Bill aims to ease Yucca funding barriers

Mary Manning and Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, July 10, 2001 | 11:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A recently drafted House energy bill would give the Energy Department direct access to $10 billion in a federal fund created to develop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.

The move would effectively remove Congress' responsibility of setting a specific Yucca budget each year.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans on Monday released the draft bill that contains the Yucca budget reforms. The committee was scheduled to discuss it today and Wednesday.

One leading advocate, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said the provision would allow the DOE to move more quickly on Yucca, which is being studied as the site to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

Since 1982 about $17 billion has been paid into the government's nuclear waste fund by U.S. utility ratepayers who use nuclear-generated electricity. Ratepayers, through a special tax, contribute about $800 million to $850 million each year, according to a bill summary.

The fund's goal is to pay for a permanent burial ground for highly radioactive spent fuel rods -- nuclear waste -- from the nation's 103 active nuclear power plants.

The DOE has spent about $7 billion during the past 20 years to study Yucca Mountain, singled out by Congress as the site for a nuclear repository. If approved, the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas would eventually be home to 77,000 tons of waste. The DOE is expected to recommend the site later this year. It would open in 2010 at the earliest.

Current law states that Congress each year must authorize expenditures from the waste fund and then "appropriate" -- that is, actually spend -- money on the project. The result is that lawmakers each year argue about exactly how much to spend on the project, and Nevada lawmakers, who oppose the Yucca plan, fight to decrease funding.

The new legislation would allow Congress to authorize spending for the project, but not appropriate a specific amount. In short, Congress would set a general spending budget, although the DOE would have free access to the fund to spend as it sees fit.

"If they want a billion, they can take a billion," Barton spokeswoman Samantha Jordan said.

Jordan stressed that Congress would maintain strict oversight.

"This definitely does not just throw the Yucca Mountain budget to the wind," she said. "The Department of Energy would still be accountable for every penny (it spends)."

Many nuclear power industry leaders have supported taking Yucca spending "off-budget" for years, although its top lobby group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, has not taken an official position, spokesman Mitch Singer said.

As it stands, Singer said, Yucca must compete with other congressional priorities. The bill would change that, he said.

"If the money has been put aside for a specific purpose, why can't it be spent on the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain without being held up by Congress?" Singer said.

But Nevada's four-member congressional delegation strongly opposes giving DOE access to the waste fund. The lawmakers, led by Appropriations Committee member and No. 2 Senate Democrat Harry Reid, have long battled to decrease Yucca budgets.

Reid "advocates vigorous congressional oversight," spokesman Nathan Naylor said.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the legislation does not seem to have support in the Senate.

"They have made runs at this (proposal) before," Ensign said. "It's typical that they are trying to be able to do this without congressional oversight. We're going to continue to vigorously oppose anything that would make it easier to build Yucca Mountain. And this would make it easier."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., plans to write letters to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and President Bush. He noted that the legislation has the support of a bipartisan group of influential lawmakers.

"This gives free rein to the DOE to run Yucca Mountain and have (its) own spending spree," Gibbons said. "I'll do everything I can to stop the bill."

The DOE asked Congress for about $445 million for Yucca projects this year. Last year, it asked for $437 million, and Congress appropriated $390 million.