[NukeNet] Supreme Court ruling in favor of Mothers for Peace

[MoJo]

SAN LUIS OBISPO MOTHERS FOR PEACE
www.mothersforpeace.org

Press Advisory:
The United States Supreme Court Rejects Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Petition regarding San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC

For immediate release, January 16, 2007

Contacts:    Jane Swanson, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (MFP) spokesperson
             (805) 595-2605 home
             (805) 440-1359 cell
             (805) 595-9229 FAX
              janeslo at slonet.org                        
 

                   Diane Curran, MFP counsel
                   (202) 328-3500 x24(office)
                   (240) 393-9285 (cell)
                   dcurran at harmoncurran.com

Today, January 16, 2007, the United States Supreme Court ruled against Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (PG&E's) petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of the June 2, 2006 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC, 449 F.3d 1016.  The Supreme Court's rejection of PG&E's petition means that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must carry out the Ninth Circuit's mandate to consider the environmental impacts of intentional attacks on the proposed dry cask storage installation at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in California.

PG&E had asked the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit's ruling that, in order to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the NRC must consider the environmental impacts of terrorist attacks before it licenses the new facility.

MFP spokesperson, Jane Swanson, is elated with the Court's decision.  "After the events of September 11, 2001, it is only reasonable that the significant health and environmental risks of terrorist attacks be considered when designing and building nuclear facilities.  Now, after years of resistance, the NRC and PG&E are forced to address these concerns."

MFP's attorney, Diane Curran, said that she expects the NRC to issue a new environmental review document that addresses the impacts of an intentional attack on the proposed facility.  In the meantime, PG&E is precluded by law from loading fuel into the new facility.



BACKGROUND 
PG&E is running out of storage space for the "spent" or used fuel generated by the two nuclear reactors on the site of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.  Thus, in late 2001, PG&E applied to the NRC for a license for a new facility to store spent fuel on the Diablo Canyon site in dry storage casks.  As allowed by NRC regulations, respondents San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Sierra Club, and Peg Pinard (collectively, "MFP") requested a hearing on the adequacy of PG&E's license applications in the summer of 2002.

Among other things, MFP contended that the application was inadequate to satisfy NEPA because it did not address the environmental impacts of terrorist attacks on the proposed spent fuel storage facility.  Citing the NRC's increased preparedness in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, and other assaults on U.S. facilities during the past ten years, MFP argued that the NRC's own conduct shows that it considers such attacks to be reasonably foreseeable.

The NRC denied MFP's hearing request, relying on a previous decision in which it had held as a matter of law that it was not required to consider the environmental impact of intentional attacks on nuclear facilities.  According to the NRC, no Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was required.
  
In December 2003, MFP sought review of the NRC's decision in the Ninth Circuit.  PG&E was not named as a respondent but intervened to support the NRC's actions.  On June 2, 2006, the court granted MFP's petition for review with respect to its NEPA claim and ordered the NRC "to fulfill its responsibilities under NEPA."  Under the Court's order, the obligation to comply with NEPA is placed upon the NRC - not upon PG&E.  The NRC did not request a stay of the order by the en banc Ninth Circuit or by the Supreme Court, but on September 29, 2006, PG&E filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC.

NEPA: National Environmental Policy Act 
Congress established a national policy to encourage careful review of the impacts of human development on the environment.  Before taking actions that may have a significant impact on the environment, NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare environmental impact statements (EISs) that carefully consider the environmental impacts of proposed decisions and alternatives for reducing or avoiding those impacts.  They must consider environmental impacts that are "reasonably foreseeable" and have "catastrophic consequences, even if their probability of occurrence is low."



--   
  
Jane Swanson
  janeslo at slonet.org
  janeslo at kcbx.net




- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs": Source: Arundhati Roy, "Tide? Or Ivory Snow? Public Power in the Age of Empire," 

Molly Johnson 
6290 Hawk Ridge Place
San Miguel, CA  93451
Cell: 805 296-0524
 
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