WASHINGTON — Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) wrung a renewed commitment from the Department of Energy to open a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., during a hearing here Tuesday.
Shimkus, Congress’ chief advocate for Yucca, pinned down Dan Brouillette, deputy energy secretary, on the agency’s position during a three-hour House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee hearing titled “DOE Modernization: Advancing DOE’s Mission for National, Economic, and Energy Security of the United States.”
“If Congress provides the funding, is DOE prepared to reconstitute the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management … and resume the statutorily required regulatory review of the Yucca Mountain license application?” Shimkus asked Brouillette.
“Yes sir,” Brouillette said, with the caveat that DOE will do the work if Congress provides the funding.
It is not clear Congress will.
Last year, the House passed a budget bill that would provide all $150 million the Trump administration requested for Yucca Mountain licensing efforts in fiscal 2018. That covers $120 million for the Department of Energy, the license applicant, and $30 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which ultimately will have approve or deny the license for the permanent repository for U.S. spent reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
The Senate, in an appropriations bill still awaiting a vote on that chamber’s floor, provided no money whatsoever for Yucca Mountain. Nevada senior Sen. Dean Heller (R) opposes Yucca Mountain totally, and many in Washington speculate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will not allow Yucca funding into any bill likely to become law, lest it damage Heller’s prospects for re-election this year.
Fiscal 2018 began on Oct. 1, 2017. The federal government since then has been funded by a series of short-term budgets, none of which included money for Yucca Mountain.
The 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act designates Yucca Mountain as the permanent repository for U.S. nuclear waste. The site has not been licensed, much less built, and the Obama administration canceled the project before embarking on a “consent-based” process for finding interim and permanent storage sites for nuclear waste. The Trump administration has refocused on Yucca Mountain.
Shimkus last year also introduced the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, which includes a number of measures aimed at strengthening the federal government’s ability to move forward with Yucca Mountain. The bill sailed out of committee but is still waiting on a vote on the House floor.
