78058 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 249 / Wednesday, December 29, 2004 / Notices 

Office of the Secretary of the 

Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission, Washington, DC 20555–

0001, Attention: Rulemaking and 

Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, express 

mail, and expedited delivery services: 

Office of the Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, 

One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 

Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, 

Attention: Rulemaking and 

Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail 

addressed to the Office of the Secretary, 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV; or (4) 

facsimile transmission addressed to the 

Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission, Washington, 

DC, Attention: Rulemakings and 

Adjudications Staff at (301) 415–1101, 

verification number is (301) 415–1966. 

A copy of the request for hearing an 

petition for leave to intervene should 

also be sent to the Office of the General 

Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission, Washington, DC 20555–

0001, and it is requested that copies be 

transmitted either by means of facsimile 

transmission to 301–415–3725 or by email to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. A copy 

of the request for hearing an petition for 

leave to intervene should also be sent to 

James M. Petro, Jr., Esquire, Counsel, 

Constellation Energy Group, Inc., 750 

East Pratt Street, 5th floor, Baltimore, 

MD 21202, attorney for the licensee. 

For further details with request to this 

action, see the application for 

amendment dated July 15, 2004, which 

is available for public inspection at the 

Commission’s PDR, located at One 

White Flint North, File Public Area O1 

F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), 

Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available 

records will be accessible from the 

Agencywide Documents Access and 

Management System’s (ADAMS) Public 

Electronic Reading Room on the Internet 

at the NRC Web site, http://

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html.

Persons who do not have access to 

ADAMS or who encounter problems in 

accessing the documents located in 

ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR 

Reference staff by telephone at 1–800–

397–4209, 301–415–4737, or by e-mail 

to pdr@nrc.gov. (Note: Public access to 

ADAMS has been temporarily 

suspended so that security reviews of 

publicly available documents may be 

performed and potentially sensitive 

information removed. Please check the 

NRC Web site for updates of the 

resumption of ADAMS access.)

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 21st day 

of December, 2004.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

Richard V. Guzman, 

Project Manager, Section 1, Project 

Directorate 1, Division of Licensing Project 

Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation.

[FR Doc. 04–28457 Filed 12–28–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–M

NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

[Docket No. 70–7004] 

Notice of Public Scoping Meeting 

Regarding the Proposed USEC 

American Centrifuge Plant

AGENCY: United States Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC).

ACTION: Meeting notice.

SUMMARY: USEC Incorporated (USEC) 

submitted a license application to the 

NRC on August 23, 2004, proposing the 

construction, operation and future 

decommissioning of the American 

Centrifuge Plant (ACP) gas centrifuge 

uranium enrichment facility near 

Piketon, OH. The NRC previously 

announced its intent to prepare an 

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) 

on October 15, 2004, (69 FR 61268). 

This notice is to notify the public and 

interested parties of a public meeting to 

discuss to the NRC’s environmental 

review of the proposed ACP.

DATES: The public scoping process 

required by the National Environmental 

Policy Act (NEPA) will continue until 

February 1, 2005. Written comments 

submitted by mail should be 

postmarked by that date to ensure full 

consideration. Comments mailed after 

that date will be considered to the 

extent possible. 

The NRC will conduct a public 

scoping meeting to assist in defining the 

appropriate scope of the EIS, including 

the significant environmental issues to 

be addressed. The meeting date, times 

and location are listed below: 

Meeting Date: January 18, 2005. 

Meeting Location: Zahns Corner 

Middle School, 2379 Schuster Road, 

Piketon, Ohio 45661. 

Scoping Meeting: 7 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. 

Members of the NRC staff will be 

available for informal discussions with 

members of the public from 6 p.m. to 7 

p.m. The formal meeting and associated 

NRC presentation begins at 7 p.m. For 

planning purposes, those who wish to 

present oral comments at the meeting 

are encouraged to pre-register by 

contacting Ron Linton of the NRC by 

telephone at 1–800–368–5642, 

Extension 7777, or by e-mail to 

rcl1@nrc.gov no later than January 6, 

2005. Interested persons may also 

register to speak at the meeting.

