Proposal would shield Yucca funding

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2003 | 11:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department has a new plan to avoid the annual budget limit set by Congress for the Yucca Mountain project.

The department and the White House have quietly proposed that Congress adopt new procedural rules that would allow Yucca-friendly lawmakers to restore project funding after it has been slashed.

Department officials have grown increasingly frustrated in recent years by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who negotiates to cut the Yucca budget every year.

The proposal differs from current rules in that it would allow a lawmaker to call for a vote to restore Yucca funding without "offsets" -- cuts in other programs that would pay for restoring the Yucca budget.

The proposal would effectively take the Yucca Mountain project out of the traditional congressional budget process that Reid uses to cut Yucca funding from his seat on the Appropriations Committee.

The plan is similar to "off-budget" proposals designed to give the Energy Department unrestricted access to the $13.6 billion national nuclear waste fund. The proposals have fizzled because lawmakers cautiously guard their authority to set budget caps each year.

Reid said that he would fight the proposal and that lawmakers won't approve it.

"They have opposed this kind of thing in the past," Reid said. "Legislators don't like to lose control of anything."

The budget proposal is described in a single sentence in the Energy Department's 106-page budget highlights document. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham mentioned the proposal briefly when questioned Monday by a reporter at a briefing in which Abraham outlined his $23.4 billion department budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The proposal is key to Yucca's future because Yucca budget requests are expected to skyrocket as the department prepares to begin construction in 2008. Department officials say Yucca could open by 2010 only if Congress approves the full amount of its requests each year.

Congress has limited Yucca budgets to between $300 million and $400 million in recent years. But the department requested $590 million for this fiscal year and $591 million for next year. The department is expected to ask for more than $1 billion in its next request.

Energy Department officials want more assurance that those large requests could be restored if Reid cut them.

It's not clear how much support the budget proposal would receive in Congress. Energy Department Yucca project director Margaret Chu said she would pitch the plan to lawmakers soon.

Long-time pro-Yucca lawmakers would line up behind it, several congressional sources said.

"If we continue to not have enough money every year, Sen. Craig will definitely look at this," said Will Hart, spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

The nuclear industry, a longtime advocate of Yucca, generally applauded the budget proposal.

"We're glad to hear that they are considering some fundamental changes in the funding mechanism," said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group that lobbies for more Yucca money.

On a related issue, Chu said the department next year would not automatically renew funding for Yucca oversight by Nevada officials. In recent years the department has given Nevada $2.5 million and affected counties $6 million to watchdog the project. But Chu said the project has entered a new phase -- from scientific study to applying for a project license -- so the state does not need the same oversight money.

Chu said it's still possible the department would give the state some money but did not know when or how much.

State officials said Nevada is entitled to oversight money under the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The state also has challenged the department in court and won the right to oversight money, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.

Among other projects, the state has been conducting corrosion research that indicate the Energy Department's metal waste containers are not adequate, Loux said.

"It's obvious the department doesn't like that work," Loux said. "They see it as a serious impediment. This is one way for them to try to stop it."

In other news, Secretary Abraham said clean-up programs for the nation's Cold War-era nuclear weapons research and production sites would receive a slight budget increase, from $5.6 billion to $5.8 billion. The clean-up projects include on-going work at the Nevada Test Site, which would receive $10.4 million next year under the budget proposal, a $2.3 million increase. Low-level nuclear waste is being processed at the site for shipment to New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for permanent burial.