Settlement Talks Collapse in $200-Million Lawsuit over Savannah River Plutonium

摘要

After settlement talks collapsed, a federal judge this week cleared the way for a long-awaited decision in a $200-million lawsuit between South Carolina and the Department of Energy over the federal government’s failure to remove plutonium from the state. The Energy Department and the state had for more than a year tried to settle the lawsuit, which stemmed from the agency's failure to remove weapon-usable plutonium from the Savannah River Site by Jan. 1, 2016, after failing to turn the material into fuel for commercial reactors. However, the parties last week said the talks failed and asked U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Margaret Sweeney to restart the case. During settlement negotiations, DOE made only a single “lowball” settlement offer that South Carolina “rejected out of hand,” according to a status report filed last week by the state’s legal team in the Court of Federal Claims. In the status report, South Carolina asked Sweeney to grant a motion for summary judgment and award the state the fines it seeks. In a separate status report, the Energy Department said it does not object to resuming the case. The federal filing did not address claims in South Carolina’s status report that the agency’s allegedly lowball offer was a cynical gesture made only so DOE could claim it tried to settle the case.