U.S. Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) last week again introduced legislation to reauthorize the Department of Energy’s West Valley Demonstration Project in New York.
The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), was filed Feb. 11 and assigned to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. As of Thursday, the text has not been received for the reauthorization bill, H.R.1138, according to Congress.gov.
The legislation essentially revives a bill from Reed that passed the House but did not make it through the Senate during the last Congress that ended on Jan. 3, the Post-Journal newspaper in New York reported Wednesday.
The updated version of Reed’s original bill would set West Valley cleanup funding at $75 million per year through fiscal 2028 and have the Government Accountability Office prepare a report on radioactive waste at the site. The final fiscal 2019 DOE budget did fund West Valley at $75 million, $14 million more than sought by the Trump administration.
The version that passed the House, however, lacked Reed’s initial language to designate radioactive waste at the site as defense-related. Roughly 34,000 cubic feet of waste is now stranded at West Valley; New York state says the material has similar traits to defense-related transuranic waste disposed of at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The Energy Department has taken the position that the West Valley waste is not defense-related and therefore not eligible to go to WIPP.
The state-owned West Valley site takes up about 200 acres of the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. West Valley was home to a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant from 1966 to 1972.
