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

Heading: Full Power Licensing Proceedings

Text: 18 The full power licensing issues before the court principally involve the Licensing Board's approval of Seabrook's offsite emergency plans. The New Hampshire Radiological Emergency Response Plan Revision 2 (NH Plan) is a state plan covering the New Hampshire communities within the plume exposure pathway EPZ. The Seabrook Plan for Massachusetts Communities (Utilities Plan) is a plan that was developed by PSNH and the other owner-utilities pursuant to 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(c) after Massachusetts and the Massachusetts communities within the EPZ declined to participate in emergency planning. 19 During adjudicatory hearings on the adequacy of the NH Plan, petitioner Massachusetts proffered evidence of potential radiation doses that would result from specific hypothetical accidents at Seabrook. The evidence was intended to support petitioners' contentions that the NH Plan could not adequately protect the large numbers of persons who visit the ocean beaches near Seabrook on summer weekends. The evidence consisted of written testimony from four expert witnesses: Steven C. Sholly, Dr. Jan Beyea, Dr. Gordon Thompson, and Dr. Jennifer Leaning (collectively, Sholly/Beyea testimony). Joint Appendix (JA) at 160. (Unless indicated otherwise, citations to the joint appendix refer to case No. 90-1132.) 20 Mr. Sholly's testimony was offered to explain that the generic emergency preparedness guidelines on which section 50.47 rests were developed on the basis of dose-distance assessments performed for a range of accident scenarios. JA at 171. Dr. Beyea would then predict the level of protection the NH Plan would actually provide to the peak summertime beach population in terms of the potential radiation doses that could result from various accident scenarios. Id. at 172. Dr. Thompson's testimony proposed to address the likelihood and characteristics of a catastrophic atmospheric release of radiation at Seabrook. Id. at 174. Finally, Dr. Leaning was to describe the health effects that such accidents would have on the beach population. Id. The stated premise of these experts' testimony was that a site-specific examination of the potential dose consequences of various accidents would illuminate the effectiveness of the offsite emergency measures planned. Id. at 187. 21 The Licensing Board refused to admit the Sholly/Beyea testimony on the ground that such evidence is not relevant to the review of emergency response plans under section 50.47. JA at 144-59. On interlocutory appeal, the Appeal Board certified to the Commission the question whether the evidence should be admitted in light of a prior Commission opinion, Long Island Lighting Co. (Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1), CLI-86-13, 24 N.R.C. 22, 30 (1986) (Shoreham ), in which the Commission had stated that a goal of emergency planning is reasonable and feasible dose reduction under the circumstances. See Public Service Co. of New Hampshire (Seabrook Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-922, 30 N.R.C. 247, 255-59 (1989). 22 In the meantime, on December 30, 1988, the Licensing Board issued a 141-page partial initial decision approving the NH Plan. Public Service Co. of New Hampshire (Seabrook Station, Units 1 and 2), LBP-88-32, 28 N.R.C. 667 (1988). 2 The Board made findings on twenty-six litigated contentions relating to eight general aspects of the plan. See id. at 669-70. While the Board found it necessary to make four specific revisions to the plan and to retain jurisdiction over a subissue relating to one of those revisions, it concluded that, subject to later verification that the necessary revisions had been made, the plan met the requirements of 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(b) and Part 50, Appendix E, and reasonably assured that adequate protective measures were available for the New Hampshire portion of the EPZ. See 28 N.R.C. at 804-05. 23 Petitioners appealed this decision while hearings continued on other segments of offsite emergency planning. On November 7, 1989, the Appeal Board handed down an opinion reviewing four of the eight categories of issues resolved in LBP-88-32. ALAB-924, 30 N.R.C. 331 (1989). The Appeal Board generally affirmed the Licensing Board's findings and conclusions but reversed and remanded four issues for further action consistent with this opinion. Id. at 373. The remanded issues involved the possible need for letters of agreement with school personnel involved in evacuating schoolchildren; the accuracy of a survey intended to identify persons with special transportation needs; the accuracy of evacuation time assumptions for advanced life support patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and other special facilities; and the need for further implementing details in the plan for emergencies in which sheltering would be the preferred protective action for the beach population. Id. The Appeal Board did not specify that its opinion precluded issuance of a full power license but did note that the lack of implementing details for beach sheltering is a deficiency that must be remedied. Id. at 372 n. 194. 24 Two days after ALAB-924, on November 9, 1989, the Licensing Board issued a 281-page partial initial decision. The decision addressed sixty-two litigated contentions proffered by petitioners relating to the Utilities Plan and a 1988 FEMA-graded, full participation exercise of Seabrook's emergency plans (such an exercise being a prerequisite to full power licensing under 10 C.F.R. Part 50, Appendix E.IV.F.1). See LBP-89-32, 30 N.R.C. 375, 380-84 (1989). The Board concluded that the 1988 graded exercise was adequate in scope and revealed no fundamental flaw in the Utilities Plan or the NH Plan; that the 1988 exercise demonstrated that the NH Plan was adequate and implementable; and that the Utilities Plan satisfied the requirements of section 50.47(b) and Appendix E, and reasonably assured that adequate protective measures would be available for the Massachusetts portion of the EPZ. See 30 N.R.C. at 650. Having thus resolved all remaining licensing issues in the applicants' favor (other than the four remanded by the Appeal Board), the Licensing Board authorized a full power license for Seabrook. Id. at 651. The Board took note of the four remanded issues and promised to provide a supplemental decision explaining why ALAB-924 did not preclude the immediate issuance of an operating license. Id. at 651 & n. 87. 