While negotiating the best path forward to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the state is also looking for resolution for the $200 million it is seeking from the federal government.
Under a court order, the state and federal governments are in talks to resolve the plutonium dispute. The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office hopes the discussion will also address state fines levied against the Department of Energy, a spokesperson said.
Under a 2003 agreement, DOE and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had until Jan. 1, 2016, to process 1 metric ton of plutonium at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River, or remove an equal amount of material from the DOE site. Neither happened, leaving the Department of Energy on the hook to pay the state $1 million per day, capping off at $100 million annually. The maximum amount has been reached in both 2016 and 2017.
When the federal government failed to make payments last year, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson filed suit against DOE, the NNSA, then-Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, and NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz, on Feb. 9, 2016, in U.S. District Court for South Carolina. The suit seeks payment of the money and removal of plutonium from the state.
One of DOE’s rebuttals was that the Court of Federal Claims (CFC) was the proper venue for the monetary portion of the case. District Judge J. Michelle Childs concurred in February of this year: She dismissed South Carolina’s $100 million claim, but has given the state the option to file a new suit in the CFC.
Childs also directed both sides to the negotiating table, and has given them until July 31 to establish new schedules and deadlines to remove the plutonium from South Carolina.
The state has not yet filed a new monetary claim, and hopes to work that out through its discussions with DOE, said Dorothy Moore, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office. “The State and the federal government are negotiating towards a resolution for all the claims of the State against the federal government, including for payments owed and removal of the plutonium,” she said by email. “The Court has given the parties until July 31 to mediate a case, and the parties are working to resolve the case prior to that deadline.”
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility is being built to dispose of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium under the terms of a U.S.-Russian agreement. However, the Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal, released this week, would provide $270 million to terminate the project and $15 million to pursue an alternative approach DOE says would be much cheaper and faster.
