DOE’S LYONS: PROPOSED WASTE MGMT. FEDCORP POSES A CHALLENGE

As the Administration formulates its response to the Blue Ribbon panel report on nuclear waste, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Pete Lyons said yesterday that establishing a new waste management entity, as recommended by the panel, would present a big challenge. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future recommended late last month the formulation of a single-purpose federal corporation for management of nuclear waste. That is “one of the very major questions that the Administration, Congress, stakeholders are going to be wrestling with,” Lyons said yesterday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners Winter Meeting. Lyons said DOE will be “initiating development of different models of how the fedcorp partnership might work and we’ll be looking for suggestions from several different groups that might better inform the discussion that we anticipate will go on within the Administration and Congress.” Lyons added, “There will need significant discussion to develop an Administration position. There will certainly have to be many, many stakeholders in Congress and the Administration, including OMB, including the Department of Energy, that are going to have to weigh in on the question of exactly what will have to be contained in the final strategy that is developed to move ahead with the commission report.”