The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee voted Wednesday to recommend the Government Accountability Office (GAO) prepare a report on the types of radioactive waste at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, but stopped short of saying the material should be deemed defense-related.
The panel approved, by voice vote, an amended version of legislation proposed by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) to authorize the site’s funding to $75 million annually through fiscal 2028. The original Reed version would have designated the site’s waste as coming from “atomic energy defense activities” as defined by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. While defense-related transuranic waste is sent to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, commercial waste at WVDP lacks an obvious disposal path, according to New York officials.
The amendment from subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) sustained the funding level. However, it deleted the defense waste language and instead solely called for a GAO study.
“I want to express my disappointment that we are ignoring the crux of the issue,” said subcommittee Ranking Member Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), who once led the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which manages West Valley. He said talks between the state and the Energy Department have “languished” for years over whether the waste is commercial or defense-related.
Another committee Democrat, Frank Pallone (N.J.), said in a written statement the Shimkus amendment “removes the heart of the bill.”
Shimkus, however, said the issue of potentially stranded waste at West Valley is part of a national problem with nuclear waste, which requires a national solution. Shimkus is a leader of the House GOP effort to revive the long-planned, still-unlicensed Yucca Mountain repository for commercial and defense waste.
The report, due within two years of the bill’s passage, would detail what types and volumes of radioactive waste are at West Valley and options for its disposal, along with cost data. The measure will now go to the full Energy and Commerce Committee.
“NYSERDA is disappointed that the majority chose to strike the provision of the bill and opted to have the Government Accounting Office conduct another study on West Valley waste and disposal path,” said an authority spokesperson said in a Thursday email. “We support any efforts to showcase the clear defense origin of West Valley waste and strongly believe that the West Valley waste is most accurately characterized as defense waste, since ‘atomic energy defense activities’ as defined in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), were conducted at West Valley.”
The 1980 West Valley Demonstration Act put the Energy Department in charge of cleanup of the site where a company, Nuclear Fuel Services operated a facility for spent fuel reprocessing from about 1966 to 1972. As it was not a government plant, West Valley is not considered part of the Cold War nuclear weapons program, although much of its waste came from defense reactors.
There are 278 casks of high-level radioactive waste now on an interim storage pad at West Valley that await construction of a federal repository.
NYSERDA General Counsel Noah Shaw told the same House subcommittee last month 34,000 cubic feet of what the state considers TRU waste is currently stranded at West Valley with no clear path to permanent disposal.
It was the second setback in two weeks for congressional efforts to rebrand the West Valley waste as defense related. An amendment to a Senate spending package last week from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) failed to get a vote.
The West Valley Demonstration Project occupies about 200 acres of the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center.
