A Jan. 4 vote on a proposal that could have an impact on the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee has been delayed, and that means a decision on the plan is unlikely until well after Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin is inaugurated.
Shumlin opposes the plan to allow 36 states to dump radioactive waste at a Texas landfill, but the postponement wasn’t due to his request that Douglas administration officials skip the meeting.
Two Texas environmental groups stepped into the fray – and into an Austin courtroom — on Thursday morning and effectively ground the proceedings of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission to a halt – for the time being.
Travis County Judge Jon Wisser issued a temporary restraining order that could prevent the commission from taking action for several weeks.
However, shortly after Wisser ruled Thursday morning, the Texas Attorney General’s Office asked the judge to order a new hearing on the injunction Jan. 3, according to the Houston Chronicle.
No one from the commission was present at the initial hearing Thursday, and, according to the Associated Press, the decision “shocked lawyers from the Texas Attorney General’s Office — which hadn’t been officially notified of the pending court action — showed up and convinced the judge to order a new hearing on the injunction.”
The commission is made up of two members from Vermont and six members from Texas. Earlier this week, David O’Brien, outgoing commissioner of the Department of Public Service under the Douglas administration, said Vermont’s two commissioners would support the proposal, according to Vermont Public Radio.
The vote was scheduled to occur two days before Gov.-elect Shumlin is inaugurated next Thursday. Shumlin opposes opening up the waste site without explicit guarantees that Vermont’s share of the facility, roughly 20 percent, will be protected.
Shumlin asked the Douglas administration not to send Vermont’s two commissioners to the meeting scheduled on Tuesday, according to Vermont Public Radio. O’Brien rebuffed the request.
The landfill was originally designed to accommodate radioactive materials exclusively from Vermont and Texas.
In court documents, Public Citizen and Texas Civil Rights Project accused the commission of rushing the vote and scheduling it during the holidays when the decision would go unnoticed. They also claim the commission used a “defective” e-mail address that “bounced” back public comments submitted before the Dec. 26 deadline. The two environmental groups allege that the commission deprived Texas citizens of their constitutional right to petition the government and violated the Texas Open Meetings Act. More than 4,000 comments were submitted, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs question whether the Commission would have had ample time to consider the public feedback.
Get the context from VTDigger.org’s original story.
