NRC NEWS

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

 Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200

 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov 

 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA

No. 04-101 August 31, 2004

NRC LICENSING BOARD ISSUES DECISION ON ADEQUACY OF DOE DOCUMENT

PRODUCTION RELATING TO YUCCA MOUNTAIN LICENSING PROCEEDING

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled today the

Department of Energy (DOE) certification that it made available all DOE documentary material on its

proposed Yucca Mountain high level waste repository failed to meet NRC regulations.

Specifically, the Licensing Board unanimously found that the June 30 certification failed to

make publically available substantial quantities of documentary material in DOE’s possession at the

time of certification, and that the manner in which DOE made the material publicly available on its

own internet web site failed to satisfy the regulations.

The decision was in response to a July 12 motion to the Licensing Board from the State of

Nevada in connection with the expected future application of the DOE to build a repository for highlevel radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The motion challenged DOE’s certification of the

availability of its documentary material regarding the application. The Licensing Board heard oral

arguments on the motion, from Nevada, DOE and the NRC staff, July 27 at the NRC’s Rockville, Md.,

headquarters.

NRC regulations require, in order to provide for efficient discovery in the formal NRC hearing

that will be associated with review of the application, that all potential participants in the Yucca

Mountain proceeding make their documents available to other potential participants in electronic form

through the publicly available, web-based Licensing Support Network (LSN). The LSN is available for

anyone to access documents, at http://www.lsnnet.gov.

Under the regulations, DOE must certify, six months before submitting its license application,

that its documents are electronically available. DOE made that certification on June 30, 2004. Shortly

thereafter the NRC Chief Administrative Judge appointed a three-person Licensing Board to serve as

the Pre-License Application Presiding Officer (PAPO) to decide disputes brought by parties or

potential parties regarding documentary materials submitted to the LSN. Members of the PAPO

Licensing Board are Thomas S. Moore, Chairman; Alex S. Karlin; and Alan S. Rosenthal.

Thirty days after the DOE certification, on July 30, the NRC certified that its documents were
electronically available. Other potential parties and interested governmental participants must also

make their documents electronically available on the LSN prior to DOE filing its application for the

Yucca Mountain repository license. 

The Board ruled that Nevada and other potential participants are not required to make their

documents available until 90 days after DOE recertifies that it has made all of its documents available

on the central LSN site. “It does not appear that it will take DOE a significant amount of time to

complete its processing of the outstanding documents prior to being able to make a recertification,” the

Board said.

The PAPO Licensing Board decision may be appealed to the Commission that heads the NRC. 

A copy of the decision will be available from the NRC’s web site by entering 

http://hlwehd.nrc.gov/Public_HLW-EHD/home.asp and following the directions on the screen. Help

in accessing information on the web is available from the NRC Public Document Room at 1/800/397-

4209 or 301/415-4737.

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