NUCLEAR WASTE ADMINISTRATION ACT MAY MOVE TO MARK UP

The Nuclear Waste Administration Act bill appears to be moving forward to the mark up stage as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D.-Ore) has said he wants to move to mark up the bill in December. Previously, Wyden had said during a committee hearing on Nov. 21 that he wanted to move the bill forward, and a spokesman from his staff confirmed those motivations to RW Monitor yesterday. “Wyden said that he plans to mark that bill up this month. We haven’t announced the date of that yet, but when we do it, it will be public. That’s still the plan to have markup this month,” a Wyden spokesman said. “Wyden and Murkowski are both co-authors of the bill. When you have that type of bi-partisanship support for the bill in a committee, there is no reason it wouldn’t be marked up,” he added. A spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R- Alaska), ranking member of the Energy and Resource Committee, was dubious of it occurring this month. “A mark up this month is a worthy goal, but given the short available calendar days for legislative work in December, that’s going to be a heavy lift, but certainly, there is movement to marking up that bill and getting it to the floor,” he said.

 

The Nuclear Waste Administration Act was introduced in the Senate with bi-partisan support earlier this year. 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. Currently, it appears the bill would not survive a vote on the other side of Congress as House lawmakers have maintained a “Yucca or bust” nuclear waste strategy.