The federal fund intended to pay for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., held $40.9 billion in U.S. Treasury securities at the end of fiscal 2019 on Sept. 30, according to the latest audit from the Department of Energy.
That was up from $39.2 billion in the Nuclear Waste Fund at the close of the preceding federal budget year, public accounting firm KPMG determined in the audit performed on behalf of the agency’s Office of Inspector General.
The fair value of the securities rose from $43.4 billion to $49.3 billion over the year, KPMG said in its report.
“The lower amounts are the amounts held at cost, which is what is included on the balance sheet,” an Energy Department spokesperson said by email on Nov. 26. “The fair value of the securities are required to be presented but are not on the balance sheet.”
The federal government through Sept. 30 had spent $11.4 billion from the Nuclear Waste Fund since its inception. That covered the Department of Energy’s work on the repository project, along with costs for the agency’s license application for the repository before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The department filed its application with the NRC in 2008, during the George W. Bush administration. However, the Obama administration defunded the proceeding just two years later. The Trump administration has, in successive budget cycles, failed to persuade Congress to appropriate money so the agencies can resume licensing.
The government is unlikely to make a large withdrawal from the fund in the current fiscal 2020. Congress appears set to reject the White House request for roughly $150 million to resume the long-stalled licensing proceeding.
“Funds to restart licensing activities for Yucca Mountain were requested in the FY 2018 and DY 2019 Budget Requests but not received,” the KPMG auditors’ report notes. “Similarly funds were requested in the FY 2020 Budget Request but significant funding for FY 2020 is unlikely.”
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act put the Energy Department in charge of disposal of what is now a national holding of roughly 100,000 metric tons of spent fuel from nuclear power plants and high-level defense waste. It also established the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for the disposal facility, which a 1987 amendment to the law directed be built at Yucca Mountain.
Nuclear utilities paid into the fund, with the federal government’s commitment under no few than 68 separate Standard Contracts that it would begin accepting their waste for disposal by Jan. 31, 1998. That has yet to happen, nearly 22 years past the deadline. The federal government has already paid more than $7 billion to utilities for breach of the contracts. Its remaining liability is estimated at $28.5 billion as of Sept. 30, a step up from $28.1 billion at the end of fiscal 2018, the audit says.
Cumulative billings to the spent-fuel holders, along with the congressional defense nuclear waste disposal appropriation, totaled $25.4 billion by the time the Obama administration stopped collecting fees under court order in May 2014. Almost that full amount came from fee revenue, the DOE spokesperson stated.
The fund has taken in another $29.5 billion in interest earnings and other revenue sources, such as the sale of securities.
NRC Nuclear Waste Fund Spending Remains Minimal
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in October spent $485 of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, leaving it with $405,992 absent further appropriations from Congress.
As has been the case for most of the year, the agency spent just a few hundred dollars on unspecified program planning and support, according to the its latest report to Congress on the status of the fund balance.
A federal appeals court in August 2013 ordered the NRC to resume work on the Energy Department license application, even though the agency was no longer pursuing the Yucca Mountain project. At the time the NRC had nearly $13.6 million available from the fund.
Since then, the NRC has spent $13.1 million of its balance, including nearly $8.4 million to finish a safety evaluation report for the licensing and just shy of $1.6 million to prepare a supplement for the environmental impact statement on Yucca Mountain.
That left the regulator with a $432,215 total balance as of Oct. 31, with $26,223 unspent but obligated, largely for contracts for the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses.
