The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission intends to conduct some portion of the potentially resumed proceeding on licensing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., in the state, NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki told Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) in a recent letter.
Svinicki responded on May 19 to a letter earlier in the month from Nevada’s senior senator on the location for the adjudicatory proceeding, should it receive the necessary federal funding to resume. Lawmakers and other officials in Nevada have argued the state should host the adjudication.
“Please be assured that with respect to proceedings on the Yucca Mountain construction authorization application, the NRC intends to follow its longstanding practice that adjudicatory proceedings be held in the general area of the proposed facility to the extent practicable,” Svinicki wrote. “Presiding Atomic Safety and Licensing Boards may hold limited portions of a proceeding at NRC headquarters in Rockville, MD, or by telephone or video conference. Such circumstances may, for instance, involve scheduling or case management matters or matters involving classified information or Safeguards Information.”
The George W. Bush administration Energy Department filed its license application with the NRC in 2008, and the Obama administration suspended the proceeding two years later.
A number of Atomic Safety and Licensing Board sessions of the adjudicatory hearing were conducted at a hearing facility near McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas before the process was suspended, an NRC spokesman said Friday. However, that site was later decommissioned, so a new location or locations would be needed.
The Trump administration has in its two budget proposals requested funds for DOE and the NRC to resume the licensing process. The omnibus budget for the current fiscal 2018 did not include any money for Yucca Mountain. Congress so far is split on the fiscal 2019 request: House appropriators have recommended $100 million more than DOE’s nearly $170 million request, while their Senate counterparts have offered no money for the program.
