United States Third Circuit

Petition for review of an Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision denying NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection request to intervene in relicensing proceedings for the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is denied where in reviewing the application to relicense the nuclear power facility, the Commission is not required to make an environmental impact analysis of a hypothetical terrorist attack on the facility as the relicensing of Oyster Creek does not have a reasonably close causal relationship with the environmental effects that would be caused by a terrorist attack. The NRC also already addressed the environmental impact of such an attack in its Generic Environmental Impact Statement and site-specific Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

Appellate Information

• Argued 12/10/2008
• Decided 03/31/2009
• Published 03/31/2009

Judges

• Before:  McKEE, SMITH and ROTH, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Anne Milgram, Esquire, Attorney General of New Jersey, Nancy Kaplen, Esquire, Assistant Attorney General of Counsel, Ellen B. Balint, Esquire, Eileen P. Kelly, Esquire (Argued), Valerie Anne Gray, Esquire, John A. Covino, Esquire, Deputy Attorney Generals, R.J. Hughes Justice Complex, Trenton, NJ, for Petitioner New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.


• For Appellees:
  
• Ronald J. Tenpas, Esquire, Assistant Attorney General, Karen D. Cyr, Esquire, General Counsel, John F. Cordes, Jr., Esquire (Argued), Solicitor, Charles E. Mullins, Esquire, Senior Attorney, E. Leo Slaggie, Esquire, Deputy Solicitor, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Rockville, MD, Tamara N. Rountree, Esquire, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, D.C., for Respondent Nuclear Regulatory Commission., J. Bradley Fewell, Esquire, Associate General Counsel, Exelon Business Services Company, Brad Fagg, Esquire (Argued), Kathryn M. Sutton, Esquire, Martin J. O'Neill, Esquire, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Private Respondent AmerGen Energy Company, L.L.C., Ellen C. Ginsberg, Esquire, Michael A. Bauser, Esquire, Anne W. Cottingham, Esquire, Nuclear Energy Institute, Inc., Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Nuclear Energy Institute, Inc. for Respondent Nuclear Regulatory Commission.