Two top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday requested that Energy Secretary Rick Perry re-establish the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCWRM), so that the Energy Department will again have an office dedicated solely to nuclear waste policy.
Prior to its defunding in fiscal 2011, OCWRM was the DOE entity charged with carrying out the department’s obligation under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to establish a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste — designated in 1987 to be Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The White House last week included $120 million in its fiscal 2018 budget proposal to restart the Yucca Mountain licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as support a “robust” interim storage program. Energy and Commerce holds congressional jurisdiction over nuclear waste management.
Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and environment subcomittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) wrote in a letter to Perry that resuming Yucca Mountain licensing “is a critical step towards fixing a broken” nuclear waste management system. The lawmakers contended that disposing of nuclear waste demands a dedicated office, so DOE’s nuclear waste program is not competing with other nuclear priorities within the Office of Nuclear Energy, where OCWRM’s remaining responsibilities were shifted following its defunding.
DOE did not respond to a request for comment.
Walden and Shimkus also asked Perry to walk back the Obama administration’s 2015 determination that DOE needs to build a separate deep-geological repository for high-level waste produced during the Cold War arms race with Russia. “We believe you should reassess the cost and schedule estimates that served as a basis for the 2015 decision, which GAO recently identified as areas of concern,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter to Perry.
The Obama administration proposed the Defense Waste Repository after determining DOE needed separate storage sites for defense and commercial nuclear waste. The Trump administration has not formally declared its intentions on the project, but moving to revive the Yucca Mountain project is a strong hint.
In a draft plan released in December, Obama’s DOE projected that it would cost about $3 billion over 11 years to locate a suitable site for defense waste. Republicans have repeatedly pointed to a Government Accountability Office report released in February that said the previous administration’s overall estimated price tag for the repository was significantly off – possibly to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
Walden and Shimkus also addressed consolidated interim storage for nuclear waste. The Obama administration’s alternative strategy to Yucca Mountain focused on a consent-based siting process that envisioned using interim storage sites leading up to the operation of one or more permanent repositories by 2048. Two private companies, Waste Control Specialists and Holtec International, are pursuing Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses to operate storage facilities that could together hold 160,000 metric tons of spent fuel in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, respectively. Though the focus has shifted to Yucca Mountain licensing efforts, Republicans appear willing to support the pursuit of consolidated interim storage, as well. Shimkus in February announced plans to introduce legislation before the August recess that would restart the licensing process, while also supporting interim storage efforts.
“If the Department determined that an interim storage facility is necessary, we expect you will work with us to amend the NWPA to allow a program to move forward in a way that protects national interests, protects taxpayers, and does not interfere with the long-standing policy that SNF and HLW must be permanently disposed of in a repository,” the Walden-Shimkus letter reads.
The lawmakers also requested that DOE provide funding to the state of Nevada and the Nye County Commission for technical activities associated with Yucca Mountain licensing, pointing to $20 million in unobligated funding in previously appropriated DOE nuclear waste disposal accounts. Yucca Mountain is located in Nye County, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
“We encourage you to provide targeted financial resources to (affected units of local governments), which would be a positive step towards building a constructive dialogue with Nevadan stakeholders,” the letter reads.
Nevada Reaffirms Opposition to Yucca Mountain
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt on Monday endorsed a legislative resolution reaffirming the state’s opposition to storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. The resolution was introduced in the Nevada Legislature last week, around the time that the White House released its fiscal 2018 budget proposal.
“The Nevada Legislature calls on Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy, to find the proposed repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain unsuitable, to abandon consideration of Yucca Mountain as a repository site, and to initiate a process whereby the nation can again engage in innovative and ultimately successful strategies for dealing with the problems of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste,” the resolution reads.
Laxalt and the state’s Agency for Nuclear Projects last week requested $7.2 million in funding over the next two years to defend the state in the licensing proceedings. The funding would cover the cost of technical experts and legal costs required for a potential licensing restart with the NRC. The agency has said it plans to fully adjudicate some 300 contentions in opposition to the license application. That includes 218 that were submitted to the NRC in previous proceedings and 30 to 50 new items. The contentions challenge Yucca Mountain’s site suitability, disposal concept, groundwater impacts, rail access, and impacts on Las Vegas.
Anti-Yucca Mountain officials in Nevada have argued that DOE’s defense of the repository’s license application before the NRC will be a colossal waste of time and money. The agency estimates DOE will need $1.7 billion in funding and the NRC $330 million to complete the licensing process. That process, the agency believes, will take 400 hearing days over a four- to five-year span.
The agency on Monday also commented on the department’s draft plan for a Defense Waste Repository, stating that DOE’s commitment to consent-based siting for the DWR does not change Nevada’s opposition to Yucca Mountain.
“Governor Brian Sandoval has clearly stated that Nevada will not consent to disposal of commercial or defense spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in Nevada, whether combined or disposed separately,” the agency’s letter to DOE reads.
Nevada implored DOE to follow nuclear waste strategies laid out in 2012 by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, as well as DOE’s draft document for consent-based siting, which the department released in January 2017.
