Nuclear Information and Resource Service
202.328.0002;
fax: 202.462.2183; nirsnet@nirs.org,
www.nirs.org
Secretary
Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudication Staff
Re: Policy Statement on the Treatment of Environmental
Justice Matters in NRC Regulatory and Licensing Actions (Federal Register,
COMMENTS BY
NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE
ON
I. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
Nuclear Information and
Resource Service (“NIRS”) hereby submits its comments on the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission’s (“NRC’s” or “Commission’s”) Draft Policy Statement on the
Treatment of Environmental Justice Matters in NRC Regulatory and Licensing
Actions, 68 Fed. Reg. 62,624 (
The Commission
should scrap this proposed policy statement and begin again, taking the
following steps:
1. The Commission should explicitly
renew the commitment made by former NRC Chairman Ivan Selin to implement the
President’s 1994 Executive Order on environmental justice. The Commission should also recommit to the
four goals established by the NRC for implementation of the Executive
Order: integration of environmental justice
into NRC’s NEPA activities, continuing senior management involvement in
environmental justice reviews, openness and clarity, and seeking and welcoming
public participation.
2. The Commission should conduct a
careful review of the various guidance documents that have been developed by
the NRC Staff and federal agencies other than the NRC for implementation of the
Executive Order, evaluating how well the guidance has been carried out and how
effective it has been.
3. The Commission should identify
the useful and effective portions of this guidance, revise it as needed, and
assemble it into a single integrated policy.
4. The Commission should abandon
its position of categorically refusing to consider racial discrimination,
fairness and equity issues in NEPA reviews, based on the recognition that a
NEPA analysis that is tainted by racial discrimination lacks the requisite
level of objectivity.
II. ABOUT NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE
NIRS is a non-profit corporation with over
7,000 members. NIRS has a mission to promote an environmentally sound energy
policy, and a concern for the health and safety of the people and ecosphere. We
have offices in
NIRS has frequently commented on NRC
proposed rules and policy statements, and has a particular interest in
licensing and environmental justice issues.
III. COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED POLICY STATEMENT
A.
The Draft Policy Statement Fails to Set an
Affirmative and
Comprehensive
Policy for Consideration of Environmental Justice
Issues in NEPA
Decisions.
Notably, the
Commission does not disclaim former Chairman Selin’s commitment to carry out
Executive Order 12898. Yet, the proposed
policy statement makes virtually no attempt to incorporate any of the goals or
guidance that were developed as a result of that commitment. For instance, the Commission completely
disregards the four goals set forth in the NRC’s 1995 Environmental Justice
Strategy. See letter from Hugh L.
Thompson, Jr., NRC Member, Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group to
Carol Browner, Chair, Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group (March
24, 1995), enclosing U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Environmental Justice
Strategy (March 1995). These goals are:
(1) integration of environmental justice into
NRC’s NEPA activities;
(2) continue senior management involvement;
(3) openness and clarity
(4) seeking and welcoming public
participation.
(1)
the
Executive Order does not create any new or substantive requirements or rights;
(2)
racial motivation is not cognizable under
NEPA;
(3)
environmental
assessments normally do not include environmental justice analysis;
(4)
it is
not appropriate to consider environmental justice in generic or programmatic
environmental impact statements (“EISs”).
In fact, these
propositions make up virtually the entire proposed policy statement. Thus, the proposed policy statement amounts
to a series of negative, generic propositions of what the Commission will not
consider. A fifth proposition, that
the procedural guidelines for environmental justice review should allow for a
flexible analysis to “reflect the unique nature of each review,” has a more
positive ring – but it contradicts propositions 2, 3, and 4. The fifth proposition begs the question: if each NEPA review is unique, why does the
Commission consider it appropriate to establish the blanket exclusions of
environmental justice considerations from environmental assessments and generic
EISs, and why does it believe that racial discrimination is irrelevant in every
case?
Section III, the portion of the proposed policy statement that addresses “guidelines for implementation of NEPA,” takes the proposal even further downhill. While the reader might reasonably be expected to see some discussion of what affirmative considerations are required, Section III is primarily devoted to a description of what considerations are not needed in an environmental justice review. Only two sentences are devoted to describing what an analysis of environmental impacts of a proposed federal action on minority or low-income communities should contain:
In evaluating the human and physical environment under NEPA, effects on low-income and minority communities may only be apparent by considering factors peculiar to those communities. Thus, the goal of an EJ portion of the NEPA analysis is (1) to identify and assess environmental effects on low-income and minority communities by assessing impacts peculiar to those communities; and (2) to identify significant impacts, if any, that will fall disproportionately on minority and low-income communities.
