Bush wants more for Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Sept. 6, 2002 | 9:46 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is asking lawmakers for $66 million more than the $527 million he originally requested for Yucca Mountain next year. The money is vital for the Energy Department to apply for a Yucca construction license by 2004, budget documents say.

But it seems unlikely the money would be approved, in part because Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has already trimmed the original request.

"It's ludicrous to think that ($66 million) would be given any consideration," Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.

The Yucca budget process follows a similar pattern each year. The Energy Department submits its budget request to the president, and then president submits it to Congress. Reid, who along with the rest of Nevada lawmakers has long opposed the project aimed at permanently burying the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca, then fights to cut the project budget.

Reid is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for energy and water projects, which in July slashed Bush's $527 million Yucca budget request to $336 million.

Undeterred, Bush in an Aug. 2 letter to lawmakers requested more money. "My Administration is committed to ensuring the environmentally sound and safe disposal of the Nation's radioactive waste," the letter said.

The money is needed to accelerate a national waste transportation plan, to improve safety at the site and to complete scientific studies "that would bolster public confidence in the project," according to an Aug. 1 document from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The money is also needed to "support timely completion" of an application to begin Yucca construction, the document said. The department plans to submit that application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December 2004. The OMB letter signed by office director Mitch Daniels said, "Without these additional funds DOE would not be able to submit a license application to the NRC in 2004."

But the House Appropriations subcommittee for energy and water did not approve the request Thursday. Committee spokesman John Scofield said panel staffers tried but failed to identify $66 million in cuts in other programs to offset additional money for Yucca.