AG Coakley Challenges NRC's Decision on Pilgrim Relicensing in Court

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakely has filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to continue the proceedings for relicensing Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, according to a release from Coakley's office. 

Coakely is appealing an earlier NRC denials of contentions it raised with respect to our Pilgrim license renewal review. It lost those challenges in federal court. There have been other state attorney general offices that have also brought challenges, including the New Jersey AG’s Office.

Coakley has asked the commission to halt proceedings until the NRC considers the lessons learned from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants in Japan and their relevance for the Pilgrim plant before relicensing, but the NRC refused to stop the process.

“Our Petition for Review is intended to ensure that the NRC gives due consideration, including a meaningful opportunity for public comment, to these important environmental and public safety issues,” AG Coakley said. “We believe safe nuclear power can be a part of our energy portfolio but the NRC needs to understand the lessons learned from Fukushima and apply those lessons to Pilgrim before granting the plant a 20-year license extension.”  

The release continues:

A task force assigned by the NRC to review the Fukushima accident recommended actions to increase the level of safety associated with adequate protection of the public health and safety for U.S. nuclear plants. The AG’s Office also cited an independent expert who concluded that the environmental risks of operating Pilgrim, a plant of similar design to those that failed at Fukushima, are greater than set forth in the Pilgrim owner’s pending application. According to the expert, additional mitigation measures may be warranted to reduce those risks including the improvement of the venting system to release pressure that can otherwise cause explosions.

In denying AG Coakley’s request that it take time to evaluate the lessons of Fukushima, the NRC explained that “we have already considered and rejected the notion that our Fukushima lessons-learned review needs to be completed prior to a decision on any pending license renewal application.” The AG’s appeal alleges that the NRC’s decision violates the National Environmental Policy Act as well as the Atomic Energy Act and the NRC’s own regulations.

According to NRC Public Affairs officer Neil Sheehan, when the NRC's appeals panel denied on Coakley's post-Fukushima contention last month it said is not taking the claims made in Coakely's petition "lightly. Our review of the events at Fukushima Dai-ichi is ongoing. We have directed the Staff to strive to complete and implement lessons learned within five years -- by 2016."

However, the panel also stated that the NRC has "in place well-established regulatory processes by which to impose any new requirements or other enhancements that may be needed following completion of regulatory actions associated with the Fukushima events. All affected nuclear plants ultimately will be required to comply with NRC direction resulting from lessons learned from the Fukushima accident, regardless of the timing of issuance of the affected licenses."

The panel further stated that because the Fukushim review is on-going "we do not have sufficient information at this time to make a significant difference in the Pilgrim environmental review."

The National Environmental Policy Act requires the NRC to conduct environmental reviews with the "best information available now. It does not, however, require that we wait until inchoate information matures into something that later might affect our review."