ML20141J302
| ML20141J302 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Braidwood  |
| Issue date: | 04/24/1986 |
| From: | Chilk S NRC OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SECY) |
| To: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| References | |
| CON-#286-921 CLI-86-08, CLI-86-8, OL, NUDOCS 8604280094 | |
| Download: ML20141J302 (18) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A RC NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION COMMISSIONERS:
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Nunzio J. Palladino, Chairman uGCat,uci..gf A Thomas M. Roberts BRANC4 James K. Asselstine Frederick M. Bernthal Lando W. Zech, Jr.
SEKvtu APR241996
)
In the Matter of )
)
COMMONWEALTH EDIS0N COMPANY ) Docket Nos. 50-456 OL
) 50-457 OL (Braidwood Station, Units 1 and 2) )
)
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER CLI-86-08 I. Introduction On March 20, 1986, the Commission issued an craer in which it asked the parties to the Braidwood proceeding to address two questions, designed to
! assist the Commission in determining whether the intervenors' amended quality assurance contention meets the five-part test set forth in 10 CFR 9 2.714 for the evaluation of late-filed contentions. Those questions were:
- 1. Did the Licensing Board apply the five-part test correctly in admitting the intervenors' amended quality assurance contention?
- 2. If the intervenors' contention were to be rejected, and then were to be resubmitted today, would the contention satisfy the five-part I test, if it were judged in light of all the information which has developed in the course of the proceeding to date?
8604280094 860424 PDR ADOCK 05000456
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.O Upon consideration of the filings of the parties, we conclude, for the reasons set forth below, that with respect to the intervenors' amended quality assurance contention, the Licensing Board erred in finding that the five-part test favored admission of the contention. We further conclude that the contention, if resubmitted today and evaluated in light of all the~information which has developed to date in the course of the proceeding, would again fail the five-part test. Accordingly, we dismiss the quality assurance contention.
Our. ruling does not apply to the contention on the harassment of quality assurance inspectors. That contention, which was admitted by the Licensing Board pursuant to a stipulation agreed to by all parties to the proceeding, was not before us for consideration. The history of this proceeding having been amply described in our earlier Or:fers, we need not remt it here. We therefore proceed to a discussion of the five factors, as they apply to the l Licensing Board's decision on the intervenors' amended conter. tion.
II. The Five-Factor Test A. Good cause, if any, for failure to file on timc.
It is well established in our case law that this first factor is a crucial element in the, analysis of whether a late-filed contention should be admitted. If the proponent of a contention fails to satisfy this element of the test, it must make a " compelling" showing with respect to the other four factors. Cincinnati Gas and Electric Co. (Willia:n H. Zimmer Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1), LBP-83-58,18 NRC 640, 66 (1983); Mississippi Power and Light Co. (Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-704,16 NRC 1725 (1982).
3 In the present case, the Licensing Board found that the intervenors had sufficient information to file their contention by August 1,1984, at the latest, yet failed to do so until March 7,1985. It therefore found that 1
intervenors had failed to show good cause for their lateness. LBP-85-11, 21 NRC 609, 628-29; LBP-85-20, 21 NRC 1732,1748. Intervenors, in their t
brief, assert that May 7,1984, the publication date of Inspection Report 83-09, is a " reasonable starting point" from which to start counting delay.
f Brief, at 28. Of the ten months between that date and the filing of inter-venors' contention on March 7,1985, they say, two months were taken up in good faith negotiations aimed at producing agreement on revised contentions.
l l and three months were attributable to "the initial review of the reinspection l program, illness of counsel and the unavailability of new counsel." Id. Five months, according to intervenors, were spent in a " diligent effort to avoid needless litigation through close monitoring of an ambitious and promising, but ultimately flawed and delayed reinspection program."
It is on those five months that we continue to focus. Reduced to its essentials, intervenors' position is that during that period, they initially believed that their objectives could be achieved without the need for litiga-tion, but later changed their minds. Intervenors assert that their actions were "in accord with the policies of both this Comission and the courts to avoid unnecessary lawsuits." We cannot agree.
While it may be true that the Comission and the courts prefer that parties seek to resolve their differences without the need for litigation, it is equally true that if a party is to pursue litigation, it must do so in conformity with established standards of timeliness. If intervenors' rationale were taken to its logical endpoint, the more a party delayed, the
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7 more it would be given credit for its restraint in refraining from filing suit. Such a result would of course be absurd.
