The court denies a suggestion for rehearing en banc of its prior decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, 22 ELR 21381, which held that the Board's regulation allowing it to close meetings, or portions of meetings, concerning its recommendations relat...

The court holds that the Federal Power Act (FPA) preempts state regulation of a federally licensed hydroelectric power project in a national forest in California. The court first holds that the action is ripe for review even though plaintiff dam operator has not completed the state permitting proces...

The court holds that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) must prepare a new environmental assessment (EA) for the shipment of 118 spent nuclear fuel rods from Taiwan through the port of Hampton Roads, Virginia, to a processing facility on the Savannah River in South Carolina, because its 1991 EA for...

The court affirms the dismissal of a domestic utility company's allegation that the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT) unconstitutionally imposed monetary assessments on domestic utilities for the remediation of environmentally contaminated U.S. uranium processing facilities. Beginning in the 1960s, ...

The court invalidates a 1999 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) order governing the disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) at the Hanford site in Washington, the INEEL facility in Idaho, and the Savannah River site in South Carolina. Part of the order defines a process by which HLW that meets c...

The court holds that it lacked jurisdiction over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) decision denying environmental groups' request that the licensing of two nuclear power plants in New York be conditioned on several safety-related changes in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist att...

The First Circuit denied an electric company's petition for review of three Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders that asserted mandatory licensing authority over the company's hydroelectric project, required the company to install gauges to measure stream flow at the project, and requi...

The Ninth Circuit held unripe nonprofit groups' action to obtain a declaration that a U.S. Department of Energy order that outlines the management of defense radioactive waste is invalid. Delayed review will not cause any real cognizable hardship, but intervention at this point would unduly interfer...

A district court granted the state of Washington's motion for partial summary judgment on its claim that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) violated the Washington State Hazardous Waste Management Act (HWMA) when it decided to ship radioactive and hazardous mixed transuranic waste to the Hanford Nu...

The court holds that a nuclear facility employee's state suit for damages based on personal injury allegedly caused by exposure to unsafe dosages of radiation was constitutionally removed to federal court under the Price-Anderson Amendments Act (PAAA), and that retroactive application of the PAAA di...