Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) is preparing legislation aimed at restarting licensing efforts for the mothballed Yucca Mountain repository with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a staffer confirmed Wednesday.
Shimkus spokesman Jordan Haverly said the bill would address controversial land and water rights in Nevada that the Energy Department has said make the project “unworkable.” The legislation, which Shimkus hopes to move through the House before the August recess, would also support interim storage of nuclear waste, Haverly confirmed. He did not offer further details.
Shimkus is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which holds congressional jurisdiction over nuclear waste management, as well as chairman of the panel’s environment subcommittee. Shimkus and his Republican colleagues for months have been preparing for a potential Yucca Mountain restart.
Chatter around Washington suggests that resuming development of Yucca Mountain is inevitable, given the election of a Republican president, GOP control of both chambers of Congress, and the retirement of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who led the crusade against the project.
President Donald Trump has not committed one way or another on the repository, dodging questions about Yucca Mountain in October during a campaign interview in Nevada. Trump’s energy secretary-designate, Rick Perry, also was noncommittal during his Senate confirmation hearing in January.
The Obama administration canceled the Yucca project in 2010, eventually instituting a “consent-based” process in which defense nuclear waste and commercial spent fuel would be stored in separate facilities. Shimkus and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) in March 2016 urged then-Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to “expeditiously” resume the Yucca Mountain licensing process with the NRC, while also requesting a congressional audit to determine what federal resources are available to resume licensing efforts. The findings of Government Accountability Office audit are expected this spring.
Shimkus earlier this month met with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California, where the two discussed the nuclear waste stalemate. Similar to the situation in scores of other communities, residents in Issa’s district have been calling on the federal government to take title to 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste at the shuttered plant, which sits along the Pacific coastline.
Issa recently introduced the Interim Consolidated Storage Act, which would allow DOE to enter into public-private contracts for storage of certain high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, using money from the federal Nuclear Waste Fund. The bill’s co-sponsors include Rep. Mike Conway (R-Texas), whose district includes a potential interim storage site that Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists plans to build and operate. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has refused to consider nuclear waste legislation that does not address plans at Yucca Mountain.
