The electoral defeat this week of Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) could remove one major political obstacle to funding and other legislative measures that would advance the long-awaited Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) took slightly more than 50 percent of the statewide vote to beat Heller and three independent-party candidates in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The first-term congresswoman, who will be elevated to the Senate in January, has like her opponent vehemently rejected the idea of shipping tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste into the state.
But the lack of movement on Yucca Mountain legislation in the current Senate has been at least partly predicated on protecting Heller’s seat and a slim 51-49 GOP majority in the upper chamber. It was widely accepted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would block a vote on any bill that could be used as a political weapon against Heller.
The Senate zeroed out the Trump administration’s request for nearly $170 million in fiscal 2019 to revive the licensing proceeding for the Yucca Mountain repository at the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And it has for months sat on House legislation aimed at firming up the federal government’s ability to build the disposal site.
Even with the loss in Nevada, Republicans increased their Senate majority going into the 116th Congress, meaning they could be more amenable to measures intended to address the long impasse on permanent disposal of the nation’s spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level waste from defense nuclear operations.
Heller’s impending departure “hopefully … removes some of the barriers to Yucca Mountain,” one Capitol Hill staffer said Friday, but acknowledged it was too early to say whether the House could regain the momentum it showed earlier this year for the project.
It might not take until January for that to happen. A spokesman for resolutely pro-Yucca Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) suggested the project could get funding in an appropriations bill that would follow a short-term continuing resolution that is keeping several federal agencies open through Dec. 7.
“House appropriators know very well we want this funding,” Shimkus spokesman Jordan Haverly said Wednesday morning.
Haverly did not discuss specifics of the potential means of funding and top House appropriators did not respond to requests for comment.
There was also no immediate comment from Rosen and Heller, who had sought his second full term in the Senate.
The debate over Yucca Mountain has waxed and waned at least since 1987, when Congress designated the patch of land in Nye County, Nev., as the eventual site of an underground disposal facility. Supporters say the remote location and geology make it perfect for the radioactive-waste mission, while Nevada leaders worry about potential environmental disaster and harm to crucial tourism revenue.
The Energy Department did not file its license application with the NRC until 2008, and the Obama administration defunded the proceeding just two years later. The Trump administration has sought funding in two budget cycles to revive licensing, but has been shot down by Congress each time.
While the House version of the energy and water appropriations bill for the current budget year included $270 million for Yucca Mountain licensing activities at the NRC and DOE, the lower chamber accepted the Senate preference to give them nothing when it came time to negotiate a “minibus” bill to fund those and a number of other federal agencies.
A House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman noted the full-year funding for DOE and the NRC, but did not respond to a query regarding any potential alternative means for pay for Yucca Mountain licensing in the budget year that began Oct. 1. The offices of Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs the House Appropriations energy and water committee, and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the panel’s ranking member, did not respond to requests for comment.
There was also no immediate word on the funding question from Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).
That issue will be decided when Congress returns to work next week, the Hill staffer said.
Robert Halstead, executive director of Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, said an informed source in Washington, D.C., told him one option being considered is declaring Yucca Mountain a national nuclear security issue so that funding can be added to the budget for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Department of Energy might also be authorized to use its remaining $20 million balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, the federal account established to pay for the Yucca site, Halstead said.
But the project is not likely to be at the top of Congress’ immediate list of priorities, and it will have limited time to get things done as the holidays and end of the legislative session approach, noted Halstead, who leads the state’s efforts to prevent Yucca Mountain from coming into existence.
Even as his tenure in the Senate comes to a close, “I don’t think that Heller is going to stop fighting them,” he added.
The future of Shimkus’ Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act also remains murky. The House passed the bill in May by a vote of 340-72, but it has not shown up yet on the Senate calendar.
While H.R. 3053 includes some language aimed at allaying Nevada’s concerns and promoting interim storage of spent fuel until the permanent repository is ready, its primary focus is on Yucca Mountain. Among a series of measures, it would enable an expedited transfer of the Nye County land from the Interior Department to DOE; makes clear the 147,000-acre property would be used almost completely for nuclear waste disposal; and would re-establish the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which oversaw work on Yucca Mountain before being dissolved by the Obama administration nearly a decade ago.
A spokesman for McConnell said Thursday he had no guidance on the Senate schedule beyond what has been posted for next week. There was no sign that the bill would be raised at two panels that could have jurisdiction: the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
If the legislation founders over the next couple months it would have to be reintroduced in the next Congress.
“I think it will be very difficult, not impossible but very difficult, for Shimkus and company to even get a vote, and I don’t know if they have the numbers” for passage, Halstead said.
In a prepared statement, Shimkus said he intended to work with lawmakers from both parties to secure Senate approval of his legislation.
“Nuclear waste policy has never been a Republican versus Democrat issue, and the Yucca Mountain repository has enjoyed support from a majority of both parties since the project began,” he said. “There is no political, legal, or scientific reason to further delay progress toward fulfilling our moral obligation to deal with spent nuclear fuel and defense waste.”
What happens starting in 2019 is anyone’s guess, at least publicly. The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission have declined to say whether they will again ask for Yucca money the fiscal 2020 budgets proposals that should be rolled out in February.
While in Nevada to campaign for Heller on Oct. 20, Trump told a local television station the administration would in coming weeks look “very seriously” at an alternative approach for nuclear waste disposal. However, no information on what that might involve has emerged, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry said less than a week afterward that his agency continues to support Yucca Mountain.
Leadership of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, which writes the first draft of the lower chamber’s spending bill covering Yucca Mountain, will also change after Democrats retook the majority in Tuesday’s election. Kaptur has been vocal regarding the need to deal permanently with U.S. nuclear waste, but has not been as clear whether she believes Yucca Mountain is the answer. She said she would assume the chair position for the subcommittee if the House flipped, according to one local news article.
“I look forward to discussions in the coming weeks regarding leadership positions and believe that whoever takes on these positions will represent the funding priorities of our party well,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee and energy and water subcommittee, said in a statement Friday.
The election does not change the Nevada congressional delegation’s strong opposition to Yucca Mountain, which is mirrored as strongly as the state level, Halstead said.
He expressed limited concern about what might happen regarding federal funding, saying 75 percent of the state’s focus is on preparing to fight if and when the licensing proceeding actually resumes.
The state has filed about 200 technical contentions against DOE’s application and is ready with more, Halstead has said. The state has also filed five lawsuits and has two more ready to go if needed.
“We are prepared for a continuation of stupid nuclear-waste policymaking decisions in D.C.,” he said. “In the end they will have nothing to show for it.”
Election Results
In other congressional campaigns in Nevada, Reps. Dina Titus (D) and Mark Amodei (R) both won new two-year terms. In the race to replace Rosen in the state’s 3rd Congressional District, Democrat Susie Lee defeated Republican Danny Tarkanian and five other candidates. With incumbent first-term 4th District Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D) choosing not to seek re-election, Democrat Steven Horsford beat Republican Cresent Hardy and four other candidates.
In Texas’ 11th Congressional District, Rep. Mike Conaway (R) won an eighth term in office. Just across the border, in New Mexico’s 2nd District, Democrat Xochitl Torres Small apparently squeaked out a win over Republican Yvette Herrell to replace outgoing Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for governor. Those districts would be home to two planned interim storage sites for spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power reactors.
Republican challenger Bob Hugin, who had raised concerns about nuclear waste disposal, failed to unseat Sen. Robert Menendez (D) in New Jersey.
And in the race to represent Illinois’ 15th District, 11-termer Shimkus took nearly three-fourths of the vote against Democrat Kevin Gaither.
