[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 130 (Thursday, July 8, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39285-39287]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-16628]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 50-391; NRC-2008-0369]


Tennessee Valley Authority; Notice of Receipt of Updated 
Antitrust Information and Opportunity for Public Comment

    By letter dated May 13, 2010, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 
submitted antitrust information in conjunction with its updated 
application for an operating license (OL)

[[Page 39286]]

for a second pressurized-water reactor, Watts Bar Nuclear Plant (Watts 
Bar), Unit 2, located in Rhea County, Tennessee, approximately 50 miles 
northeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The information submitted to the 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will assist the staff in 
determining whether there have been any significant changes since the 
completion of the antitrust review conducted for Watts Bar in 1979. 
This Federal Register notice acknowledges receipt of the updated 
antitrust information, notifies the public of the availability of this 
information, seeks public comment on this information, and describes 
the procedures the NRC staff will use to evaluate the information.
    On January 23, 1973, the NRC granted TVA's application for 
construction permits for Watts Bar, Units 1 and 2. On June 30, 1976, 
TVA filed an application for OLs for Watts Bar, Unit 1 and 2. The NRC 
issued an OL authorizing full-power operation of Watts Bar, Unit 1, in 
1996. However, TVA did not complete construction of Unit 2, and 
construction was deferred. Since that time, the NRC has granted 
extensions of the time period for completing construction of Unit 2 
under its construction permit. On March 4, 2009, TVA updated its 
application for an OL for Watts Bar, Unit 2. The receipt of the updated 
application was noticed in the Federal Register on May 1, 2009 (74 FR 
20350). The OL application is currently pending review before the NRC.
    At the time the NRC issued the construction permit for Watts Bar, 
Unit 2, Section 105c of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954, as 
amended, required the NRC to conduct an antitrust review on all 
applications for a license to construct or operate a production or 
utilization facility [42 U.S.C. 2135(c)]. Thus, the NRC conducted an 
antitrust review in conjunction with the review of the application for 
a construction permit for Watts Bar, Unit 2 (37 FR 27646). In 2005, 
Congress determined that the NRC need not conduct antitrust reviews for 
applications filed after August 8, 2005 [42 U.S.C. 2135(c)(9)]. 
Congress did so because ``other Government agencies more specialized in 
financial matters have demonstrated oversight and authority sufficient 
to discern and address potential anticompetitive behavior of nuclear 
energy producers'' (70 FR 61885). However, because TVA filed its 
original OL application for Watts Bar Unit 2 before 2005, under the 
AEA, the NRC must complete an antitrust review on this application.
    Under Section 105(c)(2) of the AEA, the NRC will undertake an in-
depth antitrust review on applications for an OL only when the NRC 
determines that ``significant changes in the licensee's activities or 
proposed activities have occurred subsequent'' to the previous 
antitrust review on the construction permit [42 U.S.C. 2135(c)(2)]. The 
Commission has interpreted this requirement to mean that the NRC must 
find ``the situation as changed has negative antitrust implications'' 
before it will conduct an in-depth antitrust review. See South Carolina 
Electric and Gas Company and South Carolina Public Service Authority 
(Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station, Unit 1), CLI-80-28, 11 NRC 817, 835 
(1980). Thus, the threshold question before the NRC is whether 
significant changes have occurred in TVA's activities, from an 
antitrust perspective, since the NRC previously conducted its antitrust 
review on the application to construct Watts Bar, Unit 2.
    The data submitted by TVA on May 13, 2010, contained information 
for review, based on NRC Regulatory Guide 9.3, ``Information Needed by 
the AEC Regulatory Staff in Connection with its Antitrust Review of 
Operating License Applications for Nuclear Power Plants.'' This 
information updated previous submissions to the NRC that supported the 
significant changes review the agency conducted on TVA for Watts Bar, 
Unit 1. The NRC completed this evaluation on August 15, 1991. Although 
the evaluation addressed TVA's OL application for Watts Bar, Unit 1, 
the analysis itself focused on TVA's economic activities. Thus, a 
separate significant changes analyses for Watts Bar, Unit 2, for that 
time period would be largely identical to the analysis already 
conducted for Unit 1. Therefore, the NRC staff sees no reason to 
conduct such a repetitive significant changes analysis. Instead, in 
conducting its significant changes analysis for Watts Bar, Unit 2, the 
NRC will rely on the analysis of TVA's economic activities conducted 
for Watts Bar, Unit 1, for the time period between the issuance of the 
construction permit and August 15, 1991. In addition, for the time 
period from August 15, 1991, to the present, the NRC will conduct a new 
significant changes analysis for Watts Bar, Unit 2.
    For further details pertinent to the matters under consideration, 
see the application for the facility OL dated June 30, 1975, as 
supplemented on September 27, 1976, and as updated on March 4, 2009, 
and the updated antitrust information dated May 13, 2010, which are 
available for public inspection at the NRC's Public Document Room 
(PDR), located at One White Flint North, Room O-1F21, 11555 Rockville 
Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available documents 
created or received at the NRC are available electronically at the 
NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this page, the public can gain entry into the 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), which 
provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. If you do not 
have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the 
documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's PDR reference staff at 1-
800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to [email protected]. The 
ADAMS accession numbers for the OL application cover letter and 
supplement cover letter are ML073400595 and ML073381112, respectively. 
The ADAMS accession number for the update to the application is 
ML090700378. The ADAMS accession number for the antirust information is 
ML101400185. To search for other related documents in ADAMS using the 
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 2 OL application docket number, 50-391, 
enter the term ``05000391'' in the ``Docket Number'' field when using 
either the Web-based search (advanced search) engine or the ADAMS find 
tool in Citrix.
    Within 30 days from the date of this Federal Register notice, 
members of the public may send written comments with respect to 
significant changes related to antitrust matters that occurred since 
completion of the previous antitrust review to: Chief, Rules, 
Announcements and Directives Branch (RADB), Division of Administrative 
Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop: TWB-05B01, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, 20555-0001, or by fax to RADB at 
(301) 492-3446, and should cite the publication date and page number of 
this Federal Register notice. Electronic comments may also be submitted 
to http://www.regulations.gov, and should be sent no later than 30 days 
from the date of this Federal Register notice to be considered in the 
review process. Comments will be available electronically and 
accessible through ADAMS at http://adamswebsearch.nrc.gov/dologin.htm.
    Because these comments will not be edited to remove any identifying 
or contact information, the NRC cautions the commenter against 
including any information that he/she does not want to be publicly 
disclosed. The NRC requests that any person soliciting or aggregating 
comments received from other persons for submission to the NRC inform 
those persons that the NRC will

