Opinion ID: 555042
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Interpretation of Emergency Planning Regulation

Text: 55 In the NRC's view, an emergency response plan provides reasonable assurance of adequate protective measures under 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(a)(1) if it adequately satisfies the sixteen paragraph (b) criteria in a way that is implementable; the plan need not achieve any minimum radiation dose savings or minimum evacuation time in the event of a specific accident. See CLI-90-2, 31 N.R.C. at 208, 216-17. This approach is thought most likely to produce a flexible plan that offers the best feasible means for minimizing harm to the public from unpredictable accidents, given the particular characteristics of the plant site and the surrounding EPZ. See id. at 215-17. If any interested party believes that satisfaction of the sixteen standards alone will not produce an adequate and implementable plan in a particular case, the party may petition the NRC under 10 C.F.R. Sec. 2.758 for a waiver of section 50.47 to allow the imposition of more stringent planning requirements. See id. at 217. Petitioners challenge this interpretation of the emergency planning regulation and the Commission's consequent decision to exclude the Sholly/Beyea testimony. 56 Petitioners' view of emergency planning fundamentally differs from the NRC's. It is their position that section 50.47(a)(1) requires the Commission to judge an emergency plan in terms of the actual dose of radiation received by a particular EPZ population in a hypothetical accident scenario. The inference to be drawn from their position is that a nuclear power plant may not be licensed for full power operation where the demography and physical constraints of the planning area are such that no feasible response plan can provide substantial protection under particular conditions. See Brief for Petitioners at 13, 43-46; Brief for SAPL at 2-8. Because of the absence of sufficient protective sheltering near the beaches and the length of time potentially required for a complete evacuation of the beach population during periods of peak use, they contend that Seabrook is such a plant. See Oral Argument of Robert A. Backus, counsel for petitioner SAPL, Sept. 18, 1990: 57 QUESTION: Would you agree that adequate sheltering is simply not available on the beaches for the beach population? 58 MR. BACKUS: Essentially, we agree with that, Your Honor. 59 QUESTION: Then is it your position that if there cannot be protection, a license may not issue?MR. BACKUS: That's our position. 60 QUESTION: That this is a characteristic inherent in the choice of the site? 61 MR. BACKUS: That's correct, Your Honor. 62 This basic, irreconcilable conflict fuels petitioners' challenge to the full power licensing of Seabrook. For that reason, we will address CLI-90-2 before turning to the immediate effectiveness ruling. As discussed below, we decline to disturb the Commission's application of section 50.47. 63 Our standard of review on this question is necessarily deferential. We will not overturn the Commission's interpretation of its own emergency planning rule unless that interpretation is plainly inconsistent with the language of the regulation[ ]. San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC, 789 F.2d 26, 30 (D.C.Cir.) (en banc) (Mothers for Peace II ), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 923, 107 S.Ct. 330, 93 L.Ed.2d 302 (1986). If its reading of section 50.47 satisfies that standard, the Commission's application of the regulation to exclude petitioners' expert testimony may be set aside only if it was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise contrary to law. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 706(2)(A) (1988). Moreover, the Commission's licensing decisions are generally entitled to the highest judicial deference because of the unusually broad authority that Congress delegated to the agency under the Atomic Energy Act. Carstens v. NRC, 742 F.2d 1546, 1551 (D.C.Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1136, 105 S.Ct. 2675, 86 L.Ed.2d 694 (1985). 64 Petitioners argue that we should not defer to the Commission's interpretation of section 50.47 or the decision to exclude the Sholly/Beyea testimony on the ground that the NRC lacks expertise in the area of emergency planning. They contend that Congress recognized this supposed lack of expertise when it required the NRC to develop and implement mandatory offsite planning standards in consultation with an agency more specialized in emergency response, FEMA, see 1980 NRC Authorization Act, Pub.L. No. 96-295, Sec. 109, 94 Stat. 780, 783-85 (1980), thereby indicating dissatisfaction with the failure of the checklist approach to offsite planning that the NRC employed prior to the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in 1979. 