Attorney General William HSorrell has joined the Attorneys General of New York and Connecticut in apetitionchallenging the USNuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) over its recentruleon the continued storage of spent nuclear fuel. There is no federal repository for the highly radioactive fuel. All the spent fuel at every US nuclear plant is still stored on-site, even at those that have been closed.
“This is round two of our litigation efforts to get the NRC to do the required environmental review of the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel,” said Attorney General Sorrell. “We won the first round,” he added, in reference to a 2012court decisionrequiring the NRC to do a full environmental analysis of the fuel storage issue. “We thought that the court’s earlier ruling would lead the NRC to fully evaluate the environmental impacts of long-term fuel storage, but it did not, so we are going back to court to ensure that the NRC complies with its legal obligations.”
For many years, Vermont has been at the forefront of efforts surrounding the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel. This has been a collaborative effort of the Attorney General’s Office and the Public Service Department. In addition to the original lawsuit and the recent one, Vermont has submitted extensive comments and a petition to the NRC on this issue.
“Because Vermont Yankee and other nuclear power plants have unfortunately become long-term storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel, Vermonters have a right to know the environmental impacts of storing this fuel,” said Sorrell. The lawsuit asks the court to vacate the rule and send it back to the NRC for a more complete environmental analysis.
Vermont Attorney General: Oct 27, 2014