House Lawmakers Seek Defense Waste Repository Answers

House lawmakers are seeking more definitive answers from the Department of Energy regarding its decision to separate commercial and defense high-level radioactive waste into two repositories, according to a letter sent to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz yesterday. Following the Department’s announcement last month to “de-comingle” the two waste streams, some House lawmakers saw the decision as a distraction from DOE’s responsibilities to dispose of commercial waste. The bi-partisan letter, signed by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), posed a series of questions aimed at discovering DOE’s motivation for the decision and plan of action going forward, such as cost estimates, timelines, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission involvement in licensing.  

 

At the center of the lawmakers’ concerns is an alleged disregard from DOE on previous work on a permanent repository. “This latest determination is a significant change from the bipartisan, 30 year nuclear waste management policy in which both defense waste and commercial spent nuclear fuel are jointly disposed in a permanent repository located at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,” the two wrote in their letter. “The determination is based on an analysis of six factors identified in the NWPA: cost efficiency, health and safety, regulation, transportation, public acceptability, and national security. The administration’s reassessment of these factors is based on underlying assumptions that appear to disregard the existing work that has been accomplished to date on a permanent repository.” The lawmakers requested a response by the end of the month.