A House of Representatives committee on Tuesday turned back the latest legislative attempt to appropriate funds for licensing the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
A bipartisan group of five lawmakers proposed to provide $15 million via an amendment to H.R. 2740, a “minibus” funding bill for the upcoming 2020 federal fiscal year encompassing several smaller measures already approved by the House Appropriations Committee. That includes the energy and water development appropriations legislation that passed out of committee in May.
However, the Democrat-led House Rules Committee voted 7-4 along party lines against adding the amendment as the bill headed to the House floor for debate. After hours of discussion and votes Wednesday and Thursday, the House is expected on Tuesday resume wrestling with the roughly $1 trillion spending bill for the Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Pentagon, State Department, and other federal agencies.
Among hundreds of proposed amendments to the legislation, Amendment 66 would have provided $10 million to the Energy Department and $5 million to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for nuclear waste disposal activities under Title I of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The money would come from the Nuclear Waste Fund, the federal account intended to pay for a deep geologic repository for the nation’s spent nuclear power reactor fuel and high-level waste from defense nuclear operations.
“This amendment would start us moving back to the process of how do we resolve our nuclear waste liabilities and responsibilities,” Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said in testimony Tuesday before the committee. Shimkus sponsored the amendment with Reps. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), Michael Burgess (R-Texas), Bill Foster (D-Ill.), and Joe Courtney (D-Conn.).
The 1982 legislation gave DOE until Jan. 31, 1998, to begin accepting radioactive waste for disposal. It has yet to begin that process.
The Energy Department in 2008 filed its Yucca Mountain repository license application for review and potential approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, the Obama administration defunded the proceeding two years later. The Trump administration has tried in three consecutive budget cycles to persuade Congress to appropriate money to resume licensing. So far, it has failed.
The White House in March requested roughly $150 million at DOE and the NRC for licensing in the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The House energy and water appropriations bill, now wrapped into the minibus, would instead provide close to $50 million for separate integrated waste treatment activities, with $25 million to advance temporary, centralized storage of radioactive spent fuel.
Shimkus noted that his $15 million request would not involve any actual construction of a repository, but rather move the NRC toward issuing its final decision on the safety and environmental case for Yucca Mountain. As he has in other venues, the lawmaker reminded the committee that the federal government spent about $15 billion to determine the selected desert location is safe to hold radioactive waste for 1 million years. The federal government is paying nuclear power plant owners $2.2 million per day, on average, for failing to meet its legal obligation to take their spent fuel, Shimkus said.
Tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste are now held 121 communities in 39 states, committee Ranking Member Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said: “If something goes wrong, people are going to look back and say what did you guys do to make sure that this waste was put someplace.”
Cole said there is broad bipartisan support for the Yucca Mountain approach, but that political considerations have kept appropriations and authorization measures from advancing.
While the GOP held the majority, the House supported the Trump administration’s requests for funding to resume licensing. That has changed after Democrats retook the majority in the November 2018 midterm elections.
The Senate, meanwhile, has in recent years backed funding for consolidated interim storage programs in hopes of expediting removal of spent fuel from power plants. It was also widely accepted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last year blocked any pro-Yucca legislation in the upper chamber in an effort to protect then-Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). Heller was defeated in November by Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.).
Democrats on the Rules Committee did not say much about the Yucca Mountain amendment prior to the vote. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) acknowledged he has opposed the repository during his tenure in Congress, and asked Shimkus why House appropriators in this budget cycle could not be convinced to support funding for licensing. Along with approving money for the interim storage-focused approach, the Appropriations Committee rejected an amendment from Simpson that would have provided $74 million for licensing the repository.
“We did get some Democrat votes on that, which is a success in itself, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the hurdle,” Shimkus said.
The Wednesday vote represented another win for Nevada’s congressional delegation, which strenuously opposes any efforts to ship nuclear waste to their state. The lawmakers, with full support from Nevada’s state government if not communities near Yucca Mountain, reject the safety case for placing radioactive material in a seismically active state that relies heavily on its tourism industry.
“Nevadans won’t be bullied by the nuclear power industry nor will we allow our families and businesses be harmed,” Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) tweeted on Thursday. “Nevada 2 – nuclear energy 0.”
A Shimkus spokesman said Wednesday that the lawmaker and his colleagues are discussing next steps for securing funds for licensing the repository.
There was no further action on the matter as the House debated the minibus, though Simpson and Rules Committee member Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) complained that the $15 million amendment was not given an opportunity for full consideration on the chamber floor.
The White House on Tuesday issued a statement of administration policy citing a list of reasons for opposing passage of H.R. 2740. It did not address the nuclear waste impasse.
House, Senate Defense Authorization Bills Blank Nuclear Waste Disposal
The Yucca Mountain repository also received no support from the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA) for fiscal 2020. Neither bill would allow any of the $26 million the Department of Energy requested for permanent disposal of defense nuclear waste.
The House Armed Services Committee this week approved its NDAA, sending it on for full debate on the House floor. The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday unveiled its iteration of the bill following its markup in May; the full Senate could take up the legislation as early as this month.
The DOE defense nuclear waste disposal line item is one segment of the larger $116 million request for licensing of the Yucca Mountain site and interim storage of radioactive waste for fiscal 2020. The remaining $90 million falls under the separate nuclear waste disposal line item, which is outside the purview of the NDAA.
If it is ever licensed and built, the Nevada repository would hold high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations at the Hanford Site in Washington state and other federal facilities.
The NDAA only sets authorized spending levels for any given fiscal year. The actual funding levels are set by the House and Senate Appropriations committees, then finalized in conference.
The House Appropriations Committee in May approved its $46.4 billion energy and water bill for fiscal 2020. Rather than the $116 million sought by DOE, it would provide $47.5 million for integrated management of U.S. nuclear waste. Of that, $25 million would be specifically directed toward work on temporary, centralized storage of spent reactor fuel.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet issued its version of the energy and water bill, while leaders wait for agreement on federal spending limits.
