Murkowski Lists Nuclear Waste Policy Among Committee Priorities

New Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) included nuclear waste policy as a priority the committee will discuss in the next two months during remarks last week about moving the Keystone XL Pipeline legislation out of committee. Murkowski co-authored the “Nuclear Waste Administration Act” bill with former Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in 2013, but the bill did not have any momentum to make it out of committee. Among its provisions, the bill would create a new independent agency to handle the nation’s high level radioactive waste as well as create a consent-based siting approach for interim storage, drawing from some of the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.

 

Murkowski listed nuclear policy among a list of issues, including movement of the energy spending bill for fiscal year 2016. “Our committee will devote much of January and February to hearings on a wide variety of issues,” Murkowski said. “Other potential topics for hearings include electric grid innovation, nuclear waste policy, OCS development and revenue-sharing, the administration’s Quadrennial Energy Review, critical minerals, and oversight. We will also hold budget hearings, to consider the president’s request, and return to the practice of having the secretaries of Energy and the Interior regularly appear before this panel.”