The nuclear regulator has cancelled the mandatory hearing on a Kentucky uranium enrichment plant and reopened the contested case its own board had closed

The order runs to a single page and it changes which hearing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold before deciding whether Global Laser Enrichment may build a uranium enrichment plant in McCracken County, Kentucky. No party asked for it. The Commission acted on its own motion.

CLI-26-12 published on Friday at 91 FR 55636, on dockets 70-7033 and M70-7033. It is dated 26 August at Rockville and signed by Jody C. Martin, Secretary of the Commission.

What was in place before Friday

On 4 March the Commission noticed receipt of the GLE application in CLI-26-3 and set out the adjudicatory procedure for the case. That order provided for an on-the-record uncontested hearing, and separately for the opportunity to request a contested one.

Both branches then closed in the same week of July. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board terminated the contested proceeding in LBP-26-7 on 9 July. It established the uncontested hearing on 13 July.

The order in a different case that moved this one

On 7 August the Commission ruled in an unrelated docket. Orano Enrichment USA had applied for a licence to build and operate the Project IKE Enrichment Facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and in CLI-26-11 the Commission set the procedure for that case, saying it expected that where a contested hearing on the application was held, it would not also conduct an uncontested one.

Friday's order carries that across. The Commission says it considered the guidance it had given in both proceedings and, under its inherent supervisory authority to oversee and manage its own adjudications, decided to modify the GLE case to adopt the Orano procedures. A footnote states the effect flatly: section II of CLI-26-3, the notice of mandatory hearing, is effectively removed, and the GLE contested proceeding constitutes the required on-the-record hearing.

That is why a closed case had to be opened again. Section 193(b) of the Atomic Energy Act requires a hearing, so with the uncontested route gone the Commission reopened the contested proceeding its Board had terminated in July, and terminated the uncontested hearing the Board had established four days later. Any future contested proceeding on this application runs under 10 CFR part 2, subparts C and L.

The appeal that survives it

One question the order would otherwise leave open is settled in a footnote. Kentucky Resources Council filed a notice of appeal against the Board's memorandum and order on 3 August, and the Commission states that this reopening of the record does not affect its consideration of that appeal.

Five commissioners are named on the order: Ho K. Nieh as chairman, with David A. Wright, Bradley R. Crowell, Matthew J. Marzano and Douglas W. Weaver.