House lawmakers late Wednesday unveiled a 45-page bill intended to speed up the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
The”discussion draft” of the legislation, which will get a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee on April 26, would among other things give the Energy Department the land-use and water rights it needs to begin storing spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at the Nevada site.
It would also authorize the energy secretary to order infrastructure operations as needed for building and operating the repository, including construction of a rail line, and suspend any work on a facility solely for defense waste until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission makes its decision on the Yucca Mountain construction license.
The Donald Trump administration has proposed spending $120 million in fiscal 2018 on interim nuclear waste storage activities and on resuming DOE’s Yucca Mountain license application with the NRC. The Obama administration suspended that application in 2010, and later planned for separate commercial and defense waste storage sites.
The hearing on the bill, called the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, is slated for 10 a.m. next Wednesday and will be webcast on the committee’s website.
“We look forward to receiving feedback on this discussion draft,” Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and subcommittee Chairman Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said in a prepared statement. “This proposal was thoughtfully developed through an extensive record of hearings and other oversight over the past six years to identify what may be needed to strengthen the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Now it is time to get our nation’s nuclear waste management policy back on track through consideration of this legislative proposal.”
