Utility commissioners renewed their request to an appeals court to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make a decision on whether spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), together with the states of Washington and South Carolina and two counties in Nevada, said in a court filing on September 16 that the NRC has delayed a decision on the disposal of nuclear waste at the Nevada site, and shows no sign that it will reach any conclusion in future.
“The NRC continues to unreasonably delay consideration of the license application and violate its duty to render a decision approving or disapproving the application,” NARUC said.
An order filed by the NRC with the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC on September 9 “leaves no doubt that the NRC has no intention of complying with its statutory duties to consider the Yucca Mountain application and render a final decision on that application within the timeframe established by Congress,” NARUC said.
It urged the court to issue an expedited order directing the NRC to decide on the Yucca issue.
In July, the US Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. threw out a case from the two states and upheld the NRC’s regulatory authority over the Yucca waste dump, but the decision also noted that the NRC had to make a decision.
“We will not permit an agency to insulate itself from judicial review by refusing to act,” the court said in its July ruling. Read more: Face Off Over Nuclear Waste Storage Takes A New Twist.
Last year, the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board denied a motion by the Department of Energy seeking to withdraw an application to construct a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
But the NRC was split 2-2 on whether to uphold or overturn the Board’s decision, and told the court so on September 9.
NARUC’s latest response is the latest shot in a year’s-long legal battle over whether nuclear waste now stored at power plants across the country can be buried at Yucca Mountain, as required by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Now, there’s little doubt the project is effectively dead, said Rob Thormeyer, a spokesman for NARUC. “Yucca is on life support and they are about to pull the plug,” he said.
But the commissioners’ group is continuing to pursue its legal action because it wants relief for its members’ ratepayers, who continue to fund the program.
“We’ve paid $30 billion over 30 years into this and got nothing,” Thormeyer said. “We just want to know when we are going to get a return on this.”
In its latest filing, NARUC and the other plaintiffs argued that unless the court directs the NRC to conduct its review, it will continue to avoid its legal obligations, and that billions of dollars will have been spent on one of the country’s most intractable problems, with no formal conclusion.
“It is clear the NRC has no intent ever to make a decision on the license application unless this court directs it to do so,” the plaintiffs said. They also accused the NRC or ignoring the wishes of Congress.
David McIntyre, a spokesman for the NRC, said he had not seen NARUC’s latest filing and so could not immediately comment.
Photo Caption: A ‘no trespassing’ sign warns people to stay away from the proposed nuclear waste dump site of Yucca Mountain (Left) on February 7, 2002 at Nellis Air Force Base, located approximately 90 miles north of Las Vegas, NV.
