The House Appropriations Committee appears ready to support the Department of Energy’s request for $27.5 million in its next budget to help stand up a program for temporary centralized storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants.
The $49.6 billion energy and water development appropriations legislation unveiled Monday would provide that amount to cover DOE costs in fiscal 2021 “necessary for nuclear waste disposal activities to carry out the purposes of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 … including interim storage activities.” Of the total, $7.5 million would come from the Nuclear Waste Fund, the federal account intended to pay for disposal of the nation’s radioactive waste.
That is the only language in the 100-page bill that directly addresses the federal government’s responsibilities for management of nuclear waste. The detailed report for the legislation had not been released at deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor.
The House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee spent just 30 minutes Tuesday marking up the bill, with no amendments, before a voice vote to send it to the full committee for further review. That markup is scheduled for 1 p.m. Eastern time Monday.
In his opening statement to the Tuesday meeting, Ranking Member Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said the subcommittee is failing to adhere to federal law by excluding funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the bill.
“The bill provides no money to advance … the Yucca Mountain license application process,” Simpson said. “Yucca Mountain, I would remind everyone, is still the law of the land, and the energy and water appropriations bill should reflect that fact.”
Afterward, Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) briefly noted the $27.5 million that would be provided in the measure.
Simpson was referring to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which as amended in 1987 directed the Department of Energy to dispose of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations and used fuel from commercial reactors. There is now about 100,000 metric tons of that waste spread around the country, with power plants generating another 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel each year.
While the 1982 law gave the Energy Department until Jan. 31, 1998, to begin disposal, the agency only in 2008 filed the license application for Yucca Mountain with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Obama administration defunded the entire proceeding two years later, and the application has been frozen in place since then.
In budget plans for 2018, 2019, and 2020, the Trump administration proposed to fund resumption of licensing at the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission – asking for about $150 million in the current budget. Congress rejected each bid.
President Donald Trump changed tack in February. Just days after he tweeted in support of Nevada’s opposition to taking other states’ nuclear waste, the Trump administration issued a new budget plan with nothing for Yucca Mountain and $27.5 million for the Interim Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program.
The funding is intended to support a “robust” program for waste storage, along with research and development of storage, transportation, and disposal technologies, “with a focus on systems deployable where there is a willingness to host,” the White House said in February.
In its budget justification for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, the Energy Department said it would use the money for scoping, planning, and development of a program for consolidated interim storage of nuclear waste. That would include beginning to look for storage locations; gathering data on existing waste inventories; and collaboration with local, state, and tribal governments.
While two corporate teams are already seeking federal licenses for interim storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico, the Energy Department has suggested it is not likely to work directly with them. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act as written allows the agency to take title to the radioactive waste only when a permanent repository is available.
The White House budget includes a line item for “Restart Nuclear Waste Fund fee in 2023.” The fund has a current balance of roughly $40 billion, generated primarily from fees on nuclear utilities. The Obama administration ended collections in 2014, based on a 2013 federal court order that highlighted the absence of a functioning nuclear waste management plan.
The Trump White House estimates the federal government could collect more than $300 million annually, beginning with $346 million in fiscal 2023 and settling at $325 million yearly from 2026 to 2030. That would generate more than $2.6 billion over eight years, according to White House figures.
The House bill makes no reference to resuming collections from the Nuclear Waste Fund.
Lawmakers from states still holding nuclear waste have pushed against the Trump administration’s retreat on Yucca Mountain. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose congressional district covers DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state, in March accused the administration of “playing politics” on the issue. Trump is up for re-election this year; Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton won in Nevada during the 2016 election, and the state leaned heavily Democratic in the 2018 midterms.
Whether any members of Congress will try to put money for Yucca Mountain back into the final budget is an open question. The Senate has long preferred interim storage as the means for expediting a solution to nuclear waste. While the GOP-led House backed the administration’s prior efforts to restart licensing for the repository, that ended once Democrats assumed the majority in January 2019.
For the current fiscal 2020, the House approved energy appropriations legislation with $47.5 million for integrated management of nuclear waste, including $25 million for interim storage. The Senate also backed language on storage, but the compromise bill approved in December gave nothing for storage or disposal.
Earlier in the 2020 appropriations process, House members from both parties made efforts to insert funding for Yucca Mountain licensing, but with no success.
“Frankly the state of play hasn’t really changed since last year: the Administration hasn’t asked for the money but a number of appropriators, especially those who represent states like Washington and Tennessee, continue to support funding the licensing process,” one Capitol Hill source told RadWaste Monitor. The source acknowledged in a Tuesday email, though, “An amendment at markup would probably face the same fate as last year.”
