As expected, a draft 2022 spending bill from a House Appropriations panel has the requested $27.5 million to help the Department of Energy find a site for a federally owned consolidated interim waste storage site, and no money to turn Yucca Mountain into a permanent waste repository.
The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee’s bill would if signed boost the DOE Nuclear Energy office’s budget by $1.68 billion compared with the request: a total that would be more than $165 million above the 2021 appropriation.
DOE asked Congress to move then $27.5 million for a federal interim nuclear waste storage site out of the agency’s Nuclear Waste Disposal account and into the agency’s Fuel Cycle R&D Program. The agency asked Congress to reserve for the Nuclear Waste Disposal account for oversight of the Nuclear Waste Fund, which is supposed to fund permanent disposal of spent fuel from powerplants.
The subcommittee was scheduled to mark up its bill at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Monday. The markup was scheduled to be webcast. The full House Appropriations Committee was supposed to take up the bill at 9 a.m. on Friday.
