The law firm Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch & Lawrence will continue to help Nevada oppose the Department of Energy’s plans to open a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in the state, under a two-year contract worth roughly $5 million.
The state Board of Examiners approved the new contract on Tuesday.
Nevada has retained the firm since 2001 under a series of contracts, mostly to aid the state in the legal battle that would begin if DOE is allowed to restart its application to license Yucca with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
The new contract is for the firm “to assist with Yucca Mountain litigation and for representation of the state before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on issues related to the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive repository program,” according to the agency for Tuesday’s Board of Examiners meeting.
Nevada has always opposed storing nuclear waste at the Nye County site and has routinely supplemented its own legal brain trust with outside counsel.
The Donald Trump administration wants to revive DOE’s application to license Yucca with NRC, which its predecessor halted in 2010 in what was widely viewed as a political favor to then-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
The Senate remains a bulwark against Yucca Mountain, even following Reid’s retirement in 2017. Last year, appropriators in the upper chamber refused to provide the $120 million requested to restart DOE’s licensing work. The House, meanwhile, approved all the Yucca funding Trump requested for DOE and the NRC.
For fiscal 2019, the administration wants $120 million for DOE and nearly $50 million for the NRC for Yucca licensing. The DOE request is about flat year over year, but the request for the NRC is 50 percent more than what the White House requested for fiscal 2018.
Congressional approval would clear the way for the NRC to consider DOE’s license application in a legal forum where Nevada could contest the matter. The state has already raised hundreds of technical objections to the application.
Meanwhile, Nevada Gov. Brain Sandoval (R) this week knocked the Washington-based National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners for even considering supporting Yucca Mountain.
The D.C.-based interest group approved on Wednesday approved a resolution that calls on Congress to fund DOE licensing activities for Yucca, a spokesperson said via email.
“[T]he state of Nevada is unequivocally opposed to Yucca Mountain,” Sandoval wrote in a Feb. 13 letter to NARUC Executive Director Greg White.