68 Fed. Reg. at
62,645. This flimsy and unhelpful bit
of guidance completely ignores a wealth of concrete and useful policy guidance
developed by the NRC Staff since 1994 for the inclusion of environmental issues
in NEPA reviews.
For instance, the
proposed policy disregards the guidance developed within the NRC for ensuring
that public participation by affected minority communities is encouraged. The Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (“NRR”)
offers guidance for meeting this goal:
The staff should develop effective public participation strategies. The staff should acknowledge and seek to
overcome linguistic, cultural, institutional, geographic, and other barriers to
meaningful participation and should incorporate active outreach to affected
groups.
The staff should strive for meaningful community representation in the
process. The staff should be aware of
the diverse constituencies within any community and should endeavor to have
complete representation of the community as a whole. The staff should be aware that community
participation must occur as early as possible if it is to be meaningful.
The staff should seek Tribal agency representation in the process in a
manner that is consistent with government-to-government relations.
NRC Office
Instruction LIC-203, Procedural Guidance for Preparing Environmental
Assessments and Considering Environmental Issues at D-2 (
The proposed policy
statement also fails to include guidance, developed by the NRC Staff, regarding
the steps that should be taken to ensure an adequate NEPA review of
environmental impacts on minority communities.
At a minimum, the policy statement should contain the following language
from the environmental guidance document of the Council on Environmental
Quality:
The staff should recognize the interrelated cultural, social,
occupational, historical, or economic factors that may amplify the natural and
physical environmental effects of the proposed agency action. These factors should include the physical
sensitivity of the community or population to particular impacts; the effect of
any disruption on the community structure associated with the proposed action;
and the nature and degree of impact on the physical and social structure of the
community.
Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental
Justice: Guidance Under the National
Environmental Policy Act at 2 (
The proposed policy statement should also include the following useful language from the NRR guidance document, which gives further content to a proposed methodology for evaluating environmental justice issues in a NEPA analysis. Although it is lengthy, it is repeated here because the Commission seems to have completely ignored the principles and policies that it sets forth:
When the [environmental justice] review does identify minority or low-income populations in a potentially significant environmental impact area(s), the staff needs to determine whether disproportionately high and adverse effects result from the proposed action by considering the following:
a) Are the radiological or other health effects significant or above generally accepted norms? Is the risk or rate of hazard significant and appreciably in excess of the general population? Do the radiological or other health effects occur in groups affected by cumulative or multiple adverse exposures from environmental hazards?
b) Is there an impact on the natural or physical environment that significantly and adversely affects a particular group? Are there any significant adverse impacts on a group that appreciably exceed or is likely to appreciably exceed those on the general population? Do the environmental effects occur or would they occur in groups affected by collative or multiple adverse exposure from environmental hazards?
Reviewers should recognize that the impacts to minority or low-income populations may be different from impacts on the general population due to a community’s distinct cultural practices. In addition, reviewers should take into account different patterns of living and consumption of natural resources, such as subsistence consumption.
Reviewers should assess the significance or potential significance of such diverse impact on each minority or low-income population and also provide an assessment of the degree to which each minority or low-income population is disproportionately receiving benefits compared to the entire geographic area.
If there are significant impacts to the minority or low-income population, then it is necessary to look at mitigative measures and benefits. The reviewer should determine and discuss whether there are any mitigative measures that could be taken to reduce the impacts. To the extent practicable, mitigation measures should reflect the needs and preferences of the affected minority or low-income populations. The conclusion may be that there are disproportionately high and adverse impacts to minority or low-income population; however, factors such as the mitigative measures and/or the benefits of a project may outweigh the disruptive impacts. In any case, the facts should be presented so that the ultimate decision-maker can weigh all aspects in making the agency decision. . . .
In summary, the NRC
should go back to the drawing board, starting with the four goals established
by the 1995 Environmental Justice Strategy document. For each goal, the Commission should explain
how it intends to carry it out. For
instance, the Commission should explain how it intends to ensure that
environmental justice considerations are integrated into the entire NEPA review
process, from scoping to the final decision.
The Commission should re-commit to including senior management in
environmental justice aspects of the NEPA review process, and explain how that
will be done. The Commission should also
describe the concrete measures it intends to implement to ensure openness and
clarity in the NEPA process, taking into account language and cultural barriers
that may exist in communicating with minority communities. Finally, the Commission should describe the
concrete measures the NRC will take to ensure that minority communities are
fully included in the process for holding public meetings and commenting on
proposals.
B. Racial Discrimination is Cognizable Under NEPA Because It
Reflects Biased
Decision-making.