Parties to Comission proceedings must live with the choices they make.
Intervenors had the option of pursuing their aims outside the adjudicatory context, or of filing a timely contention, but an untimely filing is not made more acceptable by the fact that the party refrained from burdening the adjudicatory process during the months of delay.
l Even assuming that the intervenors' explanation for the first five months of delay were satisfactory -- a question which we need not decide -- we find the intervenors' explanation of the second five months of delay to be unacceptable. Their own submissions preclude a finding of " good cause" for at least five months of the untimeliness of their contention. We now turn to the ,
remaining four elements of the five-part test, to see whether intervenors have made the requisite " compelling" showing on those factors.
B. Availability of other means to protect petitioners' interest.
This factor, like the closely related fourth factor (the extent to which other parties will represent petitioners' interest) is accorded less weight, under established Comission precedent, than factors one, three, and five.
South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (Virgil C. Sumer Nuclear Station, Unit 1),
ALAB-642,13 NRC 881, 895. Before the Licensing Board, both the applicant and the staff conceded these two factors to the intervenors, and neither asserts the Licensing Board erred in finding in the intervenors' favor on these factors. We agree that the Licensing Board did not err in so finding. .
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r I C. Extent to which petitioner can contribute
- to development of a sound record.
Our case law establishes both the importance of this third factor in the evaluation of late-filed contentions and the necessity of the moving party to demonstrate that it has special expertise on the subjects which it seeks to raise. Mississippi Power & Light Co. (Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-704,16 NRC 1725,1730 (1982). The Appeal Board has said: "When a petitioner addresses this criterion it should set out with as much particu-larity as possible the precise issues it plans to cover, identify its prospec-tive witnesses, and summarize their proposed testimony." Id,. This the intervenors did not do, even after the Licensing Board, in its Special Prehearing Conference Order, suggested that they do so. Indeed, the inter -
venors' shewing initially was so deficient that the Licensing Board was able to find in the intervenors' favor only by including in its analysis its 1 judgment on the capabilities of the intervenors' attorneys:
The third factor in 10 CFR 6 2.714(a)(1) compels the Board to prospectively ascertain whether intervenors' participation in the proceeding will assist in developing a sound record. From the QA/QC contention intervenors submitted, our answer to the above question might be negative. But the Board's background knowledge encompasses the fact that BPI, the law firm which now represents Intervenors, contributed to the development of a sound record in the Byron operating license hearing by bringing Comonwealth Edison's QA/QC deficiencies at the Byron plant to that Licensing Board's attention.
LBP-85-il, 21 NRC 609, 629-30.
When the amended contention was filed, the Licensing Board again found in favor of the intervenors on the third factor, although it noted that the intervenors had not followed its suggestion that it identify its intended witnesses and the subjects on which they would testify. The Licensing Board reiterated its reliance on the fact that the law firm representing the
6 intervenors had also represented the Byron intervenors, notwithstanding that l Judge Smith, Chairman of the Byron Licensing Board, had complained that in Byron, BPI had " raise [d] every conceivable issue" without adequate followup.
May 30, 1984 Byron Transcript at 8173-8180; 21 NRC 1732,1747. In the Licensing Board's view, the fact that Judge Smith " articulated his frustration" at the attorneys did not " negate the service they performed," and the Board asserted that it would by its own actions " limit the problem of unfocused litigation which arose in Byron." 21 NRC 1732, 1747.
