The United States must finally settle on a strategy for disposition of spent nuclear fuel if it hopes to revitalize its atomic energy sector, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Wednesday, without offering a timeline for introduction of a bill intended to help achieve that goal.
Barrasso discussed the matter in starting off a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the current status and future of U.S. nuclear power.
“Washington is long overdue to fulfill our legal obligation to dispose of nuclear waste,” Barrasso, the committee chairman, said in his opening remarks. “That includes advancing a nuclear waste policy centered on completing the scientific review of the Yucca Mountain site. So I put forth draft legislation to do so.”
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act made the Department of Energy responsible for permanent disposal of what is now roughly 100,000 metric tons of used fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Congress amended the law five years later to direct that the material be placed in a geologic repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Energy Department in 2008 filed a license application for the facility with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Obama administration defunded the proceeding two years later, and the Trump administration has failed repeatedly to persuade Congress to appropriate money to resume licensing.
In April, Barrasso released a discussion draft of his Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019. The bill, the Senate’s version of legislation that originated in the House in 2017, contains various amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to advance both centralized, temporary storage and final disposal of radioactive waste. They include: permanently withdrawing the Yucca Mountain property for use by the Energy Department for the repository, and increasing the legal cap on disposal of spent fuel from 70,000 metric tons to 110,000 metric tons.
“Chairman Barrasso continues to want to address the issue in a bipartisan way,” an Environment and Public Works Committee spokesperson said by email Wednesday. “This issue remains a priority for Chairman Barrasso. He is working with other members of the committee on the draft legislation.”
