The Department of Energy and its New Mexico regulator could be close to reaching a deal to replace the 2016 Compliance Order on Consent that governs most cleanup at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a federal court filing this week.
The parties Tuesday sought and received an extension from a federal judge in New Mexico allowing them until Jan. 8 to work out the nitty-gritty details of a revised order.
On Sept. 28, senior bosses with the New Mexico Environment Department and DOE’s Office of Environmental Management “held a day-long, in-person settlement meeting, which produced a term sheet outlining conceptual agreement on many key issues,” according to a status report with the U.S. District Court for New Mexico.
“The parties now plan to implement their conceptual agreement into proposed line edits to the Consent Order,” according to the Tuesday status report from attorneys for New Mexico and the U.S. Department of Justice, which represents DOE. “They also plan to exchange conceptual proposals on a handful of other issues for further discussion.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar signed off on the 90-day extension in a brief order.
This week’s status report came at the end of the latest extension, issued in July, in the litigation brought in September 2021 by the state Environment Department under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D). The Lujan Grisham administration wants to replace the 2016 consent order approved by then-Gov. Susana Martinez (R).
The Lujan Grisham administration considers the 2016 version inadequate when it comes to setting hard deadlines and enforcement measures.
Based on status reports filed with the court, the parties have made progress in 2023, after the talks slowed during 2022 with senior managers spending a lot of time reacting to wildfires in the region.
