A legal tug-of-war is underway between a San Diego law firm and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the release of paperwork related to federal oversight of used-fuel management at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California.
In March and June of this year, San Diego attorney Michael Aguirre filed three complaints in U.S. District Court for Southern California. The complaints allege the NRC has not adequately responded to several of his firm’s 2018 and early 2019 Freedom of Information Act requests for documents on problems at SONGS.
“To date, the NRC has engaged in stonewall tactics and has denied Plaintiff’s request for records without any reasonable justification,” according to a March 14 request for declaratory judgment filed by on behalf of Aguirre by his law partner, Maria Severson. “The NRC’s actions are inapposite to FOIA’s policy of broad disclosure of government documents and maximum feasible public access to government information.”
In three motions for dismissal or summary judgment filed in August and October, the NRC argued that Aguirre’s firm has filed 14 FOIA requests since December 2018, and the agency is working to comply with them. One NRC filing contends Aguirre’s firm “refused to engage” with its requests for clarification and advance payment for production of select documents. The agency further argued that Aguirre’s court filings are premature because the firm has not completed all of the NRC’s appeals process on these matters.
In a Dec. 5 order, District Judge Cynthia Bashant ordered the parties to meet with a federal magistrate judge to try to resolve their differences. Failing that, oral arguments for all three cases are scheduled for 2 p.m. on Feb. 18, 2020.
Aguirre and Severson have for years handled litigation regarding SONGS, which closed permanently in 2013 after faulty steam generators were installed in its two remaining operational reactors. Plant majority owner Southern California Edison in 2014 hired Holtec International to transfer the reactors’ spent fuel from wet storage to dry storage, a process that has faced a number of problems. Most notably, in August 2018 one fuel canister was left at risk of an 18-foot drop into its storage slot.
