The next incremental legal argument in a $200-billion-plus lawsuit over alleged mismanagement of a federal arms-reduction construction project in South Carolina is set for Sept. 11, court papers filed Aug. 1 show.
The arguments were set in an order from U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler and will cover seven former cases now consolidated into a 2016 lawsuit filed by CB&I AREVA MOX Services: prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF).
The plant, designed to turn 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial reactor fuel under a U.S.-Russian arms-control pact, is billions of dollars over budget and at least a decade behind schedule. The NNSA and MOX Services blame one another for this.
The arguments scheduled for next month will cover roughly $45 million in MOX Services’ claims over denied costs, withheld fees, and damages from breach of contract.
Wheeler, after oral arguments this spring, ordered the NNSA to return more than $20 million in clawed-back fees to MOX Services. The argument and subsequent ruling arose from a motion for summary judgment the company made last year.
The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in 2019, but there could be more motions for summary judgment before then, and therefore additional monetary claims judged ahead of the trial through either briefings or oral arguments.
“Particularly given the number of cases consolidated for a single trial, Plaintiff anticipates filing additional motions for summary judgment as the record supports the same,” MOX Services stated in a July 31 joint preliminary status report.
The NNSA wants to cancel the MFFF. It would use other facilities at Savannah River to process the plutonium into a form that can be stored at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The agency would then convert the MFFF for production of plutonium nuclear-warhead cores. South Carolina has sued to block the DOE plan.
