The Trump administration Department of Energy has failed to follow through on its commitment to take decisive action on permanent disposal of the nation’s ever-growing stockpile of nuclear waste, the head of a nuclear industry group said in a Jan. 23 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council Executive Director David Blee noted that Perry said during his Senate confirmation hearing in January that he wanted an end to “kicking the can down the road” on nuclear waste disposal. Following Perry’s confirmation, the Energy Department requested $120 million for fiscal 2018 to resume licensing for the planned Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository in Nevada and start a “robust” program of interim storage of that waste until the permanent site is ready.
However, “the Department has given every appearance of late of returning to a business-as-usual approach,” according to Blee’s letter, obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. “This is despite mounting Federal taxpayer liabilities approaching $30 billion and approximately 86,000 metric tons of commercial and defense waste stranded at 121 sites in 39 states.”
To illustrate his point, Blee said DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCWRM), which was disbanded under the Obama administration, does not show up anywhere in the recently revised departmental organizational structure. While Congress has yet to approve any money for Yucca Mountain in the current budget year, DOE could demonstrate its seriousness by reopening OCRWM, nominating someone to lead it, and using $10 million in carryover funding to lay the groundwork for resumption of the licensing process, Blee wrote.
Contacted Wednesday, Blee said he had not received a response from DOE, but that the letter had not specifically requested one.
Separately, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners issued a reminder that Wednesday was the 20th anniversary of the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline set by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act for DOE to begin accepting spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste for disposal. That still has not happened.
“It has been 36 years since the Nuclear Waste Policy Act became law and 20 years since the government defaulted on its obligation. We still have no nuclear repository, and worse yet, we don’t even have the semblance of a nuclear waste program,” NARUC President John Betkoski III said in a prepared statement. “Taxpayers and ratepayers have poured literally billions into the federal nuclear waste program and the liability costs continue to increase every day we delay. Moreover, the funding process is broken.”
