The Nation - News from Sept. 7, 1988

A federal appeals court in Boston upheld a Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule that could speed the opening of the controversial $5.5-billion Seabrook nuclear power plant, which Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis has tried to block. In a 3-0 decision, the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a suit filed by Massachusetts, New York and other parties in December, 1987, contesting an NRC rule change last year allowing utilities to submit their own emergency evacuation plans when state and local officials refuse to do so. The rule change cuts to the heart of the dispute blocking the completed Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire, which remains unlicensed primarily because of Massachusetts’ refusal to submit federally required evacuation plans for its six communities within the coastal reactor’s 10-mile emergency zone.