The Washington state Attorney General’s Office this week forcefully challenged the federal government’s request that a U.S. District Court dismiss the state lawsuit filed over worker safety at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.
In a motion filed in August, the Department of Justice said the state has no legal standing to filer the September 2015 lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. Specifically, according to the motion, the state cannot demonstrate that it has suffered direct harm from chemical vapors from tank farms, and it cannot legally under its “parens patriae” authority file a lawsuit for a “very small subset” of its citizenry, specifically Hanford workers.
“The federal government is not shielded by prudential limits on parens patriae suits,” countered the AG’s Office in its Sept. 13 request for dismissal of the federal motion. “This is especially true when Congress explicitly authorizes states to sue federal agencies to enforce a federal statute, as is the case here.”
The response adds: “Energy fundamentally misunderstands both [the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act] and the purpose of the State’s RCRA action. Like all RCRA endangerment actions, State’s suit seeks to vindicate public, not private, interests. The State does not seek to vindicate the private interests of a ‘very small subset’ of the State’s population. Rather, the State asserts its broader, public interest that all persons working within its borders—including current and future Hanford workers— enjoy a workplace free from the risk of crippling respiratory illness and other serious health effects.”
The AG’s attorneys noted that DOE has not challenged the standing of co-plaintiffs Hanford Challenge and Local Union 598 to sue over worker safety. That being the case, under legal doctrine set by the Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the AG’s Office said “standing for one is standing for all” – meaning the court does not need to consider the state’s independent standing to sue.
DOE on Wednesday reaffirmed that it does not comment on pending legislation.
