The director of the Idaho national laboratory was one of four witnesses set to testify Wednesday before a House subcommittee in a hearing about spent nuclear fuel.
The House Energy climate, and grid security subcommittee was set to gavel in at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time in Washington for a hearing titled “American Nuclear Energy Expansion: Spent Fuel Policy and Innovation.”
John Wagner, director of the Idaho National Laboratory, was the first listed witness for the hearing, which was scheduled to stream online at the committee’s website.
The other three witnesses are:
Lake Barrett, former principal deputy director of the Department of Energy’s now-defunct Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
Daniel Stetson, Chair of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Community Engagement Panel.
Greg White, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
Among the questions lawmakers planned to ask at the hearing, according to a hearing memo from its Republican majority members, was “[w]hat do the prospects of expanding nuclear deployment mean for spent nuclear fuel management and disposal?” and “What is necessary for durable, effective implementation of the legal requirements of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act?”
The act, as written, requires permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., something that even some in industry have said is now highly unlikely if not impossible after more than a decade of inaction following the Barack Obama administration’s decision not to apply for a license for the facility.
The act also forbids construction of a federally operated interim storage facility for spent fuel before the government opens a permanent repository.
