The federal government this week doubled down on its request that the Court of Federal Claims (CFC) dismiss South Carolina’s lawsuit over disposal of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.
In a Tuesday court filing, lawyers representing DOE wrote that Judge Margaret Sweeney’s court has no jurisdiction over the matter, despite South Carolina’s claim that Sweeney has the right to hand down a verdict. The department has opposed South Carolina’s pursuit of $100 million in the CFC, arguing that the state cannot pursue the money because it is already seeking $100 million in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court.
Federal attorneys wrote in the document filed Tuesday that the CFC lawsuit should be thrown out because U.S. law does not allow South Carolina to pursue two suits against DOE that seek similar outcomes.
“[T]he substantial overlap of operative facts between the monetary claim in this case and South Carolina’s pending removal claim in district court alone would justify dismissal,” the federal lawyers wrote in their latest filing.
On Aug. 7, South Carolina’s sued the Energy Department, seeking half of the $200 million the state says it is owed for the federal government’s continued failure to dispose of 1 ton of plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site. The other $100 million is covered in a 2016 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for South Carolina.
Lawyers for the state said in both suits DOE breached a 2003 agreement to remove the plutonium from South Carolina by Jan. 1, 2016, or to process it at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) that remains under construction at the Savannah River Site. The facility would be used to meet the terms of a 2000 U.S.-Russian agreement that requires each nation to dispose of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium.
Under the agreement, the federal agency was supposed to pay $1 million per day, up to a maximum of $100 million annually, upon breaching the deadline. In February 2016, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the Energy Department when payments did not begin.
