Opinion ID: 173333
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: airborne radiation at section 17

Text: The licensed area in Section 17, located near Church Rock, New Mexico, is on land held in trust by the U.S. Government for the Navajo Nation and leased by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to local residents who live and graze their livestock there. Three families live on Section 17 inside the licensed area, and approximately 850 people live within five miles of the Section 8 and Section 17 mining sites. (Pet. Br. at 14 (citing Jt.App. at 245, 835-38).) HRI's licensed area on Section 17 includes the site of the abandoned Old Church Rock Mine, an underground [conventional] uranium mine that operated in the early 1960s and from 1977 to 1983[,] before it was purchased by HRI. ( Id. at 15 (citing Jt.App. at 1354).) As a result of that prior mining operation, the site contains debris and waste that emit airborne radiation. [4] Petitioners contend that the NRC, in considering HRI's licensing application, failed to take into account the airborne radiation already being emitted at Section 17, contrary to both the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended by the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 (AEA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2011-2297h-13, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4370f.
NRC regulations promulgated under the AEA limit the amount of airborne radiation from an NRC-licensed operation to 0.1 rem in a year. See 10 C.F.R. § 20.1301(a)(1). The parties agree that HRI's ISL mining will emit only negligible airborne radiation, well under that limit. The problem at Section 17 is that the debris from the prior conventional mining operation already emits a greater amount of airborne radiation than the NRC regulations allow, even before considering the airborne radiation that the ISL mining might produce. Petitioners argue that because this site already exceeds the airborne emissions allowed under § 20.1301(a)(1), the NRC cannot license another operation on that same site. The NRC, however, interpreted its regulations instead to require the agency to consider under § 20.1301(a)(1) only the amount of airborne radiation that the operation seeking the licensehere, HRI's ISL mining will emit irrespective of the airborne radioactive emissions already occurring on the site. See In re Hydro Res., Inc., 63 N.R.C. 510, 512, 515 (2006). Affording the agency's interpretation of its own regulations proper deference, we uphold that determination.
As Petitioners acknowledge, [w]e must give substantial deference to an agency's interpretation of its own regulations. Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U.S. 504, 512, 114 S.Ct. 2381, 129 L.Ed.2d 405 (1994) Here, then, [o]ur task is not to decide which among several competing interpretations best serves the regulatory purpose. Rather, the agency's interpretation must be given controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. Id. (quotations omitted); see also Fed. Express Corp. v. Holowecki, 552 U.S. 389, 397, 128 S.Ct. 1147, 170 L.Ed.2d 10 (2008); Nat'l Ass'n of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U.S. 644, 672, 127 S.Ct. 2518, 168 L.Ed.2d 467 (2007); Ariz. Pub. Serv. Co. v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, 562 F.3d 1116, 1123 n. 5 (10th Cir.2009). Therefore, we must defer to the Secretary's interpretation unless an alternative reading is compelled by the regulation's plain language or by other indications of the Secretary's intent at the time of the regulation's promulgation. Thomas Jefferson Univ., 512 U.S. at 512, 114 S.Ct. 2381 (quotation omitted). This broad deference is all the more warranted when, as here, the regulation concerns a complex and highly technical regulatory program, in which the identification and classification of relevant criteria necessarily require significant expertise and entail the exercise of judgment grounded in policy concerns. Id. (quotations omitted); see Envtl. Def. Fund v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 902 F.2d 785, 789 (10th Cir.1990) (noting, in addressing challenges to NRC's rulemaking, that [t]he NRC's resolution of technical matters, like the regulation of uranium and thorium mill tailings, is a technical judgment `within its area of special expertise, at the frontiers of science where a reviewing court must generally be most deferential') (quoting Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 462 U.S. 87, 103, 103 S.Ct. 2246, 76 L.Ed.2d 437 (1983) (alteration omitted)).
The AEA requires HRI to obtain a license from the NRC in order to conduct ISL mining. [5] See 42 U.S.C. § 2092. The NRC may not grant a license application, however, if, in the opinion of the Commission, the issuance of a license to such person for such purpose would be inimical to the common defense and security or the health and safety of the public. 42 U.S.C. § 2099; see also 10 C.F.R. § 40.32(d). The NRC has adopted regulations to implement this statutory mandate. See 10 C.F.R. § 20.1001(a). [6] Most relevant here, these implementing regulations establish standards for protection against ionizing radiation resulting from activities conducted under licenses issued by the NRC. [7] Id.; see 10 C.F.R. Pt. 20. It is the purpose of the[se] regulations... to control the receipt, possession, use, transfer, and disposal of licensed material by any licensee in such a manner that the total dose to an individual (including doses resulting from licensed and unlicensed radioactive material and from radiation sources other than background radiation) does not exceed the standards for protection against radiation prescribed in the regulations in this part. However, nothing in this part shall be construed as limiting actions that may be necessary to protect health and safety. Id. § 20.1001(b). By the specific regulation at issue here, 10 C.F.R. § 20.1301, the NRC adopted radiation Dose limits for individual members of the public. 10 C.F.R. Pt. 20, Subpt. D. A [m]ember of the public means any individual except when that individual is receiving an occupational dose, which is the dose received by an individual in the course of employment, 10 C.F.R. § 20.1003. Most pertinent to this case, 10 C.F.R. § 20.1301(a) provides, in relevant part: Each licensee shall conduct operations so that (1) The total effective dose equivalent [(TEDE)] to individual members of the public from the licensed operation does not exceed 0.1 rem (1 mSv) in a year, exclusive of the dose contributions from background radiation, from any medical administration the individual has received, from exposure to individuals administered radioactive material and released under § 35.75, from voluntary participation in medical research programs, and from the licensee's disposal of radioactive material into sanitary sewerage in accordance with § 20.2003.... 10 C.F.R. § 20.1301(a). [8] In this case, the NRC's presiding officer, during Petitioners' administrative appeal of the NRC's licensing decision, found that HRI's [ISL mining] operations would not emit airborne radiation in excess of the 0.1-rem `total effective dose equivalent' (TEDE) limit set out in Part 20 of [the NRC's] regulations. (Jt.App. at 1354.) Petitioners, in their petition for review, do not challenge that finding. Instead, they assert that the airborne radiation emitted by the waste and debris from the prior conventional mining operations on Section 17, considered by itself, already exceeds § 20.1301(a)(1)'s limit of 0.1 rem. And the NRC does not dispute that. [9] The specific question presented here, then, is whether § 20.1301(a)(1) requires the NRC, in considering HRI's licensing application, to consider only the negligible airborne radiation expected to result from HRI's ISL mining operation or, instead, to aggregate that minute amount of airborne radiation with the already existing radioactive emissions from the previously abandoned conventional mine site. The NRC determined that it need only consider the radioactive emissions expected from the ISL mining operations HRI sought to license.