Healey seeks extension after missing NRC deadline
By Christine Legere
Posted Sep 12, 2019
Attorney general’s office says problems with Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s e-filing system responsible for tardy submission.
BOSTON — State Attorney General Maura Healey missed the deadline for filing a request to federal regulators for a temporary hold on Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s approved license transfer.
The attorney general’s office had until midnight Sept. 3 to submit the request, 10 days after staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Pilgrim’s license transfer from Entergy Corp. to Holtec International.
The attorney general missed the deadline by 22 minutes because of the size of the submission, the request and 1,800 pages of accompanying data.
According to excerpts from the filing provided by the attorney general’s office, the application was filed late due to a problem with the commission’s e-filing system. The office originally attempted to send the stay application, as well as a supporting appendix, at 11:40 p.m. Sept. 3, and “made repeated unsuccessful attempts to resubmit” the materials, on multiple web browsers, between then and 12:22 a.m. Sept. 4, when the materials were successfully sent.
In a separate filing, the AG’s office said staff with the commission’s electronic submissions help desk have since confirmed that issues with the e-filing system prevented the stay application and appendix from being submitted on time.
“The late filing was based on an inadvertent and unanticipated event beyond undersigned counsel’s control and thus excusable,” the filing reads.
While Healey has asked for a retroactive deadline extension to allow for the filing, attorneys for Holtec International and Energy Corp., the present and former Pilgrim license holders, are urging the commission not to do so.
In a five-page submission to the commission, the power companies say the attorney general had ample time to file her request for a stay and instead decided to do it at the last minute.
Entergy and Holtec say the commission had already granted a deadline extension from five days to 10 to accommodate an earlier request from the attorney general.
“The Commonwealth’s sole justification for missing the extended deadline is problems encountered with NRC’s e-filing system in the final minutes before the deadline,” the power companies say. “It should come as no surprise to experienced litigants that online filing can encounter technical difficulties, takes time, and occasionally requires multiple attempts to upload very large files.”
The companies also noted that NRC staff had announced on Aug. 13 its intent to approve the transfer.
In her request for a stay, Healey said NRC staff violated the agency’s own regulations by failing to act on her petition to intervene within the necessary 45 days. The petition has been pending since February.
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Pilgrim advisory panel laments lack of power
By Christine LegerePosted Sep 12, 2019
PLYMOUTH — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission came to Plymouth Wednesday looking for suggestions from the public on the formation of citizens advisory boards to provide input into the decommissioning of nuclear plants in their regions.
The timing of the meeting was ironic, said several of the 150 or so people who turned out.
On Aug. 22, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the transfer of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s license from Entergy Corp. to Holtec International. The move was made with no input from the public, attendees said.
Former state Sen. Dan Wolf, who lives in Harwich and serves on the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel for Pilgrim, pointed out that irony.
“You’re here tonight saying you want to hear from the public,” Wolf said. “They’ve been knocking at your door, and they’ve been disregarded and disrespected.”
Petitions to intervene in the license review process and to hold public hearings prior to a decision had been submitted several months ago by Attorney General Maura Healey and Pilgrim Watch, a local citizens group. But the requests were never acted on by the NRC.
“It is hard to take the NRC’s search for best practices seriously when our community members too often saw the worst of government bureaucracy and corporate indifference throughout the process, ” said U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., in a letter read by his representative at the meeting. “When we needed reassurance and responses, we got delayed and denied.”
Representatives from the offices of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and Rep. Bill Keating, D-Mass., leveled similar criticisms of the NRC’s review process.
Federal regulations, policies and practices are “rigged in favor of the nuclear industry,” advisory panel Chairman Sean Mullin said.
Representatives from Entergy who serve on the panel told fellow members three months ago that Pilgrim’s license transfer to Holtec was going to be completed Aug. 21, Mullin said. They were just one day off, he noted. It was approved Aug. 22.
“Lesson learned: the fix was in,” Mullin said. “Holtec refused to negotiate with the state because they knew they didn’t need to, they could just run out the clock. They knew the license transfer was going to be approved.”
Mullin said citizens advisory boards are not effective because they lack clout. Such boards need the authority to make decisions.
Diane Turco, president of the Cape Downwinders, called to abolish the NRC and to replace it “with an independent intergovernmental agency.”
Turco, like Mullin, said citizens advisory boards should be made up of state and local stakeholders “that have real power to influence and enact policies and practices for the protection of the communities.”
State Rep. Mathew Muratore, R-Plymouth, said during the meeting that he had initially been surprised that the NRC scheduled a session in Plymouth just two weeks after approving Pilgrim’s controversial license transfer.
Then NRC representatives explained the session helped fulfill requirements of a new federal law.
“Congress made you be here,” Muratore said of what he believed to be the agency’s motivation. “You didn’t want to be here.”
Under the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, which became law on Jan. 14, 2019, the NRC is required to prepare a report for Congress on the best practices for advisory boards in communities around decommissioning nuclear power plants.
The meeting in Plymouth was the sixth of 11 such sessions planned in host communities nationwide.
Representatives from Holtec International and Pilgrim attended the meeting but did not speak.
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