The state of Nevada this week urged the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss Texas’ lawsuit demanding that the federal government move ahead with the licensing and development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
Judge Patrick Higginbotham in May authorized Nevada to intervene in the lawsuit filed in March against the U.S. Energy Department, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Treasury Department, along with the heads of each agency. Texas claimed the federal agencies are in breach of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as amended in 1987, which demanded that DOE build a deep geologic repository for U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste at Yucca Mountain.
Nevada has long opposed becoming home to other states’ nuclear waste, and is gearing up for battle against the Trump administration’s effort to restart the licensing process for the facility.
“President Trump’s recently introduced budget contains a $120 million request to restart the same Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump that the Nation’s elected representatives, after years of extensive and democratic debate, scuttled through lack of funding,” according to Nevada’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. “Rather than allow congressional decision-making to run its course once again, Texas’s Petition asks this Court for the extraordinary relief of usurping the budgetary process and directing Respondents—Executive Branch agencies and officers—to complete a laundry list of tasks, including the requesting and spending of unappropriated funds to rush through the Yucca Mountain adjudicatory and licensure processes.”
Lawyers for Nevada also said Texas is years late in meeting the legal deadline for filing a lawsuit under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act — which is “not later than the 180th day after the date of the decision or action or failure to act involved.”
In separate filings this week against a motion filed by Texas last month, lawyers said the federal agencies would file responses to Texas’ full claims by June 30.
