Friends and foes of Holtec International’s proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel were to meet in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on March 5 for oral arguments.
The three-judge panel scheduled to hear the arguments, in order of seniority on the court, are: Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, both appointees of President Donald Trump (R) and Bradley Garcia, an appointee of President Joe Biden (D), according to a Feb. 22 order. Arguments were to begin at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time in Washington and were to stream online.
This D.C. circuit lawsuit against the NRC dates to 2021. It now counts among its petitioners, the term for those suing, the Washington-based antinuclear group Beyond Nuclear as well as mineral company Fasken Land and Minerals, which controls prospecting rights to land near Holtec’s proposed interim storage facility in New Mexico.
Among other things, the petitioners have said that the NRC froze them out of agency debates that eventually led the commission in 2023 to license Holtec to operate the proposed interim storage facility.
The states of New Mexico and Texas have joined the suit as friends of the court on the petitioners’ side. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group in Washington, has joined as a friend of the court on the NRC’s side. Holtec is also involved, as are several other organizations.
In final briefs for the D.C. circuit court in January, Fasken said Holtec slow-rolled the release of information about mineral rights at the proposed storage site and prevented a fair appraisal of the site’s environmental impacts.
The D.C. circuit suit is separate from a lawsuit by the state of Texas that in 2023 resulted in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the NRC lacks the legal authority to license any away-from-reactor interim storage sites.
The commission had by the time of the ruling licensed Holtec and Interim Storage Partners, a joint venture of Orano and Waste Control Specialists, to operate such facilities.
NRC still says that it is allowed to license commercial interim storage sites and has asked the Fifth Circuit to rehear the case. The Fifth Circuit had not scheduled a rehearing as of Wednesday.
