A pair of Democratic lawmakers this week introduced a bill that would allow a mostly non-federal taskforce, appointed in large part by the Environmental Protection Agency, to help define consent-based siting of nuclear waste and consider whether such waste could be regulated by states.
If it became law, the “Nuclear Waste Task Force Act,” unveiled Tuesday in a joint press release by Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), would establish a mostly non-federal team that would have a year to definite consent-based siting of nuclear waste and decide whether to do away with radioactive waste’s exemption from the Resources Conservation and Recovery Act: a move that could give states more control over such waste in their territories.
The 30-member task force the bill would create would include five federal representatives from executive agencies and be chaired by a non-federal member appointed by the non-federal members, who themselves would be appointed by the representative of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The non-federal slots would have to include representatives from at least seven state governments, plus representatives of industry, indigenous tribes, environmental groups and other related stakeholders, the bill said.
The task force would have to include members of the “environmental justice community,” which the bill defines as “a community with a significant representation of communities of color, low-income communities, or Tribal and indigenous communities that experiences, or is at risk of experiencing, higher or more adverse human health or environmental effects, as compared to other communities.”
No congressional committees of jurisdiction had scheduled hearings on the bill, at deadline for RadWaste Monitor.
The bill would codify some of the steps outlined last year by Democratic members of the House in a sweeping report on climate change that runs nearly 550 pages.
Members of the public should also get an opportunity to comment on the task force’s work, the bill said. The team should hold at least three public sessions: one for the East coast, one for the West, and another for the middle states.
Levin and Markey also used Tuesday’s press release to rail on the moribund Yucca Mountain geologic repository.
“When it comes to the storage of nuclear waste, siting decisions must be rooted in geological science, not political science,” Markey said. “After years of pushback and concern from the scientific community, it is clear that Yucca Mountain is a delusion, not a destination for nuclear waste.”
In a 2008 environmental review of the Yucca site submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, DOE defended its decision to select the Nye County, Nev. site, saying it “has several characteristics that would limit potential long-term impacts from the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.”
Yucca “is isolated from concentrations of human population and human activity and is likely to remain so,” DOE said at the time. The hydrology of the site is also ideal for a repository, the report said, because groundwater from Yucca Mountain flows into a “closed” basin that can’t flow into a river or ocean, which would prevent radionuclides from spreading to other areas.
Levin and Markey filed their bill a week after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that Congress take action to break the federal logjam on nuclear waste storage. As part of GAO’s research, the acting head of DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE) Kathryn Huff told the oversight board Sep. 10 that her agency would be moving forward with a federal interim storage inquiry early next year.
The Barack Obama administration pulled funding for Yucca, which is still the only congressionally-authorized site to permanently store spent nuclear fuel, in 2011 after pressure from local stakeholders and the Nevada congressional delegation led by then-Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
The site was designated as the nation’s permanent home for spent nuclear fuel as part of Congress’s 1988 budget, signed in late 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan. Yucca Mountain was included in the spending plan, which became infamously known in the Silver State as the “Screw Nevada” bill, after a closed-door meeting between congressional negotiators.
In hopes to speed along the spending legislation, then-Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) proposed allowing DOE to narrow the list of possible repository sites from three — Nevada, Texas and Washington state — down to one. The language of Johnston’s proposal suggested that the Yucca Mountain site was the best location for such a repository.
No member of the Silver State’s delegation was present at the meeting.
“While these may be the days for gloating, the irresponsibility of this approach will be the burden of future generations,” said then-Rep. Barbara Vucanovich (R-Nev.) during House floor debate in December 1987.
Markey himself voted against the measure in 1987 and took the floor to blast the Yucca decision, which he said was “guided by politics and not scientific facts.”
“If this site proves unsound … we will be left without a nuclear waste disposal program of any kind,” Markey said. “As Nevada goes, so does our nation’s nuclear waste policy.”
Over 30 years later, Yucca Mountain is effectively dead after the Joe Biden administration resolved to keep the project mothballed, providing only funding for guns and gates at the site in its 2022 budget request.
In the meantime, private companies have stepped in to fill the void left by the federal government. Interim Storage Partners, a joint venture between Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and Orano USA, received permission from NRC earlier this month to build an interim storage facility in west Texas.
Holtec International, another company vying for its share of the nuclear waste market, has proposed its own site in Lea County, N.M., which the NRC has said it would make a decision on early next year.
The potential host states have already filed lawsuits to block the proposed interim storage sites.
