YUCCA PETITIONERS URGE NRC LICENSING RESTART IN LIGHT OF NEW CR

Petitioners in a case to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart licensing of the Yucca Mountain repository submitted a filing with the Court urging them to act soon in light of the enactment yesterday of a funding bill for the remainder of the fiscal year. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit put the case on hold last August to give Congress a chance to weigh in on NRC licensing of the repository, but petitioners including South Carolina and Washington state noted that Congress has not prohibited the NRC from funding Yucca licensing in legislation since then, including in a full-year Continuing Resolution that went into effect yesterday. “The reason why the Court delayed issuing mandamus—waiting to see whether Congress’s Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations decisions would affect the case—is now resolved. Congress took no action that affects this case,” the petitioners state, calling for the Court to issue mandamus and force the NRC to act.

The NRC, however, took the opposite stance in a filing yesterday. “The preservation of the status quo means that DOE continues to lack the funds necessary to support the application to construct the Yucca Mountain repository and NRC continues to lack the funds necessary to complete the proceedings necessary to review the application,” the NRC filing states. “By its funding decisions, Congress has demonstrated its intent that the federal government should not complete the Yucca Mountain project at this time. And any further expenditure of the remaining, limited Waste Fund money on this project would still not yield a completed review and adjudication of the Yucca Mountain application.”