Yucca lump-sum funding criticized by lawmakers

Benjamin Grove and Mary Manning

Friday, Sept. 28, 2001 | 10:03 a.m.

The Department of Energy for the first time has asked Congress to consider paying for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in one lump sum rather than doling out smaller annual budgets, according to an agency report.

The proposal drew sharp criticism from Nevada lawmakers. Where would Congress get that kind of money -- the price tag for Yucca has been estimated at $58 billion -- during an economic slump and war time? they asked.

"That's going to take an enormous amount of money away from other programs -- it will take money from education, from health care, from defense," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. "All the president's priorities will be cut down tremendously. Fifty-eight billion dollars is a tremendous amount of money."

Congress, facing a dwindling surplus, is struggling to set the nation's budget.

That's partly due to this year's tax cut, a sagging economy, increased Department of Defense spending and a $40 billion expenditure to pay for rebuilding and retaliation after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, plus $15 billion in airline aid.

"There is no money available for a lump-sum payment, or any payment, to build Yucca Mountain," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "The very notion that the Department of Energy is examining a lump-sum payment shows just how out of touch with reality they are."

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being considered by the DOE to bury the nation's high-level radioactive waste.

The controversial project has not been approved by the president, Congress, or Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but has strong support among some lawmakers and the nuclear industry.

Roughly 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, now piling up at the nation's nuclear power plants and Defense Department sites, would be hauled to Yucca on trucks and trains for several decades.

The recommendation to pay, in one lump sum, the price of constructing Yucca was unveiled in an August 2001 report prepared by the Department of Energy. The House Appropriations subcommittee for energy and water requested the report, seeking proposals for a Yucca payment plan.

The DOE paid consultant Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc. was paid $486,000 to help develop proposals.

The DOE earlier this month sent the 64-page document to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. C.W. Young, R-Fla., but committee lawmakers and staff have not reviewed the report because the Sept. 11 attacks delayed budget negotiations, a committee spokesman said.

Congress has set up a national nuclear waste fund to pay for Yucca studies and construction. For years, ratepayers who use nuclear-generated electricity have paid into the fund, now at about $11 billion. The nation's taxpayers also contribute because some Department of Defense waste would be stored at Yucca.

Congress controls the fund. Each year since 1987 Congress has given the DOE money from the fund to study Yucca Mountain. Last year Congress budgeted $390 million.

The DOE report outlines possible Yucca funding alternatives to the current pay-as-you-go system. The DOE will wait to recommend a specific funding scheme until the department makes its final recommendation on Yucca Mountain, perhaps later this year, DOE officials have said.

One proposal in the report involves a scenario floated by pro-Yucca lawmakers earlier this year -- Give the DOE unrestricted access to the account by removing Congress' ability to set annual spending caps. Nevada's lawmakers in Congress oppose that.

They also oppose the lump-sum scenario in which the DOE could request one payment in 2003.

It is not clear exactly how many billions of dollars that would be. Among other uncertainties, the final design of the underground waste tomb has not been approved.

The DOE official who authored the report declined to comment about it, but the report summarized the pros and cons of a lump sum payment.

Among the pros, it said, a lump sum would "ensure greater certainty in the repository development schedule" the report said. Also, a lump sum would allow the DOE to offer contractors multi-year contracts, which could offer some cost savings, according to the report.

The con: A lump sum would lessen congressional spending control.

"This is just not going to happen," Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said. "Sen. Reid will not abdicate congressional oversight over the largest public works project in the nation's history. To write a blank check would just be reckless."

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., also opposes any proposal that takes away the ability for Congress to set Yucca's budget annually, spokeswoman Traci Scott said.