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Parties Involved:
Nuclear Energy Institute, Inc.
Amicus Curiae for Respondent
State of Nevada
Amicus Curiae for Petitioner
State of Utah
Petitioner
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Respondent
United States of America
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Submitted April 24, 2007 Decided June 26, 2007

No. 05-1419

OHNGO GAUDADEH DEVIA,

PETITIONER

v.

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION AND

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

RESPONDENTS

PRIVATE FUEL STORAGE, L.L.C. AND

SKULL VALLEY BAND OF GOSHUTE INDIANS,

INTERVENORS

Consolidated with

05-1420, 06-1087

On Petitions for Review of Orders and a License of the

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Paul C. EchoHawk was on the briefs for petitioner Ohngo

Gaudadeh Devia.

Roy T. Englert, Jr. was on the briefs for petitioner State of

Utah.

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Catherine Cortez Masto, Attorney General, Marta A.

Adams, Senior Deputy Attorney General, and Martin G. Malsch,

Joseph R. Egan, and Charles J. Fitzpatrick were on the brief for

amicus curiae State of Nevada in support of petitioners.

James C. Kilbourne, Michael T. Gray, and Lisa E. Jones,

Attorneys, U.S. Department of Justice, and Karen D. Cyr,

General Counsel, John F. Cordes, Jr., Solicitor, E. Leo Slaggie,

Deputy Solicitor, and Grace H. Kim, Attorney, U.S. Nuclear

Regulatory Commission, were on the brief for federal

respondents. 

Anne W. Cottingham and Michael A. Bauser were on the

brief for amicus curiae Nuclear Energy Institute, Inc. in support

of respondents.

Tim Vollmann, Jay E. Silberg, Paul A. Gaukler were on the

brief for intervenors Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C. and Skull

Valley Band of Goshute Indians.

Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and GARLAND, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Petitioners challenge a decision

by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to grant a license

permitting the construction and operation of a spent nuclear fuel

storage facility in Utah, on land belonging to the Skull Valley

Band of Goshute Indians. After the Commission approved the

license, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management

and Bureau of Indian Affairs denied applications for rights-ofway and a lease, respectively. Because it is speculative whether

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1

These petitions for review were considered on the record from

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and on the briefs filed by the

parties. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2); D.C. CIR. R. 34(j).

the project will ever be able to proceed, we find the petitioners’

challenge unripe and direct that the case be held in abeyance.1

I

In 1997, Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C. (PFS), a consortium

of eight nuclear utilities, applied to the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission (NRC) for a license to build and operate an

Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI). The

proposed ISFSI would store spent nuclear fuel in steel and

concrete casks on land in Utah belonging to the Skull Valley

Band of Goshute Indians. The facility would be built on an 820-

acre site, about 3.5 miles from the Band’s village, pursuant to a

lease between the Band and PFS. While most ISFSIs are located

at the reactors where the spent nuclear fuel is generated, PFS’s

proposed ISFSI would be the first large, away from point-ofgeneration repository to be licensed by the NRC. 

In addition to applying to the NRC for a license, PFS sought

two other regulatory approvals. First, it applied to the Bureau of

Indian Affairs (BIA) for approval of the Skull Valley Band’s

lease of the 820-acre site to PFS. Second, it applied to the

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for a right-of-way to

transport the spent nuclear fuel from the main Union Pacific rail

line to the ISFSI. PFS proposed two right-of-way options. Its

preferred option was to build a new, 32-mile rail spur from the

main line that would run along the base of the Cedar Mountains

to the ISFSI. PFS’s alternative option was to build an

intermodal transfer facility, at which spent nuclear fuel would be

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transferred from railcars to heavy-haul vehicles and then

transported to the ISFSI via Skull Valley Road, a two-lane

public road.

On September 9, 2005, following a lengthy administrative

proceeding in which the petitioners participated, the NRC issued

a memorandum and order authorizing its staff to issue a license

to PFS to build and operate the ISFSI. On February 21, 2006,

after denying Utah’s motion to reopen the record, NRC granted

the license. The license, which is specific to the site designated

in the proposed lease, permits PFS to store up to 40,000 metric

tons of spent nuclear fuel at the facility. Its term is twenty years,

with an option to renew for another twenty.

