The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas demanding that the federal government complete licensing proceedings on the long-planned radioactive waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Writing for a three-judge panel, Judge Patrick Higginbotham said Texas had failed to submit its claim within the legally permitted schedule and had not persuasively argued a “continuing violations” case to support the lawsuit.
“We hold that Texas’s claims do not satisfy the statutory requirements of timeliness or finality, and we therefore must dismiss them,” Higginbotham wrote.
The court specifically ruled in favor of a dismissal motion from the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, one of several entities that had joined the case in opposition to Texas’ claims.
“Today’s decision comes after many hard fought legal efforts to protect Nevadans from the poster-child for federal overreach – a cram down of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain,” Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt said in a prepared statement. “This victory proves Nevada is unified in its fight.”
There was no immediate word on whether Texas would appeal the decision.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office filed the lawsuit in March 2017, claiming the state had been harmed by being stuck with spent nuclear fuel that the federal government had failed to begin disposing of by the congressionally set deadline of Jan. 31, 1998. Defendants included Energy Secretary (and former Texas governor) Rick Perry; Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; and their respective agencies.
Texas demanded 24 separate measures of relief, notably that DOE and the NRC resume and complete the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain repository, which was suspended by the Obama administration; and that further consent-based siting efforts for other potential waste disposal locations be prohibited.
The Trump administration has sought to revive Yucca licensing, but Congress has not provided the necessary funding.
