Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission don’t agree on whether the agency has the authority to rule on a motion to delay the sale of a Pennsylvania nuclear plant, according to a commission order published this week.
After an affirmation session Tuesday, NRC published its decision denying environmental watchdog Three Mile Island Alert’s request to hold the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station’s Unit 2 reactor to an EnergySolutions subsidiary from the FirstEnergy companies.
The commission cited A lack of jurisdiction. The majority said that since proceedings on the license transfer are closed they can’t litigate the matter any further. NRC said that it could have ruled on a motion to reopen the record, but not on a motion for action in a closed proceeding.
Commissioner Jeff Baran dissenting, writing in his own opinion that he wasn’t on board with the decision to deny the motion “on the basis of a lack of Commission jurisdiction to reopen the case.”
A ruling of “no jurisdiction” could suggest that NRC doesn’t have the authority to hear the motion, Baran said. The dissenting commissioner argued that, although NRC has “established specific avenues” for reopening a proceeding, the agency still has the authority to hear a motion that doesn’t adhere to those guidelines, such as the one from Three Mile Island Alert.
In an emailed press release from Three Mile Island Alert Friday morning, group chair Eric Epstein called NRC’s decision “part of a nuclear shell game perpetrated by a constellation of incompetent regulator agencies.
The watchdog will file a petition for reconsideration, Epstein said.
Three Mile Island Alert in February accused NRC and all parties to the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) sale of violating a water quality certification requirement in Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which the commission argued Tuesday wasn’t necessary for the plant’s sale because there wouldn’t be “any new discharges” from decommissioning TMI-2 into the nearby Susquehanna River.
Either way, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection are both looking into the watchdog’s allegations.
Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor shut down in 1979 after a partial core meltdown. EnergySolutions announced their plans to purchase the plant from the FirstEnergy companies for decommissioning in 2019.
