Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
6/13/2014
House appropriators are looking to breathe new life into the shuttered Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository project, including more than $200 million for the effort in the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill reported out of subcommittee this week. The bill would provide $150 million to the Department of Energy “to carry out the purposes of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982,” which designates Yucca Mountain as the site for a repository; and $55 million to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue the adjudication of DOE’s Yucca Mountain License application. “The recommendation includes strong support for getting the Yucca Mountain license application finished up,” House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said during a subcommittee markup on the bill this week. The panel cleared the measure after a relatively brief markup with no amendments offered.
DOE, for its part, requested $30 million, including $24 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund, for Fiscal Year 2015 to support preliminary generic process development and other non-R&D activities related to storage, transportation, disposal, and consent-based siting. All the activities are related to moving forward with its consent-based waste management strategy. The NRC did not request any funds for the Yucca Mountain licensing for FY15. The NRC, though, currently has only $11 million dollars left to complete the license review, a number that will barely cover the expenses related to the production of the Safety Evaluation Reports.
The bill also includes language that would prevent any future tampering into the Yucca Mountain adjudicatory process. “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to conduct closure of adjudicatory functions, technical review, or support activities associated with the Yucca Mountain geologic repository license application, or for actions that irrevocably remove the possibility that Yucca Mountain may be a repository option in the future,” the bill says. DOE has deemed Yucca Mountain as an “unworkable” site, and instead is attempting to pursue a strategy to begin a consolidated storage program for the nation’s high-level waste while a final repository solution is worked out, although legislation is needed to allow this to move forward. DOE’s FY 2015 budget request included language to request this legislation, but it appears the appropriations bill denies this request.
Senate Roadblock?
While House lawmakers have shown a commitment to financing Yucca Mountain, it does not guarantee the same level as enthusiasm in the Senate, a point highlighted by NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff at this year’s EPRI International Low-Level Waste Conference, held this week in Orlando. “The fact that the House has done that does not mean it will pass the Senate, but the political debate continues very much so,” he said in an update on the Commission perspective on Yucca licensing. The Senate, led mainly by the efforts of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), has largely blocked funding for Yucca Mountain. The Senate has scheduled its subcommittee markup for Energy and Water Appropriations for next week.
Bill Matches FUSRAP Request
The House bill would also match the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP)’s FY 2015 request of $100 million. The Corps’ request represents a slight cut from the program’s current funding level of $103.49 million. According to FUSRAP’s FY15 budget justification, the largest amount of expenditures would go to the Maywood site in New Jersey ($33 million) and the Shallow Land Disposal Area site in Armstrong County, Pa ($20 million).
