Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
2/6/2015
Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) plans to re-introduce legislation in the coming weeks that would overhaul the nation’s nuclear waste policy and will advocate for both a repository and interim storage sites, Alexander said in remarks at the Nuclear Energy Institute this week. Alexander said the new bill will draw “substantially” from the first effort. “Later this year, I also plan to again introduce bipartisan legislation that would create both temporary and permanent storage sites for nuclear waste by making local communities, states and the federal government equal partners in the process,” Alexander said. “We will still need these sites even after Yucca Mountain is open, because our existing nuclear waste, which is stored on site at reactors around the country, would more than fill up Yucca Mountain.”
In Congress’ last session, Alexander co-sponsored a bill along with Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would form a new independent agency to handle the nation’s high-level radioactive waste. The Nuclear Waste Administration Act, as the first bill was called, would also create a consent-based siting approach for interim storage. Those goals drew from some of the recommendations of the Administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, formed after the 2010 shutdown of the Yucca Mountain project.
Alexander Emphasizes Consent-Based Approach
But Alexander has maintained that Yucca Mountain should be part of the solution to the nation’s nuclear waste problem. However, beyond that site, the nation will need more short-term and long-term solutions once Yucca Mountain reaches capacity, Alexander said, maintaining that the only way to site future facilities is through a consent-based process. “The way not to make it contentious is to have the people at the site ask for it,” Alexander said. “You have to have a partnership with the community and the state. You can’t force it done anyone’s throat easily. I think having a good agreement between the state and the community at the site where a repository is to be located is a central part of the plan we recommended for the new repository.”
Nuclear Energy and Waste Hearings Expected
Outside of the re-introduced legislation, Alexander plans to hold hearings in the Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee on the issue in the coming months, along with other issues facing the nuclear industry. “We’re about to take a year-long look at all this,” Alexander said. “Our subcommittee will begin expanded oversight with budget hearings in February and March, and then in April we’ll turn toward a series of hearings about the future of nuclear power in our country – and what it would be like for the United States to be without it.” Alexander’s commitment to moving waste management forward also appears to signal funding for both Yucca Mountain and interim storage in the Senate’s energy appropriation bill, as he indicated his committee will hold hearings on both subjects.
Momentum for breaking the Congressional impasse on nuclear waste policy appears to be gaining since the year began. House Republicans, led by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), said they planned to also introduce legislation soon that would incentivize Nevada into hosting a repository, mainly through infrastructure and economic boosts. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, released the Safety Evaluation Report on Yucca Mountain, which found the repository design meets most regulatory safety requirements.
Nye County: ‘Why Move It Twice?’
Elsewhere, Nye County’s Board of County Commissioners, the host county of Yucca Mountain, sent letters this week to every county that hosts a nuclear plant in hopes of gaining support for the repository. Nye County argued that it’s willing and able to take the waste, but pressure needs to be applied to local Congressional delegations to get Yucca Mountain funded, instead of funding interim storage. “It makes no sense to move the waste twice when it appears that there is a perfectly good solution in the Yucca Mountain repository,” the letter said. “What is needed is awareness, your support, and the support of your Congressional Representatives and Senators. The nine rural Nevada counties that have signed resolutions comprise more than 84,000 square miles, which is more than 75 percent of the area of the State of Nevada. We need your help to make people aware that, first of all, the Nevada Counties that would be most impacted by the development of the Yucca Mountain repository are not resisting efforts to develop the repository, and in fact have prepared resolutions urging the federal government to move forward with the review of the License Application.”
NRC Won’t Say Why No Yucca Funding Was Requested
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, did not include any funding to complete the Yucca licensing review in its Fiscal Year 2016 budget request released this week. Following the completion of the Safety Evaluation Report, which found that the Yucca Mountain design met most regulatory requirements for safety, the NRC has approximately $4 million remaining of appropriated Nuclear Waste Fund money that needs to be expended, as required by a federal court. That $4 million, though, is not expected to be enough to complete the adjudication process needed before the Commission could grant a construction authorization. The NRC this week, though, declined to comment on why it did not include the funding needed to complete the review. “Unfortunately, I can’t discuss what went into the formulation of the budget,” NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner said in an email. “All I can do is reiterate that we have money to continue working on the issue as we follow the court’s direction.”
