nuclear-news

Federal appeals court blocks plan to ship nuclear waste to West Texas.

Marfa Public Radio | By Travis Bubenik,  August 30, 2023  https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2023-08-30/federal-appeals-court-blocks-plan-to-ship-nuclear-waste-to-west-texas

A federal appeals court last Friday blocked a company’s long simmering plan to ship highly radioactive nuclear waste to West Texas, a ruling that further complicates the country’s search for a long-term home for its growing stockpile of waste from nuclear power plants.

The company, Interim Storage Partners, has for years pursued the idea of using an existing site in Andrews County, on the Texas border with New Mexico, as a long-term home for much of the nation’s “high-level” nuclear waste.

In 2021, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the company a license for the plan, despite a move by state lawmakers that same year to ban the proposal. The State of Texas responded with a lawsuit arguing that the NRC didn’t have authority to issue the license.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the state, ruling that federal law does not give the commission the power to issue such licenses.

“The Atomic Energy Act doesn’t authorize the Commission to license a private, away-from-reactor storage facility for spent nuclear fuel,” U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho wrote for the majority. “And issuing such a license contradicts Congressional policy expressed in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.”

“This is an important ruling for Texas against a federal agency attempting to overstep its authority,” said Paige Willey, a spokesperson for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

September 1, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA, wastes