The following interview with Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) was conducted April 29 by ExchangeMonitor Editor-in-Chief Mike Nartker.

WC Monitor
5/8/2015

We’re right in the midst of appropriations season. As your subcommittee is working on its version of the FY 2016 energy and water bill, what are going to be your top priorities when it comes to funding for the Department of Energy, especially in terms of the DOE cleanup program and the National Nuclear Security Administration?

Well, there should be some continuity over the last several years because Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and I work well together and we have many of the same priorities. The Office of Science is a priority which supports all the laboratories. Exascale computing, that is something that the administration and we have agreed with. Support for ARPA-E, which was recommended by the America COMPETES legislation, and which I think has a promising opportunity for clean, lower cost energy. And then, of course, the cleanup money both for sites like Hanford and Oak Ridge and other places.

The Uranium Processing Facility is finally under a reasonable design and construction level with a funding cap and a targeted date for completion. And that’s a great improvement over where it was a few years ago. And the administration has recommended continued funding of it. Of course about half our budget has to do with national defense. And that includes the Uranium Processing Facility and it includes the modernization of nuclear weapons and it includes nuclear nonproliferation.

One area that Senator Feinstein and I agree on and we’ve inserted into the appropriations bill the last two Congresses is to try to end the stalemate on disposal of nuclear waste. We want to follow the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on that subject. And we put a pilot program into the Senate version of the appropriations bill for the last two years to try to move forward with repositories that will begin the process of moving spent fuel from existing sites, especially those sites where the reactors are now not operating.

Would it be fair to say that an interim storage pilot program will again be in this year’s bill?

Yes, yes.

I know, of course, there’s always been a kind of back-and-forth with your House counterparts who seem to be much more in favor of pushing forward Yucca Mountain. House appropriators have not backed the interim storage approach in their version of the FY16 spending bill and instead went with funding for Yucca Mountain. How do you reach a compromise where there could be a greater likelihood this year that the pilot program moves forward?

We need the pilot program whether or not we have Yucca Mountain because we have enough used fuel around the country that if we open Yucca Mountain it would basically fill it up. But in my view, Yucca Mountain needs to be a part of the solution to resolving the 25-year-old nuclear stalemate on used nuclear fuel. And there’s no excuse –in my view—for not moving ahead with Yucca Mountain as the House has recommended and the court has ordered. We hear a lot of talk from many Senators about the importance of following the science. Well, if science says that climate change is real and that Yucca Mountain is safe for a million years, then we ought to follow the science in both subjects.

For those who care about climate change there’s no better way to deal with that than to continue to have nuclear reactors which provide 60 percent of our carbon-free electricity. And without them it’s hard for me to see how we could deal with whatever contribution human activity is making to climate change. So we have a difference of opinion on that in the Senate.

And I’m going to continue to say that Yucca Mountain should be part of the solution while at the same time pushing for the pilot programs. And the House has a similar position to mine but a different one than most Senate Democrats. So that’s not resolved yet. We’ll see where it goes this year.

Do you think the impending retirement of your colleague, Senator Harry Reid, might help reopen the Yucca Mountain debate in the Senate? He’s probably the most ardent opponent of Yucca Mountain and has fought very hard to prevent that project from moving forward.

We’ll have to wait and see. Senator Dean Heller (R-Nev.) also feels strongly about it and he has great respect within the Senate. The bottom line is we’re going to get rid of the defense waste which is piled up at Hanford, and we’re going to get rid of the nuclear waste which is piled up in California reactors that are now closed. We’re going to have to take some steps, and Yucca Mountain ought to be part of the solution. And if the law says to do it and if science says it’s safe for a million years, there’s really no excuse for not making it a part of the solution. So, I can continue to advocate that and we’ll see where it goes.

What was your reaction to the Department of Energy’s position to pursue separate paths for defense-related nuclear waste and commercial spent fuel? Is that going to make it easier, in your opinion, to pursue an interim storage approach, or does it make things more difficult by separating these materials out for potentially different disposal programs?

