According to Kevin Kamps, the radioactive waste watchdog at Beyond Nuclear, this is the first time that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) decision to allow expedited construction is being challenged via the Supreme Court.
Speaking with Sputnik Radio's Loud & Clear, Kamps told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou that the fight against the man is something of an "old tradition" dating back to when the United Auto Workers in the early 1960s took the Atomic Energy Commision to court.
The petition submitted by the group argues that the NRC failed to include a 29-mile, 300-foot-wide transmission corridor from the environmental impact statement which was required under the National Environmental Policy Act when they issued a license allowing DTE Energy to build a new nuclear reactor, popularly known as Fermi 3.
Becker remarked that the NRC "has all this authority without any sort of accountability."
This, Kamps said, is an accurate statement.
"It's a rogue and captured agency," Kamps stated. "And this very fight we're in on the transmission line corridor goes back to 2007 when an NRC commissioner… orchestrated this rule change, an Orwellian nuke speak rule change, that said the definition of the word construction in NRC regulations from now on does not include non-nuclear parts of the nuclear power plants like the transmission line corridor."
The transmission line corridor is the connection to a regional electric grid.
"They excuse themselves from the National Environmental Policy Act… they did not include this in their environmental impact statement," Kamps told Becker. "It's gutting the National Environmental Policy Act, which is the top environmental law in this country."
"At Fermi Unit 3 they're going to bulldoze literally through 10 miles of intact ecosystem… and in there is critical habitat for endangered and threatened species," Kamps added.
Though it's unclear how or when the Supreme Court will address Beyond Nuclear's argument, DTE has indicated that it has no plans to begin construction on Fermi 3, the Toledo Blade reported.
The NRC has not yet released a statement regarding Beyond Nuclear's petition.
