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Friends of the Earth Voluntarily Dismisses Litigation over Billion Dollar Diablo Canyon Grant After PG&E and California Rapidly Moot the Case

January 15, 2025

LOS ANGELES - Today, Friends of the Earth voluntarily dismissedits lawsuitover the Department of Energy's decision to provide a $1.1 billion award to Diablo Canyon as part of the agency's U.S. Civil Nuclear Credit (CNC) Program. In a recent court filing, PG&E revealed new events and circumstances that very likely moot the case, preventing FOE from securing any meaningful judicial review of the agency's funding decision and its compliance with federal environmental law. Friends of the Earth maintains that the Department of Energy has violated federal law, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and is considering next steps.

The lawsuit, filed in April 2024, challenged DOE for relying on severely outdated environmental analyses by other agencies - conducted between 1976 and 2007 - to support its funding decision. The agency failed to update this analysis to account for recent science, as well as environmental and public safety risks that have emerged in recent decades. Nor did DOE solicit public comment to ensure well-informed agency decision-making before handing out $1.1 billion in taxpayer funds.

Friends of the Earth's position has been that any court-ordered vacatur, injunction, or other remedy in this case would interrupt the billion-dollar CNC award and thus impede Diablo Canyon's ability to continue operating, thereby affording temporary or permanent relief from the dangerous, outdated facility. However, PG&E recently revealed that, despite having years to disburse funding in "tranches," the State of California has already disbursed the entire loan amount and has provided this funding for Diablo regardless of the status of the CNC award. PG&E points to a loophole that forgives repayment of the state's billion-dollar loan even if the CNC funds are unavailable to repay the loan to the state.

"DOE has almost certainly violated federal law, yet circumvented meaningful judicial review due to a technicality,"said Hallie Templeton, Legal Director for Friends of the Earth. "Dismissal of our case insulates the CNC program from meaningful oversight and permits PG&E, California, and federal officials to continue greenlighting Diablo Canyon at all costs. Setting aside the serious illegalities, we also implore the federal government to scrutinize whether the CNC program is an efficient use of billions of taxpayer dollars when a series of loopholes can be used to render an award meaningless."

Friends of the Earth has other pending litigation in the Ninth Circuit challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's delayed inspections of potentially embrittled infrastructure at Diablo. Friends of the Earth is also advocating within the NRC to force greater scrutiny of seismic concerns and earn a rightful seat at the table for Diablo Canyon's relicensing proceeding.

Friends of the Earth filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Friends of the Earth is represented in this matter by the public interest law firm Eubanks & Associates, PLLC.

Communications contact: Brittany Miller, [email protected], (202) 222-0746

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