65 Petitioners have confused the judicial deference that is given when the NRC makes predictions, within its area of special expertise, at the frontiers of science, Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. NRDC, 462 U.S. 87, 103, 103 S.Ct. 2246, 2255, 76 L.Ed.2d 437 (1983), with the deference presumptively owed an agency's interpretation of its own regulations and with the heightened deference for NRC licensing decisions that flows from its broad statutory mandate. The latter two bases for judicial deference fully apply here. 66 In particular, the 1980 Authorization Act, an expired fiscal appropriations law, was not in effect when CLI-90-2 was decided and therefore did not limit the licensing discretion otherwise conferred on the Commission by Congress. Moreover, petitioners' argument that the NRC lacks expertise in offsite emergency planning was expressly rejected in Massachusetts v. United States, 856 F.2d 378 (1st Cir.1988), where the court held that [t]he substantive area in which an agency is deemed to be expert is determined by statute; here, under the relevant congressional enactments ..., the NRC is specifically authorized and directed to determine whether emergency plans adequately protect the public. Id. at 382. We agree with the First Circuit. Accordingly, we see no reason to depart from the highly deferential standard of review outlined above. 67 Our analysis must begin with the wording of section 50.47. Petitioners argue that the Commission's interpretation violates the plain language of the regulation because protective measures cannot possibly be judged adequate, as required by section 50.47(a)(1), without consideration of their actual effectiveness in protecting the public. That conclusion, however, is not compelled by a straightforward reading of the rule. 68 The Commission observed that [n]othing in the regulation contains any suggestion that calculations of dose consequences are intended to play a role in the evaluation of a plan's adequacy. CLI-90-2, 31 N.R.C. at 214. We cannot say that this judgment is flatly contradicted by the language or structure of section 50.47. As we have previously noted in determining that a response plan need not consider a particular emergency event like an earthquake, section 50.47 make[s] no reference to specific conditions or accident sequences. Mothers for Peace II, 789 F.2d at 43. Paragraph (a) appears to state the general goal of the regulatory scheme for emergency planning. As we earlier observed, paragraph (a) does not address any particular emergency ...; rather, it sets forth a general standard that envisions judgment and implies discretion. Id. at 31. Paragraph (b) then enumerates specific standards that a response plan must meet, presumably for the purpose of achieving the goals of adequacy and implementability. 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(b). None of these specific standards requires the Commission to measure a plan against particular hypothetical scenarios. 69 Other provisions in the regulation indicate that the core of the Commission's inquiry is compliance with the generic standards of paragraph (b). Paragraph (a)(2) provides that FEMA's determination supporting the reasonable assurance finding will primarily be based on a review of the plans, 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(a)(2), which will necessarily focus on the contents required by paragraph (b) and Part 50, Appendix E.IV. Paragraph (c)(1) provides, inter alia, that [f]ailure to meet the applicable standards set forth in paragraph (b) of this section may result in the Commission['s] declining to issue an operating license, unless the applicant for the license can demonstrate to the Commission's satisfaction that deficiencies in the plan are not significant for the plant in question, that interim measures will compensate for the deficiencies, or that there are other compelling reasons to permit licensing. Id. Sec. 50.47(c)(1). 70 In the event the applicant must develop its own response plan as a result of a refusal by state and local governments to participate in emergency planning, the regulation provides that the utility plan will be evaluated against the same planning standards applicable to a state or local plan, as listed in paragraph (b) of this section, with certain allowances for the lack of governmental participation. Id. Sec. 50.47(c)(1)(iii). Under paragraph (d), the NRC's evaluation of onsite emergency planning for purposes of low power licensing requires a similar finding of reasonable assurance of adequate protective measures, which will be based on the NRC's assessment of the applicant's onsite emergency plans against the pertinent standards in paragraph (b) of this section and Appendix E. Id. Sec. 50.47(d). 71 All of these provisions bolster the Commission's conclusion that adequacy is to be judged by conformity with the planning standards. CLI-90-2, 31 N.R.C. at 214. These sixteen standards were derived from assessments of a spectrum of possible radiological accidents, and the NRC has concluded that they provide an appropriate basis for arriving at a plan that will be comprehensive and flexible. See id. at 215-17. Petitioners' construction of paragraph (a) is certainly plausible, perhaps even desirable as a matter of policy, but it is not the only reasonable reading of the regulation. We conclude that the Commission's interpretation is not plainly inconsistent with any language in section 50.47. 