The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in August continued to spend little of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund – just $863, leaving it with an unobligated tranche of $407,176.
The money was used for unspecified program planning and support, according to the agency’s latest spending report to Congress.
As of Aug. 31, the NRC had spent over $13.1 million of the more than $13.5 million it had on hand in August 2013 from the federal fund intended to pay for construction and operation of a repository for high-level radioactive waste and used reactor fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants.
The NRC in 2008 received the Department of Energy license application for the planned deep geological repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The Obama administration defunded the proceeding two years later. However, a federal appeals court in August 2013 ordered the federal nuclear regulator to resuming the licensing process.
Major expenditures since then have included $8.3 million for completing a safety evaluation report for the license application and nearly $1.6 million for a supplement to the environmental impact statement on licensing. Program planning and support costs as of August totaled $506,410.
The NRC has acknowledged that it would not be able to complete the licensing proceeding unless Congress appropriates additional money from the Nuclear Waste Fund. Congress has already rejected the Trump administration’s requests for funding to resume licensing in fiscal 2018 and the just-completed fiscal 2019. While Congress has not finalized its fiscal 2020 budget yet, relying on a stopgap spending bill through Nov. 21, appropriators in both chambers have already zeroed out the administration’s latest request for Yucca Mountain licensing money.
The NRC has not spent more than $1,000 from its Nuclear Waste Fund balance since February.
The fund’s total balance at the end of fiscal 2018 was $38.8 billion.
