Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
10/10/2014
Even if the Senate flips to Republican control this coming November, don’t expect any rapid movement on the revitalization of the now-shuttered Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository project, industry officials said this week. As polls indicate right now— Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight website gives the Republicans a 58 percent chance of taking the majority, the GOP has a strong possibility to taking majority control of both the Senate and House in this fall’s elections for first time since 2006. Control of both chambers, with only the Executive Branch holding veto power, could mean an increased chance for Yucca-related appropriations or legislation. “I think that it comes back, but slowly,” one industry executive told RW Monitor this week. “Even at $200 million, which the House put in the budget, that’s half of what they used to spend on that program. In a world where budgets are tight and larger issues are looming in the world, you are competing on the global stage with issues like an unstable Middle East, Ebola, and unemployment. It’s not a front burner issue. It’s an important issue, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not in the top 20. So it comes back, but slowly and smartly. But, I don’t think the Republicans in the House and Senate are going to use this as a bat to beat Obama with. They’re going to try and do the right thing by the law, but they aren’t going to try to make up for lost time.”
The Department of Energy shuttered the Yucca Mountain project in 2010 after deeming the site “unworkable.” However, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C Circuit decision last year compelled the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart the licensing review and use its existing Nuclear Waste Fund appropriations. The review had originally been canceled following DOE’s decision. In response to the court, the NRC is currently working on the Yucca Safety Evaluation Reports, which are expected to be completed and released by January. In the meantime, the House included in its Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations bill $150 million for DOE “to carry out the purposes of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982,” which designates Yucca Mountain as the site for a repository; and $55 million to the NRC to continue the adjudication of DOE’s Yucca Mountain License application. The bill also includes language that would prevent any future tampering into the Yucca Mountain adjudicatory process. The Senate, meanwhile, went in a different direction. Its energy appropriations included $89 million to begin construction of one or more consolidated storage facilities, but the bill never made it to a vote.
‘Incremental Change’ on Yucca Likely With GOP Control
Another industry executive predicted that the major changes would only take place in appropriations. “If in fact the Senate does flip, I think the odds are that there is some additional funding in a Continuing Resolution or Omnibus Appropriations for more money to continue the Nuclear Regulatory Commission review. I don’t see any dramatic change,” the industry executive said. “There isn’t going to be a stepping on the gas, rather there will be very incremental change for funding for Yucca. I think more movement will happen in FY16. I think the more recent things are important given we haven’t had anything for Yucca Mountain in the last four years, so having some appropriations would be pretty significant. It’s not a light switch.”
One thing Republicans may do in this Congress, an industry executive predicted, is to take an incremental approach to restoring credibility in DOE’s ability to handle the project. “I think what you will look for is for the Republicans to introduce a step-wise approach to reviving Yucca Mountain,” the executive said. “The first thing they will require is for a legitimate program to be stood up, not just reconstituting the old Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. It might have that name, but not developing a program that they had when it was shut down.”
The executive added that a credible program would support the NRC licensing review while also restoring the Nuclear Waste Fund. Currently, the fee sits at zero after a panel from the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously mandated DOE set the fee to zero after failing to comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act by shuttering the planned Yucca Mountain geological repository and lacking an alternative disposal plan for the nation’s high level nuclear waste as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. “They also have to recognize this is not a priority for the Administration; therefore, it’s not going to get senior level attention at DOE or elsewhere,” the executive said. “So whatever the Republicans do, it will be done in a measured way and in a little bit of slow way. They need to re-store credibility in DOE by launching this program so they can begin collecting the fee from ratepayers again and support the licensing effort.”