Petitioner Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia (OGD) -- an association

consisting primarily of members of the Skull Valley Band

opposed to construction of a nuclear waste facility on the

reservation -- timely petitioned for review of the NRC’s decision

in this court. So, too, did the State of Utah. PFS and the Skull

Valley Band intervened on the side of the NRC. 

Subsequent to the filing of the petitions for review, the

BLM and the BIA denied the applications that PFS had filed

with each agency. The BLM disapproved both of PFS’s

requested rights-of-way: the preferred rail route, and the

alternative intermodal transfer facility route. The Bureau

rejected the rail line request on the ground that the National

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, Pub. L. No.

109-163, 119 Stat. 3136 (2006), which had been signed into law

after publication of the project’s final environmental impact

statement, “clearly required” denial. BLM, Record of Decision

at 10 (Sept. 7, 2006). Section 384 of the Act designated certain

lands, including those described in PFS’s right-of-way

application, as wilderness and added them to the National

Wilderness Preservation System. See National Defense

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Authorization Act § 384, 119 Stat. at 3217-18; BLM, Record of

Decision at 8. “[O]peration of a rail line,” the BLM said,

“would be inconsistent with the purpose for which the BLM

manages the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area.” BLM, Record

of Decision at 10. The BLM also rejected the alternative option,

on the ground that the intermodal transfer facility was “contrary

to the public interest.” Id. In the BLM’s view, “too many

questions remain unanswered” regarding the potential risk and

impact of transporting spent nuclear fuel along Skull Valley

Road. Id.; see id. at 10-15. 

For its part, the BIA rejected the Skull Valley Band’s lease

of reservation land to PFS for the construction and operation of

the ISFSI. Although the local BIA superintendent had

conditionally approved the lease in May 1997, the Bureau

declared itself unconstrained by the superintendent’s conditional

approval. The Bureau based its disapproval on a variety of

concerns, including the adequacy of the environmental impact

analysis, the relationship of the use of leased lands to

neighboring lands, the lack of specialized resources with which

to monitor the tenant’s activities and enforce the lease, and the

inability to ascertain when spent nuclear fuel might leave the

land. See BIA, Record of Decision at 18-29 (Sept. 7, 2006). 

The parties advised us of these post-petition developments

in their briefs on the merits. We requested supplemental

briefing regarding the impact of these developments on

justiciability, and we now conclude that the petitions are not ripe

for review and should be held in abeyance.

II

The Supreme Court has noted that “[r]ipeness is a

justiciability doctrine” that is “‘drawn both from Article III

limitations on judicial power and from prudential reasons for

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refusing to exercise jurisdiction.’” National Park Hospitality

Ass’n v. Dep’t of the Interior, 538 U.S. 803, 807-08 (2003)

(quoting Reno v. Catholic Soc. Servs., 509 U.S. 43, 57 n.18

(1993)). Even in a case “raising only prudential concerns, the

question of ripeness may be considered on a court’s own

motion.” Id. at 808. We do so here. 

“In testing whether the facts of a particular case meet th[e]

standard of ripeness, we have often applied a two-part analysis,

evaluating ‘[1] the fitness of the issues for judicial decision and

[2] the hardship to the parties of withholding court

consideration.’” National Treasury Employees Union v. United

States, 101 F.3d 1423, 1431 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (quoting Abbott

Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 149 (1967)). The “basic

rationale is to prevent the courts, through avoidance of

premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract

disagreements over administrative policies, and also to protect

the agencies from judicial interference until an administrative

decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete

way by the challenging parties.” Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 148-

49. But as we have also explained, the “usually unspoken

element of the rationale” is this: “If we do not decide [the claim]

now, we may never need to. Not only does this rationale protect

the expenditure of judicial resources, but it comports with our

theoretical role as the governmental branch of last resort.

