United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and United States of America, Petitioners v. Natural Resurces Defense Council, Inc., et al.

Abstract

In Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 548-549 (1978), the Supreme Court reversed a decision of the D.C. Circuit which had held invalid the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commmission’s ("NRC") original rule addressing the environmental impact of the nuclear fuel cycle for purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq. ("NEPA"), and remanded the case for review of the rule in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act (decision is accessible under: http://www.unep.org/padelia/publications/Jud.Dec.Nat.pre.pdf (Page 147)). The court of appeals consolidated that case with petitions for review of later versions of the same rule and again held the rule (in all its versions) invalid. The Petitioners sought review of that judgment. The questions the Supreme Court had to answer were: 1. Whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had violated the National Environmental Policy Act in adopting a "fuel cycle" rule (which specifies environmental releases from high level waste disposal and other uranium fuel cycle operations, for use in nuclear power plant environmental impact statements) because the rule did not permit reconsideration, in individual licensing proceedings, of uncertainties in the prospects for safe high-level waste disposal. 2. Whether the original and interim versions of the "fuel cycle" rule had forbidden consideration in individual cases of health, socioeconomic, cumulative, and similar effects from the releases specified in the rule, and were consequently invalid. The Supreme Court had concluded in “Vermont Yankee” that NEPA imposed essentially procedural requirements, and did not permit the judiciary to substitute its judgment for that of an agency concerning the weight to be given the environmental consequences of its actions. The Supreme Court held that the court of appeals’ decision ignored that direction. It also imposed on the NRC the court’s own view, found nowhere in the Act, of the procedures an Agency should follow in considering the environmental concerns made relevant by NEPA. The Court made reference to an earlier decision stating that once an agency had made a decision subject to NEPA’s procedural requirements, the only role for a court was to insure that the agency had considered the environmental consequences; it could not "’interject itself within the area of discretion of the executive as to the choice of the action to be taken.’" The choice about whether to proceed in light of an acknowledged risk was precisely the kind of discretionary decision that Congress had left with the Commission. In “Vermont Yankee”, the Supreme Court also had rejected the court of appeals’ conclusion that the NRC was "required to ’develop new procedures to accomplish the innovative task of implementing NEPA through rulemaking.” It had upheld as sufficient under both NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 553, the process adopted by the NRC. Moreover, it was irrational to invalidate the fuel cycle rule because it failed to permit individual licensing boards to reconsider the NRC’s determination that disposal uncertainties did not warrant denial of reactor licenses. Because that conclusion was a policy judgment rather than a factual finding, it was inevitable that different boards (like different courts) would assign different weights to the uncertainty, even in cases that presented otherwise similar costs and benefits. Apart from that, because the Commission itself retained authority to review licensing board decisions, affording boards the opportunity to disagree with its conclusions could well accomplish nothing more than delay in the issuance of licenses. The Court held that the petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted.

Full text

COU-143745E.pdf

References

Cites

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., et al.

Jurisprudence | National - higher court | United States of America | Apr 3, 1978

Keyword: Legal proceedings/administrative proceedings, Hazardous substances, Radiation, EIA, Nuclear energy, Radioactive pollution, Authorization/permit

Source: UNEP, InforMEA