Opinion ID: 407564
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Observance of Procedure

Text: 366 The Vermont Yankee II Court confirmed our duty to conduct a limited procedural review of the Commission's activity by restating the second aspect of the Overton Park analysis: Of course, the (circuit) court (on remand) must determine whether the agency complied with the procedures mandated by the relevant statutes. 118 It warned, however, that we should ... not stray beyond the judicial province to explore the procedural format or to impose upon the agency its own notion of which procedures are 'best' or most likely to further some vague, undefined public good. 119 Judge Bazelon has effectively ignored this warning, however, and once again disguises a strict substantive review under NEPA in a fundamentally procedural rubric. While our scrutiny for compliance with NEPA's procedural mandate may be, as Judge Bazelon asserts, a close one, it must not extend across the line separating the Commission's procedural duty from substantive determinations and policymaking. The latter category of action is properly reviewable only under the arbitrary and capricious standard. Thus, although I agree with the majority opinion that NEPA's requirements are among those providing an overall procedural standard for the Commission's action, I disagree with Judge Bazelon's assertions of what those requirements are and how they are to be applied in the rulemaking context. 367 The Supreme Court emphasized in Vermont Yankee II that while NEPA does set forth significant goals for the Nation, ... its mandate to the agencies is essentially procedural, 120 and that the only procedural requirements imposed by NEPA are those stated in the plain language of the Act. 121 The plain language of NEPA, to the extent relied upon by the majority, 122 requires simply that a detailed statement of environmental impacts, effects, and irretrievable resource commitments, as well as alternatives to the proposed activity, be included in recommendations for major Federal actions. 123 And while this detailed statement is only the outward sign that the environmental values and consequences have been considered during the planning stage of agency actions, 124 the Act does not prescribe exactly how this consideration must be made. Thus, any NEPA-based review consistent with Vermont Yankee II must be limited to a scrutiny of compliance with only the outward signs of environmental consideration clearly prescribed by the Act. 125 368 Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's clear guidelines, however, Judge Bazelon has again strayed beyond judicial province to register his dissatisfaction with the methodology underlying the Table S-3 Rule and to prescribe procedural mandates which, however promotive of an ideal that environmental concerns play a vital role in government decisionmaking, simply are not among those required by Congress under NEPA. 126 369 The majority's first novelty is the elevation of uncertainties to the level of separate environmental impacts, effects, or costs. Although this is no easy task in logic, since uncertainty is a quality inherent in all impacts as well as benefits, of which there is less than complete certitude, the equation is accomplished semantically with apparent ease. Pointing to 1) uncertainty concerning the integrity of the (projected) permanent repository ... and 2) uncertainty over whether and when such a repository ... will be developed, 127 he concludes that these uncertainties reflect two environmental costs of licensing a plant. 128 From that point costs are treated as an equivalent to uncertainties, and uncertainties thus become costs which must be considered under NEPA. 370 Judge Bazelon's prescription does not end there, however. Under his analysis no simple consideration of costs will do: Although the Commission did consider these uncertainties, it did not do so in a manner that would allow licensing decisions to be affected. 129 The majority's bottom line is that uncertainties may be fully considered only if openly balanced against benefits, as costs now traditionally are. This, it is maintained, is the type of consideration described in Calvert Cliffs' ; 130 and thus, we are led to conclude, is the type of consideration required by NEPA in this case. And because the Commission did not rule that the (uncertainties) were insignificant, (or) rule that they were outweighed by generic benefits that would also be excluded from the licensing boards' consideration, 131 and because the promulgation of a rule calling for an assumption that post-sealing repository releases would be zero prevented licensing boards from considering uncertainties in their own balancing, 132 the Commission directly contravened NEPA's requirement that environmental costs be considered 'at every stage where an overall balancing of environmental and non-environmental factors is appropriate.'  133 371 Thus, in a series of small steps, Judge Bazelon has held that uncertainties in the assumptions underlying the figures in the fuel cycle rule can be considered, consistent with NEPA, only as separate environmental costs, balanced in common EIS practice against benefits. He has severely qualified and limited the Commission's authority to determine by an otherwise reasonable generic process that certain factors do not merit separate consideration in individual licensing proceedings. 134 Clearly, the requirements described by Judge Bazelon are not among the procedural requirements stated in the plain language of (NEPA);  135 they are creature(s) of judicial cloth, not legislative cloth, 136 and are an improper basis for invalidating the Rule. Our critical review of an agency's action, such as the S-3 Table here under scrutiny, ends with a determination that the decisionmakers have satisfied the key procedural requirement of considering environmental consequences of and alternatives to the proposed action. Even though NEPA provides that environmental considerations must be made to the greatest extent possible, we may not, under the guise of close scrutiny for procedural compliance, dictate to the agencies just how this consideration is best made. As each of the four major Supreme Court NEPA cases 137 has shown, judicial review of agency compliance with NEPA is to be tempered by a recognition that full compliance is measured against the agency's structuring of its own proceedings, in which the agency is to be accorded the greatest deference. 372