WASHINGTON: An appeals court ruled yesterday that the US government can no longer require nuclear power plant operators to pay fees into a nuclear waste fund, a victory for the utilities that challenged the fees.
The court in Washington said the fees could not currently be justified because the government’s long-stalled plan to build a national waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada had not come to fruition. The fund is intended to cover the cost of storing the waste.
President Barack Obama’s administration has said it does not intend to pursue the decades-old proposal to build the facility. The court noted that there was “no viable alternative” to the proposed site.
As a result of the ruling, the US Energy Department must now either ask Congress to reduce the fees to zero, or produce a new legal assessment of why they are justified.
An Energy Department spokesman referred calls to the Justice Department, which declined to comment.
Charles Gray, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said the ruling was ultimately a win for consumers. REUTERS
