Former NRC counsel joins anti-Yucca fight

Monday, Jan. 6, 2003 | 9:06 a.m.

A former nuclear inspector general and trial lawyer has joined the law firm that is leading Nevada's legal battle against a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

The state is challenging regulatory and environmental guidelines that were the basis for the Bush administration to choose Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, last year as the site for the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository.

Martin Malsch, a former deputy general counsel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its first inspector general, was hired last week by Egan & Associates. The northern Virginia firm has been hired by Nevada under a $4 million contract.

Malsch, 60, is a physicist by training. He spent 29 years at the NRC and went into private practice in 1997.

Malsch led the NRC's legal efforts in numerous contested nuclear power proceedings. He drafted every significant commission decision from 1980 through 1991 and represented the NRC before federal appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, including a case to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island.

Malsch was a member of a 1999 team that bid to represent the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain license. He was lead regulatory attorney at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, a law firm that was ranked in a tie with Winston & Strawn, the Chicago legal firm that won the contract.

Winston & Strawn was later forced to withdraw from the $16.5 million contract over conflict of interest allegations.

"Marty is without question the most knowledgeable nuclear attorney in private practice today, and we're delighted to have him back," Joe Egan, chairman of Egan & Associates, said.