Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
12/5/2014
The Nuclear Waste Fund grew $3.2 billion from fiscal year 2013 to fiscal year 2014 despite the hiatus in the collection of the NWF fee, according to the annual audit conducted by the Department of Energy’s Inspect General Office, released this week. The fund currently stands at $39.8 billion, up from $36.6 billion reported in last year’s audit. The $3.2 billion increase marks a substantial growth in the fund— especially considering the fund stopped collecting fees in May. Last year, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, along with the Nuclear Energy Institute, successfully petitioned a federal appeals court to eliminate the fee due to DOE’s failure to make progress in its waste management program. The fee amounted to one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt hour of energy generated by nuclear power, and was mandated under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to pay for the ultimate disposal of spent fuel in a repository, designated as Yucca Mountain. According to the audit, the increase included $1.4 billion in interest generated from investment income and net gains from the maturity of securities.
The audit also included a list of liabilities that may affect the Fund, with the large amount of pending court payouts for violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act topping the list. According to the NWPA, DOE is responsible for disposing of spent nuclear fuel from reactor sites, but because it has not done so, DOE has had to pay damages to utility companies. “The industry is reported to estimate that damages for all utilities with which the Department has contracts ultimately will be at least $50 billion,” the audit says. “The Department believes that the industry’s estimate is highly inflated and that the disposition of the 66 cases that have either been settled or subject to a judgment in the trial court suggests that the Government’s ultimate liability is likely to be significantly less than that estimate. Accordingly, based on these settlement estimates, the total liability estimate as of September 30, 2014 was $27.1 billion.”
After subtracting the payouts to utilities that have already occurred— approximately $4.5 billion according to the report—DOE estimates it will have $22.6 billion in liabilities due to its failure to dispose of spent fuel. A Government Accountability Office report from last month found that DOE has an estimated price tag for its liabilities, but it is based on the Department making progress on spent fuel disposal by 2021, the date an interim pilot facility should be in operation, according to DOE’s waste management strategy. The Department, however, cannot move forward with siting or licensing a location without Congressional approval, which has proven to be difficult to attain.
