The Joe Biden administration “may be moving” to start its inquiry into a possible host state for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the chair of the House’s energy spending panel said Monday.
“I believe we provided enough authority in the bill for [a consent-based siting inquiry] to move forward … and I’m hoping the administration will invite interested places to offer themselves up,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing Monday after a budget markup meeting of the House Appropriations Committee’s energy and water subcommittee, which she chairs.
“I get the impression that they may be moving in that direction,” Kaptur said.
In its fiscal 2022 budget request the Department of Energy requested to move roughly $20 million in existing funding into an interim storage program that “employs consent-based siting to address the near-term requirements for storage of commercial used fuel.” Consent-based siting, a notion popularized by the Barack Obama administration’s 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, has crept back into the Department of Energy’s vocabulary during the Biden administration.
Meanwhile, New Mexico appears to have already struck itself from the list candidates willing to host the nation’s spent nuclear fuel. State and federal lawmakers from the Land of Enchantment expressed their distaste for a proposed commercial interim storage site within their borders in a July 2 letter to energy secretary Jennifer Granholm.
In June, the head of the state’s Environment Department told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing that New Mexico is “the wrong site” for the sort of interim storage site that Holtec has proposed building near the state’s border with Texas.
Back on the Hill, the energy and water panel Monday favorably reported to the full committee its portion of the government’s spending bill for fiscal year 2022. None of the members offered any amendments. The full committee markup is scheduled for July 16 at 9 a.m. Eastern time.
