Court Opinion

ID: 9632206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:06:49.377081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:11.420609
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I join the majority in holding that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (“NRC”) use of a “reasonable expectation” standard as a proxy for the division of responsibility between public and private forces is not arbitrary and capricious, that the NRC did not improperly withhold safeguarded information, and that the NRC did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act. However, I would grant the petition for review as to whether the NRC acted arbitrarily and capriciously in excluding air-based threats from the Design Basis Threat (“DBT”) rule.
No one disputes that there is a credible threat of terrorists using commercial aircraft to attack nuclear power plants. Nevertheless, the NRC concludes it was not necessary to include air-based threats in its DBT rule because: (1) other federal agencies will largely prevent such attacks in the first instance, and (2) the effects of any successful attack will be minimal, or at least minimized.
The NRC claims it conducted “detailed, site-specific engineering studies” that “confirm the low likelihood of [an airplane attack] both damaging the reactor core and releasing radioactivity that could affect public health and safety.” Unfortunately, this comforting conclusion directly contradicts the unanimous findings of the studies available in the administrative record — some commissioned by the NRC itself — that some of our nuclear facilities may not be able to withstand the impact of a commercial jet airplane.
One study found that an aircraft strike could cause radioactive leakage along with “[e]xtensive destruction of [the] reactor building.”1 One cautioned that a core meltdown could result from even a light aircraft striking a nuclear plant’s control building,2 and another similarly concluded *930that even a small plane could damage a plant’s reactor core.3 Still another, performed by the Argonne National Laboratory, warned that an airplane strike causing rapid depressurization of the plant’s secondary cooling system might very well cause “serious damage if not total meltdown.” 4 Even the NRC itself has recently determined that an airplane strike has a substantial chance of causing “catastrophic” damage to spent nuclear fuel pools.5 The studies referenced in the DBT rule, which apparently6 “confirm” the low likelihood of radioactive release, are the sole exceptions.
Of course, we must defer to an agency’s expertise in weighing evidence. However, there is no sign in this record that the agency conducted that exercise here. Not only did the NRC fail to rebut the multitude of studies that conflicted with its own assessment, but it failed to even mention the contrary studies. This failure alone is grounds to grant the petition. See Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983) (noting that an agency’s failure to offer an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before it is arbitrary and capricious); Islander E. Pipeline Co. v. State of Connecticut, 467 F.3d 295, 313(2d Cir. 2006) (observing that an agency’s failure to mention contrary scientific studies renders its conclusions arbitrary and capricious).
Moreover, the NRC’s determination that nuclear plants can successfully withstand airplane strikes contradicts the agency’s own analysis. In its previous DBT rule, the NRC found that truck bombs can inflict severe damage on nuclear power plants. See Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Protection Against Malevolent Use of Vehicles at Nuclear Power Plants, 59 Fed. Reg. 38889, 38891 (August 1, 1994) (stating that such bombs’ “contribution to [nuclear] core damage frequency could be high”). The NRC provides no explanation as to why we should fear the effects of a truck bomb attack, but not those of a commercial airliner strike. Nor does the NRC explain why the construction of passive structural barriers is a critical component of defense against truck bomb attacks, while it is completely unnecessary for the NRC even to consider the installation of passive barrier defenses (such as beamhenges) to attacks by air. The distinction the agency draws between the risk of truck bombs and hijacked airliner attacks is inconsistent with our nation’s recent tragic experiences and common sense.
Although we owe the NRC considerable deference, the NRC owes the public a rational and reasonable explanation why it would exclude from its rule consideration of terrorist air attacks on nuclear facilities. In the face of near-uniform scientific studies warning of serious risk, bare assurances by the NRC that we are safe do not satisfy this minimal agency burden.

. German Reactor Safety Org., Protection of German Nuclear Power Plants Against the Background of the Terrorist Attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, at 7-9 (Greenpeace Germany trans.) (2002), available at http:// www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/ international/press/reports/protection-ofgerman-nuclear-p-2.pdf.

. Power Auth. of the State of New York & Consol. Edison Co., Indian Point Probabilistic Safety Study 7.6-3 (1982).

. Ian B. Wall, Probabilistic Assessment of Aircraft Risk for Nuclear Power Plants, 15 Nuclear Safety 276 (1974).

. C.A. Kot, et al., Argonne National Laboratory Evaluation of Aircraft Crash Hazards Analyses for Nuclear Power Plants 51-52 (1982).

. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Technical Study of Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk at Decomissioning Nuclear Power Plants at3-23 (2001); see also Natl Acad, of Scicientists, Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage (2006).

. We must accept on faith that the NRC’s studies actually stand for the proposition for which they are cited, as the agency has not offered them for our in camera review, even in redacted form.