WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators plans to reintroduce a bill that, in its most recent form, would have created a new federal agency dedicated to dealing with nuclear waste, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said during a Wednesday hearing here on Capitol Hill.
Alexander would sponsor the legislation along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). The two are, respectively, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee. Alexander announced plans to refile his nuclear waste bill during a subcommittee hearing on the Donald Trump administration’s proposed fiscal 2018 budget for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The last version of Alexander’s bill, filed in in 2015, was cosponsored by Feinstein and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore). It did not get past the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The bill would have created a Nuclear Waste Administration to vet sites for permanent nuclear-waste repositories besides the proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Nye County, Nev., plus a watchdog sister group called the Nuclear Waste Oversight Board.
Feinstein, who spoke with reporters after Wednesday’s NRC budget hearing, said she feared the bill would again face opposition from the nuclear power industry. The veteran senator, whose state hosts several shuttered nuclear power plants, claimed the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) whipped up opposition to the bill in the last Congress.
“NEI opposes it, believe it or not,” Feinstein told reporters here. “I couldn’t believe we couldn’t move this bill. Where’s the opposition coming from? It’s coming from the nuclear industry.”
NEI has long favored restarting Yucca Mountain and spoken out against alternatives.
“Interim storage is not a substitute for a repository,” an NEI spokesperson said by email Friday. “The government is fully capable of pursuing the Yucca Mountain license application at the same time it considers interim storage facilities. One does not preclude the other.”
The U.S. Energy Department is today charged with siting and building a permanent repostitory for tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power reactors and high-level radioactive waste. Under the 1987 congressional amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, that facility is supposed to be Yucca Mountain.
The Barack Obama administration suspended the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain as a permanent waste repository in 2010. The Donald Trump administration has proposed restarting the application process as part of its fiscal 2018 budget. DOE would get $110 million for the Yucca restart in 2018, if Trump’s budget proposal becomes law, while the NRC would get $30 million for licensing activities.
Feinstein deferred to Alexander about when the new Nuclear Waste Administration Act might be filed. Alexander did not provide a timetable during the hearing and did not speak to reporters afterward.
