Opinion ID: 407564
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Standard of Review Applied to the Agency's Decision

Text: 358
359 As this court has held time and again, 107 the Atomic Energy Act's statutory delegation of authority to the NRC is unusually broad. Judge McGowan noted in Siegel v. AEC, 360 (In the AEA) Congress ... enact(ed) a regulatory scheme which is virtually unique in the degree to which broad responsibility is reposed in the administering agency, free of close prescription in its charter as to how it shall proceed in achieving the statutory objectives. 108 361 The Vermont Yankee II Court was emphatic in its reaffirmation of the NRC's broad authority to deal with fuel cycle issues by rulemaking. 109 Necessarily encompassed within that rulemaking authority is the power to treat certain factual and policy issues generically. 110 And the power to treat those issues generically itself must include the discretion to incorporate a certain amount of prediction into the final rule's table of release values. 111 362 The NRC has confidently-and to my mind, correctly-determined that the decision to promulgate a rule in the form of a noncomprehensive table of predicted release values-whose significance for human lives is subject to discussion in individual licensing proceedings, whose accuracy is subject to update and refinement, and whose uncertainties are candidly acknowledged-lies well within the authority granted to it by Congress. Under the Supreme Court's directive in Power Reactor Development Co. v. International Union of Electrical, Radio, & Machine Workers, 112 we are obliged to give that determination considerable deference. 113 363 In accordance with Power Reactor, this court has frequently held that where agency rules, such as the one here, are based on choices of policy, ... assessment of risks, or ... predictions dealing with matters on the frontiers of knowledge the agency has the authority to promulgate such rules, so long as they are based on such facts as are available and on rational predictions about how currently unanswerable questions will someday be answered. 114 Thus, an agency may apply (its) expertise to draw conclusions from suspected, but not completely substantiated, relationships between facts, from trends among facts, from theoretical projections from imperfect data, from probative preliminary data not yet certifiable as 'fact,' and the like. 115 The agency does not merely have the power to promulgate a rule based on such predictions; it has a duty to do so as long as it exercises that authority subject to the restraints of reasonableness, and does not open the door to ' crystal ball inquiry.'  116 364 Judge Bazelon does not openly challenge the broad powers exercised generally by the NRC under the authority of the AEA, but he does not expressly recognize them, either. And it is obvious that the deference due to the Commission has not tempered the majority's determination to find some error in the Table S-3 Rule. Here, as in Vermont Yankee I, it is a NEPA-based standard of Judge Bazelon's manufacture, bootstrapped into the APA, which provides the means to the desired end. Contrary to holdings in this court recognizing the flexibility of agency duties under NEPA in the face of uncertainties, 117 the majority has found in its construction of NEPA procedural and substantive standards by which to limit the NRC's broad substantive discretion. It holds that the Commission's action failed to meet NEPA's mandates and that it was taken without proper consideration of all relevant factors. These relate more to Overton Park's second and third inquiries than to the general question of authority. 365
366 The Vermont Yankee II Court confirmed our duty to conduct a limited procedural review of the Commission's activity by restating the second aspect of the Overton Park analysis: Of course, the (circuit) court (on remand) must determine whether the agency complied with the procedures mandated by the relevant statutes. 118 It warned, however, that we should ... not stray beyond the judicial province to explore the procedural format or to impose upon the agency its own notion of which procedures are 'best' or most likely to further some vague, undefined public good. 119 Judge Bazelon has effectively ignored this warning, however, and once again disguises a strict substantive review under NEPA in a fundamentally procedural rubric. While our scrutiny for compliance with NEPA's procedural mandate may be, as Judge Bazelon asserts, a close one, it must not extend across the line separating the Commission's procedural duty from substantive determinations and policymaking. The latter category of action is properly reviewable only under the arbitrary and capricious standard. Thus, although I agree with the majority opinion that NEPA's requirements are among those providing an overall procedural standard for the Commission's action, I disagree with Judge Bazelon's assertions of what those requirements are and how they are to be applied in the rulemaking context. 367 The Supreme Court emphasized in Vermont Yankee II that while NEPA does set forth significant goals for the Nation, ... its mandate to the agencies is essentially procedural, 120 and that the only procedural requirements imposed by NEPA are those stated in the plain language of the Act. 121 The plain language of NEPA, to the extent relied upon by the majority, 122 requires simply that a detailed statement of environmental impacts, effects, and irretrievable resource commitments, as well as alternatives to the proposed activity, be included in recommendations for major Federal actions. 123 And while this detailed statement is only the outward sign that the environmental values and consequences have been considered during the planning stage of agency actions, 124 the Act does not prescribe exactly how this consideration must be made. Thus, any NEPA-based review consistent with Vermont Yankee II must be limited to a scrutiny of compliance with only the outward signs of environmental consideration clearly prescribed by the Act. 125 368 Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's clear guidelines, however, Judge Bazelon has again strayed beyond judicial province to register his dissatisfaction with the methodology underlying the Table S-3 Rule and to prescribe procedural mandates which, however promotive of an ideal that environmental concerns play a vital role in government decisionmaking, simply are not among those required by Congress under NEPA. 126 369 The majority's first novelty is the elevation of uncertainties to the level of separate environmental impacts, effects, or costs. Although this is no easy task in logic, since uncertainty is a quality inherent in all impacts as well as benefits, of which there is less than complete certitude, the equation is accomplished semantically with apparent ease. Pointing to 1) uncertainty concerning the integrity of the (projected) permanent repository ... and 2) uncertainty over whether and when such a repository ... will be developed, 127 he concludes that these uncertainties reflect two environmental costs of licensing a plant. 