Well, it creates another promising option. It’s an option that the bipartisan legislation that Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and I and Feinstein and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have introduced explicitly allows. It’s a recommendation of the bipartisan commission. So the secretary is clearly within his authority to do that. And as we look at disposing of nuclear fuel I think we should look at all options –that’s one.

Another option—and one which may be the most promising in terms of being available the fastest—is the simple application by a private storage facility to get a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and open up for storage. There’s one such application being prepared for West Texas which would have about half the capacity of Yucca Mountain.

So when you take the private repositories which are already authorized by law, the pilot program which is in our appropriations bill, the long-term legislation which four of the senators have proposed, and the existence of Yucca Mountain, there are several tracks for solving this problem. And I think if we want to have nuclear power in this country, which is 20 percent of our electricity and 60 percent of our clean electricity, we’ve got to have a place to store the waste and we’ve got to deal with it now.

With the growing interest by commercial firms in pursuing interim storage facilities, is there anything that Congress needs to do legislatively to allow that to move forward?

Well, we’re examining that. As it stands, the law allows those facilities to apply for licenses, and once they get a license, to operate. If there are other steps that we could take to make it more likely that a private storage facility could succeed, I’m certainly open to that because I want as many good, safe options for disposing of used nuclear fuel as possible.

Obviously one of the big issues that the Department of Energy’s cleanup program has been grappling with over the last year is the shutdown of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which impacts a number of cleanup sites, including Oak Ridge, that have transuranic waste now stuck in place until that facility is reopened. There have been a series of reports on WIPP that have found a host of failures with oversight both by the contractor that manages the facility and federal employees. Do you think the Department of Energy has done a good enough job in holding people accountable for what happened and in pursuing the reopening of the WIPP facility?

What happened at WIPP is very disappointing. It’s kind of like pilot error in an airplane crash. It’s pretty clear that someone made mistakes that they shouldn’t have made and weren’t that complicated to do and that never should have happened. So I’ve talked with Secretary Moniz about it and I’m sure that he is doing everything he can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

I know you’ve been very outspoken and concerned about need to address mercury contamination at Oak Ridge. How would you assess how DOE has done so far in that area? What more would you like to see the Department do?

I appreciate what the Department has done so far. I’m concerned about mercury especially because Oak Ridge is in such a highly populated area. And the House budget includes $9.4 million to build the mercury treatment facility which is really step one to cleaning up the mercury around Oak Ridge. So I’m encouraged by that.

You’re a supporter of the ‘Red Team’ concept the Department of Energy used to come up with a new approach for the UPF expected to help control costs for that project. Is there a need for legislation to direct DOE to perform similar reviews for all of its major projects throughout the Department that also may be experiencing cost-and-schedule challenges?

Well, I think we should take these projects one by one because they’re all different. I would hope legislation wouldn’t be needed. We didn’t need legislation for Red Team. That was just a suggestion that Secretary Moniz and the Department carried out and they paid attention to it. So I think it’s much better done if we work with the Department and suggest Red Teams where they’re appropriate and the Department does them and pays attention to the results. If legislation is needed to get that done we can do that. But we have a good working relationship with Secretary Moniz and if we need a Red Team activity either on a construction project or a cleanup project, my guess is that he’ll do it on his own.

Lastly, there appears to be growing concern over the post-DOE employment of former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman. A number of questions have been raised about his position as CEO of Centrus Energy, formerly USEC, which has received significant support from DOE. Are you concerned about the former deputy secretary’s new position and how it may impact decisions related to the American Centrifuge technology that Centrus is trying to develop with Oak Ridge National Lab?

Well, we’ve asked the Department of Energy to provide additional information. There are specific rules about how to deal with this and if he’s followed the rules, that’s not a problem. But we’re still reviewing it.