DOE COULD ESTABLISH INTERIM STORAGE SITES UNDER SENATE E&W SPENDING BILL

The Department of Energy would be able to move ahead on establishing interim nuclear waste storage sites under language in legislation that cleared the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee yesterday. Current law prohibits DOE from supporting interim storage until the Yucca Mountain repository is established. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the panel’s chair, said that the provision in the Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations bill would allow DOE to start implementing waste disposal recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. “We have developed very limited language for this bill that authorizes the Department of Energy to begin a consent-based process for developing one or more consolidated interim waste storage facilities,” she said at yesterday’s markup of the bill, adding “Specifically, the bill would allow the secretary to license, construct and operate one or more consolidated storage facilities to provide interim storage for spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste.”