NRC REJECTS CALLS FOR AN EARLIER COURT DECISION IN YUCCA LICENSING CASE

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Nevada are pushing back against calls for a speedy decision by the federal court in the petition to force a restart of the agency’s Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings, stating that Congress could chime in during the upcoming lame duck session. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said this summer it would likely order a licensing restart unless it gets additional direction from Congress by Dec. 14. But last week petitioners urged the court to make a decision sooner in light of the recent enactment of the Continuing Resolution. The NRC this week emphasized that Congress still has a chance to act. “Although the recently-enacted CR funds the government through March 2013, it is merely a stopgap ‘temporary funding Band-Aid’ (in the words of the House Appropriations Committee),” states an NRC brief filed on Tuesday. “But Congress could remove the Band-Aid during the lame duck session and enact a full-fledged appropriations act with specific funding and directions for the NRC (and DOE). In that event, Congress may speak to the Yucca Mountain funding issues pending before this Court and clarify its intentions regarding the Yucca Mountain proceeding.”