ABSTRACT
Ivan Selin has extolled the value of public participation in Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decisionmaking, and professed deep concern for the future of such participation, the Commission has—along with Congress and the courts—erected enormous legal and regulatory barriers to effective public access to, and participation in, NRC proceedings. In enacting Sections 189 and 185, therefore, Congress rejected a system under which the NRC's post-construction review, and the public's right to a hearing, would be limited to whether the plant had been built in accordance with the terms of the construction permit. Since the time that those concessions were made by the NRC, nuclear industry advocates have repeatedly pointed to the Seabrook and Shoreham licensing proceedings. As the NRC conceded to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, however, "many of the 'anticipatory' contentions would be eliminated by the new rule's specificity requirements."
