Authority To Provide Financial Assistance to Participants in Regulatory Agency Proceedings

Advice was requested as to whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has the authority to provide financial assistance to participants in its adjudication and/or rulemaking proceedings. NRC may not use appropriated funds to assist intervenors in the absence of specific statutory authority therefor, and the Congress declined to authorize NRC to pay the expenses of intervenors. However, NRC has the statutory authority to facilitate public participation in its proceedings by using its own funds to reimburse intervenors when it believes that such participation is required by statute or necessary to represent opposing points of view and when it finds that the intervenor is indigent or otherwise unable to bear the financial costs of participation in proceedings.