Court Declines Utility Companies' Government Challenge

Date: May 23, 2002

Source: News Room

A group of utility companies has lost a $2.2 billion Supreme Court challenge of the federal government's nuclear waste cleanup plan. Congress, in 1992, ordered utility companies that used government uranium-enrichment services to pay a third of the cleanup bill. But the Supreme Court decided not to hear appeals from companies that argue the assessments are unconstitutional. The federal government had sold uranium-enrichment services to utilities that used nuclear power as an alternative fuel source for generating electricity. The companies that used the services have to pay about $150 million a year over a 15-year period, under the 1992 cleanup law. The cases are Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co. v. United States, 01-1155; Omaha Public Power District v. U.S., 01-1398; Commonwealth Edison Co. v. U.S., 01-1411, and Sacramento Municipal Utility District, 01-1020.

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