NIRS strongly disagrees with the Commission’s assertion that “[r]acial motivation and fairness or equity issues are not cognizable under NEPA.” 68 Fed. Reg. at 62,644. To the contrary, racial bias in the NEPA decision-making process is a legitimate consideration under NEPA, because it relates to the objectivity of the process for evaluating environmental impacts and choosing among alternatives.
The relevance of racial discrimination to the NEPA decision-making process is especially clear with respect to the process for selecting a preferred site for a new facility. If improper considerations are allowed to influence the weighing of alternatives, the choice of alternatives may be skewed away from the most environmentally sound alternative.
As the U.S. Court of Appeals held in Calvert Cliffs Coordinating Committee v. AEC, 449 F.2d 1109, 1115 (D.C. Cir. 1971), an environmental analysis must be conducted “fully and in good faith,” or else it must be rejected. See also Environmental Defense Fund v. Corps of Engineers, 492 F.2d 1123, 1129 (5th Cir. 1974). Distorted, selective, and incomplete reporting of relevant data in an EIS can have the effect of foreclosing consideration of reasonable alternatives. Cedar-Riverside Environmental Defense Fund v. Hills, 422 F. Supp. 294, 323 (D. Minn. 1976), vacated and remanded for mootness, 560 F.2d 377 (8th Cir. 1977).
Bias comes in many forms, including personal, economic, and
racial. Whatever the source of the bias,
the concern is the same regarding the integrity of the NEPA decision-making
process: that some improper and
non-scientific consideration was allowed to skew the decision. Thus, the Commission is wrong when it states
that issues of racial motivation and fairness “are more appropriately
considered under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”
There are two ways that the NEPA decision-making process can be adversely affected by discriminatory considerations: if the decision-making criteria are applied in a biased manner, and if the criteria themselves are biased. Examples of both types of bias can be seen in the Claiborne Enrichment Center case, Louisiana Energy Services (Claiborne Enrichment Center), LBP-97-8, 45 NRC 367, 391 (1997) (hereinafter “LBP-97-8”), affirmed in part and reversed in part, Louisiana Energy Services (Claiborne Enrichment Center), CLI-98-3, 47 NRC 77, 101-106 (1998) (hereinafter “CLI-98-3”).
1. Bias
in application of objective criteria
The process of choosing among alternatives in an EIS
involves making an objective assessment of the characteristics of the array of reasonable
alternatives, and evaluating their suitability against a set of objective
scientific criteria. In order to comply
with NEPA, these criteria must be objectively applied. In Cedar-Riverside
Environmental Defense Fund v. Hills, for example, the District Court
approved a Special Master’s decision rejecting an EIS whose distorted and
selective representation of evidence regarding the environmental impacts of a
proposed housing project demonstrated “a pattern showing bias on the part of
HUD toward justifying a previously made decision.”
The Claiborne
Enrichment Center case illustrates the way in which race discrimination can
undermine the objectivity of a NEPA analysis.
As described in the EIS for the Claiborne Enrichment Center, Louisiana
Energy Services (“LES”) “followed a three-phased screening process to identify
a suitable site for the CEC.” NUREG-1484,
Final Environmental Impact Statement for the construction and Operation of
Claiborne Enrichment Center, Homer,
One of the factors used to make a final narrowing of six remaining candidate sites was a criterion calling for “low adjacent population within a 2-mile radius.” LBP-97-8, 45 NRC at 386. Prior to the hearing, Intervenors had deposed Larry Engwall, the Louisiana Energy Services official who performed the low population survey. On the basis of Mr. Engwall’s deposition testimony, Dr. Robert Bullard, a sociologist with considerable expertise in environmental justice issues, evaluated Mr. Engwall’s approach to the low-population survey as follows:
Relying on Mr. Engwall’s deposition testimony . . . Dr. Bullard testified that, as the principal person responsible for site selection process at this stage involving winnowing the six Homer sites to three, Mr. Engwall initially evaluated and scored the low population criterion for the LeSage site based upon an “eyeball assessment.” As Mr. Engwall described this process, he drove along the road through Forest Grove and every now and then he drove up a dirt road where he saw ‘a small cluster of houses’ and ‘boarded up houses.’ From this survey, Mr. Engwall concluded that in this area there were ‘maybe ten people living there at most.’ . . . Dr. Bullard further testified that it did not appear Mr. Engwall drove through Center Springs at all. As a result of this survey, Mr. Engwall gave the LeSage site a ‘low population’ score of 9 out of a maximum of 10 and, when multiplied by the ‘want’ weight of 8, it yielded a weighted score of 72. . . .
