The Trump administration finally disclosed what it had done on Wednesday as part of a federal court case that has been going on since sometime in November 2018. The court case was filed by the state of Nevada in an attempt to block the DOE from its publicly stated plans to ship radioactive materials from South Carolina, according to The Hill.
The Energy Department announced its plans in August 2018 to ship a full metric ton of plutonium to Nevada from South Carolina after a federal judge ordered that the plutonium be removed from the Savannah River site by 2020.
DOE lawyers told the federal judge the shipment had been trucked to the Nevada National Security Site – about 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Las Vegas before Nevada first asked the federal court to block the move in November 2018.
“Because sufficient time has now elapsed after conclusion of this campaign, DOE may now publicly state that it has completed all shipment of plutonium (approximately ½ metric ton) to Nevada,” Bruce Diamond, general counsel for the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, wrote in a court declaration, noting that the action was previously classified, according to the Associated Press.
The whole DOE court case was a sham
On January 19, 2019, U.S. District Judge Miranda Du, A federal judge in Nevada said it would likely be next month before she could make a final ruling on whether to block the U.S. Energy Department from shipping a metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium from South Carolina to the nuclear security site north of Las Vegas.
She did agree to allow Justice Department lawyers to file additional briefs on behalf of the Energy Department. “I don’t know what my ruling is going to be,” Du said. “I hope the government doesn’t ship plutonium pending a ruling by this court.” The DOE had asked the judge to delay the hearing because of the government shutdown,
And on that very same day, David Negri, the Justice Department lawyer who presented the Department of Energy’s case on Thursday said: “I can’t tell you it will go from Savannah River through Ohio and through Utah and into Nevada. I don’t have that information. It is top secret, classified information.”
Outrage over the deceit of the Trump administration
Late on Wednesday, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, at a hastily called news conference in Carson City, said he was “beyond outraged by this completely unacceptable deception.”
State officials are now seeking another injunction against the DOE shipping any more plutonium as it pursues “any and all legal remedies,” including “contempt of court orders against the federal government,” calling the whole thing the U.S. government’s “reckless disregard” for the safety of Nevadans.
Sisolak described the months-long negotiations and current court case over the intended plutonium shipment as nothing more than a “complete sham” by the DOE. “They lied to the state of Nevada, misled a federal court, and jeopardized the safety of Nevada’s families and environment,” he said.
