The Donald Trump administration requested $120 million for fiscal 2018 to resume the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain as a nuclear repository, while also asking for $10 million to begin work on an interim waste-storage program.
The request, $120 million in total, would be funded within DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy.
“This request provides for a program office to provide policy direction and perform functions necessary to the licensing process,” according to a DOE budget document. “This request provides for legal support to represent the Department in the licensing process, as well as to respond to litigation and other legal matters related to the NWPA. It provides for technical and scientific support necessary to support an affirmative case for the license and to respond to any challenges to the license application. It also provides for the document management activities associated with the licensing process.”
Of the $120 million, $90 million would come from the Nuclear Waste Fund, while $30 million would come out of DOE’s Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal appropriation. The Nuclear Waste Fund was established in 1982 and collected fees from nuclear energy companies and consumers to build Yucca. That fund is now running a balance of more than $30 billion. The Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal appropriation was created in 1993 as a means for DOE to pay its share for nuclear weapons waste to be disposed at Yucca.
Of the $120 million designated for Yucca and interim storage, about $10 million would go to Nevada and native tribes in the state “to conduct appropriate activities and participate in licensing activities” for Yucca Mountain, DOE wrote in a budget document released Tuesday.
Nevada, which is ardently opposed to hosting Yucca, has vowed to oppose DOE’s license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The administration’s budget request, however, stipulates that the funding provided for Nevada may not be used to litigate against the license application.
The budget request now must be passed by Congress, which had not scheduled any hearings on the proposal at deadline Tuesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
