Show Of Federal Arrogance Cited By Idaho Officials In Waste Case
The state of Idaho on Wednesday accused the federal government of trying to avoid its legal responsibilities by fostering a climate of panic over the need to resume dumping nuclear waste in Idaho.
“The United States Navy is not above the law,” state attorneys wrote in their petition asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the Navy’s demand to immediately begin shipping waste to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory in the interest of national security.
“The United States has done everything within its power in this case to circumvent the requirements placed on it by Congress,” the 33-page brief said. “The United States’ alleged emergency is one of its own creation.”
And in what was described by some state officials as an unbelievable show of federal arrogance, the state disclosed that the Energy Department arranged with Conrail and Union Pacific railroad officials Wednesday morning for shipment of six loads of nuclear waste from the Navy’s Newport News, Va., shipyard to the INEL on Friday.
According to documents supplied by the state to the appellate court, the special train carrying the six shipments, apparently being moved to facilitate refueling of the nuclear carrier USS Nimitz, was scheduled to leave Newport News at 7 p.m. on Friday.
The arrangements were made less than 24 hours after U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, questioning the credibility of the government’s claims that national security is at stake, refused to lift his May 19 order continuing the ban on waste dumping at INEL.
Absent action by the appellate court, that ban will remain in effect until Lodge decides in September whether the government was wrong in determining earlier this month that another 1,950 waste shipments can be safely made. They would increase radioactive waste storage at INEL from 261 tons to 426 tons.
“The United States seems to believe that not only can it enact the laws, it can also interpret the laws,” state attorneys contended. “Even while pursuing this motion for stay, the United States has already pronounced judgment on the merits of its motion by ordering the shipment of Naval spent fuel.”
Lodge issued his order on Tuesday in part to provide the appellate judges with his reasoning for not granting the Navy’s demand to at least dump a dozen - and possibly two dozen - more waste shipments at INEL by the end of the week.
As it has in past petitions filed in the long-running legal battle, the state argued that the Navy was overstating “the true nature of the spent nuclear fuel criticality.”