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Court gives DOE green light to continue Yucca shutdown
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STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy has been given the green light to move full speed ahead with its shutdown plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program.
A federal appeals court late Monday dismissed a request to freeze termination activities until later this year, after judges have weighed lawsuits challenging the shutdown.
The order clears the way for the DOE to resume dismantling the Nevada waste repository program that the Obama administration wants to shelve. Remaining federal employees were given pre-layoff notices earlier this year, and the DOE was scheduled to issue a termination letter to the project's management contractor.
"We welcome the court's decision," DOE spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said. "It means the court agreed that the department can proceed with winding down the Yucca project responsibly while the litigation proceeds so as not to needlessly waste taxpayer money."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the repository's leading opponent, said the DOE "will resume shutting down the Yucca Mountain Project almost immediately."
"Billions of taxpayer dollars have already been wasted on this project, and ... (the) decision will allow DOE to cut its losses now rather than later," he said.
A half-dozen petitioners, including the states of Washington and South Carolina, have charged in federal lawsuits that the DOE does not have the authority to end the Yucca program without legislation from Congress.
Arguments on those lawsuits are scheduled to be held in September in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Separately, an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled two days of hearings on the issue in June.
In the meantime, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna petitioned the court of appeals to issue an injunction freezing the Yucca shutdown until the cases are heard.
McKenna argued that the Department of Energy was gutting a skilled work force and dismantling the repository site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
With each of these moves, the attorney general said, it would be that much more difficult to restore the Yucca program if the court decides ultimately that the repository should remain an option for handling the nation's high-level nuclear waste.
In a brief order, the court rejected the motion, saying Washington state did not show it would suffer "irreparable injury" if the DOE was not stopped in its tracks at this time.
Andy Fitz, a senior counsel in the Washington attorney general's office, said the state remains hopeful it will prevail when the judges hear the full case.
The Department of Energy and Reid are moving to complete the termination this year, with Reid, the Senate majority leader, looking to zero out all Yucca funding.
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Not to mention all those other jobs across the country that have been lost because Harry Reid has given the present administration a de facto strongly negative position on nuclear power. For example, it is my understanding that uranium mining is now in the tank thanks to Harry's closing Yucca Mountain.
Of course, though, we don't care what happens to anyone but native Nevadans who have lived there since it became a state!
And in the minds of Harry and a lot of his supporters, those 600 people were like the mining company employees in "Avatar" - greedy carpet baggers and destroyers who had no business being in Nevada in the first place. It follows, then, that Harry and his supporters see themselves as the peace-loving, spiritually advanced, blue-skinned natives from "Avatar."
In that sense, Harry Reid reminds me of Al Gore. Very good at using dramatic, black-and-white, emotionally satisfying rhetorical images to stir up public outrage, but not so good at sustaining it. And also not so good at actually solving the problem about which he is trying to "raise awareness."
It may win points with your base, to turn the opposition into devils and your base into angels. They may like it, but in the end it doesn't solve problems.
davelv -- In Harry Reid's mind, the 600 employees are simply collateral damage in his political jihad to close Yucca Mountain and, therefore, of no consequence.
It is odd that the DC Court said that there is no irreparable harm by waiting until September to decide. What about the 600 people being laid off? These people devoted their careers to furthering a national law and policy, the NWPA. Now due to political payback and arbitrary decisions, they are losing their jobs. Further, America will pay almost $1 billion for this delay. This is also irreparable harm.
It appears that the DC Court has no idea what Yucca Mountain is nor the impact from the delay!
Actually, around 1987 it arguably made sense for Harry to oppose Yucca Mountain.
At the time it was hard to see any future in nuclear. Chernobyl had just happened, and the Three Mile Island "accident" was well within memory. Plus, the price of oil had crashed hard, and stayed down, after having spiked around 1980 as a result of the Arab Oil Embargo. World demand for oil showed little evidence of increasing dramatically. For example, the Chinese had only just begun their experiment with capitalism, and there was no way of knowing that Chinese car ownership would increase so much.
No-one at the time had thought very much about global warming or greenhouse gases, either. So, in 1987 there were good reasons to be worried about the safety of nuclear, there was little reason to be worried about the cleanliness of oil, and there was little reason to worry about huge increases in demand for oil driving down the supply.
In other words, in 1987 there was little reason to look for alternative energy sources. And nuclear did not seem much like a viable candidate, anyway.
In 1987 there was no prolonged drought going on in the American southwest. The population of Vegas was around half of what it is now, so demand for water was much less. So it was hard to imagine running out of water.
In 1987, Nevada and Atlantic City were still the only places in the country to gamble legally. And there was little sign that this would ever change. So it was hard to imagine Nevada ever needing to find other industries.
My point is this: if Harry Reid has steadfastly refused to adapt to changing times on Yucca Mountain, what ELSE has he not learned in twenty years?