Domenici, Reid plan to fund alternatives to Yucca

Tuesday, March 19, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.

Two U.S. senators on Monday said they plan to fund alternatives to burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said they will earmark part of the Energy Department's 2003 budget to study technology that could reduce the toxicity in radioactive waste. Transmutation research received $43.5 million this fiscal year, although as much as $60 million could fund the research next fiscal year, congressional and DOE staffers say.

Domenici, ranking member on the subcommittee, amended the DOE's $527 million request for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. The office oversees studies at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

A Senate subcommittee on Friday also created a new office to study alternatives to burying high-level nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain.

The Office of Spent Nuclear Fuel Research under the DOE would help develop alternative strategies to treat or transmute highly radioactive waste from commercial reactors or the Defense Department.

William Magwood, director of the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, said the department will complete a report by May regarding advanced waste treatment programs.