The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s energy subcommittee is scheduled next Tuesday to consider legislation to reauthorize Energy Department cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York.
The West Valley Reauthorization Act, H.R. 1138, passed the full House of Representatives by voice vote on March 5. The legislation from Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) has now cleared the House two years in a row. But the clock ran out on the last Congress in early January before the measure could pass the Senate.
This time, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources panel will consider possible amendments to the West Valley bill during the same session in which it has scheduled reviews of 10 other bills.
The measure reauthorizes West Valley funding at $75 million per year through fiscal 2026. That is in line with historic appropriation levels and should ensure the environmental work stays on schedule, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said on the House floor just prior to the March vote. The proposed authorization is equal to the enacted funding for fiscal 2019 and the fiscal 2020 figure sought by the Trump administration and the House.
The bill also directs the Government Accountability Office to prepare a report within 18 months on radioactive waste at the site, detailing the types of waste, disposal options, and costs associated with those options.
The legislation does not tackle the long-running dispute between the Energy Department and New York state on whether waste at West Valley should be classified as commercial or defense-related, and thus who bears the cost of disposal.
The state-owned West Valley site occupies roughly 200 acres of the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. West Valley was home to a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant from 1966 to 1972. But New York officials argue 60% of the material sent to West Valley for reprocessing came from nuclear weapon-related facilities.
While the Energy Department is in charge of West Valley cleanup, and bears most of the cost, the federal agency believes the expense of waste disposal is New York’s responsibility, Tonko said.
The subcommittee hearing is set for 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday in Room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The hearing will be webcast.
Contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley has a $542.3 million agreement with DOE that runs from 2011 through early March 2020. It is managing Phase 1 decommissioning at the former nuclear fuel reprocessing site, including tearing down old structures and removing contaminated equipment and waste.
