A closed nuclear power plant is an economic challenge to its host community that that could linger for decades while it is torn down and its radioactive waste waits to be removed at some undetermined point in time. This requires a response that is equally focused on the present and the future, according to Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.).
Providing that assistance is the intent of the STRANDED Act of 2017, introduced this month by Schneider in the House and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) in the Senate. The bill, if passed, would provide grants to communities that remain home to nuclear waste, as well as tax incentives intended to draw businesses and residents to those areas to offset the loss of a major tax contributor.
“[T]he stranded nuclear fuel left in these communities creates enormous economic opportunity cost because property values and the ability to attract new businesses are affected by people leaving the area. You really have an albatross around the neck of these communities, and that’s what we’re trying to address,” Schneider said Tuesday in an exclusive interview with RadWaste Monitor.
Thirty-two nuclear reactors in the United States have over the years been closed and decommissioned, according to the World Nuclear Association. As of last year, 14 reactors at 11 facilities had since 2012 shut down or been announced for closure in the face of low natural gas prices and other challenges.
Some operators move quickly to decommission and dismantle their facilities, while others place them in “SAFSTOR” mode in which decommissioning can be delayed for up to 60 years. In either case, spent fuel from the reactors will remain on the property until the Department of Energy meets its legal mandate to take possession of what is now more than 75,000 metric tons of waste and place it into storage. Thirty-five years after Congress ordered DOE to find a permanent solution to nuclear waste storage, that remains a perplexing challenge – with the Trump administration looking back to the planned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada in the face of vehement opposition from the state’s leaders.
The localized economic impacts of a nuclear plant closing have long been studied, and stretch from the loss of significant tax revenue to the elimination of hundreds of jobs.
The Zion Nuclear Power Plant, which is in Schneider’s congressional district in the northern suburbs of Chicago, was paying $19 million in yearly property taxes to the city, schools, and other taxing authorities prior to its closure in 1998. The tax level dropped over five years to about $1.5 million annually as the plant sat idle and then began decommissioning, according to city Accounts and Finance Director David Knabel. Homeowners and businesses in the city have been forced to endure a higher tax burden to offset that reduction, he told RadWaste Monitor.
There was also a spike in vacant housing in Zion shortly after the plant closed, indicating that a significant number of workers had left the city, Knabel said.
Meanwhile, the Zion property cannot be used for other purposes while the spent fuel remains, and the site is a deterrent to people considering building homes or establishing businesses nearby, the finance director added.
“This is an issue that, for these communities like in Zion, they’ve been dealing with this for almost two decades,” Schneider said. “Other communities are just facing the prospect of having their plants closed. We need to have a long-term solution, but in the meantime we need to help those communities that are left with the stranded nuclear waste.”
Schneider said the STRANDED Act (full title: Sensible, Timely Relief for America’s Nuclear Districts’ Economic Development Act of 2017) originated last year in discussions with Zion Mayor Al Hill and other city officials and community leaders. It became clear that a “holistic” approach was needed to address the challenges posed by closed nuclear power plants, according to the lawmaker.
That includes annual economic impact grants of $15 per kilogram of spent nuclear fuel at closed nuclear plants in affected communities. That amount was established in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to mitigate the economic affect on states and local municipalities from spent fuel storage, but was never paid out, Schneider said.
“This would be money into the communities for general operating expenses,” he said. “Remember that they’ve lost the tax base of the what is oftentimes the largest employer, depending on the community, they’ve lost this operating entity. The site where the power plant had been is precluded from being put into other use, there’s an opportunity cost to that. This is to allow them to run their communities.”
The legislation would also amend the Internal Revenue Service Code of 1986 to make “qualified nuclear affected community investments” eligible for New Market Tax Credits intended to promote private investment in distressed communities. First-Time Homebuyer Credits would also be applied to nuclear affected communities.
Schneider and Duckworth further aim to establish a “Stranded Nuclear Waste Task Force” that would be required to within 180 days of enactment of the legislation submit a report on existing public and private resources and financing that could be available to communities with nuclear plants, along with “immediate and long-term economic adjustment plans tailored to the needs of each affected community.”
Separately, the National Academy of Sciences would be directed to work with the Department of Energy’s national laboratories on a study to identify potential opportunities for other options to nuclear facilities, generating sites, and waste plants in affected communities. The study would be due within one year of the legislation’s passage.
The total authorized annual appropriation for the bill would be $100 million.
Zion leaders have pressed for several years to get such a bill passed, Knabel acknowledged. In 2016, Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) sponsored legislation that would have provided the $15 per kilogram funding for communities housing nuclear waste. That bill did not make it past committee, and Dold lost to Schneider in the last election, but other lawmakers this month introduced the measure again.
Schneider’s bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees. His office is working with staff at both panels to schedule hearings on the legislation, but it has not yet been placed on the calendar, a spokesman said. Duckworth’s bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee. Only Schneider’s legislation has secured co-sponsors, and only one as of Wednesday: Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).
Given Congress’ tight schedule heading into the holidays, and with lawmakers intently focused on tax reform, the STRANDED Act’s future is uncertain. Schneider and Duckworth are working to secure co-sponsors for their bills, while the legislation’s backers are reaching out to mayors, school superintendents, and other officials in communities with closed nuclear plants to encourage them to contact their local legislators, Knabel said.
“I’m hopeful,” Schneider said. “This is something that affects communities, that cuts across states, cuts across party lines, so I’m hopeful that this is helping people just struggling to make ends meet day to day, and I think this is something that I imagine they’ll be more than happy to get behind.”
