Congress stands ready to work with the Donald Trump administration on a long-term nuclear waste management program, Reps. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and August Pfluger (R-Texas) said in a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The Jan. 12 letter was sent to Wright as the Department of Energy should be nearing completion of a nuclear waste report the president called for last May. The report, directed by executive order Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base, is due this month.
“We hope to work with you to modernize the nuclear waste management program, including developing policies and governance structures that encourage durable state and local collaboration,” the two lawmakers wrote. “We believe this work will strongly support the administration’s goal to expand the United States’ nuclear energy capacity.”
In DOE’s quest to deal with waste management, Levin and Pfluger said DOE needs to re-establish a single purpose office to handle the national nuclear waste management program. The office should operate outside DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, they said.
Over the years various studies have called for a new entity outside DOE to oversee nuclear waste management. A recent report authored by former DOE official Lake Barrett and former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Allison Macfarlane also calls for creation of a new waste organization.
For years, the United States’s nuclear waste management has been stagnant, Levin and Pfluger said, adding this results from political rather than technical difficulty.
As a result of the impasse, over 90,000 metric tons have been stored across the nation at various reactor sites and taxpayers have taken on the financial burden, Levin and Pfluger said.
“DOE estimates a remaining financial liability between $38.6 billion and $44.3 billion, in addition to the $12.2 billion already paid, for commercial SNF [spent nuclear fuel], and $23 billion for the DOE’s own legacy HLW [high-level radioactive waste] and SNF,” the two lawmakers said. “These liabilities are paid with taxpayer dollars and will continue to grow without decisive action to re-establish a workable nuclear waste program.”
The two lawmakers said the United States has the technical capabilities to manage its waste, but needs to focus on updating its management policy and embrace collaboration with the states.
Levin’s district in California is home to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), which ceased operations in 2013. Since joining Congress in January 2019, Levin has been vocal about nuclear waste issues.
In a Jan. 15 press release, Levin said he advanced $100 million through the fiscal 2026 Energy and Water bill to address the spent nuclear fuel at SONGS.
“For decades, this waste has been left in unsuitable and temporary conditions that were never intended to be a long-term solution. We cannot waste any more time,” Levin said in the release. “These funds must be used to continue to develop a solution for San Onofre as quickly as possible.”