Source: http://openjurist.org/712/f2d/1472
Timestamp: 2015-09-03 17:35:00
Document Index: 233728892

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 3522', '§ 2342', '§ 2239', '§ 2239', '§ 2', '§ 2239']

712 F2d 1472 Lorion v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission | OpenJurist
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712 F2d 1472 Lorion v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission 712 F.2d 1472
19 ERC 1730, 229 U.S.App.D.C. 440, 14Envtl. L. Rep. 20,012
Joette LORION, d/b/a Center for Nuclear Responsibility, Petitioner,v.UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION and UnitedStates of America, Respondents,Florida Power & Light Company, Intervenor.
No. 82-1132.
Argued Nov. 18, 1982.Decided July 26, 1983.
At the outset, it is important to note that our review is limited to the Commission's denial of the petitioner's request under section 2.206 of the NRC's rules of practice. Accordingly, none of the petitioner's NEPA arguments are properly before us. These arguments were not raised by the petitioner in her letter of September 1981 and therefore played no role whatsoever in the agency action that the petitioner asks us to review. See Letter from Joette Lorion to the NRC (Sept. 11, 1981), Joint Appendix (JA) 1-2. This court long has recognized that our normal procedures allow only those contentions subjected to agency scrutiny during the administrative process to be entertained on judicial review. See D.C. Transit System, Inc. v. Washington Area Transit Commission, 466 F.2d 394, 413-14 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1086, 93 S.Ct. 688, 34 L.Ed.2d 673 (1972). We also reject the petitioner's contention that her letter should not have been treated as a section 2.206 request because she had not formally labelled or addressed her letter as a "section 2.206 request" and had intended it to be merely "advisory." In promulgating its rules of practice, the Commission clearly expressed its intent to treat "any" request for the modification, suspension, or revocation of a license as a section 2.206 request, see 39 Fed.Reg. 12,35 3 (1974), and the court may rely upon this contemporaneous explanation of the scope of the agency's rules, see Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. EPA, 636 F.2d 1267, 1280 (D.C.Cir.1980). Indeed, it would be a disservice to members of the interested public for the NRC to reject out of hand enforcement requests simply because they were not appropriately labelled and addressed. Thus, properly framed, the petition for review asks us to consider the Commission's treatment of the petitioner's September 1981 letter under 10 C.F.R. § 2.206.
Although the parties have not raised the issue, we nevertheless must determine our jurisdiction to review NRC denials of section 2.206 requests. It is axiomatic that federal courts of appeals are courts of limited jurisdiction "empowered to hear only those cases ... entrusted to them by a jurisdictional grant by the Congress." 13 C. WRIGHT, A. MILLER & E. COOPER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 3522, at 44 (1975 ed.). Our jurisdiction to review administrative decisions of the NRC is straightforward. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2342(4) (1976), courts of appeals have authority to review "all final orders of the Atomic Energy Commission [now the NRC] made reviewable by section 2239 of title 42." Section 2239 of title 42 provides, in subsection (b), for judicial review in the courts of appeals of "[a]ny final order entered in any proceeding of the kind specified in subsection (a)." 42 U.S.C. § 2239(b). Section 2239 designates, in subsection (a), those formal NRC "proceedings" in which a person may, upon request, demand a hearing. These proceedings include "any proceeding ... for the granting, suspending, revoking, or amending of any license or construction permit ...." 42 U.S.C. § 2239(a). Thus, we may review the Commission's final order in this case, denying petitioner's request under 10 C.F.R. § 2.206, only if the order was entered in the kind of "proceeding" specified in 42 U.S.C. § 2239(a).A. The Nature of the Section 2.206 Process
To appraise properly the relationship of section 2.206 requests to NRC "p