By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services | Arizona Daily Sun
PHOENIX — In a slap at the federal Department of Energy, a federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered it to stop collecting fees from nuclear plant operators — including $580 million so far from Arizona utility customers — to finance a waste site that may never be built.
Judge Laurence Silberman, writing for the unanimous court, said the agency is using cost estimates for a long-proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada — and very loose ones at that — to collect more than $750 million a year from utilities nationwide and their customers.
But the judge said the agency has pretty much abandoned that site and is instead looking at some alternatives.
Silberman said that not only violates federal law, which specifies Yucca Mountain, but also makes the fees, based on that site, totally arbitrary.
