Legislation designed to help the Energy Department secure a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository could appear as soon as next week, when Congress is set to return to Washington, a source said Monday.
The bill would seek to quell regulatory concerns that DOE has not secured permanent land and water rights to the federal property in Nevada on which the repository would be built, the source said. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) has been working on just such a proposal, though a spokesman for the lawmaker would not confirm Monday that the legislation rumored to drop next week is Shimkus’ bill.
“The congressman is working on comprehensive nuclear waste policy legislation,” the Shimkus spokesman said by email. “He has said he wants to have it through the House by the August district work period, but that is the only timing information we’ve released.”
Shimkus’ bill would also support consolidated interim storage sites for spent nuclear fuel: something the Donald Trump administration and the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama, agree on, despite their polar-opposite stances on Yucca.
The Trump administration has proposed spending some part of $120 million in fiscal 2018 to restart the Yucca Mountain license application the Obama administration pulled from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2010. The Trump proposal also includes funding for interim storage, which was a key part of the consent-based siting approach to nuclear waste the Obama administration championed as an alternative to Yucca Mountain.
The Obama administration advanced plans for separate storage sites for defense and commercial nuclear waste, while Yucca Mountain would consolidate the waste streams in one repository.
