Tuesday, April 8, 2003 | 11:06 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Energy Department is withholding money that Congress set aside in the last two years for Nevada and nine counties to use in oversight of Yucca Mountain, officials said.
Congress has routinely approved money for the state and counties to use in a watchdog role over the controversial federal nuclear waste repository project.
But the money is funneled through the Energy Department, which is auditing how the state and counties have spent the money in the last two years. Now some of the cash is being withheld pending audit results.
For instance, in its 2002 budget, Congress allocated $2.5 million to the state, but the Energy Department is still holding $625,000 of it, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.
The department "arbitrarily" withheld the amount with no explanation, Loux wrote in a letter last month to department contracting officer Wayne Miller.
A year later Congress in its 2003 budget approved another $2.5 million for Nevada and $7 million for nine Nevada counties, including Clark, plus Inyo County in California. But Nevada has not yet received its share, nor has Clark County gotten its $1.8 million, Irene Navis, Clark County nuclear waste planning manager, said.
The money cannot be used for lobbying against the project, and some questions have surfaced about whether the state and counties have appropriately used all of the money, according to Nevada officials in contact with the Energy Department.
An Energy Department spokesman was not available to explain the concerns or exactly why the money was being withheld.
Navis said the department has had minor questions about just $132,000 in county expenses of $3 million in the last two years, including photocopy expenses and expenses from the county's public outreach program. The department does not have a right to withhold money Congress approved from the counties, Navis said.
"Congress expects the counties to receive these funds," Navis said.
Energy Department officials are withholding $1.1 million from Nye County and $400,000 from Lincoln County -- half of their allotments -- from the 2003 budget, county officials said.
The Energy Department suspects that Nye County inappropriately used the money for lobbying against the repository, Nye County Commissioner Henry Neth said. But he said the money was used as part of a "community protection plan" and that the county did not break any rules.
"We've used the money for the same things that we have for the last 15 years," Neth said.
In addition to the audits, the department is reviewing whether the state needs the oversight money, the department's Yucca project director, Margaret Chu, said in an interview after a Senate hearing Monday.
The money in past years has been used for oversight of Yucca "site characterization" studies. Now that Congress and President Bush have designated Yucca as the nation's nuclear waste repository, the state may not need the money for that, Chu said.
Chu said department officials are trying to come to an agreement with state and county officials on how the oversight money would be used now that the department has entered a new phase with the project: applying for a Yucca license.
"I'm not saying I'm not going to fund them" in the future, Chu said.
At the Yucca budget hearing Monday, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., chided Chu for offering "lofty rhetoric" about cooperating with the state on Yucca while withholding money for project oversight.
"Cutting off ... funds doesn't fill me with hope that you care about what is going on in Nevada," Reid told Chu during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water projects. Reid is the top Democrat on the panel.
The department has some discretion as to whether the money should be given to the state and its counties, even though Congress designated the money for them.
But state officials question whether the department is over-stepping its authority to withhold money.
Loux said the state is entitled to the money, regardless of whether the department is in a site research or licensing phase. The state uses the money for its own Yucca analysis, including waste container corrosion research and transportation studies.
In other comments to the panel on Monday, Chu told lawmakers the Energy Department needs $591 million for Yucca Mountain in the 2004 fiscal year in order to submit a Yucca license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December 2004.
"The next 12 to 18 months are extremely critical to the viability of the program," Chu said in her closing remarks.
Chu reiterated that any future annual budget cuts to the request would result in Yucca project delays, a message that Energy Department officials have repeatedly delivered to Congress. Reid is largely responsible for negotiating Yucca cuts each year.
Chu said the department is still on track to submit a Yucca construction license application by its December 2004 target date. Department officials are still aiming to open the repository by 2010.
Reid questioned the ambitious timetable, noting that the General Accounting Office was also skeptical that deadlines could be met. Reid asked Chu how she planned to submit the license application without a comprehensive waste-shipping plan, which has been delayed.
Chu said she planned to go ahead with the license application despite lack of progress on the transportation plan. Further delays to the project are costly, she said.
archive
