The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September spent $66,799 of its remaining Nuclear Waste Fund balance as it gears up for potential resumption of adjudication of the license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
That leaves the regulator with $532,220 that has not been spent or obligated until such time as Congress turns on the spigot from the fund, according to the latest update submitted on Oct. 24 to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) by NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki.
The agency had an available Nuclear Waste Fund balance of $13.5 million in August 2013, when a federal court ordered the NRC to resume licensing proceedings for Yucca Mountain that had been suspended three years earlier by the Obama administration. Over more than four years, the regulator has spent $12.9 million, primarily on finishing a safety evaluation report on the project and a supplement to the environmental impact statement.
Much of the September spending followed from the commission’s direction in July that staff schedule a virtual meeting of the Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel (LSNARP) on possible revival of the Licensing Support Network or establishing an alternative system. The network holds about 4 million documents that would support the NRC adjudicatory hearing for a revived DOE license application for Yucca Mountain.
“During the month of September, agency staff continued (1) planning for fall 2017 training for LSNARP members and other interested participants to become familiar with the functionality and operations of the recently-completed ADAMS LSN Library, (2) organizing an LSNARP virtual meeting, and (3) assessing the availability of potential hearing space at Federal venues in Nevada and at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland,” according to the NRC update.
Agency staff also finished updating the collection of knowledge management reports that provide technical information to assist in the Yucca review.
The Trump administration has for fiscal 2018 requested $30 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund for Yucca licensing activities at the NRC, along with $120 million at DOE. The House has approved the funding, while the Senate has so far in the budget process opposed any funding for the project.
