The federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) is requesting a $2 million increase to its annual budget as it eyes added authority.
The small agency’s spending cap has held steady at $3.6 million since fiscal 2016. But in the congressional budget justification for the upcoming 2021 funding year, it asked for $5.6 million. Much of that would be used to hire four new staffers.
“The Board’s Budget Request reflects its proposed expanded authority and continued strong commitment to sound budgeting and cost-effective management practices and the focus of the Board’s leadership on maximizing program performance and efficiency through evidence-based decision making and ongoing evaluation of the agency’s performance,” the 19-page justification says.
While this would be a significant plus-up for the board, it is small in comparison to other agencies with missions involving nuclear waste. The Nuclaer Regulatory Commission is asking for more than $860 million for fiscal 2021, while DOE’s Office of Environmental Management requested $6.1 billion to continue cleanup of 16 contaminated nuclear-weapon sites.
Details of the NWTRB’s added authority were limited. It would be derived from a legislative proposal, the justification says, and would involve using staff specialties in fields such the geosciences, material sciences, and engineering to provide “independent analyses and other activities as appropriate.”
Board Executive Director Nigel Mote on Thursday referred questions on the proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
In an email statement Friday, a senior administration official said: “The President’s Budget takes a new direction, instead of funding the licensing of a repository at Yucca Mountain, we emphasize research and development to explore alternative solutions to the waste management problem. The NWTRB can help inform that discussion with independent technical analyses and reviews. Additional funding and authority will enable those activities.”
The 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act established the NWTRB to provide technical and scientific peer review regarding management and disposal operations at the Department of Energy for high-level radioactive waste and used nuclear fuel. That included packaging and transport of waste, along with DOE’s development of a permanent repository for the material as required by the law.
The focus was on the Yucca Mountain disposal project in Nevada for over two decades. The Obama administration defunded that program 10 years ago and it has remained frozen since, leaving the federal government without an active strategy for disposal of tens of thousands of tons of waste stored around the country. The Trump administration failed in three budget plans through 2020 to persuade Congress to resume appropriations for licensing the repository. For 2021, it is instead asking for up to $27.5 million for work on interim storage of waste.
The NWTRB has since 2013 focused on Energy Department research on waste performance in a repository and integration of the waste management system. Its findings are submitted to Congress and the Energy Department.
The board itself currently consists of up to 11 part-time members with science and engineering backgrounds, plus a roughly equal number of professional staff. It generally conducts to to three meetings each year to discuss technical issues related to waste management, and issues reports on various topics – most recently, in January, on the value of underground laboratories in DOE geologic disposal research and development.
The augmented mission would require three additional professional staff members and one General Schedule employee for fiscal 2021, according to the budget justification. That would add $580,000 to its salary expenses, to a total of $2.7 million for the year starting Oct. 1.
Other added expenses would grow out of the expanded staffing and mission, such as: another $182,000, to $748,000, for personnel benefits; $210,000 more, to $335,000, for travel and transportation for meetings and other activities; and an extra $170,000, to $250,000, for consultants.
The NWTRB is advancing efforts to meet three objectives laid out in a strategic plan for 2018 to 2022: continue to provide Congress and the Energy Department with evaluations and recommendations on DOE operations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act; develop objective data to assist policy-makers in issues of management of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste; and provide those same clients with determinations and recommendations based on decades of review of waste management programs in the United States and abroad.
Within those objectives, the budget justification lists performance goals for fiscal years 2020 and 2021. They include:
- This year, conduct public meetings on Energy Department research and development of packaging, drying, and storage of spent nuclear fuel, as well as the possibility of direct disposal of dual-use storage and transport canisters of spent nuclear fuel.
- This year, complete reports on performance of high-burnup spent nuclear fuel during long-term dry storage and transportation, the implications of employing large canisters for dry storage of used fuel, and reviewing its prior findings from 2016 through 2018.
- Into 2021, exchange technical data with officials in Finland and other countries about their development of deep geologic repositories for spent nuclear fuel or high-level waste.
