety, and that the information would be considered in the course of the licensing review. “First, Petitioners do not address whether moving forward with the captioned proceedings will jeopardize public health and safety, and we find no reason to suggest that it will,” the NRC said in its Memorandum and Order document.
The NRC also discounted the NEPA argument put forth by the petitioners. “Contrary to Petitioners’ assertions, NEPA does not require that we suspend our licensing decisions upon receipt of a ‘new and significant information” claim,’” the NRC said. “Such a requirement would render our decision making ‘intractable.’ Rather, our rules provide a process to prepare supplemental draft or final environmental impact statements when the agency identifies new and significant information. If, as part of its consideration of Petitioners’ rulemaking petition, the NRC determines that there is new and significant information associated with the expedited-transfer issue that requires supplementation under NEPA, we can address any affected environmental analyses as needed, and appropriately move forward with these proceedings in the meantime.”
From the environmental groups’ perspective, the decision still fails to honor NEPA and its requirements, Mindy Goldstein, director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University, told RW Monitor this week. “What the NRC did in this decision, as I read it at least, is that it said ‘We haven’t decided whether this is new and significant, and we will get to it when we get to it, but in the meantime, we can keep carrying on,’” Goldstein said. “We believe, and we continue to believe, that is not the wisest course of action nor is that what the law allows. The law says when there is new and significant information that is brought to your attention, you have to consider it now. You don’t get to just take your time to get into these things, especially when public safety is on the line.” The petitioners have not yet decided if they wanted to pursue their case further, Goldstein said.
