ML19257A082
| ML19257A082 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Comanche Peak, South Texas  |
| Issue date: | 12/18/1979 |
| From: | Bishop C NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8001020071 | |
| Download: ML19257A082 (3) | |
Text
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
- gg, C
,'s ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING APPEAL BOARD 7'
Alan S. Rosenthal, Chairman l E N
e**
Michael C. Farrar Richard S. Salzman
)
In the Matter of
)
)
HOUSTON LIGHTING & POWER COMPANY,
) Docket Nos. 50-498A
_e t _al.
)
50-499A (South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2)
)
)
TEXAS UTILITIES GENERATING COMPANY,
) Docket Nos. 50-445A et al.
)
50-446A
)
(Comanche Peak Steam Electric
)
Station, Units 1 and 2)
)
)
)
ORDER December 18, 1979 Without implying that we are satisfied with all aspects of TUGCO's December 14th explanation for the course followed here, we accept its December 12th papers for filing on the barsis of the representation that it 1/
misunderstood the iriport of our November 13th order.
1665 167 c
-1/
We were, of course, not aware that TUGCO was on the verge of filing its own petition when we entered our November 13th scheduling order.
TUGCO should have inferred that and alerted us that it intended to go beyond the petition already filed by Houston.
Upon inquiry from TUGCO, we could have altered the terms of our order to accommodate all parties' interests in an efficient briefing schedule.
Instead, TUGCO's silence has left us to call upon the other parties to prepare an otherwise avoidable second round of briefs.
8001020 Q 3 g
. To prevent TUGCO from thereby acquiring the " tactical advantage" to which its letter refers, however, we afford all parties opposing directed certification the opportunity to file replies to TUGCO's papers by January 7, 1980.--2/
It is so ORDERED.
FOR THE APPEAL BOARD b.1-M-h -\\
C. Jea Bishop
\\
Secre to the Appeal Board Mr. Rosenthal's concurring opinion appears on p.
3, infra.
Mr. Salzman did not participate in the consideration or disposition of this matter.,
_2/
See Brownsville's December 14th motion.
i665 168
. Mr. Rosenthal, concurring:
Although joining Mr. Farrar in the foregoing resolution of this matter, I must note my belief that TUGCO's proferred justification for the course it followed is disingenuous in the extreme.
To be sure, because our November 13 order did not expressly limit the filing of responses to those parties opposed to the Houston petition, TUGCO may have had cause to infer that it was entitled to submit a response in support of the petition.
But absolutely nothing in either our order or in the Commission's Rules of Practice could possibly have been taken by TUGCO as giving it license to use its response to raise issues beyond the one to which Houston had explicitly confined its request for interlocutory appellate review.
If TUGCO wished us to bring up and decide additional questions, it should have filed seasonably its own petition for directed certification -- rather than seek to gain an unfair " tactical advantage" over its adversaries by according the November 13 order and the Rules of Practice a manifestly impermissible 1/
reading.--
---1/
Apparently, TUGCO thought that, by raising the new issues in its response to the Houston petition instead of in an independent petition of its cwn, it might succeed in foreclosing any written rejoinder on those issues.
While the November 13 order did reflect our expectation that the responses due on December 14 would bring to a close all briefing, in no circumstances would we have countenanced such an unjust result.
In the final analysis, all that TUGCO has achieved is a postponement of our ulti-mate disposition of the matter.
Given its insistence in a recent filing below that the public interest demands that the Comanche Peak proceedir? Db concluded without unnecessary delay (see TUGCO's Jvcettber 10 opposition to a Department of Justice mci-ic:.., ac pp. 2-4), one might have thought that TUGCO wc4 M b,9 3 taken pains not to be an instigator of delay.
1665 169
,