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Environment

NRC Considers Voiding Key Ruling On San Onofre

By Alison St John / Reporter
Published June 14, 2013 at 12:27 PM PDT
This story was published more than 10 years ago.
NRC Considers Voiding Key Ruling On San Onofre
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission may reject a ruling that contributed to the decision to shut down the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

KPBS In-Depth Coverage Of The San Onofre Shutdown
The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California is closing, after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely returned to service, officials announced Friday. What do you think about San Onofre's shutdown?
What do you think about the decision to close San Onofre?
The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California is closing, after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely returned to service, officials announced Friday. What do you think about San Onofre's shutdown?

Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff want to void a ruling that played a significant role in Southern California Edison’s decision to shut down the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Edison decided shut the nuclear power plant down for good partially because the Atomic Safety Licensing Board ruled there should be public hearings before any restart plan would have been approved by the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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The ASLB is a panel of judges, an arm of the NRC. The group Friends of the Earth pushed for those public hearings.

Now, Kendra Ulrich of FOE said NRC staff are preparing to wipe the judges’ ruling from the record. Ulrich said the regulatory agency is too closely allied with the companies they are regulating.

“That’s why they want to vacate this order,” she said. “They want to make sure that this very comfortable relationship that they have established is maintained.“

The NRC did not respond to questions about the motion to vacate the ruling. Voiding the ruling will not change the decision to shut down San Onofre but it could affect communities in other states such as Ohio, which is seeking more transparency from the nuclear industry.

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Alison St John
Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.
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