The Nuclear Regulatory Commission told a federal judge in New Mexico this week that it was ready for judgement in a court case over a proposed interim storage facility in the state, according to a new court filing.
NRC told the U.S. District Court for New Mexico in a Tuesday filing that it had sent in all of its briefing materials and was ready for judge James Browning to make a decision. The agency is currently navigating a lawsuit by New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas over an interim storage site proposed for the state by Holtec International.
In a separate filing Tuesday, NRC also alerted the court to a license the agency granted Monday to Interim Storage Partners (ISP) for its proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Andrews County, Texas.
NRC has asked the court to dismiss Balderas’s suit, which accused the commission of violating federal law.
In his March lawsuit, Balderas argued that licensing Holtec’s proposed Lea County, N.M. interim storage site would violate the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Balderas said the law forbids NRC from licensing an interim site before a permanent spent fuel repository exists. The agency countered that the NWPA only applies to Department of Energy storage sites, and that the Atomic Energy Act gives NRC the authority to license commercial sites like Holtec’s and ISP’s.
At deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor the court hadn’t made any further rulings on the case.
Now that the ISP site is licensed, Holtec’s counterpart is next on NRC’s docket. The agency has said that it would release a final environmental review of the site later this year. A final licensing decision should come down in January.
