Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Jeff Baran told senators recently he has not determined his position on licensing of the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
“I have not formed an opinion on the merits of the Yucca Mountain geologic repository application. As a Commissioner, I have a responsibility to be open-minded and unbiased on all adjudicatory matters, and I take that responsibility very seriously,” Baran told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which is considering his nomination for a second term on the commission.
The commissioner answered in writing a series of questions from panel members, many focusing on Yucca Mountain, submitted as a follow-up to Baran’s Oct. 4 confirmation hearing.
While he remained undecided on the Nevada project, Baran agreed that the NRC would move ahead with the licensing process upon funding by Congress and that the international community had agreed on deep geologic storage as the preferred means of permanent nuclear waste disposal. RadWaste Monitor obtained the list of questions and answers.
Baran, a lawyer and longtime Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill, has served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 2014 in a term ending next June. The White House in September nominated him for a full five-year term, to June 30, 2023, with an eye toward securing Democrats’ approval of two Republican nominees for vacant spots on the commission: Annie Caputo, a senior policy adviser on nuclear issues to Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wy.), and David Wright, an energy consultant and former head of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
The panel planned to vote on Baran’s nomination Wednesday, but postponed the session at the request of majority Republicans. The holdup focused not on Baran but on nominees for Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator positions scheduled for votes at the same business meeting. Barrasso said he expects his panel will vote on the group sometime next week, The Hill reported. A schedule for the vote was not posted on the EPW website as of early Friday afternoon.
With committee approval, Baran would join Wright and Caputo in waiting for a Senate floor vote on confirmation.
If he remains on the commission, Baran would be one of up to five votes on a potential ruling on licensing the Yucca Mountain repository for storage of U.S. defense and commercial nuclear waste, including what is now more than 75,000 metric tons of spent reactor fuel.
Caputo and Wright are both seen as supporting Yucca Mountain, as is NRC Chair Kristine Svinicki, who received a third term on the commission in June. The position of Commissioner Stephen Burns appears less clear. Licensing the repository would require approval from the majority of the commission.
Licensing could take upward of five years, in the face of hundreds of contentions from the state of Nevada.
The Obama administration suspended development and licensing for Yucca Mountain in 2010, several years before Baran joined the NRC. The commission, though, is operating under a 2013 federal court order to proceed with the licensing process.
The Trump administration is seeking funding in fiscal 2018 to resume licensing: $120 million for the Department of Energy and $30 million for the NRC. The House of Representatives’ energy appropriations bill supports the request, while Senate appropriators have offered no money for Yucca Mountain in their energy bill still awaiting a floor vote. The fiscal year began on Oct. 1; the federal government through Dec. 8 is funded by a continuing resolution that largely freezes spending levels at fiscal 2017 levels and includes no money for Yucca.
“If Congress appropriates sufficient funding for the Yucca Mountain proceeding, NRC would resume the Yucca Mountain adjudication as required by the writ of mandamus issued by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,” Baran wrote in response to a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
In both the hearing and follow-up questions, Barrasso pressed Baran on his position on the storage repository, including whether his June vote against spending $110,000 on information-gathering activities for potential resumption of adjudication of the Yucca Mountain license constituted noncompliance with the 2013 court order.
In his written response, Baran noted that the NRC has spent down its available Nuclear Waste Fund balance from $13.5 million in 2013 to less than $700,000 now. “My view was that the agency should continue to focus the remaining available resources on the previously-approved knowledge management activities and the non-discretionary litigation expenses instead of spending the funds on items that would only make sense if Congress appropriated funds in Fiscal Year 2018 to resume the Yucca Mountain proceeding,” he stated.
Responding to a question from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on the viability of keeping spent fuel on-site at nuclear plants, Baran said that is not “the best long-term solution. I believe there is an international consensus that deep geologic repository of spent fuel is ultimately necessary.”
