Senate Energy Cancels Nuke Waste Hearing

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee canceled last week the Aug. 4 hearing to discuss the bipartisan Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2015. No reason for the cancellation was given, but the committee’s priorities have focused on the comprehensive energy package meant to update the nation’s energy infrastructure and policies. The bill was introduced by Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D- Wash.), along with Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), as an effort to overhaul the nation’s nuclear waste management strategy. The bill includes language that would create a new federal waste management organization to take over spent nuclear fuel disposal from the Department of Energy, allow the construction of a consent-based pilot interim storage facility, and establish a new working capital fund in the U.S. Treasury where fees collected from the utilities would be deposited and which would not depend on the approval of Congressional appropriators. It also would provide DOE the ability to build additional consolidated interim storage facilities within 10 years, but after 10 years a site for a permanent repository would need to be selected.