Two orders by panel keep active licensing case for Yucca Mountain

WASHINGTON -- A panel of judges issued a pair of orders Friday that keep active the licensing case for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste plan.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board denied a motion that would have kept the case largely inactive through May 20, saying it intended to move forward as quickly as possible.

In a second order, the three-judge board organized through a branch of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission questioned why the agency blacked out portions of a Yucca Mountain report it made public last week. The judges ordered the NRC staff to explain by next Thursday why the entire report should not be made public.

According to some attorneys and others in the case, the orders suggest the licensing board would like to restart hearings on the Nevada nuclear waste site. Hearings began in 2009 but were put on hold when the Obama administration said it would terminate the program.

"It certainly appears to us the (board) wants to move the proceedings forward," said Joe Strolin, acting director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. Strolin said the next steps remain unclear.

"There appears to be a disconnect between the licensing board and the administration," Strolin said.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is a semi-autonomous part of the NRC, although it draws its funding through the agency.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko has said plans call for the Yucca Mountain licensing board to go out of business sometime this year. The agency has requested no funding for the Yucca issue beyond Sept. 30 in keeping with Obama administration policy.

Congress would need to go along with the request, but so far Republicans who control the House have objected to any shutdown of the nuclear waste project.

Nevada and California, certain rural counties in the states, the DOE, the NRC staff and the Nuclear Energy Institute are the main participants in the case to determine whether Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would be safe for storing high-level nuclear waste.