72 Petitioners further argue that the agency interpretation is contrary to the mandate of the 1980 Authorization Act, in which Congress directed the NRC to establish and enforce standards for offsite emergency plans. See Pub.L. No. 96-295, Sec. 109, 94 Stat. at 783-84. 3 They point to language in the Authorization Act indicating that a response plan was to provide[ ] reasonable assurance that public health and safety is not endangered, id. Sec. 109(b)(1)(B)(i)(II); that the NRC was required to assess the adequacy of existing plans, id. Sec. 109(b)(3); and that the agency was directed to report to Congress on the emergency response capabilities available for plants with existing construction permits (which included Seabrook) and to determine the maximum zone in the vicinity of each such facility for which evacuation of individuals is feasible at various different times corresponding to the representative warning times for various different types of accidents, id. Sec. 109(c). Petitioners contend that these provisions required the NRC to judge the effectiveness of a particular plan's protective measures based on the degree to which the public is actually protected by those measures. Brief for Petitioners at 27. 73 We do not agree that the Authorization Act required the NRC to develop standards for evaluating each emergency plan in terms of an actual reduction in potential radiation exposure. The Act directed the agency to promulgate planning standards by rule and to require as a condition of licensing that for each plant there exist either a plan that complies with the NRC's regulatory standards for responding to a radiological emergency or, in the alternative, a plan that offers reasonable assurance that public health and safety will not be endangered. Pub.L. No. 96-295, Sec. 109(b)(1). This congressional mandate left to the NRC's discretion the specific requirements of emergency planning. The alternative structure of section 109(b) reflects Congress's assumption that the NRC could develop generic standards that would reasonably assure the public safety without having to examine the specific safety consequences of each emergency plan for each plant. 74 Petitioners do not contend that the agency failed to comply with section 109(c) of the Act, which simply required the NRC to report to Congress on the emergency response capabilities of each plant then under construction and to include in that report a description of the maximum feasible emergency planning zone for such plant. See id. Sec. 109(c). The fact that Congress directed the NRC to identify enlarged EPZs for all new facilities with reference to feasible evacuation times does not signify that a response plan could only be approved if it would achieve some minimum safe evacuation time for persons in the EPZ. This provision did not constrain the NRC's discretion to define generic standards for such protective measures. See H.R.Rep. No. 1070, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. 27 (1980) (conference report) (while designation of EPZ should consider capability to implement protective measures such as evacuation and sheltering quickly and safely, minimum requirements for planning standards left to NRC discretion). 75 Petitioners offer a second statutory basis for their contention that the adequacy of emergency planning must be measured by the actual mitigation of harmful consequences. As a result of the TMI accident, they argue, the NRC came to realize that emergency planning is an essential first tier safety requirement, along with siting and design engineering, for achieving adequate protection to the health and safety of the public, the goal of licensing under section 182(a) of the AEA, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2232(a). See 44 Fed.Reg. 75,167, 75,169 (1979) (rationale for promulgation of section 50.47). They conclude from this that the 1980 Authorization Act required that the same standards be applied in determining the adequacy of offsite emergency planning as are applied in determining the adequacy of site selection and plant design. 76 From this premise, petitioners reason that each emergency response plan must be judged to provide effective protection for the public from hypothetical accidents that surpass the containment capabilities of engineered safety features and onsite precautions. The only possible measure of such effectiveness, they claim, is dose consequences. 77 Petitioners contend that in its 1980 rulemaking proceedings on emergency planning, the NRC embraced this concept and, in response to the Authorization Act, rejected the pre-TMI practice of relying on a checklist to guide state and local authorities in the development of emergency plans because that approach was insufficient to achieve adequate protection. Petitioners argue that the Commission's current interpretation of section 50.47 represents a throwback to the pre-Authorization Act practice because the paragraph (b) catalog of standards is almost identical to the earlier checklist used by the NRC. Cf. NRC, Guide and Checklist for the Development and Evaluation of State and Local Government Radiological Emergency Response Plans in Support of Fixed Nuclear Facilities, NUREG-75/111 (1974). 