A court has granted expedited review of a petition by challengers to the Administration’s decision to shut down Yucca Mountain that could force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make a decision on licensing the repository. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit released an expedited schedule for the matter Friday, which calls for initial briefs in December and January and final briefs Feb. 13. The same court rejected a previous challenge to the repository’s shutdown in July, stating it did not have jurisdiction over the matter absent a decision from the NRC. That sparked a writ of mandamus July 29, which alleged that agency action had been unreasonably withheld.
The NRC closed out its review of the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain license applications this fall before releasing any regulatory conclusions, citing budgetary concerns. NRC officials have said they would take up licensing again if directed by the court or Congress. In the writ of mandamus, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and Nye County, Nev., home to the Yucca Mountain site, joined petitioners in the previous Yucca challenge, including the states of South Carolina and Washington, Aiken County, S.C., and several residents near DOE’s Hanford site in Washington state. The petitioners emphasize that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires the NRC to make a decision on granting the license within three years of DOE’s submission, a deadline that expired in June.