Environmental groups join waste rule challenge

Further legal challenges have been filed against the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ruling on storage of used nuclear fuel. The petitions from environmental groups and tribal representatives follow a challenge over the legality of the rule filed by the states of New York, Vermont and Connecticut.

One petition has been filed by a coalition of nine environmental groups that have been active in opposition to various reactor licensing or relicensing cases: Beyond Nuclear, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, New England Coalition, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Riverkeeper, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. With the exception of Riverkeeper, the groups were among 17 that filed a petition with NRC in September as a first step towards legal action.

A separate petition was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The NRDC and three of the nine environmental groups were involved in previous legal action that resulted in the court's 2012 rejection of an earlier version of the NRC ruling. The Prairie Island Indian Community filed its own challenge on 27 October, following the filing of the New York-Vermont-Connecticut petition.

The petitions, all filed with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, seek a judicial review of the rule which came into effect on 20 October and also of the generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) supporting it. All the petitions challenge the legality of the NRC's rule under US environmental legislation.

The challenges focus on the NRC's final rule on the continued storage of used nuclear fuel, often referred to as the "waste confidence" rule, which came into effect on 20 October. The rule sets out a regulatory framework that would allow used fuel to be stored at nuclear power plant sites for up to 60 years, pending the availability of a final repository to accept it. Without a waste confidence rule in place, the NRC is effectively unable to issue final licences for new nuclear power plants or licence extensions for existing reactors.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News