Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/31/2014
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied requests late last week for clarification on the timeline and cost figures associated with the NRC Yucca order issued last year, citing that nothing in the court’s writ of mandamus requires detailed time and budgetary outlines. Nye County, Nev., the States of South Carolina and Washington, Aiken County, S.C., and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners filed the motion for reconsideration hoping to obtain more definitive answers from the NRC about when the Safety Evaluation Reports would be completed and released as well as cost estimates for the project. “As fully explained in CLI-13-8, by taking an incremental approach, we have attempted to ensure, to the maximum extent possible, that the next logical steps in the process are completed,” the NRC order said. “Although the petitioners in the Aiken County decision sought a broad mandamus order, nothing in the court’s decision required us to undertake a particular course of action, to conduct an accounting containing the level of detail sought by the Five Parties, or to subject the Staff’s estimates of the time required to perform its work to the scrutiny of third parties. We decline to order the Staff to do more than has been directed by the D.C. Circuit.”
The NRC issued an order to re-start the Yucca Mountain licensing review in November of last year to comply with the court’s writ of mandamus. The order included the completion of the SERs as well as the completion of a supplemental environmental impact statement dealing with groundwater issues. The ‘Five Parties’ had been hoping to obtain a clear direction in the process that would have outlined in detail the budget and timeline of the process. Robert Anderson, lead counsel for Nye County, told RW Monitor last month that it would be little work to provide the information and satisfy all parties with the facts. Anderson did not return calls for comment this week.
Yucca Writ of Mandamus Appeal Period Ends Without Contest
Meanwhile, the time period to file an appeal to the Supreme Court in the Yucca Mountain writ of mandamus decision expired last week with no appeals being filed by any opponents to the decision that compelled the NRC to finish the Yucca licensing review. The end of the 90-day appeal time frame comes after Nevada, the last opponent to the decision, requested a re-hearing en banc last year that was subsequently denied unanimously by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Marta Adams, an assistant attorney general for Nevada, had previously said that the state would not seek a further appeal in the decision, and with the NRC moving forward with the completion of the Yucca Safety Evaluation Reports, there did not appear to be anyone else willing to challenge the decision further.
