Opinion ID: 407564
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Commission's Purpose

Text: 333 A review of the record reveals that the Commission's expressed purpose in conducting the final S-3 rulemaking had evolved considerably since it had conducted the original rulemaking. 60 Its expressed purpose in conducting the final rulemaking was not to evaluate or select the most effective long-term waste disposal technology, to model precisely all of the fuel cycle impacts from a single reactor, or even to evaluate the likelihood that the nuclear waste could safely be stored in the long term. 334 The NRC's statement of basis and purpose for its final S-3 rule made clear that creation of an S-3 table had become only one part of an ongoing and wide-ranging Commission effort to evaluate long-term nuclear waste disposal issues. The Commission began by noting that a general update of the rule with respect to all aspects of the uranium fuel cycle was in progress. 61 It further noted its intent to conduct a supplementary rulemaking directed at producing and incorporating into the final rule an explanatory narrative summarizing in understandable terms the environmental significance of the table's numerical impact values. 62 Finally, the Commission noted its intent to conduct a parallel generic proceeding-a waste confidence proceeding, now in progress-to consider the most recent evidence regarding the likelihood that nuclear waste can be safely disposed of and when that, or some other off-site storage solution, can be accomplished. 63 335 Accordingly, the Commission's statement of basis and purpose referred again and again to the final rule's limited purpose: to provide a table modeling some, but not all, of the fuel cycle impacts for a typical reactor: 64 336 The table of impacts adopted as a final rule in this proceeding serves as an important first step in this consideration, relieving adjudicatory boards from the need to determine those numerical impacts of the uranium fuel cycle which have been extensively considered in generic rulemaking. 65 337 Because individual licensing boards would incorporate the table into environmental cost-benefit analyses where costs would be measured in terms of the impact of effluent releases on human lives, not in terms of the effluent releases alone, the Commission expressly stated that use of the table in individual licensing will not foreclose discussion of the significance of the release values stated in the table, or of other important aspects of the fuel cycle not addressed by the table. 66 338 In short, the Commission's goal was not to produce an exhaustively comprehensive table of precisely accurate figures as to which all uncertainty had been eliminated. Indeed, had the Commission set that goal as the objective of the rulemaking it could never have produced a Table S-3 at all, since all of the figures stated there were based on some unprovable assumptions, predictions, and generalizations. The Commission candidly acknowledged that its rulemaking necessarily involve(d) a wide-ranging inquiry and a certain amount of speculation. 67 Nevertheless, the Commission chose as a matter of policy not only to acknowledge that uncertainty, but to accept it, and then to proceed in the face of that uncertainty. 68 339 The Commission gave two reasons for creating an admittedly imperfect table of model fuel cycle impact values: its concern that NEPA cost-benefit analysis demanded a prelicensing assessment of the environmental effects of the fuel cycle, generic to all licensing actions; and its determination that such assessment lay beyond the expertise of individual licensing boards: 340 A study of fuel cycle impact thus involves difficult generic analysis and prediction well outside the normal scope of facility-specific subjects dealt with by a reactor licensing board. This does not mean the subject can be ignored or deferred until the fuel cycle facilities themselves come up for licensing. It does mean that in reactor licensing fuel cycle impacts should be treated where possible by generic rulemaking rather than case-by-case adjudication. 69 341 Aware that individual licensing boards would rely heavily on the table in future adjudications, however, the Commission deliberately selected its values so that, taken as a whole, the table would reflect substantial conservatism. 70 So long as the table as a whole was conservative, the Commission assumed, it would adequately serve as a starting point in individual environmental cost-benefit analyses, even if not perfectly detailed and precise.