Despite chatter in recent weeks on Capitol Hill, it appeared unlikely Tuesday that Congress would provide the Department of Energy with funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in a federal appropriations bill needed to keep a number of federal agencies open past Friday.
“Members and staff are working on completing [the] year-end spending bill, but no one has raised Yucca funding in the bipartisan, bicameral negotiations,” a congressional aide said Tuesday afternoon.
Shortly afterward, Politico quoted Senate Appropriations energy and water committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) as saying it would be “very difficult” to address Yucca Mountain in the funding legislation.
Appropriators are preparing a follow-on bill to the continuing resolution funding the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies, which expires at midnight Friday. The Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, respectively the applicant and licensor for the long-planned disposal site in Nevada, already have full funding for fiscal 2019. But they got nothing for Yucca Mountain for the budget year ending Sept. 30, 2019.
Politico reported Monday that DOE recommended congressional appropriators authorize Energy Secretary Rick Perry in that bill to use as much as $120 million in unobligated funds from several offices to resume Yucca activities. Alexander came back with a plan for $70 million, Politico reported Tuesday evening and a spokesman for the senator confirmed: $60 million for Yucca at DOE and the NRC, plus $10 million for interim storage.
Earlier in the day, an informed source said that while Alexander had supported some funding for Yucca Mountain, Senate Appropriations energy and water committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) appeared to remain opposed. At the time, the source said he saw a 50-percent chance that the program would end up in the appropriations bill.
