ELR Citation: ELR 20190
No(s). 98-614C (Fed. Cl. Jul 9, 2007)

The Federal Claims Court held that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) must pay two nuclear utilities over $77 million in damages for failing to commence performance of its contract to accept, transport, and dispose of the utilities' spent nuclear fuel. Under the contract, DOE was to start accepting and removing the utilities' spent nuclear fuel no later than January 31, 1998. The contracts have been breached by a series of delays that now continue into 2017 and perhaps 2018. As a result of these delays, the utilities have incurred considerable expense. The utilities, therefore, are entitled to recover the expenses they incurred through December 31, 2004, in reasonably mitigating DOE's acknowledged delays in initiating performance of the contract.