SEN. WYDEN: MORE DETAILS COMING SOON ON NUKE WASTE BILL

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Friday that “in a week or two” he plans to discuss in detail plans for nuclear waste legislation. Wyden has been developing the legislation with Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). The bill will respond to recommendations from the Administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, and Wyden said that last week he met with former BRC members Richard Meserve and Brent Scowcroft. “I’m starting to meet with senators on both sides of the aisle on it. I do think we will have more to say about nuclear waste here shortly,” Wyden said Friday at an event held by the law firm Arent Fox and Georgetown University.   

Wyden did outline the two issues in the legislation that he believed would be most controversial. “The two issues that are going to generate most of the discussion from the Congress are going to be the link between interim storage and a permanent repository and there will be discussions about a permanent management structure with discussion about whether it be an independent, alternative kind of agency,” he said. While leaders in the House have said that they would oppose any legislation that does not include the Yucca Mountain repository as an option, Wyden suggested that the legislation could leave room for Yucca supporters. “No matter what your views are with respect to Yucca, the country is going to need more than one permanent repository,” Wyden said. “So nobody has got to set aside their views with respect to Yucca to be part of an effort that we are trying to build in the Senate in a bipartisan fashion. So I’m not asking any House member to do anything at this point.”