The company seeking a federal license to build an interim storage facility in New Mexico doesn’t have standing to intervene in the state’s suit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, New Mexico’s attorney general said in a court filing this week.
There’s no need for Holtec International to intervene in the case on NRC’s behalf since the agency is capable of defending its own authority, New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas argued in the Thursday filing.
Balderas argued that Holtec didn’t meet the burden of proof in its April 29 request to step in on the case, which challenges its proposed consolidated interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico. The company didn’t adequately demonstrate that its interests could be compromised if NRC was left to defend itself alone in court, Balderas said.
In its request to intervene, Holtec argued that since NRC would be regulating its proposed site, the commission’s interests and the company’s may not be aligned. Since federal agencies are “obligated to consider a broad spectrum of views,” Holtec should be allowed to join the case to better represent its own interests, the company said.
“As far as factual allegations from Holtec, that’s it.” Balderas said in Thursday’s filing.
Balderas said that Holtec failed to demonstrate where the commission’s goals in the case were unlike its own.
“Here, Holtec is seeking to intervene to defend the NRC’s authority, and Holtec has given no indication that the NRC does not intend to do the same,” Balderas said
At deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor there hadn’t yet been any decision on whether Holtec could intervene in proceedings.
New Mexico’s case against the commission, filed March 29, argued that a federal license for Holtec’s proposed interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel would violate the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act and place an unfair burden on the state.
NRC is currently in the process of drafting an environmental impact statement for the proposed site. That report, a prerequisite for licensing, won’t be done until the rapidly encroaching summer, the agency has said.
