$352.5 million ready for Yucca

Ben Grove

Monday, Sept. 27, 1999 | 11:30 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Congress is poised to approve a $352.5 million budget for next year for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste studies projects.

The U.S. Department of Energy is studying Yucca to determine if it is a suitable repository for the nation's commercial and defense nuclear waste -- 70,000 tons of it. Officials have proposed opening the repository by 2010, although a recent Senate proposal would open it as early as 2007.

The Department of Energy had requested $409 million for fiscal year 2000.

The Senate in June approved a $355 million budget. The House later approved $281 million. So the two houses sent representatives to a joint Senate-House conference committee to strike a compromise.

On Friday the joint committee sided with the Senate version of the spending bill, approving $352.5 million. It's expected both full houses now will approve the bill and Clinton will sign it. The bill has not been scheduled for votes, a Senate Appropriations Committee spokeswoman said today.

At stake in the budget haggling were ongoing scientific studies of Yucca, such as thermal testing designed to determine how the mountain would be affected by intense heat generated by decomposing nuclear waste. Also at stake were hundreds of jobs connected to the Yucca studies project.