Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
10/31/2014
A flurry of lawsuits aimed at curtailing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ‘Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel’ rule, formerly known as Waste Confidence, emerged this week, with four separate appeals appearing in a federal court. The challengers include many of the parties involved in the original suit that required the NRC to re-do its Waste Confidence rulemaking with a stricter look at environmental effects of continued storage of spent nuclear fuel, including: a state coalition of New York, Vermont, and Connecticut; the Prairie Island Indian Community; a group of nine environmental groups; and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Each lawsuit centers on a similar argument that concluded the NRC failed to deliver the necessary findings ordered by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). “The NRC disregarded the explicit direction of the D.C. Circuit to examine the environmental impacts of indefinite storage of spent nuclear fuel in the event there is no repository,” NRDC Senior Attorney Geoffrey Fettus said in a statement. “Instead of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act and assessing those serious environmental impacts and alternatives to limit or avoid them, the NRC created an expedient fiction – that nothing will ever change at storage sites and safe agency practices will persist forever, obviating the need for a repository. This lawsuit simply requests the Court send the agency back to do the job it should have done in the first instance.”
The NRC, for its part, determined in its response rulemaking that spent fuel could be safely stored on site well past a reactor’s lifespan. When the NRC first issued a revised waste confidence rule in 2010, the Commission extended the length of time assumed to be safe for storage of spent fuel at a reactor site from 30 to 60 years. In its new update, the NRC based its rule on a generic environmental impact statement that found the environmental impact of storing spent fuel on-site was small in most categories, including an indefinite timeframe. This final rulemaking, though, removed language concerning a timeline for the availability of a repository after the Commission determined that was a policy decision outside the NRC’s regulation jurisdiction. In regards to the legal challenges, the NRC will respond in due time. “We’re reviewing it and will respond according to the court’s schedule,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said.
State Coalition Argues NRC Focused on Wrong Issues
Similar to the NRDC’s motivation for the legal appeal, the states, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, felt the NRC looked at the wrong issues when conducting its rulemaking. “In 2012, we won a landmark federal court ruling requiring NRC to perform a full and detailed assessment of the risks involved in the long-term, on-site storage of highly radioactive nuclear wastes at nuclear power plants,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “However, in responding to that ruling, the NRC has turned its responsibilities on their head — focusing on issues that are unrelated to the risks posed to the environment, public health, and safety. The NRC’s approach is wrong and illegal, and I will continue to fight to ensure that our communities receive the full and detailed accounting of the risks of long-term, on-site nuclear waste storage that they deserve.”
Environmental Groups Concerned With Licensing Decisions
The nine environmental groups, meanwhile, focused on the danger of the NRC continuing licensing decisions amid the risks associated with continued storage. The groups had already threatened to bring the case to court earlier this month if the NRC did not vacate its findings. “The NRC has not dealt seriously with the safety and environmental risks posed by extended spent fuel storage and disposal,” the groups’ lead attorney, Diane Curran, said last week. “The rule does not make findings regarding the feasibility of safely disposing of spent fuel, as required under the Atomic Energy Act. And neither the rule nor the environmental impact statement even addresses the question of whether reactors should be licensed given the environmental risks and high costs of spent fuel storage and disposal.”