128 From that point costs are treated as an equivalent to uncertainties, and uncertainties thus become costs which must be considered under NEPA. 370 Judge Bazelon's prescription does not end there, however. Under his analysis no simple consideration of costs will do: Although the Commission did consider these uncertainties, it did not do so in a manner that would allow licensing decisions to be affected. 129 The majority's bottom line is that uncertainties may be fully considered only if openly balanced against benefits, as costs now traditionally are. This, it is maintained, is the type of consideration described in Calvert Cliffs' ; 130 and thus, we are led to conclude, is the type of consideration required by NEPA in this case. And because the Commission did not rule that the (uncertainties) were insignificant, (or) rule that they were outweighed by generic benefits that would also be excluded from the licensing boards' consideration, 131 and because the promulgation of a rule calling for an assumption that post-sealing repository releases would be zero prevented licensing boards from considering uncertainties in their own balancing, 132 the Commission directly contravened NEPA's requirement that environmental costs be considered 'at every stage where an overall balancing of environmental and non-environmental factors is appropriate.'  133 371 Thus, in a series of small steps, Judge Bazelon has held that uncertainties in the assumptions underlying the figures in the fuel cycle rule can be considered, consistent with NEPA, only as separate environmental costs, balanced in common EIS practice against benefits. He has severely qualified and limited the Commission's authority to determine by an otherwise reasonable generic process that certain factors do not merit separate consideration in individual licensing proceedings. 134 Clearly, the requirements described by Judge Bazelon are not among the procedural requirements stated in the plain language of (NEPA);  135 they are creature(s) of judicial cloth, not legislative cloth, 136 and are an improper basis for invalidating the Rule. Our critical review of an agency's action, such as the S-3 Table here under scrutiny, ends with a determination that the decisionmakers have satisfied the key procedural requirement of considering environmental consequences of and alternatives to the proposed action. Even though NEPA provides that environmental considerations must be made to the greatest extent possible, we may not, under the guise of close scrutiny for procedural compliance, dictate to the agencies just how this consideration is best made. As each of the four major Supreme Court NEPA cases 137 has shown, judicial review of agency compliance with NEPA is to be tempered by a recognition that full compliance is measured against the agency's structuring of its own proceedings, in which the agency is to be accorded the greatest deference. 372
373 I agree with Judge Bazelon's statement that a reviewing court must set aside an agency finding as arbitrary if it determines that the finding is not based upon consideration of relevant factors or if it is based on a clear error of judgment. I strongly disagree, however, that this rule, properly applied to this case, should yield the result reached by the majority. 374 Although the fact is not specifically acknowledged, it is obvious from a careful examination of Judge Bazelon's opinion that the majority's holding against the Table S-3 Rule is rooted simply in its dissatisfaction with a single conclusion underlying the Rule: that licensing boards effectively may ignore the uncertainties inherent in any projections related to long-term storage of nuclear wastes in favor of the probability-based zero-release figure. Judge Bazelon concedes that uncertainties can be assessed generically, and that attendant risks can be assessed generically, 138 but states categorically that the Commission cannot find the environmental cost represented by the uncertainties to be zero unless their cost is, in fact, zero. 139 He has obviously made from the zero-release figure included in the Rule something which it is not-a finding of fact rather than simply a practical estimate for limited purposes. A careful review of the Commission's contemporaneous explanations convinces me that there is no basis for finding this determination by the NRC to be arbitrary, capricious, or clearly erroneous; nor is it otherwise not in accordance with law, as the majority suggests. The majority has simply substituted its expertise for that of the Commission. 375 The relevant question with regard to the zero-release assumption is not whether the zero figure itself is precisely accurate but whether the Commission's decision to adopt it was reasoned. The first step must be to recognize that the figure was never meant to be a factual finding, as the majority proposes; 140 it is intended only as a generic determination of the appropriate weight to be accorded in licensing proceedings to risks of radioactive emission from long-term waste storage. The Commission did not decide that releases would never occur at the projected federal repository. It only decided, in view of the staff's assumption that fission-product gases would be released prior to sealing and its finding of extremely low probability of repository failure, that taking post-sealing releases as zero does not significantly reduce the overall conservatism of the table. 141 376 As noted earlier, the majority concedes that the Commission's zero-release assumption is probably characterized better as a decisionmaking device, ... instructing licensing boards to assume that nuclear waste will have no impact on the environment once it is sealed in a repository, (and) allocat(ing) to the Commission sole responsibility for considering the risk that long-lived wastes will not be disposed of so successfully. 