The state of Nevada must have a voice in a lawsuit demanding that the federal government move ahead with plans for a permanent nuclear waste repository in the state, according to the Nevada Attorney General’s Office.
Texas sued the Department of Energy and other federal agencies in March, seeking to force Washington to promptly obey the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy act mandate to build a final resting place for commercial and defense nuclear waste, and the bill’s 1987 amendment that the site be located at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The lawsuit is now in mediation, but in the meantime Nevada, the Nuclear Energy Institute, and a number of utilities have filed to intervene in opposition to some or all of Texas’ demands. The Lone Star State has opposed those motions, arguing in court documents last month that Nevada is only trying to stop construction of Yucca Mountain while Texas’ intent is to end a decades-long impasse on nuclear waste management.
In its motion, the the Texas Attorney General’s Office said the state “is playing football; but Nevada wants to play baseball.” The Nevada AG fired back with its own sports analogy on May 1.
“Texas’s sports analogy is incomplete,” according to the latest motion. “Nevada and the Federal Respondents are in the middle innings of a contest over Yucca Mountain, but Texas fails to acknowledge that it has been a disinterested spectator for over three decades. Conveniently now that its former governor has been confirmed as the Secretary of Energy, Texas takes its first swing to transplant the long-running ‘baseball game’ onto its proverbial ‘football field.’”
Ruling in favor of Texas would usurp the federal government’s authority to consider the many objections and formal contentions Nevada has filed against Yucca Mountain, according to the Nevada Attorney General’s Office. And Nevada must have a say, as it cannot trust federal agencies to protect the state’s interests, the motion adds.
