Members of the House of Representatives have thrown early support in the latest budget process behind sustaining funding for the MOX project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, but their colleagues in the Senate are so far silent on whether they will also again back the controversial program.
The House version of the fiscal 2018 DOE funding bill, approved Wednesday by the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, would provide $340 million to continue building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) in South Carolina.
The United States agreed in a 2000 deal with Russia to use the MOX method to convert 34 metric tons of surplus nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into commercial reactor fuel. Russia agreed to do the same, but dropped out of the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement last year as the Obama administration targeted another means for eliminating the material.
The $340 million is the same amount the House called for last year as the Obama administration attempted to terminate the MOX project. Congress eventually granted $335 million in May as part of the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal 2017.
The Trump administration DOE has remained similarly intent on shuttering MOX, requesting $270 million in closure funding for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The Department of Energy would receive another $9 million to pursue its preferred alternative: diluting the plutonium at SRS and shipping the processed material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, N.M.
The change in approach is based largely on DOE projections that the MOX method would cost $51 billion over its lifetime – three times more than originally estimated when construction began in 2007. The agency has already spent $5 billion on the project. It estimates downblending would cost $17 billion over its lifetime.
Some of the more powerful and outspoken members of the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee are not yet revealing their thoughts on MOX as the panel readies to craft its own version of the DOE funding legislation.
Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has not set a schedule for marking up the energy portion of the spending bill, according to spokeswoman Liz Wolgemuth. The senator has been critical of MOX in the past due to its reported rising costs, but did not offer any new comment on the issue when asked about it last week. Instead, Wolgemuth provided Alexander’s June 14 comments on MOX during a hearing with Frank Klotz, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) administrator.
The senator referenced his call for a Red Team review of the MOX project in 2015. That assessment revealed that MOX construction would cost $800 million to $1 billion a year to be viable, while downblending would cost just $500 million annually. “The Red Team also found that the Dilute and Disposal Alternative would get the plutonium out of South Carolina faster than the MOX project,” Alexander wrote in his statement to Klotz. “Your budget request proposes termination of the MOX project and includes $9 million to build additional facilities for the Dilute and Disposal Alternative.”
The ranking Democrat on the Appropriations panel, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), has also been critical of MOX. Similar to Alexander, Feinstein’s office did not offer new thoughts on her stance. However, the office provided a link to last year’s markup of the fiscal 2017 energy and water bill in which Feinstein expressed her concerns. “This is a problem, where projects start in the hundreds of millions of dollars and end up in billions,” she said at the time. “MOX is at an all-time high in terms of the billions it would cost.”
South Carolina’s two senators, Republicans Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, previously expressed their disapproval of Trump’s attempt to kill MOX. In an emailed statement, Scott’s press secretary, Michele Perez, wrote, “Sen. Scott remains supportive of the MOX facility receiving the funding necessary to carry out its intended mission. MOX is the only facility that fully meets the provisions of our nonproliferation treaty, and we will continue working to push this important project forward.”
Graham could not be reached for comment. But following the May release of the proposal, Graham said he had hoped the trump administration would steer clear of Obama’s attempts to nix the project. “Instead, it appears they are doubling down,” Graham said. “(The budget violates) an important international nonproliferation agreement. And it fails to account for the political opposition, on both sides of the aisle, that is likely to occur and will undoubtedly result in extended delays.
