Morning Briefing - November 04, 2021
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November 03, 2021

Texas Must Submit Argument Against ISP Spent Fuel Site by December, Court Says

By ExchangeMonitor

Texas has until Dec. 13 to make opening arguments in its lawsuit against a recently-licensed commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, according to a Wednesday filing in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

It’s the first major movement in the suit since early October, when the court accepted Interim Storage Partners (ISP) as an intervenor alongside the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s suit.

Paxton filed suit against NRC in late September, not long after the agency licensed ISP’s proposed site in Andrews County, Texas, on Sep. 13. Paxton’s initial filing asked the Fifth Circuit to review the NRC license.

ISP, a joint venture between Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and Orano USA, hopes to build its interim storage site at WCS’s existing Texas-Vermont compact waste disposal facility in Andrews. 

The proposed site has faced significant backlash from the Lone Star State. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in September signed a law banning the storage of high-level nuclear waste in Texas, a move aimed at blocking the ISP site from breaking ground. 

For its part, Andrews County also opposes the site — the county commission voted unanimously to oppose the ISP project during a community meeting in July. WCS president David Carlson declined to comment to RadWaste Monitor Wednesday on whether his company was doing anything to fight that decision.

Meanwhile, another company is looking to build its own interim storage facility just over the border in New Mexico. NRC is in the late stages of reviewing Holtec International’s application to build a similar site in Lea County, N.M. The agency has said that it would wrap up that process in January or so.

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