Federal judges are again being asked to solve a difficult problem that lawmakers can't fix: the decades-old morass of how to handle tons of nuclear waste lying in temporary storage around the country.
A panel of federal appellate judges on Wednesday will hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by South Carolina and Washington state seeking an end to a political stalemate that now could be linked to the presidential election.
The states want the judges to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether the Energy Department has properly withdrawn its application for a nuclear-waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Until that decision is made, nothing can move forward unless Congress decides to act.
