House Republicans in a letter Thursday urged Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to “expeditiously” restart the stalled Yucca Mountain license application review.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and panel member John Shimkus (R-Ill.) penned the letter, seeking information on DOE’s nuclear waste policy. The letter comes two weeks after Upton and Shimkus sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), asking the auditor to determine what federal resources are available for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license review at Yucca.
“The Federal government must fulfill statutory obligations as soon as possible,” Thursday’s letter to Moniz reads. “Expeditiously resuming work on the Yucca Mountain License application would do just that.”
NRC estimates that it would cost $330 million to finish the license process for the Nevada nuclear waste repository.
The Department of Energy is legally required to establish a permanent storage site for U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Yucca Mountain project was intended to provide that, but the Obama administration halted work on the facility in favor of a “phased, adaptive” consent-based strategy for siting nuclear waste.
DOE spokesman Bill Wicker said via email Friday that the department has consistently stated that Yucca Mountain is not a workable solution.
“(DOE) is pursuing a Consent-Based approach for the long-term disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste,” Wicker wrote. “This consent-based approach seeks to achieve a workable solution for disposition of nuclear waste based not only on sound science, but also on achieving public acceptance at the local, state and tribal levels.”
In their letter, Upton and Shimkus also requested information on DOE compliance to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which in the 1980s designated Yucca Mountain as the only repository site for American nuclear waste. Other “areas of concern” include consolidated interim storage; the DOE strategy for waste; Nuclear Waste Fund and budget requirements; and transportation of spent nuclear fuel.
DOE in December formally kicked off a three-phase storage siting plan that envisions a pilot facility, interim facilities, and eventually one or more permanent repositories.
Less than two months later, a separate DOE nuclear waste storage test project hit a major stumbling block in North Dakota. The department had contracted Battelle Memorial Institute for a $35 million deep borehole field test near Rugby, N.D. Residents blasted the project in February, with some officials saying they learned of the plan through reading the newspaper. Despite Battelle’s insistence that the field test involved no nuclear waste, the local county commission implemented a drilling ban and then established formal opposition to that project, saying they worried it would lead to storage of nuclear waste in North Dakota. Battelle then abandoned the plan, and DOE asked the contractor to explore sites outside North Dakota.
Moniz has described the project as a feasibility study of boreholes as an option for long-term nuclear waste disposal. DOE has contended that it followed procedure in North Dakota, issuing standard notices and announcements. The contract dictates that the contractor is responsible for communication with local stakeholders, DOE spokesman Bart Jackson said in January.
