Washington (Platts)--9Apr2010/541 pm EDT/2141 GMT

The US Department of Energy intends to request on Monday that members of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission review a licensing board's order Tuesday that puts termination of DOE's Yucca Mountain repository project on hold until a federal court rules on the legality of DOE's action.

The comment came Thursday in a letter to the clerk of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit signed by US Department of Justice counsels for DOE and for NRC.

Lawsuits filed with the court by Aiken Country, South Carolina; South Carolina; and Washington state claims that DOE's withdrawal of the license application for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada violates the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended. That law designated that Yucca Mountain be developed as the country's repository site.

Attorneys for the Department of Justice said in their letter to the court that Aiken County had suggested to the court that the ASLB order has implications on its lawsuit against DOE. Instead, they said, the ASLB order is an interlocutory order -- that is, an order that does not end the case -- by an administrative hearing tribunal within the NRC "that does not necessarily reflect the views of the commission itself."

If the commission takes up the appeal, the court might still proceed with its consideration of the lawsuits. But one nuclear industry attorney said Friday that it is possible that the lawsuits would not get to the briefing stage before the commission rules.

--Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com