The U.S. Senate will continue to reject the Department of Energy’s requests for funding to resume work on the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) told Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Wednesday.
In a tense exchange during a Senate commerce committee hearing on national infrastructure, Heller asked Perry to confirm he had a role in DOE’s $120 million request in both the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years to pay for licensing Yucca Mountain. Perry affirmed that, as energy secretary, he did.
Senate appropriators stripped out the Yucca funding in their fiscal 2018 DOE funding bill, which never got a floor vote for the budget year that began on Oct. 1, 2017. It appears doubtful an anticipated omnibus spending plan for the remainder of the fiscal year will provide money for the program, according to recent reporting.
“In 2018 that [Yucca Mountain] language will also be removed,” Heller said. “Would you anticipate in 2019 that you’ll request it again?”
“I’ll follow the law, sir, and I expect the results will be about the same,” Perry responded, apparently referring to the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which designated Yucca Mountain as the permanent underground disposal site for tens of thousands of tons of used commercial nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
The Energy Department is now more than 20 years past the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline set by the 1982 law to begin moving that material from nuclear sites around the country into a repository. The agency filed its license application for the Nye County, Nev., disposal facility with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008, but the Obama administration in 2010 halted all work on what it called an “unworkable” project. However, the Yucca program has gained new momentum in both budgets submitted to date by the Trump administration — to the dismay of Nevada’s congressional delegation.
“I would argue that the previous administration wasn’t following the law,” Perry said during the hearing. “The law’s pretty clear, says you’re supposed to go through this licensing process, and that’s what it is senator, it’s about following the law and the law says we will go about finding out the answer on this licensing issue.”
The House approved the requested Yucca funding for 2018, but the Senate remains an obstacle — both given its overall longstanding antipathy to the project and reportedly with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) striving to avoid a vote that could endanger Heller’s re-election chances this year.
The upper chamber for the current budget also zeroed out the NRC’s request for $30 million to resume adjudication of the DOE license application. The agency for fiscal 2019 upped the ante by requesting nearly $48 million.
In a letter this week to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki, Heller made clear he’s not pleased about that, either, saying agency budget documents issued to date offer no reasoning for the increased request. “Restarting the adjudicatory proceeding, however misguided, would be a significant undertaking in terms of both time and expense,” he wrote in the March 12 letter.
Heller asked Svinicki to by March 26 respond to a number of questions in his letter, topped by whether the agency still believes it will need $330 million and up to five years to rule on the application. The NRC as of Thursday had not yet responded to Heller’s letter, an agency spokesman said.
During Wednesday’s hearing, which featured testimony from five Cabinet members, Heller also sought acknowledgement from Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao regarding the potential dangers of shipping radioactive waste across the country to Nevada. A total of 9,495 storage casks would travel by rail, and 2,650 by truck, over 50 years, Heller said, using figures from a 2008 DOE document.
“These shipments would use 22,000 miles of railways, 7,000 miles of highways, crossing over 44 states, and a population of about 175 million people. In your opinion does that look safe to you?” he said.
Chao said she was aware of the sensitivity of the issue, but acknowledged she was not well-informed about Yucca Mountain: “I don’t have the answer, I don’t know the issue that you’re referring to very well.”
Questions on Meeting
Also on March 12, Nevada’s point man against Yucca Mountain asked Svinicki to explain a March 5 “private meeting” with officials from Nye County.
“As we are sure you know, Nye County is a party to the formal adjudicatory proceeding before the Commission on the Department of Energy’s application for a construction authorization for the proposed high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,” Robert Halstead, executive director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, wrote in a letter to Svinicki. “The Commission’s rules … specifically prohibit you from entertaining any ex-parte communications from Nye County relevant to the merits of any disputed issue, and those rules are applicable even though the adjudicatory proceeding is currently suspended.”
The NRC did afterward notify Nevada and other parties to the license adjudication of the meeting, and said there had been no discussion of adjudicatory challenges to the license application, Halstead noted. But he questioned why there was no advance notice of the meeting and why Nye County officials would seek such a conversation if not to discuss Yucca Mountain.
Halstead asked Svinicki to answer a number of questions “as soon as possible,” including: the purpose of the meeting, who was in attendance, the topics discussed, and whether any commitments or pledges were offered by those present.
In a March 15 response to Halstead, Svinicki said the meeting was requested by Nye County: “Based on the discussion during the meeting, I believe that Nye County’s purpose in scheduling the meeting was to describe infrastructure developments over the past decade in Nye County that could be used to host adjudicatory activities if the adjudication were to restart.”
Svinicki said she attended the meeting with two NRC lawyers. Representing Nye County were Commissioners Dan Schinhofen and Lorinda Wichman, County Manager Tim Sutton, and attorney Rick Spees. The visitors were reminded, and acknowledged, that there could be no discussion of challenges to the license application, the NRC chair wrote. The talks involved no commitments of any sort, she added.
Leaders in Nye County have taken a more positive view of the repository than their counterparts around the state, seeing it as a much-needed driver of economic development and employment. In a prepared statement, Schinhofen characterized the state’s concerns as “much ado about nothing.”
“The county also visited other federal agencies while in town” for the National Association of Counties conference,” he stated. “Any assertion by the state, which continues to waste taxpayer dollars on this issue, that this was a meeting about Yucca Mountain is false. Nye County did absolutely nothing wrong and our integrity is intact.”
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill
During his confirmation hearing Thursday to become assistant energy secretary for international affairs, longtime DOE hand Theodore Garrish said it was his intention in the job to offer no advice on Yucca Mountain.
Under questioning from Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Garrish said he has been advising Perry on nuclear policy for about a year. That included Yucca Mountain, he said.
“I have explained and briefed him on the history, and on what the history of the program is, and that’s been the extent of it,” Garrish said. “There’s been some discussion relative to what’s required in the cases that are currently before the courts.”
Garrish said he would support siting spent fuel and high-level waste at Yucca Mountain only if it is proven scientifically safe.
If confirmed, Garrish would lead the DOE office charged with promosting U.S. cooperation with global partners in energy, science, and technology. He reminded Cortez Masto that this work has no connection to Yucca Mountain.
Along with working in the nuclear power industry, Garrish has held a number of senior roles at DOE, including general counsel; assistant secretary for congressional, intergovernmental, and public affairs; and assistant secretary for nuclear energy — the position that currently leads DOE’s work on nuclear waste disposal.