[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 153 (Wednesday, August 10, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-19495]


[[Page Unknown]]

[Federal Register: August 10, 1994]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket Nos. 50-346 and 50-440]

 

Centerior Energy, et al.; License Amendment Requests Proposed 
Merger of Toledo Edison Co. and Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co.; 
Antitrust Determination

    Pursuant to two separate license amendment requests from licensee 
Centerior Energy (Centerior) dated June 2, 1994 and June 6, 1994, the 
staff hereby notices the request by Centerior to amend the Perry 
Nuclear Power Plant (Perry) and Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station 
(Davis-Besse) operating licenses to reflect a new owner-operator of 
Perry and Davis-Besse. The new owner-operator, temporarily named 
(``NEWCO'' by Centerior, will result from the proposed merger between 
the Toledo Edison Company (TE) and the Cleveland Electric Illuminating 
Company (CEI)--both existing licensees and owners of the Perry and 
Davis-Besse facilities.
    The staff has interpreted the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as 
amended, and the Commission's regulations, to require an antitrust 
review of an owner or operator prior to the proposed new owner taking 
possession of the facility or prior to the proposed new operator 
assuming responsibility for operating the facility in question. Where 
the new operator is a non-owner, the staff has developed, with the 
Commission's approval, an antitrust license condition that prohibits 
the new operator from marketing or brokering power or energy from the 
facility. (This type of license condition would not apply in the 
instant case because NEWCO will be both an owner and an operator of 
Perry and Davis-Besse.) The intent of the staff in developing the non-
owner operator license condition is to forgo the need for an extended 
review of the operator's competitive practices and any accompanying 
analysis of how any practices impact or could impact the electric bulk 
power services market. By agreeing not to be involved in the facility's 
marketing or brokering of bulk power services, the staff believes the 
new non-owner operator will not possess enough market power to 
significantly impact the market.
    The instant amendment requests involve two licensees, TE and CEI, 
that have undergone antitrust reviews by the staff at the construction 
permit and operating license stages of the licensing process. The 
construction permit antitrust review in the combined Perry/Davis-Besse 
proceeding resulted in extensive antitrust license conditions 
obligating TE and CEI to cease certain anticompetitive practices and 
make available certain bulk power services to power entities in the 
affected bulk power services market. This review analyzed the practices 
of the power pooling group known as CAPCO, i.e., Central Area Power 
Coordination Group, as a whole and also the practices of the five 
individual utility operating companies, including TE and CEI, that made 
up CAPCO. The staff believes the construction permit antitrust review 
and the operating license review, which found no significant antitrust 
changes since the previous review, adequately defined the problems 
associated with TE's and CEI's competitive practices and addressed 
these problems during the review process.
    The license conditions that evolved from the Commission's antitrust 
review process are extensive and procompetitive. The licensee has 
agreed that the new owner-operator will be bound by the existing 
antitrust license conditions now binding TE and CEI--by doing so, the 
staff believes that there is no need to conduct another antitrust 
review as a result of the proposed merger nor is there any need to seek 
public comment on the proposed merger.
    For further details with respect to this action, see the 
applications for amendment dated June 2, 1994 (Perry) and June 6, 1994 
(Davis-Besse), which are available for public inspection at the 
Commission's Public Document Room, located at the Gelman Building, 2120 
L Street NW., Washington, DC 20555 and at the local Public Document 
Rooms: for Perry, at the Perry Public Library, 3753 Main Street, Perry, 
Ohio 44081; for Davis-Besse, at the University of Toledo Library, 
Documents Department, 2801 Bancroft Avenue, Toledo, Ohio 43606.

    Dated At Rockville, Maryland, this 2nd day of August, 1994.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Anthony T. Gody,
Chief, Inspection and Regulatory Criteria Branch, Program Management, 
Policy Development and Analysis Staff, Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation.
[FR Doc. 94-19495 Filed 8-9-94; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-M