ADDRESSES: Members of the public and 

interested parties are invited and 

encouraged to submit comments to the 

Chief, Rules Review and Directives 

Branch, Mail Stop T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission, Washington, 

DC 20555–0001. The NRC encourages 

comments to be submitted electronically 

to nrcrep@nrc.gov. Please refer to 

Docket No. 70–7004 when submitting 

comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

general or technical information 

associated with the license review of the 

USEC application, please contact: 

Yawar Faraz at (301) 415–8113. For 

general information on the NRC NEPA 

process, or the environmental review 

process related to the USEC application, 

please contact: Matthew Blevins at (301) 

415–7684.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

1.0 Background 

USEC submitted a license application 

for a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment 

facility, known as the American 

Centrifuge Plant (ACP), to the NRC on 

August 23, 2004. The NRC 

environmental review will evaluate the 

potential environmental impacts 

associated with the proposed ACP in 

parallel with the NRC safety review of 

the license application. The 

environmental review will be 

documented in draft and final 

Environmental Impact Statements in 

accordance with NEPA and NRC NEPA 

implementing regulations at 10 CFR Part 

51. 

2.0 USEC Enrichment Facility 

If licensed, the proposed ACP would 

enrich uranium for use in 

manufacturing commercial nuclear fuel 

for use in power reactors. Feed material 

would be natural (not enriched) 

uranium in the form of uranium 

hexafluoride (UF6). USEC proposes to 

use gas centrifuge technology to enrich 

isotope uranium-235 in the uranium 

hexafluoride up to 10 percent. The 

centrifuge would operate at below 

atomospheric pressure. The enriched 

UF6 would be transported to a fuel 

fabrication facility. The depleted UF6

would be stored on site until a 

disposition strategy (either re-use or 

disposal) is carried out by USEC. 

Initially, the licensed capacity of the 

plant would be up to 3.5 million 

separative work units (SWU) [SWU 

relates to a measure of the work used to 

enrich uranium]. USEC has requested 

that the NRC environmental review 

examine the impacts of an enrichment 

Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 249 / Wednesday, December 29, 2004 / Notices 78059

plant with a 7 million SWU capacity to 

bound potential future expansions. 

Future expansion beyond 3.5 million 

SWU would still have to be approved by 

the NRC via a separate license 

amendment. 

3.0 Alternatives To Be Evaluated 

No action—The no-action alternative 

would be to not build the proposed 

ACP. Under this alternative the NRC 

would not approve the license 

application. This serves as a baseline for 

comparison. 

Proposed action—The proposed 

action is the construction and operation 

of a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment 

facility located near Piketon, OH. 

Implementation of the proposed action 

would require the issuance of an NRC 

license under the provisions of 10 CFR 

Parts 30, 40 and 70. 

Other alternatives not listed here may 

be identified through the scoping 

process. 

4.0 Environmental Impact Areas To 

Be Analyzed 

The following resource areas have 

been tentatively identified for analysis 

in the EIS:

—Public and Occupational Health:

potential public and occupational 

consequences from construction, 

routine operation, transportation, 

and credible accident scenarios 

(including natural events); 

—Waste Management: types of wastes 

expected to be generated, handled, 

and stored; 

—Land Use: plans, policies and 

controls; 

—Transportation: transportation modes, 

routes, quantities, and risk 

estimates; 

—Geology and Soils: physical 

geography, topography, geology and 

soil characteristics; 

—Water Resources: surface and 

groundwater hydrology, water use 

and quality, and the potential for 

degradation; 

—Ecology: wetlands, aquatic, terrestrial, 

economically and recreationally 

important species, and threatened 

and endangered species; 

—Air Quality: meteorological 

conditions, ambient background, 

pollutant sources, and the potential 

for degradation; 

—Noise: ambient, sources, and sensitive 

receptors; 

—Historical and Cultural Resources:

historical, archaeological, and 

traditional cultural resources 

—Visual and Scenic Resources:

landscape characteristics, manmade 

features and viewshed; 

—Socioeconomics: demography, 

economic base, labor pool, housing, 

transportation, utilities, public 

services/facilities, education, 

recreation, and cultural resources; 

—Environmental Justice: potential 

disproportionately high and adverse 

impacts to minority and lowincome populations; and 

—Cumulative Effects: impacts from 

past, present and reasonably 

foreseeable actions at and near the 

site. 

