An appeals court has refused to force the government to start taking shipments of nuclear waste piling up at power plants but opened the door for utilities to seek compensation.
The Energy Department is required by law to begin picking up the spent fuel by Jan. 31, 1998, but had no place to put it yet and argued that it should not be held liable for missing the deadline.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals here on Friday rejected the department's claim that the delay was unavoidable. "DOE's duty to act could hardly be more clear," the panel said.
But it said there was no need to require the department to take control of the waste because the utilities' contracts with the government provided for payment of damages if the deadline was not met.
The department still is conducting feasibility studies on using an underground site in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles from Las Vegas, to bury the wastes. The department does not expect to open the site until at least 2010.
The Senate and House this year passed bills ordering the department to establish an interim storage site there, but President Clinton has threatened to veto the legislation.
Meanwhile, electric utilities are running out of temporary storage space at their reactor sites. A lawsuit filed by 46 state agencies and 33 utilities sought to force the department to take the waste, now stored at 72 plants in 34 states. Some utilities say they will be forced to close generating plants when they run out of storage capacity.
Since the 1982 law was enacted, utilities have been required to pay into a federal fund for developing a centralized disposal facility.
Friday's ruling "makes it clear that the federal government isn't getting off the hook," said Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho).
The Energy Department has not decided whether to appeal the decision, spokeswoman Jane Brady said. "Certain aspects of the court's ruling were clearly in our favor," she said.
© Copyright 1997 The Associated Press