Groups press on the legality of NRC environmental reviews to extend reactor operating licenses

 NRC Final Rule on Generic Environmental Impact Statement to Approve 60 to 80 Year Operating License Renewals Ignores  Analysis of Climate Change Impacts on the Projected Increased Risk of Severe Nuclear Accidents

Per Order of a federal court, on November 1, 2024,  Beyond Nuclear and Sierra Club filed a “Statement of Issues to be Raised” before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in follow up to their October 7, 2024 “Petition for Review.” The legal filings have been brought by the groups to determine if the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) with the publication of the federal agency’s Final rule and guidance: Reviewing Nuclear Power Plant Operating Licenses – Environmental Review (Final Rule) in the Federal Register Notice posted on August 6, 2024 and its application to approve an NRC relicensing proceeding.

The NRC Final Rule codifies into law Revision 2 of NUREG-1437 ““Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants” (August 2024) (“License Renewal GEIS”). The updated Final License Renewal GEIS has been initially applied to approve the Subsequent License Renewal for the extended operations of Constellation Energy Corporation’s  second twenty year operating license extension of the  Peach Bottom atomic power plant Units 2 and 3 in Delta, Pennsylvania out to 2053  and 2054, respectively.

Beyond Nuclear and Sierra Club filings  in federal court are challenging that the License Renewal GEIS “by relying on and encoding, as binding regulations in all NRC license renewal and subsequent license renewal proceedings for nuclear reactors, conclusions about the environmental impacts of renewing reactor licenses that are irrational, unreasonable, incomplete, unsupported, and arbitrary and capricious.”

The groups’  preliminary “Statement Issues to be Raised”  lays out that they will present sufficient documentation for the Appellate Court to make a ruling on “Whether the Rule violates NEPA and the APA by relying on environmental impact data, analyses and findings in the License Renewal GEIS that fail to demonstrate consideration of the reasonably foreseeable effects of climate change — including the increasing frequency and intensity of severe weather events — on the likelihood and severity of nuclear reactor accidents during the term of renewed licenses.  The Petitioners intend to present in a judicial review enough evidence to reverse and vacate the Final Rule and Final GEIS.