Article III courts should not make decisions unless they have

to.” National Treasury Employees Union, 101 F.3d at 1431

(citation omitted); see McInnis-Misenor v. Maine Medical Ctr.,

319 F.3d 63, 70 (1st Cir. 2003) (Boudin, J.) (noting that, “[i]n

the fitness inquiry, . . . prudential concerns focus[] on the policy

of judicial restraint from unnecessary decisions”). 

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A

“Among other things, the fitness of an issue for judicial

decision depends on whether it is ‘purely legal, whether

consideration of the issue would benefit from a more concrete

setting, and whether the agency’s action is sufficiently final.’”

Atlantic States Legal Found., Inc. v. EPA, 325 F.3d 281, 284

(D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting Clean Air Implementation Project v.

EPA, 150 F.3d 1200, 1204 (D.C. Cir. 1998)). But when an

agency decision may never have “its effects felt in a concrete

way by the challenging parties,” Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 148-

49, the prospect of entangling ourselves in a challenge to such

a decision is an element of the fitness determination as well. See

Toilet Goods Ass’n v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 158, 162-63 (1967)

(holding that, even though a regulation was “the agency’s

considered and formalized determination,” and the issue

“present[ed] a purely legal question,” the lawfulness of the

action authorized by the regulation was not fit for judicial

resolution, because (inter alia) it was uncertain “whether or

when” the authority would be used). As the First Circuit has put

it:

Even though the legal issues may be clear, a case may

still not be fit for review: [T]he question of fitness

does not pivot solely on whether a court is capable of

resolving a claim intelligently, but also involves an

assessment of whether it is appropriate for the court to

undertake the task. Federal courts cannot -- and should

not -- spend their scarce resources on what amounts to

shadow boxing. Thus, if a plaintiff’s claim, though

predominantly legal in character, depends on future

events that may never come to pass, or that may not

occur in the form forecasted, then the claim is unripe.

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McInnis-Misenor, 319 F.3d at 72 (internal quotation marks

omitted); see W.R. Grace & Co. v. EPA, 959 F.2d 360, 366 (1st

Cir. 1992) (“[P]remature review not only can involve judges in

deciding issues in a context not sufficiently concrete to allow for

focus and intelligent analysis, but it also can involve them in

deciding issues unnecessarily, wasting time and effort.” (internal

quotation marks omitted)). Hence, a “claim is not ripe for

adjudication if it rests upon ‘contingent future events that may

not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.’” Texas

v. United States, 523 U.S. 296, 300 (1998) (quoting Thomas v.

Union Carbide Agric. Prods. Co., 471 U.S. 568, 580-81 (1985));

see Suburban Trails, Inc. v. New Jersey Transit Corp., 800 F.2d

361, 367 (3d Cir. 1986) (“‘Agency action may be found not ripe

for review because the need will not arise until some action is

taken by third parties who are not involved in the review

proceeding.’” (quoting 13A CHARLES A. WRIGHT, ARTHUR R.

MILLER, & EDWARD H. COOPER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND

PROCEDURE § 3532.6 (1984))).

Resolution of the petitioners’ challenge to the licensing of

the storage facility at issue here has all the earmarks of a

decision that “we may never need to” make. National Treasury

Employees Union, 101 F.3d at 1431. The denials of approval by

the BLM and BIA appear to block the activity -- construction

and operation of the facility -- that petitioners OGD and Utah

contend will concretely affect them. The intervenors -- PFS and

the Skull Valley Band -- say that they are “planning to

challenge” the BLM and BIA denials in court. Intervenors’

Supp. Br. 4. But they have not filed a challenge yet, and they

claim to have six years in which to do so. See id. (citing 28

U.S.C. § 2401(a)). Of course, even if the intervenors do seek

review, the ultimate result “may not occur as [they]

anticipate[].” Texas, 523 U.S. at 300 (internal quotation

omitted). As the NRC concedes, “it is certainly possible that

reversals of the BIA and BLM decisions ‘may not occur at all.’”

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NRC Supp. Br. 5 (quoting Worth v. Jackson, 451 F.3d 854, 861

(D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Texas, 523 U.S. at 300)). 

