Environmental coalition appeals adverse court ruling re: NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence

Representatives from a coalition of environmental and public interest groups protest NRC's "Nuke Waste Con Game" at a public comment meeting at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD in late 2013.On July 18th, attorneys Diane Curran and Mindy Goldstein filed a Petition for Review of Final Administrative Action of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC] at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC goes to the entire pool of judges at the D.C. Appeals Court. (In law, an en banc session (French for "in bench") is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by a panel selected from them.)

The PETITION comes in repsonse to a June 3rd ruling by a three-judge panel of the Circuit, rejecting an appeal challenging NRC's so-called "Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel" (formerly known as "Nuclear Waste Confidence") Rule and Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS), finalized in late 2014. On June 6th, Beyond Nuclear released a statement in response to that adverse ruling.

The legal challenge against NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence policy was brought not only by a nation-wide environmental coalition, but also by a number of states (CT, MA, NY, and VT), and an Indian tribe, the Prairie Island Indian Community of MN. Today's PETITION was filed by the environmental coalition.

NRC does not have a right to respond to the PETITION. The court will now decide whether en banc review is warranted.

The PETITION asserts that the June 3rd panel ruling did not fairly deal with the environmental coalition's serious complaints regarding the Continued Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Rule and GEIS, nor did it address the very significant risks of irradiated nuclear fuel generation, storage, and disposal.

Curran serves as a Partner at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, LLP in Washington, D.C. Goldstein serves as Director at Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory Law School in Atlanta, Georgia, as well as Interim Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program.

Curran and Goldstein serve as legal counsel for a coalition of environmental organizations  The coalition includes: Beyond Nuclear, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, New England Coalition, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Riverkeeper, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition.

The three licensing proceedings for which Beyond Nuclear provides standing are: the proposed 20-year license extension at Davis-Besse in Ohio; the proposed 20-year license extension at Fermi 2 in Michigan; and the proposed new reactor construction and operating license application at Fermi 3 in Michigan.