A federal appeals court today refused to hear arguments over whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should have required the operator of a Vermont nuclear plant to obtain state certification before it approved a 20-year federal license extension.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that arguments by the Vermont Department of Public Service and the New England Coalition, an anti-nuclear group, are premature.

The petitioners are opposing NRC's decision in March 2011 to extend Entergy Vermont Yankee LLC's license. Without the extension, the plant would have closed on March 21 this year.

The state agency and coalition argued that NRC failed to require Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc., which operates the Vermont Yankee plant, to obtain a new Clean Water Act certification from the state as mandated under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (Greenwire, May 9).

But the court faulted the petitioners for not first taking their concerns to NRC.

"There is no reason to believe the NRC would have refused to carry out its obligation to ensure compliance with section 401's Water Quality Certification requirements," the judges wrote.

NRC argued before the court last month that no separate certification was required because the Section 402 permit can be interpreted as taking care of the Section 401 obligations, too.

The case is separate from the dispute in federal court over whether Vermont has authority to shut down the plant altogether.

In that case, a federal judge ruled against the state in January, and the decision is now on appeal (Greenwire, Jan. 20).