Social and Economic Aspects of Radioactive Waste Disposal Considerations for Institutional Management (1984) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix B: Supplementary Comments on Chapter 5
Appendix B: Supplementary Comments on Chapter 5
Pages 167-175
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From page 167... ...
Yet the NWPA creates an informal site inventory process with a built-in risk that technical considerations will yield to social and political ones. Further, it provides only minimal public participation in the site inventory process.
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From page 168... ...
How can the best site be selected? Congress has answered with a statute that heavily emphasizes agency expertise and discretion, with a nod to direct public participation and a bow to state interest-the federalism issue that so dominated the legislative history of the NWPA.
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From page 169... ...
(The Act simply fails to address the status of the Carter criteria and selections.) Instead, the current Departmental policy assumes that the new Act merely codifies selections made under the prior site inventory process, a policy that belies the claim that the Act adopts a new and comprehensive national plan for site selection.
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From page 170... ...
The flavor of our deliberations still permeates the report. Yet the decision concurred in by my co-panelists to focus the concluding institutional chapter on nonadversarial means of enhancing public participation too strongly implies that NWPA has conclusively put to rest the basic institutional issues and that more formal adversarial procedures could not better accomplish the task.
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From page 171... ...
The concern for state "consultation and concur rented dominated the congressional debate on the Act. It produced, to name the salient features, a state veto, federal funding for intervention, the two-house override, final site selection by the President who can again take state interests into account, and federal construction impact mitigation payments.
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From page 172... ...
One cannot expect major change, however, because the NEPA impact statement process and the land-use planning process of FLPMA have not in general sufficed to ensure the development of adequate factual bases for potential adverse socioeconomic effects (these sections of impact statements on nuclear power plants are notoriously weak) nor with licensing, to foster broad and effective public involvement.
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From page 173... ...
The formal rule-making process offers a clearer specification of the procedures, a written public record of decision, an opportunity for public examination of both the scientific data supporting the selection of candidate sites and the criteria guiding the assessment of socioeconomic effects at sites and along waste transportation corridors. Formal rule making is well suited to social problems characterized by conflict among interests, a need for maximum opportunity in probing the factual underpinning of decisions, and a requirement of visible agency accountability (i.e., an open decision openly reached)
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From page 174... ...
The panel's majority proposal would have advanced NRC's involvement to the site inventory ("site barking I) phase, with the objectives of converting perhaps the most controversial phase of implementing a national waste isolation program into a more searching inquiry, stimulating a wider and coordinated search for viable geologic formations and desirable social locations, and excusing the DOE from making the initial site-selection decision (it will still require an NRC license and Presidential approval)
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From page 175... ...
Yet I want to make clear my preference for use of formal adversarial proceedings where strong held views divide public opinion, where factual issues permeate the issue to be resolved, where granting interest groups a legal right to direct participation would stimulate better agency documentation of its preferred course of action, and where legal institutions such as cross-examination may help to expose flawed technical studies or flush out political decisions masquerading as the product of the application of agency expertise. Mediated informal dispute resolution offers bright prospects in some areas, e.g., local land-use conflicts and hazardous waste site cleanup under the federal Super fund.
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