The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) plans to award one billion dollars in federal funding to keep Central California’s aging Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in operation. An environmental group’s lawsuit to stop the award appears to be on shaky grounds.
     U.S. District Judge George Wu was appointed by George W. Bush. At a hearing Thursday in downtown Los Angeles, he expressed reservations about Friends of the Earth’s (FoE) standing to pursue the case.
     He noted that no ruling he could issue would change the fact that California wants the plant. The nuclear facility provides nine percent of the state’s electricity. There’s currently not enough renewable energy to meet the state’s climate goals.
     PG&E owns and operates the nuclear plant. California has already loaned one billion four hundred million on the condition the company would seek federal grant money to repay the state. If Judge Wu were to agree with the antinuclear group that the DoE is violating National Environmental Policy Act through an outdated environmental analysis, California may very well forgive the loan.
     The judge asked the attorneys for FoE, “It the money from California has already come and gone, on what basis do the plaintiffs have standing? If California and PG&E want to go forward, your client has no say.”
     The judge did not issue a final decision on the government’s request to dismiss the FoE lawsuit. But he did order PG&E to provide him with a declaration about the state funding it has received and about the terms of the loan.
     Founded in 1969 in part to oppose the construction of the nuclear plant on California’s Central Coast, FoE argues that the DoE’s January decision to fund Diablo Canyon went beyond the facility’s previously anticipated shutdown dates of 2024 and 2025. The FoE said that the federal government ignored the fact that a fifty-year-old environmental analysis used for the decision didn’t consider risks beyond those expiration dates.
     Even in the best of times, all nuclear reactors carry a risk that an accident will lead to a potential catastrophic radiation release according to FoE.
     The FoE said in its complaint, “Diablo Canyon presents an even riskier case, given a significant lack of maintenance or upgrades at the facility, recent seismic discoveries in the area, and the plant’s use of an [sic] outdated cooling mechanisms.”
     The DoE asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the FoE lacks standing. It said there is no favorable ruling that could redress the FoE’s purported injuries from the federal government’s award of the grant.
     Maggie Woodward is an attorney for the government. She told the judge, “California will allow the plant to operate,” even if the federal funding is withdrawn, “The information that we have shows that they’re not intending to reverse course on this.”
     While the plant has exceeded its original forty-year operating licenses, PG&E claims that it’s continually upgraded and undergoes regular inspections by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
     The California legislature passed a bill into law in 2022 that directed PG&E to take all “necessary and prudent” measures to extend the nuclear plant’s operations. The plant provides about seventeen percent of the state’s zero-carbon electricity supply. Officials say they should keep the plant running for another five years beyond 2025 to improve statewide energy reliability as California transitions away from oil and gas.

Friends of the Earth