Key Issues
Government Must Meet Used Fuel Responsibility Including Completion of Yucca Mountain Facility
Sound Science Supports Yucca Mountain Repository
Yucca Mountain has the best attributes for a repository, according to exhaustive scientific study of the site. Its selection followed preliminary screening of nine sites in six states. This screening was only the beginning of more than 20 years and $9.5 billion in scientific and engineering analyses. This unprecedented effort involved 2,500 of the nation’s top scientists and the construction of the world’s largest underground laboratory consisting of 7 miles of tunnels and hundreds of deep boreholes. Over the past two decades, scientists have studied all aspects of the geological, hydrological and geochemical environment, along with a detailed evaluation of how conditions might evolve over thousands of years at Yucca Mountain.
Top scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency analyzed DOE’s conclusions and issued a report in 2001 that confirmed DOE’s work. In 2002, DOE rec-ommended the Yucca Mountain site to the president and Congress.
Courts Affirm Government’s Obligation to Accept Waste
In 1996, a coalition of state utility regulators, attorneys general and utilities with nuclear plants from more than 20 states filed suit to force DOE to take the used fuel. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Court of Appeals reaffirmed DOE’s legal obligation to begin accepting used fuel in 1998.
Following that ruling, federal courts have continued to hold DOE accountable to its fuel acceptance deadline. Since 1998, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled on several occasions that DOE breached its contract to begin used fuel acceptance.
The liability for this breach includes unforeseen expenses at short-term storage sites and damages for failing to honor used fuel acceptance contracts with electric utilities. The longer the government is in default, the higher the potential costs to consumers and potential liability to taxpayers.
Electric utilities have filed more than 60 lawsuits in federal courts to recover damages from the government’s failure to begin managing used fuel. The courts to date have awarded companies more than $250 million. The government also is paying hundreds of millions of dollars in out-of-court settlements.
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