Appeals court hears oral arguments in Yucca Mt. case

Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--14Jan2004

Nevada can do nothing about the President's Yucca Mountain recommendation to make it the country's waste repository site; that was signed into law in 2002, appeals court Judge Harry Edwards told the state Jan. 14. Edwards was part of a three-judge U.S. Appeals Court panel in Washington, D.C. that heard oral arguments in a case involving 13 lawsuits related to DOE's nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nev. The case is pivotal for the DOE waste program, as Nevada tries to stall, if not kill, the project. The court, over a three-hour period, heard arguments on issues ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) radiation protection standards for a repository to the state's constitutional challenge of the federal government's decision to site a repository there. Edwards also didn't appear receptive to the constitutional challenge, which maintained the other 49 states put Nevada in a "powerless" position by not heeding its opposition to the facility. The court is expected to issue a decision between mid- and late 2004.