The intervenors also insist that “reversal of [the BLM]

decision is not required for the project to go forward.”

Intervenors’ Supp. Reply Br. 3 n.5. “That decision,” they argue,

“only concerned two transportation options, and . . . NRC

regulations governing the transportation of spent nuclear fuel

would not preclude PFS from accomplishing an intermodal

transfer at locations for which no Bureau of Land Management

. . . approval would be required.” Id. Even if that is true, PFS

has not proposed any such option, nor even described one in its

briefs. The BLM rejected the only options that PFS did propose,

both of which require BLM approval. In the absence of an

actual proposal from PFS for an alternative intermodal transfer

location, it is impossible to know whether or what kind of

administrative approval would be required. Such a speculative

possibility cannot render the instant petitions ripe for

adjudication.

In any event, even if PFS were to find a way to accomplish

an intermodal transfer that does not require BLM approval, the

BIA’s disapproval of the lease would still block construction

and operation of the facility. The license granted by the NRC is

site-specific, authorizing storage only at the location designated

in the proposed lease and rejected by the BIA. See License for

Independent Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel ¶ 10 (J.A. 1992).

Indeed, even the intervenors concede that PFS cannot construct

or operate the facility without BIA approval -- or judicial

reversal of its disapproval. Intervenors’ Supp. Br. 7. The

chances of either result, at least at this point, are simply

unknown. Put another way, we “find it too speculative whether”

the validity of the NRC license is a problem that “will ever need

solving.” Texas, 523 U.S. at 302.

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2

See also Blumenthal v. FERC, Nos. 03-1066, 03-1075, 2003 WL

21803316, at *1 (D.C. Cir. July 31, 2003) (holding a challenge to

In sum, the institutional interests in deferring review here

are high. Those include avoiding, until the impact on the parties

is more certain, the expenditure of judicial resources on a

complex, fact-intensive case with a joint appendix of over 4000

pages. But they also include avoiding the issuance of what

could effectively become an advisory opinion: if the BIA’s

decision is upheld on review (or review is not sought), any

opinion regarding the validity of the NRC’s site-specific license

could well be moot. 

Neither petitioners Utah and OGD, nor respondent NRC,

disputes that we have discretion to defer review as a prudential

matter. Nor do they object to our holding the case in abeyance

-- as compared to dismissing the petitions -- pending PFS’s

securing the administrative approval (by judicial reversal of

disapproval or otherwise) required for it to construct and operate

the storage facility. That is what we did under analogous

circumstances in Town of Stratford v. FAA, 285 F.3d 84 (D.C.

Cir. 2002), reh’g denied, 292 F.3d 251 (D.C. Cir. 2002). In that

case, the town petitioned for review of a Federal Aviation

Administration (FAA) plan to renovate runways at a local

airport. Id. at 86. When the case was argued, we learned that

part of the property necessary to implement the FAA’s plan was

under the Army’s control and that the Army had not yet decided

to give up the land. See Town of Stratford, 292 F.3d at 252.

Because “considerations of prudential ripeness suggested that

we withhold our decision and opinion unless and until the Army

finally decided to release its portion of the property to be used

for the airport improvement,” we held the case in abeyance

pending “such an occurrence.” Id.; see id. (noting that “our

ripeness concern was a prudential one -- we did not wish to

devote judicial resources when it might not be necessary”).2

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FERC’s approval of a pipeline in abeyance, pending the resolution of

an administrative challenge to Connecticut’s rejection of a required

certification); cf. Atlantic States Legal Found., Inc., 325 F.3d at 284-

85 (finding unfit for judicial decision a challenge to EPA regulations

allowing utilities to accumulate hazardous waste because, before the

regulations could have any effect, a state agency would have to adopt

them, and “[n]o one can say with certainty that” the agency would);

Friends of Marolt Park v. Dep’t of Transp., 382 F.3d 1088, 1094 (10th

Cir. 2004) (holding that a challenge to the Department of

Transportation’s authorization of a construction project was unripe,

because “before the project [could] go forward further action by local

voters [was] required”); Suburban Trails, 800 F.2d at 365-67 (finding

a challenge to a state agency’s action unripe for review, because it was

effectively subject to veto by a federal agency).

