NRC: SECY-08-0026 - Annual Report on Court Litigation (Calendar Year 2007)

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POLICY ISSUE
(INFORMATION)

SECY-08-0026

February 28, 2008

FOR:	The Commission
FROM:	John F. Cordes, Jr. /RA/ Solicitor
SUBJECT:	ANNUAL REPORT ON COURT LITIGATION (CALENDAR YEAR 2007)

PURPOSE
DISCUSSION

PURPOSE: To Inform the Commission of the Status of Litigation in the Courts

DISCUSSION:

Attached is a report updating events in NRC court litigation since my last cumulative annual report dated February 16, 2007 (SECY-06-0035). This report reflects the status of NRC cases in court as of February 28, 2008.

During the reporting period (calendar year 2007), the Commission was sued eleven (11) times in the courts of appeals,¹ but not in any other court. During this same one-year period eight (8) cases were closed.⁴ The 11 new court cases in 2007 are roughly in line with what we have come to expect over the past decade. There were 8 new cases in 2006, 11 in 2005, 13 in 2004, 14 in 2003, 8 in 2002, 5 in 2001, 9 in 2000, 15 in 1999, and 12 in 1998, for an average of roughly 10.5 new cases per year.

During this reporting period (CY 2006), we also handled five requests (so-called "Touhy" requests) for NRC testimony, depositions or other evidence for use in private litigation, as well a number of resource-intensive discovery demands in lawsuits against the United States not involving the NRC, chiefly in a series of cases brought in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims seeking money damages against the government for not bringing on-line a spent fuel disposal facility by 1998, as directed in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

Attachment: Litigation Status Report

¹ Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining v. NRC, No. 07-9505 (10^th Cir.); Massachusetts v. United States, Nos. 07-1482 & 07-1483 (1^st Cir.) ; New Jersey v. NRC, Nos. 07-1559 & 07-1756 (3d Cir); New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection v. NRC, No. 07-2271 (3d Cir.); Nuclear Information and Resource Service v. NRC, No. 07-1212 (D.C. Cir.);
Public Citizen v. NRC, Nos. 07-71868 & 07-72555 (9^th Cir.); Spano v. NRC, Nos. 07-0324 & 07-1276 (2d Cir.).

⁴ CBS (formerly Viacom Inc.) v. United States, No. 1:05-cv-00468 ESH (D.D.C.); Environmental Law and Policy Center v. NRC, No. 06-1442 (7^th Cir.); Ernst v. Rombaugh, No. 06-CV-167-J (D. Wyoming); Nuclear Information and Resource Service v. NRC, No. 07-1212 (D.C. Cir.);Nuclear Information and Resource Service v. NRC, No. 04-71432 (9^th Cir.); Public Citizen v. NRC, No. 03-1181 (D.C. Cir.); Salsman v. Federline, No. 5:06-cv-07173-JW (N.D. Cal.); San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC, No. 03-74628 (9^th Cir.).