By John Stang
Discussion on whether a state’s consent is needed for it to host a major nuclear waste repository flared up and then went unresolved at a Thursday hearing in Congress.
The session of the House Energy and Commerce environment and climate change subcommittee, called to discuss three bills on radioactive waste storage and disposal, demonstrated the continued challenges in breaking the decades-old impasse in finally dealing with the material.
”Politicizing this issue has stymied this process for far too long. … The reality is that we just need get on with it,” said Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Washington, D.C.-based trade group for the nuclear industry.
In the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Congress directed the Department of Energy to by Jan. 31, 1998, begin disposing of the U.S. stockpile of spent reactor fuel from commercial power plants and high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations. In 1987, the act was amended to direct that the waste be buried under Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The Energy Department has made halting progress in meeting its congressional mandates, leaving roughly 100,000 metric tons of waste stranded at more than 100 sites around the country.
“You have to have good science. But you also need the consent of the community,” said Robert Halstead, executive director of Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, which spearheads the state’s opposition to the long-stalled Yucca Mountain repository.
As they have in recent years, members of Congress in 2019 have submitted a number of bills with varying aims on nuclear waste: advancing Yucca Mountain or consolidated interim storage of spent fuel; demanding that state, local, and tribal have the right of refusal for disposal sites in or near their jurisdictions; or at least prioritizing the relocation of used fuel away from sites most at risk for a natural disaster.
The bills discussed Thursday were:
- The Storage and Transportation of Residual and Excess (STORE) Nuclear Fuel Act, introduced earlier this month by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.). The bill would authorize the Department of Energy to assume ownership of used commercial nuclear fuel to speed up consent-based consolidation of interim spent fuel storage. It would allow both DOE and private companies to develop such facilities, with priority given to the commercial sector.
- The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, filed in mid-May by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.). An updated version of legislation from Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) in the last Congress, the bill’s long list of amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act authorize DOE to site, build, and operate at least one consolidated interim storage facility, prioritizing storage of waste from retired nuclear power plants that are in seismically active areas or near large bodies of water; withdraw 147,000 acres of federal land in Nye County, Nev., for the repository; and update the level of payments to the host states for interim storage and permanent disposal sites.
- The Spent Fuel Prioritization Act of 2019, introduced in April by Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), which would prioritize removal of spent fuel from nuclear power plants that are undergoing decommissioning and are in high-population regions with significant seismic activity. That would apply to the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County, which is in Levin’s congressional district.
The three bills have been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Nuclear Energy Institute supports all three, Korsnick told the subcommittee.
She noted that nuclear utilities contributed to the Nuclear Waste Fund, the federal account intended to pay for licensing, building, and operating the waste repository. With interest, that fund has a balance of $41 billion, Korsnick said. The federal government has also used roughly $7 billion in taxpayer dollars to make payments from its judgment fund for failing to meet its legal obligation to take the spent fuel from those companies.
“And let us not forget about the communities near the facilities now used to store used fuel. Congress owes it to these communities to ensure science—not political whims—determines the fate of the Yucca Mountain repository, the nation’s only authorized disposal option,” Korsnick told the subcommittee.
Nevada’s congressional delegation, particularly retired Sen. Harry Reid (D) and his Senate successors, have demonstrated huge clout in persuading the Obama administration to defund the Yucca Mountain licensing and then helping to ensure it has not re-emerged under the Trump administration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was seen to have blocked any pro-Yucca legislation last year in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to protect the seat of then-Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). Heller was defeated in the November midterm elections by Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.).
That election also put Democrats back in the majority of the House. While the GOP-led House had previously supported the Trump administration’s requests to fund resumption of licensing for Yucca Mountain, it now has joined the Senate in focusing on interim storage as a near-term solution for spent fuel.
Holtec international hopes by 2022 to open the initially licensed part of a used fuel facility in southeastern New Mexico with underground-storage capacity for 8,680 metric tons of used fuel. It ultimately could increase storage to about 173,000 metric tons under a 40-year license and two potential extensions of up to 80 years. An Orano-Waste Control Specialists team, called Interim Storage Partners (ISP), hopes to obtain a 40-year NRC license in 2021 or 2022 for its site in West Texas, just across the border from the planned Holtec facility. It would begin with 5,000 metric tons of capacity, up to a total of 40,000 metric tons.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), who took office in January after leaving Congress, opposes the Holtec project, even as four local counties and cities participate in the project. A similar state-vs.-local dynamic exists in Nevada with the Yucca Mountain project.
During her testimony, Korsnick said both Yucca Mountain and the consolidated storage sites can be built and safely maintained with technology that is currently available — meaning that no major technical obstacles remain to moving forward.
Lake Barrett, former acting director for DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, concurred with.
“I believe that the DOE should further engage with the Nevadan’s to address their concerns. However, I do not believe that the near abandonment of the original NWPA balancing framework is in the best interest of our nation to move forward,” he told the panel. “Adjustments to existing law, such as many contained within the subject bills of this hearing, are appropriate to better enable the government to meet federal statutory and contractual responsibilities, and indeed our moral responsibilities for nuclear waste management.”
Geoffrey Fettus, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, supported the concept of a centralized repository, but added local consent must be part of having such a project go forward.
“I don’t know where you get the idea that a state will give you a high five to accept nuclear wastes,” subcommittee member Scott Peters (D-Calif.) told Fettus.
Halstead contended the geology of Yucca Mountain creates the potential for water leaks — laced with radioactivity substances — escaping from the repository into the surrounding aquifer.
The state filed more than 200 legal and technical contentions with the NRC before the licensing was suspended, and has promised 30 more if it resumes. It would also look back to the courts to aid its fight.
“DOE will bear a heavy burden of proof in the largest and longest licensing proceeding in the history of the” Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Halstead said. “Moreover, DOE will face extraordinary difficulties obtaining water permits from the State of Nevada for repository construction; obtaining water permits and rights-of-way for construction of a 300-mile railroad across a national monument and active grazing lands; and imposing over-flight restrictions.”
