Opinion ID: 204775
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mothers for Peace

Text: In Mothers for Peace, SLOMFP and other petitioners sought review of the NRC's approval of a proposed interim spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant (Diablo Canyon) owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG & E). We granted the petition to the extent it challenged the NRC's categorical refusal, as a matter of law, to consider the environmental effects of potential terrorist attacks in its NEPA analyses. Mothers for Peace, 449 F.3d at 1028. In concluding that the NRC had unreasonably interpreted NEPA, we addressed the agency's argument that NEPA's public process was not an appropriate forum for sensitive security issues. 449 F.3d at 1028, 1034-35. While we agreed that NEPA's requirements are not absolute, and are to be implemented consistent with other programs and requirements, we rejected the assertion that security considerations result in some kind of NEPA waiver. Id. at 1034. Following the Supreme Court's guidance in Weinberger v. Catholic Action of Hawaii, 454 U.S. 139, 102 S.Ct. 197, 70 L.Ed.2d 298 (1981), we observed that security considerations may permit or require modification of some . . . NEPA procedures and that a  Weinberger -style limited proceeding may be appropriate on remand, Mothers for Peace, 449 F.3d at 1034, but that the NRC's inability to comply with some of NEPA's purposes did not absolve it of its duty to fulfill others. We pointed out, for example, that even where the public cannot access certain information held by the agency, the NRC must nevertheless permit the public to contribute to its decisionmaking process. Id. Accordingly, we deemed the NRC's EA inadequate under NEPA and remanded for further proceedings. Id. at 1035.