The States of Nevada and Minnesota; Denial of Petition for Rulemaking

Resumo

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is denying a petition for rulemaking (PRM-60-2 and 60-2A) submitted by the States of Nevada and Minnesota dealing with disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). In PRM-60-2, the petitioners requested that the NRC adopt a regulation governing the implementation of certain generally applicable environmental standards for HLW that had been proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1982. Subsequently, in PRM-60-2A, the petitioners amended their original petition after EPA issued final standards in 1985. The amended petition was placed on hold pending completion of certain rulemaking activities, including EPA and NRC development of new HLW disposal standards applicable only to a site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The NRC is denying the petition because the NRC considered and partially addressed petitioners' concerns in the development of its site-specific standards for a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, and amending NRC's generic repository licensing regulations at this time would unnecessarily expend limited Commission resources because there is no current expectation that the generic regulations, in their current for