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:Yet another anti-Obama article

[bondsbw]

The checks and balances in our government are what stands between a successful government of the people and a dictatorship. What powers you give Obama today, or gave Bush yesterday, may be in the hands of a form of Hitler tomorrow.

Re:Yet another anti-Obama article

[reboot246]

'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.

That's all this president has been doing since he's been in office. He ignores the parts of the law he doesn't agree with and rigorously enforces the parts he does agree with. That's why nobody will trust him on comprehensive immigration reform -- he'll just waive the parts of the law he doesn't like. You can't deal with a man like that. Imagine that! An un-American, law-breaking, lying president. Ah, ye fools!

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?

yep, what powers Obama is allowed, Palin will have

[raymorris]

It always surprises me that people forget - if you allow the president a power grab, you're giving that power to a future President Palin or whoever. Don't want Palin making your healthcare choices, including contraceptives? Keep the federal government out of health care.

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

[lgw]

In theory, Gitmo is for enemy combatants, not terrorists. Or at least that's how it started.

You really don't want to go down the path of civil trials for enemy combatants. Being an enemy soldier and firing at US troops is not illegal, nor is flying a bomber over a US city and dropping bombs on civilians. Doing so without being in uniform violates every treaty governing war for the past 400 year or so, but it's only the "not in uniform" part that's illegal. A downed enemy bomber pilot should be released at the end of the war, not executed for mass murder.

But in 2011 yet another incremental power grab (Obama's in this case, but it's not like the pattern is new) extended "covered persons" (those for which military justice is appropriate) to members of terrorist groups and people giving assistance to them. That crosses the bright line separation between "enemy soldier (in uniform or otherwise)" and "just some guy opposed to the US". For the former to apply to a US citizen, he has to fly to Afghanistan and point a rifle at a US uniform - really hard to abuse to go after local political opponents. The later can be stretched to apply to just about anyone, by submitting "evidence" to the secret courts where there's no defense present.

I have no problem with having P.O.W. camps when we're fighting, whether or not war was officially declared. But to effectively convict someone who clearly isn't an enemy soldier of treason without a trial? That's Star Chamber nonsense right there, the exact sort of thing we had a revolution to get away from.

Re:or Obama could follow the laws he proposes

[DarkOx]

and he decided

-he could selectively enforce immigration with no real legal backing

-he could create extensions and exemptions for NCLB requirements when the law has no such provisions

-he could simply not determine if a coup had taken place in Egypt so that he could continue sending your tax dollars to them in the form of tanks and planes they can't even use.

And those are just the big clear ones. This president makes a joke of law on a routine basis.