The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June continued to spend next to nothing from its remaining balance from the federal fund intended to pay for a nuclear waste disposal facility.
The agency spent only $479 from the Nuclear Waste Fund for unspecified “program planning and support,” according to its latest monthly report to Congress.
“While there are no significant actions to report for the month, the NRC provided limited program planning and support activities that resulted in nominal expenditures,” commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki wrote in a July 25 letter submitted with the report to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and other lawmakers in both chambers of Congress.
Svinicki used identical language in her letters for the NRC updates for May, in which the agency spent $639 from the fund; April, in which it spent $939; March, in which it spent $128; and February, in which it spent $1,249. In the update for January, in which the NRC spent $4,073 from the fund, Svinicki also noted costs for “federal court litigation activities.”
The June expenditure left the NRC with a $408,743 unused, unobligated balance from the fund.
The agency in 2008 received a license application from the Department of Energy to build and operate a geologic repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev., for spent nuclear power reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Obama administration in 2010 cut off funding for the licensing process. However, a federal judge in August 2013 ordered the NRC to resume its proceeding.
Since then, the industry regulator has spent just over $13.1 million of the nearly $13.6 million it had on hand at the time. The largest expenditure was $8.4 million to finish a safety evaluation report for the license application, followed by $1.6 million for an environmental impact statement supplement and $1.1 million to transfer documents from the licensing into its online documents library.
