Court: NRC In Violation For Not Ruling On Yucca Mountain

schwit1 sends this quote from an AP report: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was 'simply flouting the law' when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository. 'The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections,' Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a majority opinion (PDF), which was joined Judge A. Raymond Randolph. Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland dissented. The appeals court said the case has important implications for the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. 'It is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted in this case by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,' Kavanaugh wrote. 'The commission is simply defying a law enacted by Congress ... without any legal basis.'"

Comments

Re:NIMBY and a big Fuck You

[JDAustin]

...and why are you giving the NRC and Obama bravo's? They are CLOSING Yucca mountain, not getting it completed and therefore usable.

A track-history of lawlessness

[HighOrbit]

You may or may not agree with the wisdom of any particular law, but the executive branch and the President have an obligation to see that the laws are faithfully executed until such time the law is repealed, even when they disagree personally (or politically) . Under the Constitution, it is not the place of President or his advisers to second-guess a duly passed law. If they think the law is unwise, they should go through the democratic process of petitioning Congress to repeal it. Just unilaterally deciding to ignore the law undermines the rule of law and the democratic process.

Here are some laws that the administration has famously ignored, instead of pursuing a repeal through the democratic process. There are probably more.

• The Defense of Marriage Act
• Mandatory Sentencing
• Yucca Mountain

Again, I'm not saying any one of these laws is a wise law, but they are (or were in the case of DOMA until overturned) duly legislated, therefore the executive had a constitutional duty to enforce them until such time the laws are repealed by the legislature or overturned by the courts. Where is the Republic going when the executive branch no longer feels constrained by the law or the democracy?

Re:A track-history of lawlessness

[HighOrbit]

But it does! Because its not the Executive's job to adjudicate the constitutionality of the laws; that job belongs to the courts. The President has an opportunity to veto a law at the time it is passed and (not) signed. There is no constitutional provision for an after-the-fact veto.

Re:A track-history of lawlessness

[Anonymous Coward]

* The IRS went after political enemies of the Administration. There may or may not have been direct orders from President Obama. (I am not ruling out something along the lines of "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" [redstate.com] instead of direct orders.) Not only is selective enforcement of the law illegal, but the IRS released confidential details of some conservative organizations to those organizations' political enemies, which is absolutely illegal with no possible wiggle room.

No, that was only the Republican misinformation campaign on the issue. They went after other groups as well, including liberal and progressive groups, and in fact the only targeted group that was ultimately denied 501c status was a progressive group from Maine. In short, the IRS were doing their jobs, making sure that 501c applicants were actually charitable organizations rather than political organizations. If you want to criticize them for not doing their jobs well enough, look to the fact that many of these groups disbanded after the election, which suggests that political campaigning was indeed their purpose.

Re:Oh good, now where were you two decades ago?

[Frobnicator]

Effectively this is the SCOTUS telling the NRC to read, rubber-stamp, shuffle, rubber-stamp, collate, file, retrieve, shuffle, rubber-stamp and push pencils much faster. A bureaucrat's nightmare!

The law (passed in 1983) said that once a location is chosen, the agency is allowed 3 years to make a yes or no determination, with one-year extensions if they become necessary.

All that is required is a simple "Yes" or "No", within three years.

The 3-year clock started ticking in 2002.

Since 2002 over $100M has been spent simply waiting for the yes or no answer.

Both the original court order and this appeals court order are repeating: The law says you must give a yes or no answer within three years. The time is expired, you must give your answer.

The problem is entirely political. They cannot answer either way and still expect to get votes, so they bury their heads in the sand and refuse to do anything other than cash the checks.

In some ways I am jealous; how many jobs can you do nothing for a decade and still collect a tithe of a billion dollars for it? Are they accepting new hires? It seems like a bureaucrat's dream.

Re:Yet another anti-Obama article

[Mashiki]

Not exactly difficult. Unless of course you're getting your news from the major networks.