Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday sued energy secretary and two-term Texas Gov. Rick Perry for not moving ahead with the Yucca Mountain waste repository site in Nevada, one day before the White House issued its budget blueprint suggesting the president wants to restore funding for the project.
The lawsuit, filed in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, seeks to force an up-or-down vote on the project to avoid input from Nevada on permit approval for the site.
“The Obama administration ignored congressional requirements, withdrew funding from the Yucca Mountain licensing process, and formed an unlawful Blue Ribbon Commission to identify alternative methods of nuclear waste storage,” according to a statement from Paxton’s office issued Wednesday.
• What’s in the budget: The “skinny budget,” so-called because it offers only a glimpse of the full budget due out in May, designates $120 million to “restart licensing activities for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and initiate a robust interim storage program.”
According to Trump’s budget blueprint: “These investments would accelerate progress on fulfilling the federal government’s obligations to address nuclear waste, enhance national security and reduce future taxpayer burden.”
• How does Nevada feel? Nevada’s congressional delegation has long opposed the nuclear waste site. Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada persuaded former President Barack Obama to cancel the licensing of the repository until a judge overturned the decision in 2012. Since then, however, the program at the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been on life support, with very little in way of funding.
An aide to the Nevada delegation on Capitol Hill called Trump’s $120 million for the project “peanuts” that wouldn’t cover the permitting and licensing costs. It’s certainly not enough to persuade the court that Paxton’s lawsuit is moot. Congress still has to approve the budget.
“I don’t think one affects the other directly except for the fact that the GOP is sending a message on all fronts,” the aide said. Paxton is a Republican and is also involved in a big multi-state suit opposing the previous administration’s climate plan.
The Nevada delegation wants the Trump administration to forget Yucca altogether and support legislation the delegation has introduced to find a new waste site.
• Democrats attack Paxton over fraud charges: Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., was one of the first to push back against Paxton’s lawsuit by bringing up past charges of securities fraud in a press release opposing the litigation.
“I suggest the Texas attorney general spend more time concentrating on the serious charges he is facing for securities fraud and less time trying to distract the voters of Texas by screwing the people of Nevada,” Titus said. Those charges were dismissed this month.
“Yucca Mountain remains a dead and failed proposal,” Titus added. “Any attempt to spend billions more on this boondoggle is bad science and wasted resources.”
Titus introduced the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act, which puts into law recommendations made by the Blue Ribbon Commission for America’s Nuclear Future, which was set up by Obama to find an alternative site after killing off Yucca Mountain. But Yucca Mountain remains the site chosen by Congress under the decades-old Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Titus’ bill would implement a “consent-based process for the siting of nuclear waste depositories” to ensure that “host states, affected governments and tribal communities have a say in the siting process.”
• Texas argues Obama’s policy is illegal: Paxton opposes the consent-based process and the Blue Ribbon Commission as illegal. He argued in the lawsuit that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act remains law, creating a fund that collected $40 billion to build the site over 30 years.
The Blue Ribbon Commission’s “approach is designed to establish repositories at various sites, other than Yucca Mountain, throughout the country — if a particular area consents,” the lawsuit argues. “But the act requires [the Energy Department] to pursue a repository solely at Yucca Mountain. DOE is therefore violating the act by neglecting to pursue the Yucca repository and engaging in consent-based siting activities.”
