DOE OFFICiAL BACKS SENATE APPRACH TO NUKE WASTE AGENCY

Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Senior Policy Advisor Chris Hanson yesterday backed a proposal in draft Senate nuclear waste legislation that would create a new federal agency headed by a single administrator to manage spent nuclear fuel. "A single administrator would be better … that way there’s a single bellybutton we can push, we being the White House or [Congress] or other stakeholders, to direct our questions and make sure there’s progress," Hanson said at the Nuclear Radiation Studies Board meeting at the National Academies yesterday. A bipartisan group of four Senators, headed by Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), introduced draft legislation in late April that recommended a new federal agency be created, with a presidential appointee head, to handle the domestic supply of high-level nuclear waste.

The DOE and the administration also hopes that by late summer it will have a clearer vision for the consent-based process for siting interim storage sites and a geologic repository. We are "looking at what we can do to advance the consent-based process now ahead of authorization from Congress," Hanson said. "We are looking at ways of fleshing out the details of what a consent-based process might actually look like, working with stakeholder groups who would help design that process through formal or less formal meetings. We hope to have a path forward later thus summer."