In our view, the Licensing Board's finding in favor of the intervenors, based upon the contribution of their attorneys to the development of the record, was erroneous. No principle of law has been called to our attention that allows a court or an agency to make judgments, positive or negative, ,
about the merits of a party's case based upon its evaluation of the performance of its counsel in a different proceeding. The Licensing Board appears to have derived such a principle from the Appeal Board's decision in Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS Nuclear Project No. 3), ALAB-747, 18 NRC 1167,1178. Any such conclusion was incorrect. In that case, the Appeal Board held that the Licensing Board did not err when, in rejecting a late intervention petition, it declined to count in petitioner's favor the fact that the same petitioner (rather than its counsel) had participated in other NRC licensing proceedings. The Appeal Board commented that the petitioner there had not even claimed, let alone demonstrated, that the issues sought to be raised in WPPSS were the same as those which it had litigated in prior proceedings. It would be difficult to read into that decisicn, or into the prior NRC decisions cited, strong support even for the proposition that a party's prior participation in NRC licensing proceedings is a weighty factor l in weighing a request for late intervention; but there is no basis in that )
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decision for a finding that counsel's participation in other proceedings can be taken into account. ,
Based on the Licensing Board's erroneous consideration of counsel's actions in the Byron proceeding, coupled with the intervenors' failure, even after being urged by the Licensing Board, to provide specifics as to the witnesses to be called and the topics to be pursued, we find that the
' Licensing Board erred in finding that the third factor. weighed in favor of the intervenors. Since we find the consideration of counsel's participation to be legally irrelevant, we need not consider Judge Smith's critical coments on Byron counsel's actions.
D. -The extent to which other parties I will represent petitioners' interest.
- See (B) above.
E. Broadening and delay of the proceeding.
1 The Licensing Board acknowledged that while admission of the intervenors' quality assurance contention was likely to result in some additional delay of the proceeding, it found that this would not be "an unreasonable delay."
21 NRC 609, 630. Even the intervenors now concede that the Board's evaluation of the likely extent of the delay resulting from litigation of the contention "may have been overly optimistic." Brief at 16. The Board relied on a number l of factors which in our view were not properly part of the analysis. For example, it observed that the intervenors had voluntarily dropped a number of l contentions through stipulation; this served to " counterbalance" the delaying effect of adding the quality assurance contention. 21 NRC 609, 632.
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8 Furthermore, the Board proceeded to " balance" the potential significance of the contention against its potential for delaying the proceeding.
We believe the Board erred on both counts. The question, in assessing whether a contention will delay the proceeding, is directed to the proceeding l as it stands, not to the proceeding as it might have stood but for the with-drawal cf other, unrelated contentions. The appropriate place for taking into account the potential significance of a contention is in the evaluation of the third factor, contribution to the record of the proceeding. Imolicit in the evaluation of the third factor is that a significant contention contributes more to the development of a sound record than does an insignificant contention. The five-factor test assumes that a party's showing on that third factor may have to be balanced against the likelihood of delay, under the .
fifth factor, as part of the overall balancing of factors. It was incorrect, however, of the Board to make its own balancing of significance versus delay in its evaluation of the fifth factor alone.
It is apparent that the admission of the intervenors' quality assurance contention had a significant broadening and delaying effect on the proceeding.
The contention is some 31 pages long ano amposed of numerous subparts. In a proceeding from which numerous issues had already dropped out through stipulation, it should have been clear to the Board that admission of the contention would substantially delay completion of the proceeding. On this fifth factor, we find that the Board erred in finding that the fifth factor weighed in favor of the intervenors. 21 NRC 1732, 1749.
Taken as a whole, we find that the intervenors failed to demonstrate that they prevailed on the five-factor test. Much less did they make the
" compelling showing" on factors two through five that was required to overcome
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0 their fa' lure to demonstrate good cause, under the first factor, for their failure to file on time.
III. Wo.id intervenors prevail under the five-factor test if their contention were resubmitted today?
In the previous section of this Order, we explained why the Licensing Board erred in finding that the intervenors' quality assurance contention, as admitted, satisfied the five-part test of 10 CFR $ 2.714 In this section, we address the question of whether, in the light of developments since the l
Licensing Board's admission of the contention, a different result would be reached today. We conclude that it would not, for the reasons which follow.
The first factor, good cause for delay, would continue to weigh against ,
l the intervenors; accordingly, they would still have to make a " compelling showing" on the remaining four factors. Factors two and four (other means and other parties to protect intervenors' interests) would continue to weigh in intervenors' favor, notwithstanding that the intervenors' contention is
( grounded in oversight activities being conducted by another party, the NRC staff. See Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS Nuclear Power Project ;
No.3),ALAB-747,18NRC1167,1175(1983). These factors are, however, as
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noted previously, given less weight than factors one, three, and five.
l On the third factor, we believe that intervenors would be unable to '
l demonstrate a significant contribution to the development of a sound record in the proceeding. Their contention continues to be grounded in NRC inspection reports, some years old. They have failed to identify any experts whom they l intend to call. Rather, they have, in February of this year, offered a list of NRC staff personnel and applicant personnel whom they intend to call as witnesses in the event that they are not called as witnesses by another party.