The examples under each resource 

area are not intended to be all inclusive, 

nor is this list an indication that 

environmental impacts will occur. The 

list is presented to facilitate comments 

on the scope of the EIS. Additions to, or 

deletions from, this list may occur as a 

result of the public scoping process. 

5.0 Scoping Meetings 

This notice is to encourage public 

involvement in the EIS process and to 

solicit public comments on the 

proposed scope and content of the EIS. 

The NRC will hold a public scoping 

meeting in Piketon, OH on January 18, 

2005 to solicit both oral and written 

comments from interested parties. 

Scoping is an early and open process 

designed to determine the range of 

actions, alternatives, and potential 

impacts to be considered in the EIS, and 

to identify the significant issues related 

to the proposed action. Scoping is 

intended to solicit input from the public 

and other agencies so that the analysis 

can be more clearly focused on issues of 

genuine concern. The principal goals of 

the scoping process are to:

—Identify public concerns; 

—Ensure that concerns are identified 

early and are properly studied; 

—Identify alternatives that will be 

examined; 

—Identify significant issues that need to 

be analyzed; and 

—Eliminate unimportant issues. 

The scoping meetings will begin with 

NRC staff providing a description of 

NRC’s role and mission followed by a 

brief overview of NRC’s environmental 

review process and goals of the scoping 

meeting. The bulk of the meeting will be 

allotted for attendees to make oral 

comments. 

6.0 Scoping Comments 

Written comments should be mailed 

to the address listed above in the 

ADDRESSES section. 

7.0 The NEPA Process 

The EIS for the proposed ACP will be 

prepared according to NEPA and NRC 

NEPA implementing regulations at 10 

CFR Part 51. 

After the scoping process is complete, 

the NRC will prepare a draft EIS. The 

draft EIS is scheduled to be published 

in July 2005. A 45-day comment period 

on the draft EIS is planned, and public 

meetings to receive comments will be 

held approximately three weeks after 

distribution of the draft EIS. Availability 

of the draft EIS, the dates of the public 

comment period, and information about 

the public meetings will be announced 

in the Federal Register, on NRC’s USEC 

web page, and in the local news media 

when the draft EIS is published. The 

final EIS is expected to be published in 

March 2006 that will incorporate public 

comments received on the draft EIS.

Dated at Rockville, MD, this 21st day of 

December, 2004. 

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

B. Jennifer Davis, 

Chief, Environmental and Low-Level Waste 

Section, Division of Waste Management and 

Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear 

Material Safety and Safeguards.

[FR Doc. 04–28455 Filed 12–28–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

[Release No. 50925] 

Securities Exchange Act of 1934; 

Order Regarding Alternative Net 

Capital Computation for Merrill Lynch, 

Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, 

Which Has Elected to be Supervised 

on a Consolidated Basis 

December 23, 2004. 

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith 

Incorporated (‘‘MLPF&S’’), a brokerdealer registered with the Securities and 

Exchange Commission (‘‘Commission’’), 

and its ultimate holding company, 

Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., (‘‘ML & Co.’’), 

have indicated their desire to be 

supervised by the Commission as a 

consolidated supervised entity (‘‘CSE’’). 

MLPF&S, therefore, has submitted an 

application to the Commission for 

authorization to use the alternative 

method of computing net capital 

contained in Appendix E to Rule 15c3–

1 (17 CFR 240.15c3–1e) to the Securities 

Exchange Act of 1934 (‘‘Exchange Act’’). 

Based on a review of the application 

that MLPF&S submitted, the 

Commission has determined that the 

application meets the requirements of 

Appendix E. The Commission also has 

determined that ML & Co. is in 

compliance with the terms of its 

undertakings, as provided to the 

Commission under Appendix E. The 

Commission, therefore, finds that 

approval of the application is necessary 

or appropriate in the public interest or 

for the protection of investors.