The Nuclear Regulatory Commission again urged a federal appeals court this week to scrap a lawsuit filed by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups aimed at blocking a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, court documents show.
Despite arguments to the contrary from the coalition, which includes environmental group Beyond Nuclear and Texas-based minerals company Fasken Land and Minerals, NRC did not violate federal law when it in September licensed Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed interim storage site, the commission said in a briefing filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday.
NRC repeated an argument it has used in several of its other legal defenses of its decision to license the ISP site: that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which precludes the federal government from taking title to spent fuel before a permanent repository is active, does not apply to the commission. The Atomic Energy Act (AEA) gives NRC its authority, the agency argued, and AEA allows it to license commercial interim storage facilities.
The commission also pushed back on an argument from Fasken that it ran afoul of the law by rejecting in June 2021 an agency-level challenge to the proposed ISP site. NRC argued that it was justified in tossing Fasken’s administrative appeal, which raised concerns about the socioeconomic impacts of transporting spent nuclear fuel across the country, because it didn’t bring forward any new information.
As of Wednesday, the court had not decided whether to dismiss the coalition’s lawsuit, initially filed in February 2021.
Meanwhile, NRC is fighting similar court battles against New Mexico and Texas over the proposed ISP site. The agency has asked judges in both the Tenth and Fifth Circuit Courts of Appeals to scuttle those cases as well — so far, neither has.
If ISP, a joint venture between Waste Control Specialists and Orano USA, manages to build its proposed interim storage site in Andrews County, Texas, the company has said it could eventually hold around 40,000 tons of spent fuel during its 40-year license.