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10 In other words, intervenors intend to make their case through cross-examination of other parties' witnesses, calling other parties' employees as witnesses only if they have not already been called to testify by the appif-cant or the staff. In supplying their names to the Licensing Board, interven-ors stated that "since most of these witnesses are not subject to Intervenors' ,
control the exact nature and scope of their personal knowledge or belief on these subjects is not known to Intervenors at this time.... [T]heidentifica-tion of a witness with a specific subject or contention subpart is not meant to establish conclusively that the witness has admissible evidence to offer on that subject...." "Intervenors' Identification of QA Witnesses," Feb. 28, 1986, p. 2.
In our view, this falls far short of demonstrating affirmatively that the intervenors would be able to contribute significantly to the development of a sound record.
On the fifth and last factor, it is now indisputable that litigation of intervenors' quality assurance , contention, 31 pages long and composed of some 65 subparts, would significantly delay completion of the proceeding, since apart from quality assurance issues, the hearings are now concluded. On this l issue, the case against admission of the contention is thus stronger than it was when the contention was submitted to the Licensing Board, when the course that the proceeding would take was far more a matter for conjecture.
Taken together, therefore, we find that the intervenors, if they were to resubmit their contention today, would not be able to prevail on the l
five-factor test; as before, they would still less be able to demonstrate the
( " compelling case" on factors two through five that is needed to overcome
11 a failure to show good cause for lateness. Accordingly, we direct the Licensing Board to dismiss the intervenors' quality assurance contention.1 IV. Intervenors' contention on inspector harassment.
As we noted, the analysis in sections II and III of this Order did not deal with that subpart of intervenors' contention which dealt with harassment and intimidation of quality assurance inspectors at Comstock, applicant's electrical contractor. That subpart was admitted separately, pursuant to I a stipulation, signed by all parties and approved by the Licensing Board. Our earlier orders in this proceeding were directed to the elements of the quality assurance contention which were admitted pursuant to the Board's orders of April 17 ar.d June 21, 1985; this subpart was admitted separately, on July 23, 1985.
The admission of subpart 2C is therefore not formally before the Commission for decision today; our dismissal of the intervenors' quality assurance contention does not encompass subpart 2C. Our review of the record I
In their brief, intervenors assert that their quality assurance contention had bases other than the deposition of Mr. Keppler and Mr. Warnick, and as evidence, they offered the Commission certain documents, enclosed in sealed envelopes, and not served on the other parties. Apparently, intervenors are concerned that the Comission's decision on the admissibility of their contention may turn on the Licensing Board's legal error in authorizing the deposition of the staff witnesses at a time when no contention had been admitted. Any such concern is misplaced. The Commission's ruling that the contention failed to satisfy the five-factor test in no way hinges on whether the Board should have authorized the Keppler and Warnick depositions.
Accordingly, there is no need for us to entertain the documents submitted in the sealed envelopes, and we do not do so. We encourage the intervenors, however, to make available to the staff any documents which they believe to have safety significance, and we direct the staff to contact the intervenors for that purpose.
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indicates, however, that the Licensing Board does not appear to have conducted the formal balancing of factors called for by 10 CFR 9 2.714 That regulation states that a Licensing Board must find that the five-factor test is satisfied in order to " entertain" a late-filed contention. The regulation makes no exception for stipulated contentions,- and the Appeal Board has recently I
declared explicitly that even a waiver of objections by all parties would not serve to render an otherwise untimely contention admissible. Boston Edison Company (Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station), ALAB-816, 22 NRC 461, 466 (Sept. 5, 1985). Accordingly, we direct the Licensing Board to evaluate the admissibil-ity of subpart 2C in light of the five-factor test of 10 CFR 5 2.714, as contemplated by the regulation.
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13 Comissioner Roberts has separate views, which are attached.
Commissioner Asselstine disapproved the order; his separate views are attached.
It is so ORDERED.
A 2 Fof the Commission
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~ SAMUELJJ. CHILK
. ,1 ~ s .
Secretary of) the Comission Dated at Washington, D.C.
this} day of April, 1986. -
2 Comissioners Bernthal and Asselstine were not present when this order was affirmed. If Commissioner Bernthal had been present he would have approved it; if Commissioner Asselstine had been present he would have disapproved it.
