PANEL OVERTURNS OBAMA'S ANTI-YUCCA MOUNTAIN POLICY AS A USURPTATION OF POWER

NYTIMES:

Making good on a campaign pledge by President Obama, the Energy Department had formally sought to drop its plan for Yucca Mountain, a volcanic structure about 100 miles from Las Vegas. But states with major accumulations of waste from nuclear weapons production had petitioned to prevent the department from doing so.

In a 47-page decision, the three-member panel of administrative judges said the Energy Department lacked the authority to drop the petition because it would flout a law passed by Congress.

In the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Congress directed the Energy Department to file the application and the commission to consider it and “issue a final, merits-based decision approving or disapproving the construction,” the judges said. “Unless Congress directs otherwise, D.O.E. may not single-handedly derail the legislated decision-making process.”

The effect of the decision is unclear for now. Congress would have to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the Energy Department to pursue the application. But the president’s budget for next year proposes no money at all;

GOOD:

WE ARE STILL A NATION OF LAWS - FOR THE TIME BEING.

WE CAN MAKE SURE WE STAY THAT WAY BY VOTING GOP THIS NOVEMBER!