Like the FAA’s airport plan, progress on PFS’s spent fuel

storage facility awaits uncertain approvals from other agencies,

including the agency (BIA) that effectively controls the relevant

property. Indeed, this case presents a stronger warrant for

abeyance, as those agencies have already denied the necessary

approvals.

B

In deciding whether to find this case prudentially unripe and

to hold it in abeyance, we must also consider “‘the hardship to

the parties of withholding court consideration.’” National

Treasury Employees Union, 101 F.3d at 1431 (quoting Abbott

Labs., 387 U.S. at 149). Neither petitioner suggests that it

would suffer any hardship were we to hold its petition in

abeyance. Nor does the respondent, the NRC. However, PFS

and the Skull Valley Band, which intervened on the side of the

NRC, assert that they would suffer hardship from such a

disposition. Although courts have described this factor as

hardship to “the parties,” and intervenors have party status, they

cite no case in which a court actually considered the hardship to

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a respondent (or an intervenor-respondent) of deferring a

decision on a challenger’s petition. Cf. National Park

Hospitality Ass’n, 538 U.S. at 808 (noting that the ripeness

doctrine is designed in part to defer decision until an

administrative decision’s “‘effects [are] felt in a concrete way by

the challenging parties’” (emphasis added) (quoting Abbott

Labs., 387 U.S. at 148-49)); Toilet Goods Ass’n, 387 U.S. at 164

(describing the hardship factor as relating to “the degree and

nature of the regulation’s present effect on those seeking relief”

(emphasis added)).

In any event, we find the intervenors’ claim of hardship

insubstantial. They are “‘not required to engage in, or to refrain

from, any conduct’” during the time the case is held in

abeyance. Atlantic States Legal Found., Inc., 325 F.3d at 285

(quoting Texas, 523 U.S. at 301). To the contrary, because the

NRC granted the license, and because a decision to hold the

petitions in abeyance would not invalidate it, each intervenor

would remain “free to conduct its business as it sees fit.”

National Park Hospitality Ass’n, 538 U.S. at 810. Nonetheless,

PFS and the Band contend that, if we do not review the case

now, they will suffer hardship because “[u]nresolved judicial

challenges, such as the pending challenge to the NRC license,

necessarily increase the uncertainty as to the viability of the PFS

project and make it more difficult to market the project.”

Intervenors’ Supp. Reply Br. 3. But any uncertainty left by our

decision to defer the challenge to the NRC’s approval is surely

dwarfed by the uncertainty brought about by the BIA and BLM

disapprovals. And yet we cannot help but notice that the latter

uncertainty has still not moved the intervenors to seek review of

those disapprovals. 

Moreover, the gravamen of the intervenors’ argument

“appears to be that mere uncertainty as to the validity of a legal

rul[ing] constitutes a hardship for purposes of the ripeness

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analysis.” National Park Hospitality Ass’n, 538 U.S. at 811. As

the Supreme Court said of such an argument in National Park:

“We are not persuaded. If we were to follow [that] logic, courts

would soon be overwhelmed with requests for what essentially

would be advisory opinions because most business transactions

could be priced more accurately if even a small portion of

existing legal uncertainties were resolved.” Id. Accordingly, we

find that the intervenors here have “failed to demonstrate that

deferring judicial review will result in real hardship.” Id.

“In order to outweigh institutional interests in the deferral

of review, the hardship to those affected by the agency’s action

must be immediate and significant.” Action Alliance of Senior

Citizens of Greater Philadelphia v. Heckler, 789 F.2d 931, 940

(D.C. Cir. 1986); see NRDC v. Thomas, 845 F.2d 1088, 1093

(D.C. Cir. 1988). The hardship asserted by the intervenors is

neither.

III

For the foregoing reasons, we find the petitions for review

unripe, and will hold this case in abeyance in accordance with

the terms set forth in the accompanying order.

So ordered.

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