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- Additional Views of Comissioner Roberts i I would have directed the Licensing Board to dismiss -the entire QA contention, including the portion alleging harassment of Comstock QC inspectors. The Licensing Board, when admitting the portions of th QA
! contention that we direct it to dismiss, deferred ruling on the portion alleging harassment of QC inspectors to allow the intervenors to supplement their filing on that issue. The intervenors filed a new motion seeking admission of the harassment portion of their QA contention on July 12, 1985. They did not affirmatively show in this l new motion that the lateness factors balanced in favor of admitting the i
harassment portion of their QA contention or even attempt to do so.
Therefore, to the extent that it was admitted on the basis of a balancing of factors the harassment portion of the contention was admitted by the Licensing Board on the basis of the same flawed l~ balancing of factors as were the portions of the QA contention that we direct the Board to dismiss, since the Board did not again balance the factors in admitting it.
! Our Appeal Board pointed out over five years ago that our Rules of l Practice are most explicit in establishing the criteria by which
- 1 ate-filed petitions must be judged. It emphasized that 10 CFR 2.714(a) provides that a nontimely petition will not be entertained by a Board absent its determination that the petition should be granted based on a l balancing of the five lateness factors. Duke Power Company (Perkins Nuclear Station, Units 1, 2 and .3), ALAB-615,12 NRC 350, 352-53 (1980).
The Appeal Board also stressed that a late petitioner must address each of the five factors in its late petition and affirmatively demonstrate that on balance the factors favor granting the petition. Id. The Appeal Board recently reaffimed that the requirement for Tpetitioner to address and a Board to balance the lateness factors is a juris-dictional one:
There is no conceivable merit to [a] claim that [the] duty to confront the five lateness factors [does not materialize until after the applicant and the staff )thave] responded to the [ late-filed] petition and raised the matter of its untimeliness. To begin with, on its face section 2.714(a)(1) lays to rest [the] suggestion that the lateness of such a l
petition is in the nature of an affirmative defense, to be ,
considered by a licensing board only if the board is asked to do so by a party to the proceeding. In plain terms, the
. section permits a licensing board to grant an untimely l petition only if, upon a consideration and balancing of the
! lateness factors, it determines that the petition should be granted: "Nontimely filings will not be entertained absent a determination by . . . the atomic safety and licensing board l
designated to rule on the petition and/or request.s v the l
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. petition and/or request should be granted based upon a balancing of the [ lateness factors]." In short, it is of no consequence whether, in an opposition to the late petition, one of the other litigants points to the untimeliness. Even if all of the parties are inclined to waive the tardiness, the
- board nevertheless is duty-bound to deny the petition on its
- own initiative unless it is persuaded that, on balance, the lateress factors point in the opposite direction.
It is equally clear that the burden of persuasion on the
! lateness factors is on the tardy petitioner and that, in order tc discharge that burden, the petitioner must come to grips with those factors in the petition itself. See Duke Power Co.
(Perkins Nuclear Station, Units 1, 2 and 3),lEAB-615,12 MC 350, 352-53 (1980). The underlying reason for this require-ment is particularly apparent in the context of the first factor. A licensing board hardly could determine whether there was justification for the untimely filing without ,
i knowing why the petition was not submitted by the prescribed deadline -- Inferration peculiarly within the possession of the petitioner. Likewise, in most instances at least, the board will not be able to assess confidently the third factor
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(the extent to which the petitioner's participation may reasonably be expected to assist in developing a sound record) without having before it the petitioner's reasons for believing that the factor weighs in his or her favor.
Boston Edison Company (Pil rim Nuclear Power Station),
ALAB-816, 22 NRC 461, 466 1985).
Thus, even where the parties stipulate the admissibility of a late-filed issue, as was done in this case with respect to the harassment issue, a Licensing Board is dury-bound to deny admission of the issue on its own initiative unless the factors balance in favor of admission. Moreover, a petitioner has no right to a second opportunity to show that the lateness factors balance favorable to granting its petition. Id.
at 468. Our Rules of Practice and the case law interpreting tfiem are very clear on the requirements for untimely-filed petitions. Both lawyers and laymen in NRC proceedings are obligated to familiarize themselves with our Rules of Practice. Houston Lighting and Power (Allens Creek Nuclear Station, Unit 1) ALAB-609, 12 NRC 172, 173 n.1 (1980). They fail to do so at their peril.