142 Yet rather than to afford the Commission any deference in its decision to include the zero figure device in the generic rule, Judge Bazelon has cut to the quick of the NRC's expertise and judgment: For an agency to go forward in the face of significant uncertainty and issue such a rule indicates either a failure to consider a relevant factor or a clear error in judgment, ... (and) that is precisely what the Commission did in promulgating the Table S-3 Rule. 143 The record clearly contradicts this conclusion. 377 There is no question that the Commission considered relevant factors-including the uncertainties with which Judge Bazelon is so concerned-in deciding to promulgate the S-3 Rule. The record is replete with evidence that the Commission took fair account of these uncertainties. Judge Bazelon in fact observes that (f)rom the time it proposed the original Rule ... through its promulgation of the final Rule, the Commission became increasingly candid in its acknowledgment of uncertainties underlying permanent waste disposal. 144 We can demand no more, and the majority's holding that relevant factors were not properly considered because the consideration did not take a particular form or yield a usable result 145 exceeds the limits of our judicial prerogative in a substantive review of agency decisions under the APA. 146 378 The Commission's decision not to reflect uncertainties about long-term waste storage directly in the table was simply part of its overall decision to treat an issue generically. That decision was a quintessential policy judgment. 147 The Commission chose to incorporate into the table only those values to which it could reasonably assign a figure. It did not attempt to quantify the uncertainties surrounding the figures themselves because they were inherently unquantifiable. 148 It did not require individual licensing boards to weigh repeatedly the effects of uncertainties because it was aware that individual boards were incapable of doing a better job of analysis than the Commission had already done. It did not institute a separate generic proceeding to consider uncertainties because the Commission expected that long-term effects would be more fully analyzed and understood after the concurrent waste confidence proceeding had concluded. In view of all of these considerations, I do not believe the Commission abused its discretion by finding no advantage in having licensing boards repeatedly weigh for themselves the unquantifiable uncertainties inherent in the rule it adopted-a table whose values mixed both fact and prediction. 379 Nor did the Commission fail to take a hard look at the whole problem before it. Its avowed objective was to produce a conservative, noncomprehensive table of model fuel cycle impacts; its methodology was directed toward that objective. Its working assumptions were revealed, alternative theories exposed and explained, and its ultimate rationale set forth in a logical and comprehensible manner. The Commission's decision not to search out and eliminate all uncertainties from its table can hardly be characterized as irrational in view of the limited purpose for which that table was being created. 380 There was no clear error in the Commission's conclusion that the use of a zero-release figure, rather than one which reflected a post-sealing release probability which was zero to many decimal places, would have little effect on an individual board's decision to license any given plant. 149 Even after considering the uncertainties involved in its projections of long-term waste storage techniques, the NRC concluded that the probabilities (of which uncertainty is itself an element) still favored the assumptions made and that the presence of uncertainties required no modification of the judgmental zero-release figures. This conclusion did not foreclose further investigation into or consideration of the uncertainties, and it did not preclude the licensing boards from considering uncertainties which were not separately considered in the Commission's generic determination. It was not a conclusion which was outside the realm of reasonableness. A fortiori, I cannot find the Commission's decision to adopt the entire table, of which the zero-release figure was but one small part, arbitrary and capricious, given the compensating conservatism of the rest of the table. 150 381 Nor can I say, in light of recent precedent, that the NRC has shirked its substantive obligations under NEPA. After Strycker's Bay Neighborhood Council, our only role is to insure that the agency has considered environmental consequences. 151 Here the Commission satisfied its obligation to consider those consequences in two ways: by considering whether the assumption of complete repository integrity (inherent uncertainties and all) would disrupt the overall conservatism of Table S-3 and skew subsequent environmental cost-benefit analyses; and by permitting the significance to the environment of the chosen fuel cycle impact values to be the subject of discussion at individual licensing proceedings. 382 I cannot avoid contrasting Judge Bazelon's surprisingly stringent review of the Commission's conclusions concerning the technological feasibility of the assumptions underlying the values in Table S-3 with his deferential, straightforward, and proper application of the arbitrary and capricious test to the NRC's conclusions of economic feasibility. He concedes that standards guiding conclusions concerning economic feasibility may be based on realistic, conservative, and reasoned forecasts, 152 yet the forecasts upon which the Commission based its conclusions of technological feasibility were no less realistic, conservative, and reasoned. And he is willing to look to the record as a whole for evidence that the NRC considered factors relevant to dollar cost and that it reached a conclusion that is within the range of reasonability, 153 yet is unwilling to afford the same deference to the Commission's consideration of the uncertainties relevant to its technological predictions. 383 I am puzzled only by Judge Bazelon's decision not to apply the standard which tempered his substantive review of the NRC's economic conclusions to the case as a whole. 154 If in the economic arena, then a fortiori in the technological arena, the court must accord to the Commission the deference due in this case. 384 Based on this review of the authority upon which the NRC acted in this informal rulemaking, the procedures it employed, and the stated rationale for its decision, I believe we have ample ground to affirm.