The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a fiscal 2019 funding bill that provides nothing for development of the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository, instead again backing consolidated interim storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear reactors.
The $43.8 billion energy spending measure, covering the Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other agencies, could go to the Senate floor in June, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested during the committee markup session.
The panel approved the legislation just two days after it moved out of the Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee. In comments Thursday, subcommittee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) noted this is the sixth consecutive such bill to include language on establishing a pilot program for consent-based, interim storage of used nuclear fuel.
She acknowledged the ongoing dispute between the two chambers of Congress on whether to move forward with development of the long-planned repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the energy and water bill with nearly $270 million for DOE and the NRC to resume licensing proceedings for Yucca Mountain — $100 million more than the Trump administration had requested. The Senate panel zeroed out the administration request.
“We have a bipartisan pathway forward here in the Senate, but the House won’t budge. They won’t support any nuclear waste proposal that isn’t Yucca Mountain, and we all know that each party has a senator from Nevada who won’t let Yucca happen,” Feinstein said. “We can’t let another year go by with no movement on nuclear waste.”
Congress in 1982 directed the Department of Energy to begin accepting spent reactor fuel for disposal by Jan. 31, 1998. In 1987, it specified that the disposal site be built at Yucca Mountain. The federal government is now more than two decades past its deadline with nothing to show but, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put it during Thursday’s markup, $15 billion spent and a large hole in the ground.
That has left 77 nuclear power plants in 33 states left with about 80,000 metric tons of spent fuel, Feinstein said. The federal government has already paid more than $6 billion to nuclear power companies for its failure to remove the spent fuel from their properties.
There has been increasing focus in recent years on establishing temporary facilities where the spent fuel could be placed until the permanent site is ready. Private companies have proposed facilities for that purpose in Texas and New Mexico. But the House has demanded that any waste pathway include Yucca Mountain.
The Senate bill, meanwhile, authorizes the secretary of energy to establish a pilot program for licensing, construction, and operation of at least one consolidated interim storage site for radioactive waste. First in line for disposal would be nuclear facilities that have closed.
The energy secretary would have 120 days of the bill’s enactment to issue a request for proposals for construction of one or more consolidated spent fuel storage sites, along with demonstration of safe transportation and storage of the radioactive waste. Before any facility is built, DOE would have to secure approval from the governor of the given state and local governments and Indian tribes.
“For the sixth year in a row our bill includes a provision that would create a nuclear waste pilot program to allow for interim, consent-based storage of commercial spent fuel,” Feinstein said. “This provision has the support of both the appropriators and the authorizers in the Senate.”
In its detailed report for the bill, the committee recommended $35.3 million for Integrated Waste Management System operations to implement spent fuel consolidation. It called on Energy Secretary Rick Perry to use $10 million to contract for management of spent fuel, including by a private company for storage. Another $62.5 million, under the Senate bill, would be directed toward ongoing research and development on “behavior of spent fuel in longterm
storage, under transportation conditions, and in various geologic media.”
The Senate Appropriations Committee bill was only one victory over Yucca Mountain this week, according to Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), a vehement opponent of shipping radioactive waste into the state. The lawmaker said he had persuaded the Senate Armed Services Committee to remove authorization for $30 million for the project from the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.
“For the 2nd time today, I successfully blocked House efforts to restart #Yucca. I ensured that $30 mil to fund a nuclear storage site was removed from the Sen Armed Services Cmtee’s NDAA. This project continues to be nothing more than a failed exercise,” Heller tweeted early Thursday afternoon.
The House version of the NDAA still authorizes $30 million under the defense nuclear waste disposal line item for Yucca Mountain and interim storage. That money ultimately would have to be approved by congressional appropriators.
The House passed its NDAA on Thursday, while the Senate Armed Services Committee forwarded its bill to the full chamber for action.
The looming scuffle over Yucca Mountain looks like a replay of the fiscal 2018 budget proceeding, in which House appropriators backed the administration’s request for $150 million for licensing work at DOE and the NRC and their Senate counterparts did not. The omnibus spending bill signed into law in March offered no money for interim or permanent disposal projects.
Earlier this month, the full House approved, on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, a separate Yucca policy bill called the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018. The measure would make it easier for the Department of Energy to build Yucca, and also authorizes the agency to start building a single interim storage site after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules one way or another about the department’s application to license Yucca.
“Earlier this month, more than 80 percent of the House voted to move forward on both permanent and interim storage of spent nuclear fuel,” said a spokesperson for Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), architect of the Yucca policy bill. “It’s time for the Senate to move past their ‘interim only’ position and work toward a comprehensive solution.”
Agency Funding
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would receive about $911 million in fiscal 2019 in the Senate energy and water measure, a steep drop from its request of over $970 million and the House’s proposed appropriation of over $965 million. While the Senate bill report does not provide specifics, the main reason for the reduction is likely the absence of the nearly $48 million the NRC requested for adjudication of the DOE license application for Yucca Mountain. The House Appropriations Committee supported that request in full.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program would get $120 million. That is equal to the administration request, but $30 million below what the House Appropriations Committee recommended for the program to clean up former Manhattan Project and Atomic Energy Commission sites.
Both Appropriations committees supported the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board’s request for $3.6 million. The 11-member board of scientists and engineers provides expert review of Department of Energy nuclear waste management operations.
