More money sought to meet Yucca deadline

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Feb. 4, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is asking Congress for a $152 million increase for Yucca Mountain to push the site forward as the nation's nuclear waste dump.

While a decision on the site is still officially pending, the budget proposal sent to Congress this morning calls for spending $527 million in the next fiscal year so Yucca Mountain can open by the 2010 deadline.

The request "provides sufficient funding for the Energy Department to prepare a license application to meet that deadline," the budget says.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he will recommend Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository to President Bush. That recommendation is expected later this month.

Department scientists have found no "show stoppers" after decades of studying the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the General Accounting Office -- the investigative arm of Congress -- and several studies have been critical of Yucca Mountain as a repository.

Anti-Yucca activists voiced concern over spending more money to license a project that has not been proven scientifically sound.

"This budget seems to indicate full steam ahead from the DOE's perspective," said Lisa Gue, a Yucca Mountain analyst for Public Citizen. "We hope that the legislative process surrounding Yucca Mountain will put a halt on that."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, an outspoken critic of Yucca Mountain who filed a lawsuit on the city's behalf last month, said the budget increase is "horrendous."

"I think it's outrageous," Goodman said, saying the recommendation for Yucca is not based on science but politics. "I think they need an increase for public relations."

Bush released his $2.13 trillion budget this morning for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The budget, which calls for large increases in defense spending, sets the stage for budget battles with lawmakers this year.

Lawmakers typically haggle over the Yucca budget each year. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who sits on the money-doling Appropriations Committee, is often successful at reducing the amount requested by the Energy Department and the president. Last year Reid negotiated a $70 million reduction to $375 million.

Reid may argue that increased Yucca funding would take money from important priorities such as the Army Corps of Engineers, his spokesman, Nathan Naylor, said.

"It's worth arguing that we have a limited source of funds and we need to be prudent with it," Naylor said. "And Yucca Mountain is a huge waste of money."

Tucked in Bush's 6-inch thick budget is the Energy Department's request for increased spending for its Office of Radioactive Waste Management, which runs the Yucca Mountain project. The project is a federal plan to bury the nation's high-level waste in tunnels 1,000 feet below the surface of the desert ridge.

The department has spent roughly $8 billion over 20 years on the project. The project could cost an estimated $58 billion.

Energy is shifting focus from a massive scientific study of geography at Yucca to the complex process of obtaining a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to bury waste at the site. That process would take several years. Repository construction has not yet begun.

"If the site is designated, the administration will seek additional funding to begin construction of essential transportation facilities and infrastructure within Nevada, and provide a long-term management and financing plan for the entire licensing and construction effort," Bush's budget says. "The administration is committed to ensuring the environmentally sound and safe disposal of the nation's radioactive waste."

Energy officials say they want to stick to their timeline of completing the project within eight years, despite a recent GAO report that recommended the project be delayed indefinitely because scientific studies are not complete. The report said the department's 2010 deadline is not realistic.

Nevada lawmakers and other observers had just begun to pore over Bush's Yucca Mountain budget this morning.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., routinely votes against the overall Energy Department budget because it contains money for Yucca Mountain.

"Any Yucca Mountain funding is funding we would not support," Gibbons' spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said today. "We've always wanted that amount zeroed out."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the increased Yucca Mountain budget reflects Bush's close relationship with the nuclear industry. The administration "doesn't care at all what the science says," Berkley said. She said she was "dismayed" by the budget.

Nuclear industry officials support the president's request, said Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. The industry strongly supports completing the Yucca project so that waste can be hauled to Nevada from where it is stored onsite at the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors. Industry officials consider this year's budget "healthy growth" over last year, Singer said.