78 In CLI-90-2, the Commission agreed that emergency planning under section 50.47 is a first-tier safety requirement designed to implement the adequate protection standard of section 182(a) of the AEA. 31 N.R.C. at 210-13. But the Commission did not believe this fact was material to whether evidence like the Sholly/Beyea testimony is properly considered in the review of an emergency plan. Id. at 210. According to the Commission, even though offsite planning is an essential element of adequate public protection, it is not necessarily of equal safety significance with other protective requirements: 79 [A]dequate emergency planning is essential, just as adequate lifeboats are essential for a liner carrying passengers at sea. But it is only common sense to acknowledge that emergency plans, like lifeboats, are a backstop, a second or third line of defense that comes into play only in the extremely rare circumstance that engineered design features and human capacity to take corrective action have both failed to avert a serious mishap. 80 Id. at 213. 81 For initial siting approval, the NRC requires the applicant to establish around the proposed plant an exclusion area and low population zone (LPZ), the sizes of which must be determined on the basis of specific maximum safe radiation exposure levels for the public assuming a fission product release from the reactor core. See 10 C.F.R. Sec. 100.11(a)(1)-(2). The siting regulations also require the determination of a population center distance, measuring the distance to the nearest area of dense population, which must be at least one and one-third times the radius of the LPZ. See id. Sec. 100.11(a)(3). Thus, the shorter the population center distance, the greater the design-engineered safeguards required in order to have an LPZ with an outer boundary of no more than three-fourths the distance to the nearest population center. In emergency planning, by contrast, the goal of mitigating dose consequences in the larger EPZs is to be attained through the application of generalized planning standards without consideration of actual levels of dose savings. See Shoreham, 24 N.R.C. at 30. 82 Our limited task on this point is to determine whether, given its recognition that emergency planning is first-tier, the NRC's generalized approach to dose mitigation in offsite planning is a reasonable exercise of the agency's discretion under section 182(a). We believe it is. Section 182(a) does not expressly require that adequate protection be judged by a single standard for different categories of safety features. In fact, we have repeatedly emphasized the broad discretion available to the agency in devising appropriate standards and have held that adequate protection permits the acceptance of some level of risk. See Union of Concerned Scientists v. NRC, 824 F.2d 108, 117-18 (D.C.Cir.1987). It is for the NRC to determine whether a level of, or approach to, risk reduction is acceptable for offsite planning that may not be adequate for plant siting and design engineering. 83 Contrary to petitioners' contention, the Commission's July 23, 1980, rulemaking proceedings do not clearly establish that section 50.47 was intended to achieve a measurable level of effective protection in specific cases. In choosing the word adequate over appropriate for paragraph (a), certain members of the Commission voiced the opinion that adequacy would connote reasonable assurance of effective dose reductions, whereas appropriate might be satisfied by a less demanding best-efforts standard that could leave the public in danger. See Transcript of NRC Rulemaking Session, July 23, 1980, at 22-28, 34-43, reprinted in JA at 25-31, 37-46. Petitioners argue that these statements contemplate a case-by-case effectiveness assessment. 84 We are not convinced. At most, the 1980 rulemaking proceedings establish that the overall goal of emergency planning is reasonable and feasible dose reductions under the circumstances, a proposition reiterated in the Commission's ruling, see CLI-90-2, 31 N.R.C. at 216-17. In the same hearing cited by petitioners, one commissioner stated: 85 [T]he whole thrust of the rule as I perceive it is that we do things with plant design and operation to try to keep things from happening. Then you say if something does happen it seems sensible ... to have pre-existing plans and notification means so that we can take whatever measures are practical ... to reduce the radiological hazard. 86 JA at 38. Another commissioner noted that a plan need not 87 be found inadequate just because you know that there are going to be some periods of time when you can't do that which you would really like to be able to do ... because of the conditions of the accident or the conditions of the weather. 88 Id. at 41-42. While the adequacy of a plan is necessarily determined on a case-by-case basis, the rulemaking record does not contradict the Commission's decision that the minimization of harm to the public in each case may be inferred from satisfaction of the sixteen planning standards, regardless of whether the plan will actually protect the entire EPZ under all conditions if one of the particular accidents assessed in the underlying guidelines should occur. 