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In a case that could move to the U. S. Supreme Court, the New Orleans Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which expired last month (March 27), extended its August 2023 ban on a surface spent fuel storage facility in Texas to neighboring New Orleans. . Mexico, where Holtec International also holds a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the deposit of high-level nuclear waste.
The action comes despite New Mexico’s location outside the Fifth Circuit’s nominal jurisdiction — Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. At the same time as extending its denial of a federal license to the Land of Enchantment, the court denied an NRC request. motion to move the case to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit
In an unreported decision, a three-judge panel noted that Fasken Land and Minerals, Ltd. and Permian Basin Land and Royalty Owners (PBLRO), who filed the original lawsuit opposing the NRC’s license with the Texas government, also filed a lawsuit. A new initiative has filed a lawsuit challenging the NRC license granted to Holtec last May for the deposit of nuclear waste in Lea County, New Mexico, also in the Permian Basin oil and fuel field. Lea County is in the southeast corner of New Mexico, just across from Texas. Fasken is headquartered in Midland, Texas, near the New Mexico border, and has holdings in the Permian Basin of New Mexico.
Fasken and PBLRO argued that Texas v. NRC “implied a ‘material license in a materially procedural position’ and that “in the absence of the court granting Texas a replay en bancArray . . . the panel’s attention in this case will be controlled through [Texas v. NRC]. ‘”
The Fifth Circuit panel wrote, “Because this court’s ruling in Texas v. NRC dictates the final results here, we GRANT Fasken and PBLRO’s motion and CANCEL Holtec’s license. The NRC’s motion to move the petition to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit IS DENIED AS A MOTE.
The circuit judges who denied the NRC’s license to New Mexico were Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee, Jennifer Walker Elrod, a court appointee through George W. Bush, and Cory T. Wilson, a Trump. De the court’s 17 active justices, six are Trump. and 12 have been appointed to the court through Republican presidents, with Democratic picks.
The Guardian wrote in 2021 that Trump’s appointees had managed to “tilt one of America’s most conservative and influential courts even further to the right. “The fallout from Trump’s overhaul of the federal justice formula is being acutely felt in the Fifth Circuit on issues ranging from abortion to immigration to the coronavirus pandemic. The Court’s disposition toward Republican extremism has made it its main legal bulwark against Joe Biden.
In vacating the Texas NRC’s license, the court composed of another panel: Jones, Wilson, and James C. Ho. (with Ho writing the opinion) – the court stated: “The Commission has no legal authority to factor the license. The Atomic Energy Act does not authorize the Commission to authorize a personal spent nuclear fuel storage facility away from the reactor. And issuing such a license contradicts Congressional policy expressed in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This understanding aligns with the ancient context surrounding the progression of those laws.
Holtec’s facility in New Mexico would only be able to store 500 boxes containing about 8,680 tons of spent nuclear fuel over 40 years. The company said it plans to store up to 10,000 rounds in 19 additional phases. Each phase of expansion would require a license modification with additional coverage. and environmental reviews through the NRC.
Holtec’s resolution gives the NRC a score of 0 out of 3 for allowing “temporary” off-site storage of spent nuclear fuel, versus the egregious multi-year, multi-billion-dollar failure of a permanent underground nuclear waste storage site. federal land in Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The Fifth Circuit has canceled the licenses of the Texas and New Mexico chapters. In 2006, the NRC authorized Private Fuel Storage LLC, a nuclear industry consortium founded in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, for the spent fuel garage at Goshute’s Skull Valley Reservation. Tribe in Utah, submitted to the NRC in 1997. La task generated massive controversy, rising among tribe members, and crashed into the land in 2012.
–Kennedy Corn
kenmaize@gmail. com
thequadreport. com
Although criticism of nuclear production continues to emerge, the waste factor remains a complicated political factor.
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