PETITIONERS FILE FINAL REPLY IN WASTE FEE CASE

Petitioners filed their final brief yesterday in a case that aims to stop payments from utilities into the Nuclear Waste Fund for commercial spent fuel disposal. While the Obama Administration shuttered the Yucca Mountain project in 2010, DOE has still argued that it is necessary to continue collecting the fees, most recently in a court-mandated fee adequacy review that is being challenged by industry groups. “There can be no dispute that the Department does not have a waste disposal program and does not know when one will be legislatively enacted,” states yesterday’s filing from the Nuclear Energy Institute and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral arguments for the case are scheduled for Sept. 25.

DOE has based collection of the fee on its nuclear waste strategy released earlier this year that calls for establishment of a permanent repository by 2048 and interim consolidated storage in the meantime. However, the petitioners’ filing states, “It is unreasonable for the Department to rely on a ‘Strategy’ as a basis to continue collecting the Waste Fund fee where many of the Strategy’s components contravene existing law, where DOE admits that it needs new comprehensive legislation, and where there is neither assurance nor indication that the Strategy will ever be enacted into law and implemented.” It adds, “The Department should not be allowed yet another bite at the apple.”