The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP) is an independent adjudicatory division of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, authorized under the Atomic Energy Act.
The ASLBP consists of administrative judges that differ from other administrative law judges in other Federal agencies, most notably that Licensing Boards have technical judges who are experts in their relative field of study (e.g. nuclear engineering, nuclear medicine, hydrology, etc.).
[2][3] Jurisdiction is limited to civilian commercial nuclear power reactors, test and research reactors, in situ leach uranium mining, uranium milling and tailing, and spent fuel storage facilities in the United States Plants owned by U.S. firms in overseas locations are not within the purview of the Panel, nor are U.S. Department of Defense nuclear facilities or U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapon or disposal facilities.
[4] "Individuals who are directly affected by any licensing action involving a facility producing or utilizing nuclear materials can participate in a hearing..."[5] Matters adjudicated by the ASLBP have included: early site permits, which "banks" a site for 20 years for a company to later build a nuclear facility if they so choose; operating licenses for proposed nuclear reactors; proposed license renewals of nuclear reactors; and in situ uranium mining licensing actions.
The ASLBP had also started the adjudication process on the proposed U.S. Department of Energy Yucca Mountain repository; but since 2008 Congress has not funded the project, thus not one claim (out of over 400) has been fully adjudicated in the Yucca Mountain case.