Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
6/5/2015
Funding for a pilot interim storage facility for spent fuel is dependent on whether Yucca Mountain funding can be worked into the final version of Fiscal Year 2016 spending legislation, House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said this week. The House has passed its version of the Fiscal Year 2016 spending bill, which includes $175 million for activities related to Yucca Mountain. But the Senate’s version, which has moved out of committee, instead funds an interim storage facility and does not support Yucca. Should that stay the same, Simpson said, neither project will receive funding. “What I’m trying to do with this bill and what I think [Senate Energy and Waste Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)] is trying to do is maintain money for Yucca Mountain in the overall conference and start that pilot program,” Simpson said at the Energy Facility Contractors Group’s Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. “If we can’t get both of them, we can’t get either of them.”
Simpson has embraced interim storage as part of the solution for nuclear waste, but only if Yucca Mountain remains the first priority. “I love a pilot program,” Simpson said. “We need to do it, but I’ve got to have Yucca Mountain money in there. And it didn’t go forward [in the past], so we did neither of them. We’ve got to change that. We can’t let the debate on Yucca Mountain and the pilot program and what to do about spent fuel constipate the system so we don’t have a path forward.”
The Department of Energy has maintained, despite Republican pressure, that Yucca Mountain remains “unworkable” for spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste storage due to the lack of consent for the repository in Nevada. Moniz has emphasized that the Department’s strategy has not changed in the new Congress, which includes Republican control of both houses. DOE still intends to move forward with a consent-based pilot interim storage facility as the preferred strategy to satisfy the nation’s spent fuel issues. And with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), long-time Yucca opponent, still holding influence within the Senate, it remains to be seen if any Yucca funding will make it to a final bill.
Simpson, though, maintained that Yucca funding has to be pushed regardless of opposition. “I don’t know what Harry Reid would do or could do if money came out in an omnibus for Yucca Mountain, if he could stop that from proceeding,” Simpson said. “I don’t know what the Administration would do if a bill came to their desk that had Yucca Mountain money in it as well as a pilot program. But we need to find out, because we need to start moving forward on this challenge we have and stop the hassling with one another over it and move us down the road to solve this problem.”
Yucca Incentives Bill Could Land By End of Summer
Meanwhile, House Deputy Republican Whip Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) sees the House moving on a Yucca Mountain bill by the end of the summer, he said this week at The Hill’s policy briefing titled America’s Nuclear Energy Future. House Republicans have said that they plan to introduce at some point this year a bill that would incentivize the state of Nevada to host the repository through economic benefits and infrastructure improvements. “Yeah, I think we move a Yucca Mountain bill this summer,” Kinzinger said. “As you all know, it’s certified for 70,000 tons. We’ve heard that it could actually hold twice that, safely. I think we are in a position to move that out of the House. Harry Reid still holds a lot of power in the Senate until the end of this term, but I think we are in position to hopefully get this done. As you all know, the ratepayers have paid for this. This is something they continue to pay for. It’s the right thing to do.”
Nevada, though, has maintained its opposition to the Yucca Mountain project, going so far as to say it would not enter into any negotiations on the “unsafe” project. Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) said in a May 21 letter to House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chair John Shimkus (R-Ill.) that there is nothing to negotiate on Yucca Mountain, indicating that the state would not listen to any incentives talk. Shimkus recently called on that state to enter into a dialogue on potential economic benefits and infrastructure improvements that would incentivize the state into hosting the project. Sandoval reiterated the state’s position that the project is “unsafe” and politically corrupt. “You and other Members have recently expressed sentiments regarding a potential quid pro quo negotiation for economic benefits in exchange for construction of the project,” Sandoval wrote. “As I have previously stated, because Yucca Mountain is an unsafe place for a repository and one selected in 1987 for purely political reasons, there is nothing for Nevada to negotiate.” Shimkus did not return calls for comment in response this week.
Besides House Republicans’ efforts to incentivize Nevada, momentum towards nuclear waste policy reform has been growing in Congress since the year began. On the Senate side, Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has voiced his support for Yucca Mountain, and has said that in conjunction with interim storage, funding for the project could make the Senate’s final appropriations legislation for next year. Alexander also introduced last month with bi-partisan support a bill that would overhaul the nation’s nuclear waste policy and allow the construction of a pilot interim storage facility, among other things. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, earlier this year released the Safety Evaluation Report on Yucca Mountain, which found the repository design meets most regulatory safety requirements.