25 Petitioners moved the Appeal Board to vacate authorization of the full power license, but the Appeal Board refused to act before receiving the Licensing Board's supplemental opinion. JA at 1048. Subsequently, the Commission decided sua sponte to assume jurisdiction over petitioners' motion to vacate; the Commission reasoned that because it was already scheduled to decide the immediate effectiveness of LBP-89-32 and the Sholly/Beyea evidentiary question, its resolution of the motion to vacate would serve the interests of efficiency. JA at 1051. Thereafter, in its supplemental decision of November 20, 1989, the Licensing Board analyzed the four remanded issues in light of its familiarity with the extensive factual record and concluded that none of the deficiencies was sufficiently significant to preclude licensing and that any further action concerning such issues could be conducted through post-licensing hearings. LBP-89-33, 30 N.R.C. 656 (1989). 26 On March 1, 1990, the Commission handed down its decision on the certified question concerning the Sholly/Beyea testimony. CLI-90-2, 31 N.R.C. 197 (1990). The Commission upheld the Licensing Board's ruling that the testimony was inadmissible, holding that judgments on the adequacy of emergency planning are to be based on conformity with the sixteen planning standards set forth in 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(b). Id. at 213. Relying on its own guidelines and rulemaking statements supporting section 50.47 and on prior adjudicatory decisions, including its Shoreham opinion, the Commission reasoned that 27 consideration of specific accident sequences and their potential dose consequences has been rendered unnecessary by the promulgation of generic guidance that incorporates and synthesizes data on a range of accidents and their consequences. Thus the seeming anomaly of excluding proffered evidence on dose consequences, where the objective of the inquiry is to reduce dose consequences, is in fact no anomaly at all. For it is by applying the generic guidance of the regulation's sixteen standards to the review of individual emergency plans--not by attempting to predict the effects of particular hypothetical accidents occurring under particular hypothetical conditions of weather, time of year, and time of day--that the NRC satisfies itself that the goal of achieving dose reductions is met. 28 Id. at 215. 29 On the same day it decided this evidentiary question, the Commission issued a ruling denying petitioners' motion to vacate and allowing the immediate effectiveness of the Licensing Board's decisions. CLI-90-3, 31 N.R.C. 219 (1990). On the motion to vacate, the Commission concluded that the Licensing Board had not violated any clear, nondiscretionary duty in authorizing the license. Id. at 229-31. The Commission reasoned that nothing in ALAB-924 by its terms precludes a full power authorization; that no NRC rule or decision suggests ... [a] duty on the part of the Licensing Board to delay full power authorization pending completion of remand proceedings; and that, most important for this case, the Licensing Board's authority to act despite a remand from the Appeal Board was properly supported by 10 C.F.R. Sec. 50.47(c)(1). 31 N.R.C. at 230. While agreeing that the remanded issues were probative of compliance with section 50.47(b), and thus would be relevant to licensing, the Commission noted that they were not necessarily material to license issuance because, under Sec. 50.47(c), [some] compliance issues may not be significant and therefore need not be resolved prior to license issuance. Id. at 230-31 (emphasis added). 30 In its immediate effectiveness review, the Commission found that the Licensing Board had acted reasonably in determining that the remanded issues were not significant and that this determination did not preclude the immediate issuance of a license. See id. at 232-48. The Commission further held that the Licensing Board's findings and conclusions in LBP-89-32 on the adequacy of the Utilities Plan and the FEMA-graded exercise, not yet reviewed by the Appeal Board, also met the immediate effectiveness criteria set forth in 10 C.F.R. Sec. 2.764(f)(2). See id. at 248-54. As a result, the Commission allowed the full power license to take effect, with, however, the recognition that administrative appeal processes (in which later review of the Licensing Board's decision[s] will take place) will continue. Id. at 225. 31 On March 15, 1990, the full power license issued. JA at 752. This court denied a stay pending appeal, and Seabrook thereafter began its ascension to full power. Administrative appeals and further adjudication before the Licensing Board are ongoing. 32 The last NRC action petitioners ask us to review in connection with the full power proceedings is the Commission's denial of their request for a waiver of the financial qualification regulation. CLI-89-20, 30 N.R.C. 231 (1989). The NRC exempts regulated electric utilities, like PSNH, from its general rule requiring license applicants to demonstrate financial qualification. 10 C.F.R. Secs. 50.33(f), 50.40(b). The rationale for the exemption is that a regulated utility usually can recover through its rate base the costs of safely operating a nuclear facility. 49 Fed.Reg. 35,747, 35,748 (1984). Massachusetts and SAPL argued that a waiver was justified pursuant to 10 C.F.R. Sec. 2.758(b) because the rationale for the exemption had been undercut by special circumstances, namely, the fact that PSNH had filed for bankruptcy. JA at 397-537. The Licensing Board ruled that petitioners failed to make a prima facie showing for a waiver, LBP-89-10, 29 N.R.C. 297 (1989), but the Appeal Board certified the issue to the Commission, ALAB-920, 30 N.R.C. 121 (1989). 33 Petitioners relied on a prior opinion rendered during Seabrook's low power proceedings in which the Commission had found that the purpose of the exemption was undermined by the combination of PSNH's bankruptcy and New Hampshire's anti-CWIP statute (which prohibits a utility from increasing customers' rates to recover the costs of construction work in progress). See CLI-88-10, 28 N.R.C. 573, 592-98 (1988). In denying the later petition,, the Commission held that its low power decision did not support a waiver of the financial qualification exemption during full power operations because [n]othing in the anti-CWIP law ... prohibits including Seabrook's operating costs in the rate base when the plant is operating to serve the public, as it will be fully authorized to do if it receives its full-power license. 30 N.R.C. at 241 (emphasis in original). The Commission also held that the exemption would not be undercut by a normal delay in cost recovery imposed by the New Hampshire ratesetting process, id., and that even if the rule were undercut by exceptional circumstances, petitioners had failed to show that a significant safety problem would result, id. at 243-44.