Despite complaints from two senior Republicans, the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee on Wednesday signed off on a new spending bill that would provide no money for licensing the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The $46.4 billion energy and water appropriations legislation for fiscal 2020, filed Tuesday, includes funding for the Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other agencies. It was reported to the full committee by voice vote after a 30-minute markup, with some dissenters.
The bill would provide an unspecified amount of money for consolidated interim storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel, zeroing out the roughly $150 million the Trump administration requested to resume the NRC review of the Energy Department’s 2008 license application for the Yucca Mountain disposal site.
“Yucca Mountain is the law of the land and the energy and water appropriations bill should reflect that fact,” subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said during his opening statement to the meeting.
Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the top Republican on the full House Appropriations Committee, concurred: “We must stop ignoring the federal government’s responsibility to develop and permit the repository for nuclear waste.”
More details about spending levels and program authorizations in the bill are expected to be released next week before the Appropriations Committee markup.
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act made the Energy Department responsible for disposal of U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Congress amended the bill five years later to direct that the material go solely to Yucca Mountain.
The Obama administration in 2010 defunded the licensing proceeding initiated two years earlier by the George W. Bush administration. Granger and Simpson, then chairs of the Appropriations Committee and energy and water subcommittee, had supported Trump administration requests in the past two budgets to fund resumption of licensing. That funding never made it through budget negotiations with the Senate, and the House has changed direction after Democrats assumed the majority following the 2018 midterm election.
