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Legal battle continues against proposed nuclear waste site near Carlsbad, Carlsbad Current Argus, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus June 10, 2020  A planned nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad was challenged in federal court, as opponents sought to appeal a decision by the federal government to reject contentions to the project that would see spent nuclear fuel rods stored temporarily at a location near the Eddy-Lea county line.

Beyond Nuclear filed its appeal on June 4 in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, questioning the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s April 23 decision to reject challenges to Holtec International’s application for a license to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) that would hold nuclear waste at the surface until a permanent, deep geological repository was available to hold the waste permanently.

The facility would store up to 173,000 metric tons of the waste.

Such a permanent repository does not exist, and Beyond Nuclear — a non-profit organization that addresses nuclear issues nationwide — worried one wouldn’t be available until 2048.

The group also pointed to another NRC order in October 2018 where the NRC deemed contentions inadmissible but argued against both decisions that it said upheld a regulatory process that violated federal law.

The licensing process itself was illegal, read NRC’s court filing, because it considered the possibility that the U.S. Department of Energy would take ownership of the waste — a move illegal under federal law unless a permanent repository is available to hold the waste.

“This NRC decision flagrantly violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which prohibits an agency from acting contrary to the law as issued by Congress and signed by the President,” said Mindy Goldstein, an attorney for Beyond Nuclear.

“The Commission lacks a legal or logical basis for its rationale that it may issue a license with an illegal provision, in the hopes that Holtec or the Department of Energy won’t complete the illegal activity it authorized. The buck must stop with the NRC.”…….. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2020/06/10/federal-appeal-filed-against-nuclear-waste-site-proposed-near-carlsbad/5317995002/