Sonal Patel reports that citing its backing for the long-stalled Yucca Mountain permanent spent nuclear waste repository in Nevada, the new administration has asked a federal court to reject a petition filed by Texas in which the state sought a court-supervised process to take over administrative proceedings so as to guarantee licensing and eventual construction of project.
Texas filed its lawsuit with the 5th Circuit on March 15 in an attempt to stop the Department of Energy (DOE) from spending tax dollars on consent-based siting activity, and to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and other relevant federal agencies to complete licensing proceedings for Yucca Mountain.
The state also argued that the DOE failure to accept spent nuclear fuel by 1998, as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, injured Texas because it was saddled with waste fuel that could potentially devastate public health and environment.
But in a petition filed on June 30 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the departments of Energy and Treasury argued that Texas lawsuit is the wrong method to achieve the result, and that it is also fatally flawed. It also claims that Texas lacks standing, it fails to identify a reviewable agency final action, and it is untimely moot in any event.
Notably, the Trump administration petition also rejects Texas claims that temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel was injurious, saying that the state failed to allege concrete or particularized injury because it offers no factual basis to support its assertion that the mere existence of spent nuclear fuel in Texas poses danger.
It added that the NRC, the agency vested with both the responsibility and the expertise to evaluate such issues, concluded that spent fuel can be safely stored until a repository is available, or indefinitely should such storage become necessary.
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