89 Nor do we accept the claim that under the Commission's interpretation, section 50.47 amounts to little more than a pre-TMI reliance on a pro forma checklist. Before 1980, the Commission did not require an NRC-approved offsite emergency plan as a condition of licensing. The checklist provided state and local governments with criteria for the development of plans for responding to radiological emergencies and facilitated their coordination with those of the licensee. See NRC, Emergency Planning for Nuclear Power Plants, Regulatory Guide 1.101 (rev. 1 Mar. 1977). The regulatory scheme for emergency planning developed by the NRC in response to TMI and the 1980 Authorization Act is markedly more demanding than the prior practice, even though the paragraph (b) planning standards are largely drawn from the earlier criteria. See generally 45 Fed.Reg. 55,401, 55,402-08 (1980). 90 After 1980, satisfaction of these standards became for the first time a condition of licensing that required the finding of adequacy by FEMA and the NRC. Id. at 55,403. The new scheme provided that where significant deficiencies in a plan would preclude the finding of adequacy, the plant could be shut down if the deficiencies were not corrected within four months. Id. The geographical area for offsite planning was substantially expanded from the LPZ to two larger zones, the ten-mile radius plume exposure pathway EPZ and the fifty-mile radius ingestion pathway EPZ. See id. at 55,406; 44 Fed.Reg. 61,123 (1979); see also Seacoast Anti-Pollution League v. NRC, 690 F.2d 1025, 1028-29 & nn. 10 & 12 (D.C.Cir.1982). Also, the new scheme required detailed implementing procedures and more stringent public notification capabilities. See 45 Fed.Reg. at 55,403, 55,407. Finally, emergency plans must comply with the detailed requirements of Appendix E. These enhanced safety requirements plainly represent something more than a checklist review. 91 Furthermore, we do not take it from the Commission's ruling in CLI-90-2 that paragraph (a) has no meaning independent of paragraph (b). As we understand the NRC's application of the regulation, paragraph (a) requires the agency to determine that compliance with the sixteen planning standards is more than pro forma. The NRC must assure itself, based on FEMA's review, that the plan addresses each of the individual requirements in a manner that is adequate and implementable. There is ample indication in the administrative record that the Licensing Board employed this approach in its approval of the NH Plan for Seabrook. 92 For example, the planning standard in section 50.47(b)(10) is satisfied if the response plan demonstrates that [a] range of protective actions [has] been developed ... for emergency workers and the public. 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(b)(10). Petitioners argued before the Licensing Board that the NH Plan did not satisfy (b)(10) because it did not contain adequate provisions for sheltering the beach population. See CLI-90-3, 31 N.R.C. at 244. Commission guidance makes clear, however, that (b)(10) does not require sheltering as an option but does require an evaluation of the expected advantages of sheltering under local circumstances. Id. (citing NUREG-0654, Criterion II.J.10.m). Pursuant to this guidance, the Licensing Board set out to determine whether the State of New Hampshire has given careful and adequate consideration to sheltering as a protective action in the NH Plan. LBP-88-32, 28 N.R.C. at 771; see CLI-90-3, 31 N.R.C. at 244. 93 The Board found that the State had satisfied this standard. In response to comments from FEMA, the State had provided detailed explanations of its approach to the use of sheltering for the beach population. 28 N.R.C. at 758. Under almost all circumstances, early beach closure or evacuation would be the preferred action for the beach areas because of the lack of beachside structures that would offer substantial protection. Id. at 758, 766. The plan included a description of the very low-probability conditions under which emergency planners would choose general sheltering for the beach population. Id. at 758-59, 775. 94 Sheltering would be more readily utilized for the estimated two percent of beach-goers without their own transportation, and the plan identified specific shelters for these persons and provided for sufficient bus transportation along the beach routes. Id. at 759, 761. In addition, the Board found that credible surveys established that sheltering providing a dose reduction of at least ten percent existed for the entire peak or near-peak transient summer beach crowd in the very limited circumstances in which sheltering would be the preferred option. Id. at 770-72, 775. FEMA agreed with the technical bases for the State's approach to sheltering and concluded that the NH Plan, with its primary reliance on evacuation, satisfied the requirement for a range of protective measures. Id. at 767. 