A new citizens’ committee in Vermont plans to provide recommendations on reactor decommissioning and nuclear waste storage to the state and federal government by fall, the group said Monday in a public meeting.
The Federal Waste Nuclear Policy Committee, a subdivision of Vermont’s Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP), met Monday to solicit public comments on their mission statement and to discuss how the body should advise the state and federal governments on the moribund Yucca Mountain repository.
According to the mission statement committee member Lissa Weinmann shared at the meeting, if NDCAP can come to a cogent policy position by the fall, they’ll advise the state government, their federal delegation, and the general public on issues of decommissioning.
The waste policy committee was created in December to provide NDCAP with information on “national fuel storage and disposal issues,” according to the state public service department. The body’s first meeting was held Jan. 20.
Vermont’s only nuclear plant — the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station — has been in the decommissioning process since 2019. Entergy transferred the plant’s license to NorthStar Group Services in 2018 for decommissioning, spent fuel storage, and site restoration. NorthStar has previously said that it could finish the process by 2026.
At Monday’s meeting, Weinmann said that the body would “consider how Vermont Yankee is situated within federal policy issues” like Yucca Mountain or either of the proposed interim storage sites in Texas and New Mexico.
The committee should also provide recommendations to the federal government on the viability of Yucca Mountain, Weinmann said, although fellow committee member Corey Daniels was unsure that they would be able to add anything new to the conversation.
The proposed geologic repository has been stuck in budget limbo since 2011 when the Obama administration cut its funding. It doesn’t appear that the Biden White House plans to save the project, either — although there’s no official agenda yet, two Cabinet nominees individually committed during their confirmation hearings not to support Yucca Mountain.
The state committee, as well as the full decommissioning panel, will meet again in March.
