In a budget bill released Tuesday, Senate appropriators agreed with their House colleagues that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should get about $850 million in fiscal year 2021, with $27.5 million for a non-Yucca-Mountain consolidated nuclear-waste storage facility.
The proposal released Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee recommends the requested $849.9 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), plus the requested $13.5 million or so for its Inspector General’s Office. The NRC Inspector General also covers the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Net of estimated revenue that comes mostly from NRC’s service fees for license applications, the Senate’s proposed 2021 appropriation for the commission would work out to about $123 million for the NRC.
If signed into law, the Senate’s 2021 spending bill would boost NRC’s budget by about $10 million, compared with last year. The 2021 funding would pay around 2,870 salaries – down by just over 100 from last year. Like the rest of the federal government, the NRC is funded at 2020 levels under a stopgap budget that runs through Dec. 11. The lame-duck Congress will either have to extend the stopgap or pass a permanent budget. In January, the 116th Congress will end, and Democrats will take control of the White House.
Senate appropriators also joined their House counterparts in recommending a requested $27.5 million for the Department of Energy to begin consolidating spent nuclear fuel from around the country in “one or more” private or government interim central storage facilities. No such facilities exist, yet. The Senate bill also recommends $10 million for the DOE secretary to contract for spent fuel management.
Bill report language says priority should be given to accepting waste from shutdown reactors and to investment in waste transportation to storage facilities. Neither the bill nor the report mentions anything about Yucca Mountain, the proposed permanent nuclear waste facility in Nevada.
After failing to get any traction with Yucca Mountain during President Donald Trump’s term, the White House did not even bother requesting 2021 funding to license the Nye County, Nev., facility as a permanent waste repository. The Obama administration effectively withdrew DOE’s application to license Yucca Mountain with the NRC in 2012.
The Senate also recommended $17.1 million, down from the House’s recommendation and NRC’s request of $17.7 million, to establish a regulatory framework for advanced nuclear-reactor technologies.
