ML20037D087
| ML20037D087 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/12/1981 |
| From: | Cotter B Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | Hendrie J NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20037D081 | List: |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8105210487 | |
| Download: ML20037D087 (2) | |
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- e NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
5 j,'SW'h ATCMIC SAFETY ANC LICENs!NG BOARD PANEL
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we.ssm cron. o.c. mas May 12, 1981 P.EMORANDUM FOR:
Chaiman Hendrie Comissioner Gilinsky Comissioner Bradford Comissioner Ahearne FROM:
B. Paul Cotter, Jr.
Chief Administrative Judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel SUJEECT:
INTERVENTION IN NRC ADJUDICATORY PROCEEDINGS In an effort to establish a data' base for assessing the need for, and impact of, any change in the " threshold" for contentions, the ASLSP exami.ied contentions in six active proceedings and three closed operating license proceedings.
The examination required that a number of assumptions be made, so the results are approximate.
Some 51 percent of the contentions first filed were eliminated as a result of the first special prehearing conference held, on the average, six months af ter the first petition '.o intervene was filed.
Thus, of a20 contentions filed in six cases, 213 were eliminated. The principal reasons for eliminating contentions were:
(1) they were rejected as a challenge to a rule; (2) they were consolidated with other contentions; or (3) they were abandoned by the intervenor. The ratio was approximately 4:2:1.
In three completed operating license proceedings, only 20 percent of the contentions were addressed at the hearing, or 50 of 253 contentions originally filed.
Thus, the process as it presently exists eliminated 80 percent of contentiens filed in those three cases prior to hearing, i
Against this background there still appears r0cc to eliminate contentions like the ones Comissioner Ahearne has characteri:ed as trivial.
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Concomitantly, the ultimate safety issue dictates that any new contention
" threshold" not te dangerously restrictive.
Consequently, we su; port Commissioner Gilinsky's fact pleading proposal (wnien parallels the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). 'de believe that Commissioner Gilinsky's proposal together with emphasis en the early availability of summary disoosition supported by limited discovery will eliminate trivial ("the world is flat" kinds of) issues.
cc:
A. Rosenthal H. Shapar W. Dircks b
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