Dr. Bullard declared that, in fact, there are 150 people living in Forest Grove and 100 in Center Springs. According to Dr. Bullard, had Mr. Engwall taken the most basic measures to assess population levels, such as consulting aerial photographs or county land records or talking to inhabitants of Forest Grove, he would not have rendered this African American population essentially invisible or taken the condition of the housing as empirical evidence of the number of people living there.
Next, Dr. Bullard asserted, Mr. Engwall compounded the problem by using invalid and biased considerations in comparing the population level of the LeSage site to that of the Emerson site. The Emerson site, which was the overall second highest rated site in Fine Screening Phase I, was given a ‘low population’ score of 7, yielding a significantly lower weighted score of 56. Again, relying on Mr. Engwall’s deposition testimony . . . Dr. Bullard asserted that the Emerson site score also was based on Mr. Engwall’s observations from driving around the site, which led him to conclude that between 50 and 100 people actually lived there. Yet when asked what he saw that caused him to score the site a seven, Mr. Engwall answered ‘[p]robably the proximity to the lake.’ Mr. Engwall went on to explain that ‘[w]e just felt opinion-wise people would probably not want this plant to be close to their pride and joy of their lake where they go fishing.’ . . . The significance of the lake, Dr. Bullard asserted, also was emphasized a few pages earlier in his deposition when Mr. Engwall testified that the Emerson site was rated neutral to slightly negative because
[i]t was right on the edge of this
lake. This lake is a very nice
lake. This lake is the pride and joy of
this part of
Based on Mr. Engwall’s deposition testimony, Dr. Bullard concluded it was clear that quality of life considerations improperly affected Mr. Engwall’s scoring of the low population criterion for the Emerson site given that, at this state of the evaluation process, there were no site specific criterion [sic] related to quality of life. He further maintained that Mr. Engwall’s biased judgment on the quality of life concern regarding the desirability of avoiding the lakeside site where white, middle class people lived was directly related to the relative scoring of the low population criterion. Dr. Bullard asserted that the total effect of Mr. Engwall’s actions was to discriminate against the Forest Grove and Center Springs communities because their residents’ lifestyle and socioeconomic status were on a much lower plane. . . .
On appeal, the Commission reversed the Licensing Board, finding that NEPA is not a tool for investigating racial discrimination. CLI-98-3, 47 NRC at 101-104. According to the Commission, the Board’s decision called for “a highly complex racial bias study with no obvious stopping point.” 47 NRC at 103. The Commission also stated that NEPA is not “a civil rights law calling for full-scale racial discrimination litigation in NRC proceedings.”
No “highly complex racial basis study” was required,
however, to ascertain that the allegedly scientific process for selecting the
ultimate site for the
Thus, the Licensing Board correctly concluded in LBP-97-8
that racial discrimination was relevant to the adequacy of the NEPA analysis,
because it led to the fatal tainting of the analysis with subjective
considerations. It was not necessary for
the NRC to have embarked on a complex racial discrimination analysis to
conclude that a purportedly objective site selection process was skewed by
subjective considerations to yield a pre-ordained result.
2. Bias
in criteria for evaluation of alternatives
As the Licensing Board recognized in LBP-97-8, racial
discrimination or bias can also be inherent in site selection criteria. 45 NRC at 388. For instance, one of the criteria for site
selection for the
Similarly, a “community support” criterion used for the
3. Where source of a biased result is
unclear
The
Accordingly, the proposed policy statement is flat wrong in declaring that racial discrimination is irrelevant to an environmental justice NEPA review.
III. CONCLUSION
The NRC’s Draft Policy Statement on the Treatment of Environmental Justice Matters in NRC Regulatory and Licensing Actions is virtually devoid of affirmative policies for considering environmental justice issues in the NEPA decision-making process. Instead, it is a catalogue of the ways in which the NRC does not plan to consider environmental justice issues. Moreover, the NRC’s rationale for refusing to consider discrimination in the NEPA decision-making is not supportable. The NRC should scrap this proposal and begin again.
Respectfully submitted,
Diane Curran
Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, LLP
1726 M Street N.W.,
202/328-3500
e-mail: dcurran@harmoncurran.com
Counsel to NIRS
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
202/328-0002
e-mail: nirsnet@nirs.org
[1] The Commission also attempted to minimize
the significance of the skewed site selection process, by claiming that the
FEIS was only required to “briefly discuss” alternative sites. 47 NRC at 104. The length or brevity of the discussion of
alternatives is irrelevant, however. The
question is whether the EIS made an objective comparison of the alternatives
that were provided. In the EIS for the