NRC Is A Power Unto Themselves (Uncontestable): What The Court Said

I understand the NRDC doesn't speak for the interest of us all and they wrote up the contention for their own agenda.

It is beyond chilling in a big way, where the court are too afraid to criticize congresses handling of nuclear waste on the big picture.

Big picture, I think they are saying congress set up regulation over nuclear power power beyond the preview of the courts. If congress runs the nuclear power federal oversight as a candy jar, the courts have no power to maintain order with the NRC and the industry. The courts have no power to make the nuclear power to serve the greater nation ends or public ends. Fundamentally the republicans and businesses have weakened the independence and separation of  three branches of government...they have drastically weakened the power of the courts to serve the public good. This is what the controversy with the philosophy of a activist courts. Gaming the activist court issue...the courts can't make at independent interpretation of the congressional rules on the greater interest of the peoples interest, but you can go full steam ahead with court activism if its in the interest of the elites and business interest. Its as if  the republicans, the elites, the businesses, through congress, has captured Congress and the presidency.  

I get it our Constitution sets up our government with three seperate and independent branches...but the courts still have the power to keep (supposed) the politicians clean. I see this this court as too timid to make political waves.

And most chilling of all, our opinion of congress is at historic lows. It is as our votes don't count and the courts don't care.  

Vermont appeal of NRC rule shot down by court By Robert Audetteraudette@reformer.com @audette.reformer on Twitter Posted:   06/09/2016 11:08:21 AM EDT | Updated:   about 10 hours ago Click photo to enlarge A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., shot down a petition filed by... (Reformer file photo) « 1 » BRATTLEBORO >> If the states and the National Resources Defense Council are unhappy with regulations promulgated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, then take it up with Congress. That was the conclusion of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to an appeal lodged by several attorneys general, environmental organizations and one Native American community about the NRC's spent fuel handling and storage regulations. "We acknowledge the political discord surrounding our nation's evolving nuclear energy policy," wrote the court. "But the role of Article III courts in this debate is circumscribed." The scope of review under the arbitrary and capricious standard is narrow and a court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency, stated the decision, rendered on June 3. "To the extent that the petitioners disagree with the NRC's current policy for the continued storage of spent nuclear fuel, their concerns should be directed to Congress." The appeal contended that the NRC utilized "several unreasonable assumptions," including that spent nuclear fuel will be removed from spent-fuel pools within 60 years of reactor decommissioning; that after the 60-year period, spent fuel will be stored in dry casks that are replaced every 100 years; and that institutional controls over spent nuclear fuel will exist into perpetuity. "We hold that none of these assumptions is so unreasonable as to render the NRC's decision-making arbitrary or capricious," noted the court. "We therefore deny the petitions for review on this issue." The NRC deserves "deference" in its decisions, wrote the court, because "An agency does not engage in arbitrary or capricious decision-making by making 'predictive judgment(s)' or even by relying on '(i)ncomplete data.'"