Opinion ID: 204775
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: aea

Text: SLOMFP also urges that NRC's denial of a closed hearing violates the AEA. Having concluded that NEPA does not require such a hearing, our AEA inquiry is straightforward. Section 189(a) of the AEA grants public hearing rights upon the request of any person whose interest may be affected by a Commission licensing proceeding. 42 U.S.C. § 2239(a)(1)(A). But the Act nowhere describes the content of a hearing or prescribes the manner in which this `hearing' is to be run. Union of Concerned Scientists, 920 F.2d at 54. Appellate courts have, accordingly, deferred to the Commission's procedural rules. See id.; see also Pub. Citizen v. NRC, 573 F.3d 916, 918 (9th Cir.2009) (noting the broad responsibility reposed in the NRC, free of close prescription in its charter as to how it shall proceed in achieving the statutory objectives (quoting Siegel v. AEC, 400 F.2d 778, 783 (D.C.Cir.1968))). Furthermore, as the Commission's final order explains, the AEA's general provisions do not override NEPA's specific non-disclosure provisions. CLI-08-26 at 17. It is a well-settled rule of statutory construction that general and specific provisions, in apparent contradiction, whether in the same or different statutes, and without regard to priority of enactment, may subsist together, the specific qualifying and supplying exceptions to the general. United States v. Navarro, 160 F.3d 1254, 1256-57 (9th Cir.1998) (quoting Townsend v. Little, 109 U.S. 504, 512, 3 S.Ct. 357, 27 L.Ed. 1012 (1883)). In apparent recognition that the AEA alone does not require a closed hearing, SLOMFP suggests that the requirement derives from NEPA. This NEPA-based argument fails, as we have explained. Neither NEPA nor the AEA requires the closed hearing and access to FOIA-exempt documents sought by petitioner. The decision to grant a special hearing remains in the Commission's discretion, subject to the statutory mandates of NEPA and the AEA.