U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz responds to questions on nuclear waste disposal during the National Clean Energy Summit 6.0 at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013. Moniz also was due Tuesday to talk with Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval about federal plans to ship some 403 canisters of radioactive waste from a federal facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to the Nevada National Security Site. AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus WASHINGTON (AP) - In a rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada. By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland dissented. The appeals court said the case has important implications for the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. The commission is simply defying a law enacted by Congress ... without any legal basis. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the Energy Department was not a party to the lawsuit, but he characterized the Yucca Mountain project as "a complete stalemate." He said he saw no evidence of that changing. "Currently we do not have funding," he told reporters at a clean energy conference Tuesday in Las Vegas. South Carolina and Washington state were among several parties to a lawsuit seeking to force the NRC to rule on the Yucca Mountain application. Reid, a Democrat, called the appeals court decision "fairly meaningless," noting that Congress has nearly eliminated funding for Yucca and is unlikely to restore it. "This isn't even a bump in the road," Reid said. This, without being disrespectful to the court, means nothing. Reid is a longtime opponent of the plan to bury waste at Yucca Mountain, which has drawn nearly unanimous opposition from Nevada elected officials, but support from lawmakers, especially Republicans, in many other states, as a crucial part of the country's commercial nuclear operations. Republican Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and John Shimkus of Illinois called the court ruling a "significant milestone" that made clear the Obama administration acted prematurely in terminating Yucca Mountain. Upton chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, while Shimkus heads a subcommittee on environment and the economy. "Congress and the courts have spoken out to prevent billions of taxpayer dollars and three decades of research from being squandered," Upton and Shimkus said. Last month, 335 House members voted to boost funding for the Yucca project in a larger spending bill on energy and water. Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson called the ruling good news for his state - particularly residents near the Hanford nuclear complex in central Washington, where millions of gallons of nuclear waste is stored in leaking underground tanks. "Our attorneys presented a strong case that the federal government must follow the laws passed by Congress, and the court agreed," Ferguson said. Officials in Washington and other states expect the NRC to conduct "a fair and objective processing of the Yucca Mountain licensing application and look forward to a decision on the merits of the application," Ferguson added. This is what Congress intended and affords the best opportunity for a permanent disposal facility for the nation's high-level radioactive waste. Garland, the chief judge on the appeals court, said in a dissent that Congress has already spoken on Yucca Mountain by rejecting funding for it. The court's decision in the case "will indeed direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a useless thing," Garland wrote. Associated Press writer Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.