By John Stang
It might take up to six months after the approval of the 2019 federal budget for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal facility in Nevada to get back on track, a pair of U.S. House subcommittees were told Tuesday.
That is because the regulator’s Yucca team was reassigned after the Obama administration in 2010 halted the NRC adjudication of the Energy Department license application for the underground repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Some have since retired, according to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki.
Consequently, the restart would require staffers to study the records to bring themselves up to date on the project. “Some experts could become conversant in as little as six months,” Svinicki said.
That, though, would depend upon approval of funding from Congress. Svinicki, along with NRC Commissioners Stephen Burns and Jeff Baran, testified about the agency’s fiscal latest budget request before the House Energy and Commerce energy and environment subcommittees.
Environment Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) asked the commissioners whether their $47.7 million request to resume Yucca Mountain licensing activities in fiscal 2019 would be enough to get the project back on track. Svinicki said it would be.
The NRC is requesting $970.7 million for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, an almost $60 million increase from $910.9 million in the enacted budget for fiscal 2017. The biggest chunk of the requested funding hike for 2019 would be the Yucca Mountain money, which would support 124 full-time equivalent staffers to restart the adjudication proceeding.
The NRC asked for $30 million for Yucca licensing work in the current fiscal 2018, but got none of that from Congress. The series of short-term budgets that kept the federal government running for nearly six months provided no funding for the project, which is also zeroed out in the omnibus budget Congress approved this week to fund federal operations through the remainder of the fiscal year.
Congress in 1987 designated Yucca Mountain as the site for a deep-underground repository to hold tens of thousands of tons of U.S. spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Little progress was made before the Obama administration halted all work on the program, but the Trump administration has sought DOE and NRC funding to resume licensing in its first two budgets.
The NRC had more than $13.5 million available from the Nuclear Waste Fund for Yucca-related work when adjudication was suspended nearly a decade ago. It has spent most of that since 2013, after a federal judge ordered the agency to resume the proceeding, on work including completing a safety evaluation report on Yucca Mountain and producing a environmental impact statement supplement.
Svinicki and Burns told the subcommittees the NRC currently has roughly $500,000 left in its available Nuclear Waste Fund balance — with a lot of that work to do with restarting the licensing activities.
Appearing Wednesday before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Svinicki said most of the safety-related work is already done on Yucca Mountain, but title and water rights issues remain unresolved.
At both hearings, lawmakers quizzed the witnesses on a number ot topics, including the two vacancies on the commission, the NRC’s declining workforce, the potential for upcoming closures of several reactors to cut into the agency’s revenue, and whether the NRC will have enough money to review license applications for two proposed interim nuclear fuel facilities.
Endangered Quorum?
The commission must have at least three members to sustain a decision-making quorum. It has been at that membership level since Commissioner William Ostendorff stepped down in June 2016, but Baran’s current term expires at the end of June.
The White House has nominated Baran for a second term, and put forward South Carolina energy consultant David Wright and Senate staffer Annie Caputo to fill the vacancies. All got the thumbs-up from the EPW Committee last year, but floor votes to seal their confirmation have not materialized.
Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) is reported to have placed a hold on Caputo’s nomination over Yucca Mountain. Caputo is seen as supporting the project, while Heller is a vehement opponent of bringing nuclear waste to his state.
“We simply cannot allow a neutral regulatory authority to lose its quorum,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), for whom Caputo is a senior policy adviser, said during Wednesday’s hearing. He said he is striving “to resolve this situation,” Politico reported.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), meanwhile, told Politico that in the absence of a quorum, Svinicki as commission chairman could take steps to advance licensing of the repository.
Workforce Concerns
Lawmakers noted during the NRC hearings that several commercial nuclear power reactors are expected to close by 2025. Since fees from commercial nuclear facilities provide 90 percent of the NRC’s revenue, they wondered if the upcoming closures will cut into money going to future budgets.
Svinicki and Baran agreed that scenario is looming. However, Baran added, “We haven’t gotten to that point yet. … I don’t see it as something happing right now.”
At Tuesday’s session, several representatives expressed concern about the NRC’s plan to further reduce its workforce by 149 full-time equivalents, from 3,396 in 2017 to a proposed 3,247 in 2019. The agency in recent years has been trimming personnel after previously bulking up in preparation to regulate a boom in new nuclear power plants that never materialized.
“I’m concerned about the constant staff reduction at this rate,” Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said. Svinicki replied: “We’re not losing our core competency.”
Tonko also worried about the NRC losing institutional memory with the loss of people. “We do monitor that closely,” Svinicki said.
On Wednesday, Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.) echoed the same concern: “We cannot cut for the sake of cutting.”
Baran said the NRC expects to be at its optimal staff level in 2019, one year ahead of schedule — meaning the 12 percent, two-year drop in personnel has begun to level off.
Svinicki, though, said she does worry the workforce declined is causing the NRC to lose younger employees, while retaining older workers whose retirements will eventually cut into the regulator’s institutional memory.
Funding Available for Spent Fuel Storage Applications
The NRC’s 2019 budget provides enough funding for staff to review two applications to build interim spent nuclear fuel storage facilities, commission members said Wednesday after Barrasso raised the question.
On Feb. 28, the NRC docketed a full technical review of a license application from Holtec International to build and operate a facility in southeastern New Mexico with a potential maximum capacity for up to 120,000 metric tons of spent fuel. Meanwhile, Waste Control Specialists and Orano have said they intend by the second quarter of this year to revive WCS’ suspended license application for a 40,000-metric-ton-capacity facility in West Texas.
Svinicki said the NRC’s planned budget can handle both reviews, which each would be expected to take roughly two years. The agency’s spent fuel storage and transportation budget line item would receive $24. 8 million and 100 full-time equivalent personnel.
The 2019 budget request includes $4.9 million for licensing of interim fuel storage facilities, with most of that money likely to go to the Holtec and WCS projects. Roughly 20 people will work off-and-on on each project — some contractors and some NRC employees.
Prior to suspending its license application last April, Waste Control Specialists had said the NRC license review would cost about $7.5 million. Both companies would ultimately be billed for the agency’s work.
