The Department of Energy’s final budget for fiscal year 2024 does not contain a federal ban on commercial interim storage sites to which states have not consented.
A version of DOE’s 2024 budget bill that passed the House last year specified that none of the agency’s appropriations for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 could be used “in furtherance of any agreement among private entities for consolidated interim storage of spent nuclear fuel that is not specifically authorized under federal law until such time that host state and local governments and any affected Indian tribes have formalized their consent.”
The Senate’s first version of DOE’s 2024 budget did not contain the House’s ban, or anything about commercial interim storage, though the report on the Senate’s first bill urged the agency “to move forward under existing authority to identify a site for a Federal interim storage facility.”
All of that was gone from the final bill, passed on March 9. The final bill report, which contains language often seen as strict guidelines for agencies rather than rules, also did not include language about interim storage, either of the federal or commercial variety.