## Facts

- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) certified Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor design by rule and later considered an amendment to that design certification.
- Southern Nuclear Operating Company applied for combined licenses to construct and operate Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant Units 3 and 4 in Georgia, relying on the AP1000 design.
- The NRC prepared NEPA documents for the AP1000 and Vogtle proceedings, including analysis of severe accident risks and a review of multiple severe accident mitigation design alternatives, which were rejected as not cost-beneficial.
- After the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011, the NRC formed a task force that issued recommendations; the Commission chose to address them through separate, staged regulatory actions.
- Environmental organizations and individuals petitioned the NRC to suspend ongoing AP1000 and Vogtle proceedings until Fukushima-related recommendations were implemented and to supplement the NEPA analyses to account for Fukushima and the task force recommendations.
- The NRC denied the suspension requests and declined to supplement the environmental analyses, concluding the Fukushima-related information was not “new and significant” for purposes of supplementation.
- The NRC ultimately approved the AP1000 design certification amendment and granted the Vogtle combined licenses.
- Petitioners sought review in the D.C. Circuit, challenging (1) the refusal to suspend proceedings and (2) the refusal to supplement the NEPA analyses.

## Issues

1. Whether the NRC’s denial of requests to suspend ongoing licensing and rulemaking proceedings was a final, reviewable agency action.
2. Whether the NRC acted arbitrarily or capriciously under NEPA by declining to supplement environmental analyses based on Fukushima and related NRC task force recommendations.

## Decision

- The court dismissed the petitions to the extent they challenged the NRC’s refusal to suspend the pending proceedings, concluding the denial was not final agency action suitable for judicial review.
- The court denied the petitions on the NEPA supplementation claims, holding the NRC reasonably determined Fukushima and the task force recommendations did not constitute “new and significant” information requiring supplemental analysis.
- As a result, the NRC’s approval of the AP1000 design certification amendment and issuance of the Vogtle combined licenses remained in effect.

## Legal Principles

- Interim agency refusals to pause ongoing proceedings generally are not reviewable under the APA when they do not consummate agency decisionmaking or fix legal rights and obligations, and later review of the ultimate agency action remains available.
- NEPA supplementation is required only when there are significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns that bear on the proposed action or its environmental impacts.
- An agency’s determination that new information is not “new and significant” is reviewed under the arbitrary-and-capricious standard, with substantial judicial deference in highly technical contexts such as nuclear safety and risk assessment.
- An agency may address broad safety lessons through generic regulatory processes rather than reopening project-specific NEPA documents, if it reasonably explains why the new information does not materially alter the project-specific environmental analysis.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that the NRC’s refusal to suspend ongoing proceedings was not final agency action and upheld the NRC’s decision not to supplement its NEPA analyses after Fukushima, deferring to the NRC’s technical judgment that the new information did not materially change the environmental impacts previously evaluated for the AP1000 design and the Vogtle licenses.


Blue Ridge Env’t Def. League v. Nuclear Regul. Comm’n, 716 F.3d 183 (D.C. Cir. 2013)