Submitted by: Tony Caputo
Appeals court: Obama violating law on nuke site
MATTHEW DALY, AP
AUGUST 13, 2013
AUGUST 13, 2013
WASHINGTON
(AP) — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law
by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada, a
federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
By
a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or
reject the Energy Department's application for a waste site at Nevada's
Yucca Mountain.
In
a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was "simply
flouting the law" when it allowed the Obama administration to continue
plans to close the proposed waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the
nation's nuclear waste repository.
"The
president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition
simply because of policy objections," Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a
majority opinion, which was joined Judge A. Raymond Randolph. Chief
Judge Merrick B. Garland dissented in the case.
"It
is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation
of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive
and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted
in this case by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," Kavanaugh wrote.
A spokesman for the NRC said Tuesday the agency was reviewing the decision. He declined further comment.
The
court's decision was hailed by supporters of the Yucca site, which has
been the focus of a dispute that stretches back more than three decades.
The government has spent an estimated $15 billion on the site but has
never completed it. No waste is stored there.
"This
decision reaffirms a fundamental truth: The president is not above the
law," said South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson. The Obama
administration "cannot pick and choose which laws to follow and which to
ignore," Wilson said.
South
Carolina and Washington state filed a lawsuit seeking to force the NRC
to rule on the Yucca Mountain application. The states both have large
nuclear waste sites that would use the Yucca repository.
The
Obama administration, under pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid of Nevada, abandoned the project early in the president's first
term. In 2011, the NRC allowed the shutdown to stand, citing "budgetary
limitations" imposed by Congress. The NRC is an independent agency that
oversees commercial nuclear operations.
Reid,
a Democrat, called the appeals court decision "fairly meaningless."
Congress has cut funding for Yucca and is unlikely to restore it, Reid
said.
"This
isn't even a bump in the road. This, without being disrespectful to the
court, means nothing," Reid told reporters at a clean energy conference
Tuesday in Las Vegas.
Reid
is a longtime opponent of the plan to bury waste at Yucca Mountain,
which has drawn nearly unanimous opposition from Nevada elected
officials.
Even
if the Obama administration moves forward on the application, "there's
no money" for Yucca Mountain, Reid said. "We've cut out funding for many
years now and there's none in our budget to start it."
An
attorney for the state of Washington, representing communities that
support the dump, said the NRC violated a 1982 law requiring it to act
on an application for construction of the Nevada site.
Kavanaugh and Randolph were appointed by Republican presidents, Garland by a Democrat.
———
Associated Press writer Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this story.
Follow Matthew Daly in Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC
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