RW Monitor
5/29/2015
IN NWTRB
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board plans to meet June 24 in Golden, Colo. to discuss the Department of Energy’s activities related to transporting spent nuclear fuel, the Board announced late last week. The main focus of the meeting will center on DOE’s efforts to prepare for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants to a potential interim storage site and/or to a geologic repository, the Board said. “Among the topics that will be discussed at the meeting are DOE’s plans for the transportation of SNF from commercial nuclear power plants to a potential interim storage site and/or to a geologic repository,” the Board said in a release. “Specifically, DOE will discuss research and development efforts and new equipment designs.” Other representatives from industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will also present at the meeting. The meeting will be held at the Denver Marriott West and will start at 8 a.m.
IN CONGRESS
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a hearing for July 9 to discuss the bipartisan Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2015. The bill was introduced by Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D- Wash.), along with Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), as an effort to overhaul the nation’s nuclear waste management strategy. The bill includes language that would create a new federal waste management organization to take over spent nuclear fuel disposal from the Department of Energy, allow the construction of a consent-based pilot interim storage facility, and establish a new working capital fund in the U.S. Treasury where fees collected from the utilities would be deposited and which would not depend on the approval of Congressional appropriators. It also would provide DOE the ability to build additional consolidated interim storage facilities within 10 years, but after 10 years a site for a permanent repository would need to be selected.
