The U.S. Senate on Monday passed legislation to reauthorize the Energy Department’s cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state.
The measure awaits President Donald Trump’s signature after receiving unanimous consent from the Senate. The House of Representatives in March approved the bill, which was then advanced by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in July.
Introduced by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), the legislation would reauthorize West Valley funding at $75 million per year through fiscal 2026, an amount equal to the enacted budget for fiscal 2019. That is also the amount supported by the Trump administration and both chambers of Congress for the current fiscal 2020.
The budget year began on Oct. 1, but Congress has yet to pass any final full-year spending bills. The federal government is currently operating under a continuing resolution that largely keeps funding at prior-year levels through Dec. 20.
“For the first time in more than 35 years, our friends and neighbors will have the peace of mind that the West Valley Demonstration Project cleanup is a top priority and has long term funding authorization from Washington,” Reed said in a Tuesday press release.
The Reed measure calls for a Government Accountability Office study on radioactive waste at West Valley, including types of waste, disposal options, and disposal costs. The report would be due within 18 months of the bill’s enactment into law.
But the legislation does not order that West Valley waste be designated as defense-related, as did a 2018 version of Reed’s bill. That provision was ultimately stripped out in order to ensure the legislation would advance. Had that language become law, it might have opened the door for sending material from West Valley to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
Local officials say 278 casks of West Valley waste similar to transuranic waste are currently ineligible for disposal at WIPP because the material was processed at a commercial facility and is not considered defense-related.
West Valley is a 200-acre site located within the state-owned, 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. Between 1966 and 1972 the project was home to a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.
