Lawsuit Challenges $1 Billion in Federal Funding to Sustain California’s Last Nuclear Power Plant

Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant which sits on the edge of the Pacific Ocean at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California on March 17, 2011. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images

LOS ANGELES—An environmental group has sued the U.S. Energy Department over its decision to award over $1 billion to help keep California’s last nuclear power plant running beyond a planned closure that was set for 2025. The move opens another battlefront in the fight over the future of Diablo Canyon’s twin reactors.

Friends of the Earth, in a complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, argued that the award to plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric last year was based on an outdated, flawed analysis that failed to recognize the risk of earthquakes or other serious events.