Having failed to revive plans for a geologic repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the Trump administration wants nearly $30 million to promote the means for consolidation and temporary storage of the nation’s nuclear waste.
The White House did not include Yucca Mountain in its budget plan for fiscal 2021, released on Monday, after three unsuccessful attempts to persuade Congress to appropriate funds to resume licensing of the disposal facility. The administration last week had telegraphed its intention to abandon efforts on the long-delayed project.
Instead, the proposed $35.4 billion Department of Energy budget would provide $27.5 million for an Interim Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program. That would support implementing a “robust” program for interim storage, along with research and development of technologies for storage, transportation, and disposal, according to the budget plan from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Notably, the document emphasizes fielding technologies “where there is a willingness to host” – a seeming throwback to the Obama administration’s consent-based approach for radioactive waste storage and disposal.
“I think the president’s made a very key and important decision here,’ Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said during a conference call with reporters on his agency’s spending plan. “For decades, Congress has chosen not to act on Yucca Mountain … and the president finally said enough. We’re going to tackle this issue, we’re going to look at new technologies that might allow us to address the spent fuel. Importantly, we’re going to work with governors, we’re going to work with policy-makers, we’re going with private industry to fine solutions that may turn out to be on an interim basis, but we’re going to find solutions to this important problem.”
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), along with members of the state’s congressional delegation, have lauded the shift away from Yucca Mountain. But lawmakers in states holding stranded nuclear waste have urged Trump to rethink his decision.
In the fiscal 2020 budget passed and signed in December, Congress gave nothing for either Yucca Mountain or interim storage. Fiscal 2021 begins on Oct. 1.
Two separate corporate teams hope by 2021 to secure Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses for consolidated interim storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico for spent fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors.
