Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
6/20/2014
After years of trying, the Department of Energy may be moving closer to realizing a goal of getting new funding for the federal Uranium Enrichment D&D Fund, which helps cover cleanup costs at the Paducah, Portsmouth and Oak Ridge sites. The Senate version of the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, reported out of subcommittee this week, would implement a DOE proposal to reauthorize both federal and industry contributions to the fund. While details of the Senate bill have not yet been made public, DOE’s proposal calls for a maximum annual contribution to fund of no more than $663 million, of which no more than $200 million would be paid by utilities. The House version of the FY 2015 energy spending bill, though, does not include language reauthorizing the fund.
Authorization for the uranium enrichment D&D fund expired in 2007. The fund was to last for 15 years, with utilities to contribute a total of $2.5 billion and DOE to contribute a total of $4.95 billion. Utilities wrapped up paying their obligations to the fund in 2007. In recent years, DOE has repeatedly proposed a reauthorization of the fund and both federal and industry contributions. Such proposals have been met with strong opposition, though, from the nuclear industry and some lawmakers, and have never moved forward.
In a letter sent to the heads of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee this week, the Nuclear Energy Institute reiterated its opposition to a reauthorization of industry contributions to the fund. “Not only is there no justification for further taxing nuclear utility ratepayers, there is no need for additional revenues at this time. The uranium decontamination and decommissioning trust fund has a balance of $4 billion; funds are available,” wrote NEI Senior Vice President for Governmental Affairs Alex Flint. He added, “In past years, when the Administration has proposed to reinstate this tax, the Congress has wisely rejected it because it is unjustifiable, retroactive, and industry has already paid twice.”
House Appropriators Want Plan for Paducah D&D
Meanwhile, House appropriators are pushing back against the Department of Energy’s current plan to put the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant into a long-term surveillance-and-maintenance state once it’s returned from USEC, and instead are directing the Department to submit information that “clearly describes” DOE’s anticipated time line for decommissioning the plant. “The Department is obligated to decommission and decontaminate the gaseous diffusion plant and other structures at the Paducah site in a timely fashion, but has done a poor job of explaining its future cleanup plans to the Committee, stakeholders and the public. The Committee does not support placing the gaseous diffusion plant in a cold and dark state,” says the report accompanying the House version of the FY 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The text of the report was released this week.
The House bill would match DOE’s FY 2015 request of approximately $207 million for D&D activities at Paducah. The House report also notes, though, that DOE also plans to carryover $107 million in funding at Paducah into next year, which would give the Department a total of approximately $314 million. The report would direct DOE to provide appropriations with a plan within 30 days that “clearly describes the anticipated time line for decontamination and decommissioning of the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant and that includes the Department’s five-year projected cost and schedule planning assumptions for accomplishing work at the site.
