A former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member said Tuesday the agency is “fully prepared” to handle nearly 300 legal contentions against the development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Jeff Merrifield, who served on the board from 1998 to 2007, spoke at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management’s Spent Fuel Seminar in Washington, D.C. During his appearance, he offered a seven-item wish list to President-elect Donald Trump, including that the next administration seek maximum funding to pursue licensing proceedings for Yucca Mountain, as well as support private interim nuclear waste storage efforts in Texas and New Mexico.
“It is well within the capability of the agency to work its way through those contentions with the (NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board) panels and resolve those,” said Merrifield, now a partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. “I have no doubt that the agency can professionally and promptly renegotiate efforts to get the licensing back and up to speed.”
According to Nevada’s anti-Yucca Mountain Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state plans to fully adjudicate 218 admitted contentions in opposition to the DOE license application for Yucca Mountain and submit 30 to 50 new contentions, based on new information and the NRC’s environmental impact statement supplement on the project, which the regulator completed earlier this year. The contentions challenge Yucca Mountain’s site suitability, disposal concept, groundwater impacts, rail access, and impacts on Las Vegas.
Merrifield suggested the Trump administration re-establish the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management to manage the repository effort and pursue legislation to obtain the land and water rights at the site. He also asked that Trump take an active role in negotiating an appropriate settlement with Nevada, without conducting a consent-based siting process favored by the Obama administration. Merrifield said he supports formation of an independent, quasi-public corporation to take responsibility, either through or from DOE, for the development, licensing, and operation of the Yucca Mountain site; and the authorization of DOE to work on transportation plans for Yucca Mountain.