[[Page 39287]]

not edit their comments to remove any identifying or contact 
information, and therefore, they should not include any information in 
their comments that they do not want publicly disclosed.
    The NRC will consider such comments submitted and forward those 
comments, as well as the information submitted by TVA, to the United 
States Attorney General. Upon reviewing this information, the United 
States Attorney General will provide the NRC with an opinion on whether 
there have been significant changes related to antitrust matters in 
TVA's activities.
    Upon completion of the staff's review of significant changes, and 
after considering any opinion from the United States Attorney General 
and comments submitted by the public, the Director of the Office of 
Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR), as authorized by the Commission, may 
issue an initial finding as to whether there have been ``significant 
changes'' under Section 105c(2) of the AEA. A copy of this finding will 
be published in the Federal Register and will be sent to the 
Washington, DC public document room and to those persons providing 
comments or information in response to this notice. The NRC will also 
make that initial finding available in ADAMS.
    If the initial finding concludes that there have not been any 
significant changes, a request for reevaluation of the finding may be 
submitted within 30 days of the date of that Federal Register notice. 
The results of that reevaluation, if requested, will also be published 
in the Federal Register, and copies will be sent to the Washington, DC 
public document room. The reevaluation will also be available on the 
NRC's public website through ADAMS. If that determination also finds no 
significant changes, it will become the final NRC decision after 30 
days unless the Commission exercises sua sponte review.
    If the Director of NRR concludes that significant changes have 
occurred since the completion of the antitrust review that the NRC 
previously conducted, the NRC will begin the procedures necessary to 
conduct an in-depth antitrust review, as required by Section 105c of 
the AEA.
    Information about the proposed action and the antitrust review 
process may be obtained from Mr. Aaron Szabo at 301-415-1985 or by e-
mail to [email protected].

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 1st day of July 2010.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael A. Dusaniwskyj,
Acting Chief, Financial, Policy, and Rulemaking Branch, Division of 
Policy and Rulemaking, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 2010-16628 Filed 7-7-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P