In August 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the [[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]] to either approve or reject the Energy Department's application for [the] never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The court opinion said that the NRC was simply flouting the law in its previous action to allow the [[Obama administration]] to continue plans to close the proposed waste site since a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository remains in effect. The court opinion stated that The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections. In response, NRC issued the final volumes of the Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report (SER), this presented the NRC staff's statement that the site would meet all applicable standards. At the same time, the staff also stated that NRC should not authorize actual construction of the repository until the requirements for land and water rights were met and a supplement to DOE's environmental impact statement (EIS) was finished. On March 3, 2015, NRC ordered the staff to complete the supplemental EIS and make the Yucca Mountain licensing document database publicly available, using all the remaining previously appropriated licensing funds.