A lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over a proposed Texas interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel sputtered back to life in the early days of 2022, recent court filings show.
The suit, filed in February by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups including the Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear and the Texas-based minerals company Fasken Land and Minerals, Ltd., is finally heating up again after a nearly year-long lull. The case had been in stasis since March, when it was put on hold pending the agency’s final licensing decision.
But in an order filed Monday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Interim Storage Partners (ISP), the proposed Andrews, Texas, site’s owner, to intervene in the proceedings.
ISP in December requested intervenor status on a second round of petitions filed Nov. 12., which challenged NRC’s September decision to license the company’s proposed site. The anti-nukers’ suit asks a judge to walk back the commission’s licensing process. The court in November suggested the petitioners update their suit to reflect NRC’s licensing decision.
Now, the first arguments this year in the case from the anti-nukers are due Jan. 20, the court has said. NRC has until April to make its opening remarks. Final briefs in the case should be handed in by June. A date for oral arguments on the case should be forthcoming, the court has said.
Meanwhile, NRC is navigating two other state-level lawsuits against the proposed ISP site. New Mexico and Texas have filed separate challenges to the site in federal courts — both of which the commission is looking to get dismissed.
ISP, a joint venture between Waste Control Specialists (WCS)-Orano USA, plans to build its interim storage site at WCS’s existing low-level waste disposal facility in Andrews. In addition to legal challenges, the proposed site faces political opposition from both the state of Texas and the Andrews County Commissioners’ Court. The state last year made it illegal to store high level waste on Texas soil.
