Both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Staff and the state of Nevada argued this week in separate filings to the NRC that a group of local and state governments’ motion for reconsideration regarding the Yucca Mountain re-licensing Order did not have the merits needed for reconsideration. The group, made up of Nye County, Nev., the state of South Carolina, the state of Washington, Aiken County, S.C. and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, is concerned with the lack of information about the Safety Evaluation Reports, as well as a lack of timeline for their release. In its motion for reconsideration, the group cited a failure to fully comply with the court’s writ of mandamus by failing to provide this information. NRC staff, though, argued in its filing this week that a desire for that information is not a basis for reconsideration. “A participant’s desire to receive an additional level of detail to conduct its own assessment of cost and scheduling estimates is not a basis for granting reconsideration.,” the NRC staff wrote. “In addition, neither the writ of mandamus nor the NWPA require that detailed cost and scheduling information be provided. Aside from the procedural issue, the Five Parties have not shown that the relief requested is either required or otherwise warranted.” Nevada agreed with the staff by citing that nothing within the court’s decision mandates the type of information the group is seeking.
The NRC issued the Order a month ago outlining the path forward for resuming the license review for Yucca Mountain. The Order was headed by the completion and release of the SERs associated with the construction authorization application, and it also called on the Department of Energy to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement that NRC staff requested under the National Environmental Policy Act to complete the review. The Order also continues to hold the adjudication in abeyance due to the limited funds to complete all of the necessary steps, and it also declines to direct the staff to establish the Licensing Support Network, although it does recommend all LSN documents be loaded into a non-public ADAMS database.
