On Feb. 15, DOE decided to eliminate the immobilization component of the program and proceed exclusively with the MOX technology. This proposed change intensified negotiations, which resulted in a proposed agreement. Under that agreement, DOE made a commitment to South Carolina to construct the proposed MOX facility and offered "a commitment to maintain a pathway out of South Carolina for any plutonium brought into the State, including firm dates by which such material would be removed from the State if DOE, for any reason, were to be unable to secure the funding necessary to build the MOX facility."
Gov. Hodges refused to sign the agreement unless DOE made it legally enforceable, either by waiving the federal government's sovereign immunity to allow a future lawsuit or in the settlement of a lawsuit that South Carolina was ready to bring against DOE now with a consent decree containing the settlement terms.
On April 19, DOE dramatically altered its plans for disposition of surplus plutonium by announcing that SRS would be the consolidated site for long-term storage. Moreover, the MOX disposition plan was put on hold pending review "pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)."
Originally, all surplus plutonium entering South Carolina was going to exit either by immobilization or conversion to MOX. Then immobilization was abandoned in favor of exclusive reliance on MOX. Now DOE plans long-term storage at SRS, a site that it previously concluded was unsuitable for long-term storage. DOE's policy change on April 19 forced Gov. Hodges' hand and resulted in the filing of this lawsuit.
This is an excerpt from a letter from a Univ. SC Professor that points out how the DOE has engaged in deception with the State of SC. I also found it interesting that by my pointing out prior adjudication by the federal judge Cameron Currie, you interpret that as being derisive. She, to me anyway, has a socialist left wing agenda to pursue.
If the people don't like what is happening they can sue through their state governments....which has been done. Yet there has been no final adjudication which has shown that the Feds have been guilty of anything on this specific subject.
Just because a few nutcases don't like the federal program on nuclear fuel waste handling does not prove any laws have been broken as the moron in Columbia charges....This is all being done to arouse the bewildered, the devious, and the uninformed so that the pathetic creature in the Statehouse can be re-elected.