95 Based on these and other findings, the Licensing Board ruled that adequate consideration had been given in the NH Plan to the protective action of sheltering Seabrook's beach population. Id. at 776. On review, the Appeal Board upheld the Licensing Board's conclusions on the limited nature of the sheltering option but went even further on the question of implementability, requiring that the NH Plan include more detailed implementing instructions for those very low probability situations when general sheltering of the transient beach population would be the preferred option. See ALAB-924, 30 N.R.C. at 362-73. 96 Far from applying an uncritical checklist methodology, the Licensing and Appeal Boards exhibited a reasoned evaluation of the adequacy and implementability of the plan's compliance with the paragraph (b) standards. That is the approach we interpret the Commission to require under section 50.47. See, e.g., CLI-90-3, 31 N.R.C. at 244-48 (discussing reasonableness of Licensing Board's treatment of sheltering option). Indeed, in ruling on the immediate effectiveness of the full power authorization, the Commission agreed with the Appeal Board that the plan should include further implementing detail if general beach sheltering was to be an option. Id. at 248. Although it also agreed with the Licensing Board that the lack of such detail was not significant, id., the Commission's concurrence with the Appeal Board on the need for further implementing measures reinforces our conclusion that the NRC requires fulfillment of the individual paragraph (b) standards in an adequate and implementable manner. 97 Having determined that the Commission's interpretation of its emergency planning regulation is consistent with the language of the regulation and is not otherwise contrary to law, we have little difficulty concluding that the Commission's exclusion of the Sholly/Beyea testimony was not improper. 98 Given the fact that the Licensing Board's task under section 50.47 is limited to a review of the plan's conformity with the paragraph (b) standards and that this review does not entail consideration of the dose consequences that might result from various hypothetical accidents, the Commission had a reasonable basis for concluding that the proffered evidence was not relevant to the proceedings because it would not make the finding of an adequate and implementable plan within the meaning of the regulation more or less likely. Cf. Fed.R.Evid. 401. To allow litigation of specific dose consequences would be inconsistent with a methodology that was derived from generic guidelines and was designed to eliminate the need for an examination of hypothetical dose savings. See CLI-90-2, 31 N.R.C. at 215-17. This determination is within the NRC's great discretion to decide what matters are relevant to its licensing decision. Union of Concerned Scientists v. NRC, 735 F.2d 1437, 1446 (D.C.Cir.1984) (UCS I ), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1132, 105 S.Ct. 815, 83 L.Ed.2d 808 (1985). 99 At bottom, petitioners' contention is that the Sholly/Beyea testimony is probative of their belief that effective emergency planning at Seabrook is inherently impossible because the plant is located so near the crowded ocean beaches, a fact that was described by SAPL counsel at oral argument as an operating license blocker. They point to post-TMI rules that require applicants for nuclear facility construction permits to file preliminary emergency plans, see 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.34(a)(10), Appendix E.II (Preliminary Safety Analysis Report), and they suggest that this requirement means that after 1980 the feasibility of emergency planning was meant to influence site selection. The implication apparently is that inherent planning difficulties created by the siting of a facility may block section 50.47 approval where the plant received its construction permit, as did Seabrook, prior to TMI. 100 The problem is that, as discussed above, neither the AEA nor section 50.47 as interpreted by the Commission leads to this implication. The Commission has given no indication that preliminary emergency plans under section 50.34(a)(10) will be used as site blockers any more than final emergency plans under section 50.47. 101 Finally, we note that although the Commission held the Sholly/Beyea testimony inadmissible for purposes of the section 50.47 proceeding, the Commission did suggest a possible use for such evidence. See CLI-90-2, 31 N.R.C. at 217. It noted that when the Licensing Board refused to admit the evidence, petitioners could have filed a petition for a waiver of or exception to the normal application of section 50.47, requesting more stringent planning requirements for Seabrook on the ground that special circumstances with respect to the subject matter of the particular proceeding are such that application of the rule or regulation ... would not serve the purposes for which the rule or regulation was adopted. 10 C.F.R. Sec. 2.758(b). With their application for a waiver, petitioners could then have submitted the Sholly/Beyea testimony to the Licensing Board in the form of supporting affidavits set[ting] forth with particularity the special circumstances alleged to justify the waiver or exception. Id. Petitioners failed to avail themselves of this opportunity.