Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
3/7/2014
The Obama Administration is seeking to access the funds in the Nuclear Waste Fund to help off-set some off the costs of implementing pilot interim waste storage facilities, according to the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request submitted to Congress this week. The request includes a proposal to implement the ‘reform’ as a way to tap into the NWF’s resources, which currently stands at approximately $36 billion, but can only be used for activities related to the construction of a repository at Yucca Mountain, as outlined in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. “To support the nuclear waste management program over the long term, reform of the current funding arrangement is necessary and the Administration believes the funding system should consist of the following elements: ongoing discretionary appropriations, access to annual fee collections provided in legislation either through their reclassification from mandatory to discretionary or as a direct mandatory appropriation, and eventual access to the balance or "corpus" of the Nuclear Waste Fund,” the proposal said. “The FY 2015 Budget includes a proposal to implement such reform.”
Full details of DOE’s FY 2015 request were not made public this week. According to released budgetary documents, though, the Administration is assuming the construction and operation of a pilot interim waste storage facility within the next 10 years, as well as “notable progress on both full-scale interim storage and long-term permanent geologic disposal.” To fund this program, the proposal would give discretionary appropriations to fund expenses that are “regular and recurring,” including program management costs like administrative salaries, studies, and regulatory interactions. Mandatory appropriations for the program would begin in 2018, the proposal said.
The budget proposal argues that funding this program allows DOE to fulfill its responsibilities to manage the nation’s high-level waste, while also putting a stop to the fees owed to generators. “The deployment of pilot interim storage within the next 10 years allows the government to begin picking up waste, thus enabling the collection of one-time fees owed by certain generators that will offset some of this spending,” the proposal said. “Over the 10-year budget window, the projected net mandatory cost would be in the range of $1.3 billion. The sooner that legislation enables progress on implementing a nuclear waste management program, the lower the ultimate cost will be to the taxpayers. This proposal is intended to limit, and then end, liability costs by making it possible for the government to begin performing on its contractual obligations,” the request says. The budget includes the payout of some of the fees awarded to the generators of high level waste by the courts.
No Yucca Money
Noticeably absent from the President’s proposal was any mention or funding for the Yucca Mountain project. DOE shut down work on the repository in 2010, deeming the site “unworkable,” but a slew of recent court decisions have revived the licensing review process for Yucca Mountain. “The President’s budget continues to recognize that no federal funds should be wasted on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement. “Yucca Mountain was terminated four years ago, and our country is ready for an alternative approach to safely managing nuclear waste.”
The NRC issued an Order in November setting forth a pathway to re-start the Yucca Mountain licensing review, including the request for a supplemental EIS from DOE on groundwater issues to satisfy requirements set forth in the National Environmental Policy Act. DOE had said it would complete that review, but it appears now the Department will not complete that request (see related story).
DOE Seeks Boost for Fuel Cycle R&D
DOE’s request also proposes increasing funding for fuel cycle R&D activities next year. Under the request, such work would receive $189 million, a slight boost from current funding levels. The request would be used for activities such as “work on storage, transportation, disposal, and process development activities that support the Administration’s Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High Level Radioactive Waste,” DOE said.
