The House of Representatives is now considering two pieces of legislation that would provide $15 per kilogram payments to communities stuck with spent reactor fuel at nuclear power plants.
Rep. Joe Courtney’s (D-Conn.) “Stranded Nuclear Waste Accountability Act of 2017” and Rep. Brad Schneider’s (D-Ill.) STRANDED Act of 2017 were both introduced in the first week of October.
Courtney’s bill only involves the payment plan, excluding language in Schneider’s measure calling for tax incentives for affected communities, establishment of a Department of Energy stranded nuclear waste task force, and a National Academy of Sciences study on “innovative solutions” to the nuclear waste challenge.
The Connecticut lawmaker’s legislation also includes language on the payment plan not found in its counterpart. Both would mandate that the impacted local unit of government would be eligible for $15 per kilogram of waste stored at an eligible closed nuclear power plant in the jurisdiction, with just one payment per fiscal year. However, Courtney would require local governments to apply annually for the program – a directive not spelled out in the Schneider bill. In addition, the energy secretary would, “on a pro rata basis, reduce the amount paid to a unit of general local government … to ensure, to the extent possible, that a payment is made to a unit of general local government with respect to each eligible civilian nuclear power plant for that fiscal year.”
Courtney’s bill is identical to legislation that he co-sponsored in the last Congress with then-Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.), who lost his seat to Schneider in the 2016 election.
Schneider’s bill has a corresponding measure in the Senate from Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).
