Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant Litigation)

Throughout the 1970’s and ‘80’s, the environmental movement undertook a series of administrative and judicial attacks on the proliferation of nuclear power plant that were being approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and built by the electric utility industry.  In California, the principal focus for this attack was PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.  CLIPI represented the environmental groups challenging the NRC’s proposed granting of an operating permit to Diablo. This challenge alleged, among other matters, that after the plant had been constructed at a cost of more than $1 billion, but before it opened, it was discovered that the plant’s location was near a significant earthquake fault.

The 1986 en banc opinion of federal circuit court for the District of Columbia, written by Judge Robert Bork, narrowly rejected, by a 5-4 vote, CLIPI’s subsequent litigation challenge to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s refusal to require an earth-quake safety evaluation plan before issuing the operating permit.  But the extensive administrative and judicial proceedings had subjected both the proposed plant and the nuclear power industry to a searching and highly visible scrutiny.  Public opinion in California turned strongly against nuclear power options. Together with the extremely high capital cost of constructing nuclear power plants, the Diablo Canyon proceedings sounded the death knell of the industry in California.