The state of South Carolina has asked for summary judgment in its recent $100 million lawsuit against the Department of Energy over plutonium disposition at the Savannah River Site. The request was filed Friday – the same day the federal agency asked that the suit be thrown out.
South Carolina filed the complaint on Aug. 7 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC). The suit represents half of the total amount the state is seeking for DOE’s failure to remove 1 ton of plutonium from the state by the start of 2016. The other $100 million is covered in a suit South Carolina filed early last year that remains in U.S. District Court.
Both lawsuits were based on a 2003 deal in which DOE agreed to remove the ton of plutonium by Jan. 1, 2016, or to process it at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility that remains under construction at the Savannah River Site. A congressionally mandated stipulation directed the federal agency to pay $1 million per day, up to a maximum of $100 million annually, upon breaching the deadline.
In their request for an immediate ruling in favor of South Carolina, the state’s lawyers wrote that the case is cut and dried because “all material facts are undisputed.”
“This failure triggered the Secretary and DOE’s statutory obligation to provide economic and impact assistance payments to South Carolina of $1 million per day for the first 100 days of each year through 2021 until the MOX production objective is met, or one metric ton of defense plutonium or defense plutonium materials is removed from South Carolina in such year,” the state said.
In its request for dismissal filed on Friday, the federal government countered that the Court of Federal Claims has no jurisdiction over the matter. Specifically, DOE says federal law does not allow South Carolina to pursue the money at this time because the parties are already involved in the District Court lawsuit filed last year.
