[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
