DOE loses court appeal, still liable for not taking nuke waste

Thursday, Dec. 14, 2000 | 11:27 a.m.

The U.S. Department of Energy lost an appeal in federal court that leaves the agency liable for billions of dollars in damages for failing to take nuclear waste on time.

Without comment, the court on Tuesday denied the DOE's request to rehear the case, brought by three New England nuclear power companies.

The order upholds the original appeals court decision of Aug. 31 that found the DOE liable, because it failed to meet a January 1998 deadline to begin storing more than 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored at 103 nuclear power plants across the nation.

The DOE has acknowledged that it is obligated to accept nuclear waste, but argued that it missed the 1998 deadline set by Congress because there is no place to put the used reactor fuel.

The DOE is studying Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the nation's only option to bury 77,000 tons of the highly radioactive waste.

The loss may put pressure on the federal agency to open a repository at Yucca Mountain quickly to solve the problem.

Spent nuclear fuel has been piling up for decades at power plants around the nation. Nuclear power supplied roughly 20 percent of the nation's electricity last year, according to nuclear industry sources.

The appeals court ruling in August said that the government had breached its contract. It ruled that utilities did not need to undertake an exhaustive administrative relief process through the DOE.

Instead, the court invited all utilities that had not filed suit with the claims court to do so.

The utilities that brought the case were Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., Connecticut Yankee Atomic Electric Co. and Yankee Atomic Power Co., three companies formed by utility consortiums to operate nuclear power plants in New England.

All three companies have quit operating their plants. They cannot close their facilities unless the DOE removes the spent nuclear fuel stored on site.

Trials seeking damages have been delayed while the DOE appealed the earlier ruling.

The DOE had no comment on the recent decision. A spokeswoman said the appeal ruling will be reviewed.

A nuclear industry representative said the decision made the DOE's responsibility clear.

"There's no question the government has an obligation to act," said Steve Kerekes of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear industry.