Because to the extent that it was admitted on the basis of a balancing of factors the harassment portion of the QA contention was admitted on the basis of the same erroneous balancing of factors as were the portions of the QA contention that we direct the Board to dismiss, we should have directed the Licensing Board to dismiss that portion of the contention also. We would have violated no party's rights had we done so. In addition, we would have conveyed an even stronger message.
i DISSENTING VIEWS OF COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE :
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In my separate views on the March 20, 1986 order issued in this matter, I stated that the fact that the Comission itself had decided to conduct a case-specific balancing of the five factors in 10 CFR 62.714(a)(1) did not bode well for further Licensing Board consideration of intervenors' quality assurance contention. It appears that I was right. The Comission has now decided to dismiss the QA contention from the Licensing Board proceeding. ,
However, the Comission was not satisfied with merely dismissing that ;
contention. Because there remains one other contention (subpart 2C) still i
l to be litigt.ad, the Commission has decided to contrive a new requirement ,
t for the stipulated admission of late-filed contentions, thereby raising the possibility that subpart 2C might also be dismissed. I cannot support either action.
l The Commission's actions in this case are an unwarranted intrusion into the licensing process. In the various orders dealing with this issue, the Comission has spent quite a bit of time discussing the importance of following rules, precedents and policies. The Commission has then l proceeded to ignore those rules and policies which are inconvenient.
First, the Comission ignored the fact that the movant has the burden of showing he is entitled to prevail on a motion for directed certification.
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The Comission could not make that finding in its first order so it decided to give the applicant a second chance to make its case. See, Commonwealth EdisonCompany(BraidwoodStation, Units 1and2),DocketNos.50-456and 457, Comission order dated December 5,1985. Then, even though applicant 4
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did not make its case,after a second try, the Commission was unwilling to live with that result. Instead, it chose to interpose itself further into the adjudicatory process to hear an issue which no party did or could, at this point in the process, properly raise before the Comission. See, i
l Commonwealth Edison Company (Braidwood Station, Units 1 and 2), Docket Nos.
50-456 and 457, Comission order dated March 20, 1986. The Comission has e
now decided to overrule the Licensing Board and dismiss the QA contention.
The Comission did not stop there, however. Even though subpart 2C was not l
before it, the Comission decided to consider that contention as well. The Comission could not itself conduct a balancing of the factors in
'10 CFR 92.714(a)(1) because it had not given the parties notice that it intended to review the admissibility of contention 2C. Therefore, the Comission decided to provide " guidance" to the Licensing Board and remand the issue to the Board for consideration. This guidance consists of the establishment of a new requirement for the stipulated admission of contentions. The Comission has now decided that before a Licensing Board can entertain a late-filed contention it must first balance the factors in Section 2.714(a)(1), even if all parties have agreed by stipulation to the admissionofthecontention.Il This requirement makes no sense at all.
If the parties have agreed to the admission of a contention, why should the
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The Comission attempts to portray this requirement as one which has always existed. The Commission relies primarily on the language of 2.714 itself which does not mention stipulations. The Commission also relies on dicta in a case which was not factually similar to this case and which was decided after the Braidwood Board had accepted the stipulated contention.
Board also have to make the findings in Section 2.714? Presumably, if the applicant and staff had thought there was a benefit to challenging
'admissicn of the contention, they would have done so. This requirement merely elevates form over subetance. It also undercuts the Comission's policy favoring stipulations and settlements by the parties.
The Comission's handling of this case is evidence of in an increasingly disturbing trend on the part of the Comission to interpose itself into the adjudicatory process. In both this case and the Perry case, (Cle'veland Electric Illuminating Company (Perry Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2),
CLI-86-7, Slip op. April 18,1986), the Comission has been unwiliing to j await the completion of the normal adjudicatJry process. It has been unwilling to wait until in due course those matters the parties consider to be still at issue come to the Comission for consideration. Rather, the Comission has chosen to interject itself into the process out of turn.
l Thie, is not only disruptive of the normal processes, but it demonstrates a lack of trust in the process and, more importantly, in the Boards who were constituted to manage the process, l
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