Congressman Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said Wednesday he is considering several legislative measures aimed at fixing the federal government’s decades-long failure to find a permanent disposal space for tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste.
One of those steps could involve taking the mission away from the Department of Energy in favor of a Nuclear Waste Administration that would establish a new process assuring local consent in siting storage and ultimately disposal of the waste. That idea was put forth nearly a decade ago by the Obama administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, and has been promoted in subsequent bills on Capitol Hill, but has yet to be realized.
Levin’s plans are derived from the recommendations of a task force the first-term lawmaker formed early last year to address the storage of radioactive spent fuel from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), a retired power plant in Levin’s San Diego-area 49th Congressional District.
The task force report, apparently completed in March, was released to the public this week.
“Regardless of one’s opinion on the past, present, and future of nuclear power, the lack of storage and disposal facilities for spent nuclear fuel is a massive problem that must be expeditiously addressed by the federal government, and I will continue to lead the charge to do so,” Levin wrote in his introduction to the report.
In the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Congress set a Jan. 31, 1998, deadline for the Energy Department to begin disposal of high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations and used fuel from commercial power reactors. The agency is over 22 years late and still does not have anywhere to put what is now roughly 100,000 metric tons of material. Most of it remains at the site of generation, including dozens of shuttered and active power plants around the nation.
After several unsuccessful attempts, the Trump administration this year stopped trying to persuade Congress to appropriate money to revive the Energy Department’s moribund 2008 license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a geologic repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. The Obama administration defunded that proceeding two years after it started, but time ran out on its replacement plan for consent-based siting of separate repositories for defense and commercial waste.
For the upcoming 2021 federal fiscal year, the Energy Department is seeking $27.5 million to help stand up a program for centralized, temporary storage of radioactive waste. That could enable the government, at least, to finally take the waste off the generators’ hands. Washington has already paid more than $7 billion to nuclear utilities for failing to meet its legal directive, even though they paid into the fund intended to pay for the repository.
The deadlock is particularly sensitive in California, where about 3.5 million pounds of spent fuel from SONGS’ three reactors will be stored for years if not decades near the Pacific Ocean in densely populated, seismically active San Diego County. Those concerns were exacerbated by an August 2018 incident in which one used-fuel canister was left at risk of an 18-foot drop while being placed into storage.
In May 2019, Levin filed the Spent Fuel Prioritization Act, which would send to the front of the line for storage or disposal spent fuel from reactors that are undergoing decommissioning or have been decommissioned; and are in areas with the largest populations and greatest risk for earthquakes. The bill has not moved out the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and would have to be passed before the 116th Congress ends on Jan. 3, 2021.
Nonetheless, Levin in his letter committed to “aggressively pursue federal legislation that directs DOE to prioritize accepting high-level radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned civilian nuclear power reactors that are located in high population areas and high earthquake hazard.”
The congressman said his office would consider several additional potential pieces of legislation, including amending the Atomic Energy Act so that states would be authorized to prepare environmental reviews on transport, siting, and storage of used fuel. Another possible measure would demand design lives of no less than 100 years for used fuel canisters.
The SONGS task force said the federal government needs a Nuclear Waste Administration with a laser focus on advancing storage and ultimately disposal of spent nuclear fuel. If established, Levin wrote that he envisions the new entity developing “a new facility siting process and a new framework to achieve consent for future storage and disposal sites, including mandates for accountability and enforcement.”
Congress already has a bill that would create that body – the aptly named Nuclear Waste Administration Act, introduced in April 2019 by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) with co-sponsors Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
Within a long set of measures, the bill would establish a Nuclear Waste Administration to “discharge the responsibility of the Federal Government to provide for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste.” The new federal body would be led by a presidentially appointed administrator with an initial term of six years.
This is the third iteration of the nuclear waste bill over the last decade. Congress did not pass the first two. The latest legislation got a June 2019 hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Murkowski chairs, but has not advanced since then.
Levin’s office did not respond by deadline Friday to a query regarding his plans and schedule for submitting any of the suggested bills cited in his introduction to the task force report.
The 33-member body was led by former NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko and retired Navy Rear Adm. Leendert Hering. Members included local officials and residents, along with representatives of the Sierra Club and other nongovernmental advocacy groups.
The task force report features more than 30 findings and a flat 30 recommendations. Some address the nationwide issues related to stranded nuclear waste, while others are focused on the situation at SONGS.
To start, the task force called on Congress to take up legislation that would require a plan to relocate SONGS’ used fuel to an off-site location. It should also look at legislation to ensure consent at the local, state, and tribal levels for any storage or disposal facility.
Closer to home, the task force urged the California State Legislature to demand use of “easily retrievable and monitorable” storage systems for used fuel – which it said SONGS does not have. For security, the spent nuclear fuel needs to be moved further from the coast and into a “technically defensible storage facility,” the report says.
In a prepared statement, SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison said it supports legislative or funding measures that would enable the utility to ship its used fuel elsewhere. “Rep. Mike Levin has focused his attention on this effort, and we appreciate his engagement on this complex issue. Congressional action is vital to finding a solution,” according to the statement.
Southern California Edison said it remains intent on ensuring the safety of the plant’s used fuel as long as it remains on-site. It noted that it is preparing a strategic plan that would address options for relocation of the material.
Also in the works is a “conceptual transportation plan” for moving used fuel to a licensed storage facility in the southwest. Holtec International, the company that is moving SONGS’ used fuel into dry storage on-site, hopes in coming years to open such a facility in southeastern New Mexico.
Both plans should be finished in early 2021, SCE said.
