HENDERSON, Nev. — Congress appears set to again deny the Trump administration’s request to appropriate funding for licensing of a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev., one issue observer said Tuesday.
The Trump administration for fiscal 2020 requested $116 million for Yucca Mountain and interim storage of radioactive waste, the large majority of that for licensing the Nevada disposal site.
“The House did not fund it and, from what we’ve heard, the Senate will not be funding that either,” Seth Kirshenberg, executive director of the Energy Communities Alliance, said during a panel discussion at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit.
The House in June passed a “minibus” appropriations bill that included the spending legislation covering the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, respectively the applicant and licensor for the Yucca Mountain license. Rather than any money for Yucca Mountain, the bill includes nearly $50 million for “integrated management” of nuclear waste, with about half of that intended to advance interim storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
The Senate has yet to issue any spending bills for the budget year that begins on Oct. 1. Congress will have just 13 business days to that date after it returns to Washington on Sept. 9. Kirshenberg said a continuing resolution that would keep the government running at current budget levels is expected through Dec. 6.
The Senate in recent years has preferred to fund interim storage of spent fuel over Yucca Mountain. That previously put it at odds with the House in deciding whether to support the administration’s requests for fiscal 2018 and 2019 to fund licensing, but the lower chamber changed its tune after Democrats retook to majority in the November midterms.
Panelist Colin Jones, vice president and general manager for Jacobs’ North American Nuclear Group, said it is likely that Senate appropriations staff have bills ready to go. However, neither he nor Kirshenberg specified when they thought the legislation might be filed.
