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The
Licensing Support Network (LSN) is a web-based
document discovery system designed to facilitate the statutory
requirement expressed in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) reach a determination
on any Department of Energy (DOE) application for
construction authorization for a high-level nuclear waste repository
at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, within 3 years (or 4 years if the NRC
reports to Congress its inability to comply with the 3 year timeframe)
of the filing and docketing of the DOE license application . To
shorten the time spent on the exchange of documents that may be used
as evidence in the NRC licensing proceeding, the
parties and potential parties to the hearing on the DOE
application will make their documents available via the Internet
before the DOE license application is submitted to
the NRC. The LSN provides a
single place where the parties and potential parties, and the public,
can search for, view, and obtain copies of all relevant or
potentially relevant documents from any or all of the parties’
collections quickly and expeditiously, and in a uniform way. During
peak usage, access to the system may be restricted to participants in
the licensing process.
The
NRC rule creating and governing the LSN is found at
10 C.F.R. 2, Subpart J.
A
hearing conducted by NRC on DOE’
Yucca Mountain license application will be a formal, trial-type
proceeding, with documentary and testimonial evidence, and examination
and cross-examination of witnesses. The hearings will be open to the
public, with the possible exception of some limited times when
national security or nuclear safeguards information is being
discussed. Certain entities are identified in the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act of 1982 (NWPA), amended, as automatically
having party status in the proceeding; they are DOE as the
applicant , the NRC staff, the State of Nevada, and Nye
County, Nevada, which is the site of the proposed repository.
Other entities identified as potential parties or interested
governmental participants may be granted legal standing in the
proceedings as interveners upon petition to the Atomic Safety and
Licensing board Panel which will be conducting the hearings.
The
formal definitions and criteria that govern the status of each entity
are provided below and can be found in 10 C.F.R. § 2.1001.
Party.
. . means the DOE, the NRC
staff, the host State, any affected unit of local government1 . . . ,
any affected Indian Tribe
2 . . . ,
and a person admitted under 10 C.F.R. § 2.1014 to the proceeding on an
application for a license to receive and possess high-level
radioactive waste at a geologic repository operations area pursuant to
10 C.F.R. Part 60 . . . , provided that a host State, affected unit of
local government, or affected Indian Tribe shall file a list of
contentions in accordance with the provisions of 10 C.F.R. §
2.1014(a)(2)(ii) and (iii).
Potential party
means any person who, during the period before the issuance of the
first pre-hearing conference order under 10 C.F.R. § 2.1021(d), is
given access to the Licensing Support Network (LSN)
and who consents to comply with the regulations set forth in 10 C.F.R.
Part 2, Subpart J . . . , including the authority of the Pre-License
Application Presiding Officer designated pursuant to 10 C.F.R. §
2.1010. Consistent with this definition and a previously expressed
interest in the LSN, potential parties could
include Churchill, Clark, Esmeralda, Eureka, Lander, Lincoln, Mineral,
and White Pine Counties in Nevada, Inyo County in California, the
National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), and
the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).
Interested governmental participant
means an interested State, county, municipality, Federally-recognized
Indian Tribe, or any agency thereof
1Under
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, a "unit of local government" includes
"any borough, city, county, parish, town, township, village, or other
general purpose political subdivision of a State," while an "affected
unit of local government" is a local government unit "with
jurisdiction over the site of a repository . . . [that] may, at the
discretion of the Secretary [of Energy], include units of local
government that are contiguous with such unit." (42 U.S.C. §
10101(28), (31)). Nye County, within whose exterior boundaries Yucca
Mountain lays, is thus automatically an affected unit of local
government and a party to any Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding.
2Under
the NWPA, an "Indian Tribe" means "any Indian
tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community of Indians
recognized as eligible for the services provided to Indians by the
Secretary of the Interior because of their status as Indians," while
an "affected Indian Tribe" means any Indian Tribe "within whose
reservation boundaries . . . a repository for high-level radioactive
waste or spent fuel is proposed to be located" or "whose federally
defined possessory or usage rights to other lands outside of the
reservation's boundaries arising out of congressionally ratified
treaties may be substantially and adversely affected by the locating
of such a facility: Provided, that the Secretary of the Interior
finds, upon the petition of the appropriate governmental officials of
the tribe, that such effects are both substantial and adverse to the
tribe." (42 U.S.C. § 10101(2), (15))
This
Nye County LSN site will contain all Nye County relevant or
potentially relevant documentary material. Under the NRC LSN Rule (10
CFR 2 § 2.1001) documentary material means:
(1) Any information upon
which a party, potential party, or interested governmental participant
intends to rely and/or to cite in support of its position in the
proceeding for a construction authorization for a high-level
radioactive waste repository at a geologic repository operations area
pursuant to parts 60 or 63 of this chapter, a license to receive and
possess high-level radioactive waste at a geologic repository
operations area pursuant to parts 60 or 63 of this chapter;
(2) Any information that
is known to, and in the possession of, or developed by the party that
is relevant to, but does not support, that information or that party's
position; and
(3) All reports and
studies, prepared by or on behalf of the potential party, interested
governmental participant, or party, including all related "circulated
drafts," relevant to both the license application and the issues set
forth in the Topical Guidelines in Regulatory Guide 3.69, regardless
of whether they will be relied upon and/or cited by a party. The scope
of documentary material shall be guided by the topical guidelines in
the applicable NRC Regulatory Guide.
This
Nye County LSN site will contain relevant or potentially relevant
documents generated by the Nye County Independent Scientific
Investigations Program (ISIP), as well as other potentially relevant
documents generated by the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project
Office (NWRPO). Identification of these documents, and their placement
on this site, was, under the LSN Rule, accomplished prior to Nye
County seeing a DOE Yucca Mountain License Application. Accordingly
many of the documents posted on this site will not necessarily relate
to contentions or potential contentions that Nye may raise in the
licensing proceeding. No assumption should be made that because a
document on the Nye LSN site relates to particular technical area, or
other potential issue, Nye intends to raise a contention regarding
that issue before the NRC.
This
site is administered by the Nye County NWRPO. |
Nye LSN Home Page
