A subprogram responsible for consent-based siting of spent nuclear fuel from power plants would drop by more than half if a bill approved this week by the House Appropriations committee becomes law.
The Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS) within the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy would get $25 million for fiscal year 2025, $30 million less than the 2024 appropriation and $28 million less than requested, according to a detailed bill report published this week by the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee.
The full House Appropriations Committee approved the bill in a markup Tuesday, largely along party lines. The subcommittee did not explain the proposed cut in its bill report. The bill was not scheduled for a floor vote at deadline for RadWaste Monitor, though the House Rules Committee was scheduled to begin writing rules for appropriations bills the week of July 15.
Among other things, IWMS is in the early stages of designing a federally operated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Last week, the Office of Nuclear Energy released a request for information about a 10-year contract to design and operate that facility, which pending a change in federal law could open by 2040 or so, DOE officials have said.
IWMS also handles DOE’s consent-based siting program: the agency’s effort to find a willing host community for radioactive waste repositories. So far, this program has split $26 million in grant money among 13 groups to help the agency define the meaning of consent.
Overall under the bill, the Office of Nuclear Energy would get almost $1.8 billion for the 2025 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. That is roughly what it got for fiscal-year 2024 and roughly $100 million more than requested.
As it did last year, the subcommittee proposed more funding than requested for some advanced reactor programs at the Office of Nuclear Energy.
Advanced Reactor Research, Development and Demonstration would be the big winner under the subcommittee’s bill at $221 million, almost triple the request and more than double the 2024 appropriation. The 2025 appropriation would include $100 million for a competition to fund up to two companies seeking to develop and license small modular reactors.
On the office’s top line, those unrequested increases and others would more than make up for the subcommittee’s proposed cuts at IWMS and elsewhere.
