## Facts

- Louisiana Energy Services, L.P. (LES) applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a 30-year materials license to possess and use special nuclear material to enrich uranium using a gas-centrifuge process at the Claiborne Enrichment Center (CEC) in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana.
- LES proposed a 442-acre CEC site located immediately adjacent to, and between, two rural, unincorporated communities: Forest Grove and Center Springs.
- The record described Forest Grove and Center Springs as overwhelmingly African-American (about 97% African-American), with long-standing family landholdings tied to the communities’ original settlers.
- Citizens Against Nuclear Trash (CANT), a citizens’ group representing nearby residents, intervened in the NRC licensing proceeding and raised an environmental-justice contention.
- CANT alleged that placing CEC near Forest Grove and Center Springs reflected racially motivated decisionmaking or, at minimum, raised serious nondiscrimination concerns that required close agency review under the environmental-justice directive in Executive Order 12,898.
- CANT also focused on local impacts from changes associated with the project, including closure/relocation of Parish Road 39, a route connecting Forest Grove and Center Springs, and related social and economic effects on the communities.
- NRC Staff prepared an environmental review and a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) supporting issuance of the license, relying substantially on information supplied by LES for aspects of the site-selection and impact analysis.
- Although the NRC is an independent regulatory agency not automatically bound by Executive Order 12,898, the Board found that the NRC had voluntarily agreed to carry out the Order’s measures and therefore had to implement that commitment in good faith during its licensing activities.

## Issues

1. Whether NRC Staff’s FEIS and environmental-justice review adequately evaluated disproportionately high and adverse effects on minority and low-income communities near the proposed facility, as part of the agency’s NEPA review.
2. Whether, given the nondiscrimination component of Executive Order 12,898 and the NRC’s voluntary commitment to implement it, NRC Staff had to conduct a more searching, independent examination of LES’s site-selection process to determine whether racial discrimination played a role.
3. Whether NRC Staff’s treatment of the closure/relocation of Parish Road 39 and associated economic and community impacts on Forest Grove and Center Springs satisfied NEPA and the agency’s environmental-justice obligations.

## Decision

- The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) denied LES’s requested authorization for a materials license for the Claiborne Enrichment Center in its Final Initial Decision (LBP‑97‑8).
- The Board held that the Staff’s environmental-justice analysis was inadequate, particularly because the record lacked the kind of independent inquiry needed to assess whether racial discrimination influenced the site-selection process.
- The Board found deficiencies in the FEIS’s analysis of impacts tied to relocating/closing Parish Road 39 and the economic effects on nearby properties and residents in Forest Grove and Center Springs.
- Because these shortcomings left the environmental record incomplete for purposes of NEPA and the agency’s environmental-justice commitment, the Board concluded the license could not be granted on the existing record.

## Legal Principles

- Executive Order 12,898 functions as a procedural direction to federal agencies to identify and address disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority and low-income populations, and to avoid discriminatory effects in agency programs substantially affecting health or the environment; it does not, by itself, create new enforceable rights for private parties.
- When an independent agency voluntarily commits to carry out Executive Order 12,898, that commitment must be implemented in good faith in the agency’s decisionmaking for covered activities, including licensing reviews conducted through NEPA processes.
- Environmental-justice review in a NEPA setting requires more than repeating an applicant’s account; where the setting and record raise serious nondiscrimination concerns, Staff must conduct a meaningful, independent evaluation sufficient to support the agency’s decision.
- If the FEIS does not adequately analyze community-level consequences—such as access, connectivity, and property/economic impacts from infrastructure changes affecting minority communities—the NEPA record may be insufficient to support license issuance.

## Conclusion

In *In the Matter of Louisiana Energy Services, L.P.*, the ASLB denied LES’s application for a 30-year uranium-enrichment materials license because NRC Staff’s FEIS and environmental-justice review did not adequately examine whether racial discrimination affected site selection for a facility placed between two predominantly African-American communities and did not sufficiently analyze key community and economic impacts, including those associated with relocating Parish Road 39.


In the Matter of Louisiana Energy Services, L.P., Atomic Safety and Licensing Board