Court decision puts DOE’s finances in jeopardy

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1998 | 11:04 a.m.

U.S. Department of Energy officials are worried about the future of plans to bury thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain after the Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from both the DOE and nuclear utilities.

The Supreme Court's denial to hear the appeal was not unexpected, a DOE statement said, but may interfere with funding a permanent solution to 77,000 tons of nuclear reactor wastes.

DOE officials are worried, the statement said, "about the potential adverse impact of the ruling on the program's ability to develop a permanent solution for the management of the nation's radioactive waste."

By leaving the appeals ruling in place, the high court makes $15 billion collected from nuclear ratepayers to bury the radioactive wastes in Yucca Mountain vulnerable to claims by nuclear utilities to pay for damages in keeping the waste at reactor sites nationwide.

By October, 11 utility companies had filed lawsuits in the Court of Federal Claims seeking damages ranging from $70 million to $1.5 billion.

"DOE will of course comply with the lower court's ruling and process any claims presented to it under the standard disposal contract," the DOE statement said.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear utilities industry, said taxpayers may foot the bill, rather than ratepayers or the utilities.

"The pressure continues to build on the federal government to meet its responsibility," institute spokesman Steve Kerekes said.

Utilities, ratepayers and taxpayers "are possibly in line for billions in damages," Kerekes said. He predicted more utilities will file claims as a result of Monday's high court ruling.

Meanwhile, the DOE is running into increasing scientific criticism for its work at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The agency will not know until 2001 whether the mountain is scientifically sound to keep 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste away from people and the environment for millions of years.

Independent scientists warn that the mountain's crust is moving and that water deep within the earth has invaded the repository site.

The problem that brought the issue to court stems from the original 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which gave a 1998 deadline for a repository to be open. At the earliest, the DOE will not ship a single canister of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain until 2010.

The Supreme Court's decision allows the utilities to seek damage payments from the DOE while they store the waste.

Nuclear Energy Institute officials say DOE has places already available to keep the tons of nuclear waste stacked at reactors. The DOE's Savannah River site in Columbia, S.C., where foreign nuclear fuel is being stored, is one example, Kerekes said. "When they have the political will, they do so," he said.

The ruling may stop efforts by Congress to force temporary nuclear waste storage at the Nevada Test Site, said Auke Piersma of Public Citizen, an energy watchdog group in Washington, D.C.

"It's good that nuclear waste won't be traveling," Piersma said. "There's no excuse for Congress to pass temporary nuclear waste storage."

In the last two sessions of Congress, efforts at passing temporary nuclear waste storage have failed, largely due to a veto threat by President Clinton and the fact that the Senate does not have a veto-proof majority vote.

"The fact of the matter is, the utilities have said all along that this is not about money," said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Projects Office. "The utilities don't want the ratepayers to pay, so the bill goes to the taxpayers. The utilities will not get what they want."

Although the DOE has estimated it will cost about $30 billion to build a repository and bury nuclear wastes, the state estimated up to $54 billion with almost half of that coming from taxpayers, Loux said.