Nevada last week formally requested that one of the newest members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recuse himself from any decision-making on the license for the planned radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in the state.
Commissioner David Wright’s participation in the NRC adjudication of the Department of Energy license application would essentially disregard the 43-year-old agency’s “established norms,” the state said in the filing sent to the NRC and other parties to the frozen licensing process.
Attorneys for the state said Nevada has never made such a request of the NRC in eight years as an intervenor opposed to the DOE license request. However, they said the state had been forced into requesting Wright’s recusal by his role as an adviser to another party to the license adjudication, his expressions of support for Yucca Mountain, his criticism of Nevada’s intervention, “and [his] formation of, and active participation in, at least one organization whose sole focus was the advancement and completion of the Yucca Mountain repository,” according to the filing, obtained by RadWaste Monitor.
“The agency has received Nevada’s correspondence and Commissioner Wright will review it,” an NRC spokesperson said this week by email.
In the filing, Nevada said it had alerted other parties to the license adjudication of its intention to have Wright recuse himself.
The other intervenors, and their position on the state’s motion, are:
- Eureka County, Nev. which advised Nevada it does not plan to take a position.
- Nye County, Nev., which told Nevada it “respectfully declines to support the request.”
- The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), which said its participation was “limited to opposing DOE’s withdrawal motion but that it believes Nevada’s request on its face provides no legal basis for recusal under the applicable standards.”
- Aiken County, S.C., which said it does not support Nevada’s request.
- NRC Staff, who took no position.
- The state of South Carolina, which said it does not support the request.
- The Nuclear Energy Institute, which took no position on the request.
- The County of Inyo, Calif., which will join Nevada in its request.
- The state of California, which took no position on Nevada’s request.
Wright joined NRC on May 30, after being confirmed by the Senate the prior week alongside new Commissioner Annie Caputo and serving Commissioner Jeff Baran. He previously was an energy consultant and at different times led the South Carolina Public Service Commission and NARUC.
Nevada’s 89-page request includes eight documents intended to show that Wright cannot be objective in reviewing the Yucca license application. These include a 2010 petition, which Wright submitted on behalf of NARUC, urging DOE not to withdraw its license application with the NRC.
In another statement, Wright announced establishment of the Yucca Mountain Task Force “to accomplish the construction and operation of a safe Federal facility for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain.”
The confirmations of Wright, Caputo, and Baran restored the NRC to its full complement of five commissioners for the first time since 2014. The regulator needs at least three members present to conduct business, so the commission could in theory process the Department of Energy’s Yucca license without Wright. A four-member commission still needs three votes to approve any proposed action, such as granting a license to build or operate a waste repository.
The George W. Bush Energy Department in 2008 filed its application with the NRC for an underground repository for tens of thousands of tons of spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The proceeding effectively came to a halt two years later as the Obama administration cut off funding while it sought another route for disposal of the waste.
The NRC does not have enough money from the federal Nuclear Waste Fund to resume the adjudication. The Trump administration has sought to provide that funding, but so far has been blocked by Congress. The omnibus appropriations bill for the current fiscal 2018, signed into law in March, provided nothing for DOE or NRC licensing activities. Congress is split so far for 2019: The House last week approved legislation that would give the two agencies $270 million to resume the licensing process; the Senate could vote on a bill next week that zeroes out all Yucca money.
RadWaste Monitor Reporter Dan Leone contributed to this story from Washington.
