Pro-nuke lobby urges OK on Yucca spending

Friday, Sept. 20, 2002 | 9:47 a.m.

Twelve nuclear industry companies and several other pro-nuclear groups on Thursday turned up the volume on their plea to Congress to spend $593 million on Yucca Mountain next year, the highest annual budget ever.

President Bush in January asked Congress for $527 million for the Energy Department's nuclear waste dump project. Congress in July then approved construction of the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and Bush asked lawmakers for another $66 million. The Energy Department needs the money to complete Yucca studies; to compile a complex application for a license to construct Yucca; and to develop a plan for hauling highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors and U.S. defense sites nationwide to Nevada.

But as Congress wrestles with complex budget issues in the waning days of this legislative year, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is battling to cut the Yucca funding. Reid, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, is also a member of the Appropriations Committee, which controls the purse strings in Congress.

On Thursday, 12 pro-Yucca groups including the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top lobby group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition -- a group of state regulators, state attorneys general and nuclear utilities -- asked lawmakers to approve Bush's requests.

The groups said they were frustrated that Congress over the years has not given the Energy Department enough money to develop the delay-plagued project.

"Congress must recognize the obvious paradox of voting in support of Yucca Mountain licensing but providing insufficient annual appropriations, which will ultimately delay this program," the groups wrote in a letter to Appropriations Committee leaders Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Rep. Bill Young, R-Fla., "Further delay will cause grave implications and repercussions for the nation's energy supply, national security, consumers and the environment."

Lawmakers hope to wrap up their budget-setting in the coming weeks.

Congress already has allocated roughly $7 billion, mostly for Yucca studies, in the project's 20-year history.