Epstein's Comments on Director's Decision Under 10 CFR 2.206

On September 30, 2010, Eric J. Epstein (“Epstein, “Mr. Epstein” or “the Petitioner”) filed a Petition pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Section 2.206. The petitioner requested that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC” or “the Commission”) take enforcement action in the form of a Demand for Information (“DFI”) from FirstEnergy Corp. (“FE”, “FirstEnergy”, or (the licensee”) relating to inadequate financial assurance provided by the licensee for Three Mile Island Unit-2's (TMI-2's) nuclear decommissioning fund prior to the consummation of FirstEnergy's proposed merger with Allegheny Energy. (NOTE: GPU Nuclear Inc. is the license holder for TMI-2.) GPU Nuclear, Inc. submitted the 2009 Decommissioning Funding Status Report for TMI-2 on March 29, 2010 (available in NRC's Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under Accession No. ML 1009604640). As the basis for this request, the petitioner states that the current radiological decommissioning cost estimate is $831.5 million and the current amount in the decommissioning trust fund is $484.5 million, as of December 31,2008. 1 The Petitioner established that FirstEnergy did not provide adequate financial assurance for decommissioning funding of TMI-2: (1) FirstEnergy's annual report fails to account for the special status of TMI-2, (2) the current level of the decommissioning trust fund demonstrates underfunding, and (3) underfunding could not be addressed though rate payers after decommissioning rate recovery payments from Metropolitan Edison and Pennsylvania Electric were terminated on December 31,2010, pursuant to Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Orders and various settlement agreements.

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