Lawmakers hope to trim record budget for Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 | 11:28 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A House panel has approved what would be the biggest annual Yucca Mountain budget ever -- a proposal to spend $765 million next year on the 20-year-old nuclear waste repository project.

But the annual process of wrangling over the project budget has just begun, and Nevada lawmakers expect the budget will be trimmed significantly before Congress finalizes it.

The budget proposal approved Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee on energy and water would be a 29 percent increase from what the Energy Department requested for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

The proposal is about $308 million more than the current year Yucca budget and more than restores the $131 million that was cut from the current budget during negotiations last year.

Yucca is one of the top priorities of new subcommittee chairman Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, according to a committee news release. The money will give the Energy Department the boost it needs to keep the project on track to open by the 2010 target, the release said. The budget puts a "particular emphasis" on developing a rail line in Nevada that would carry waste to Yucca and avoid Las Vegas, according to the release. The rail line has been estimated to cost as much as $1 billion.

Energy Department officials were pleased with the panel vote. "It's an obvious indication that that Congress believes it is high time to get moving forward on Yucca Mountain," department spokesman Joe Davis said.

The money would help the department accomplish its most immediate goal: to submit an application for a license to construct Yucca, Davis said. The department aims to submit the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December 2004.

Nevada lawmakers, long opposed to Yucca, said the $765 million proposal gave them sticker shock.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said it would be "ludicrous" to spend so much when Congress is cutting education and veterans programs and is struggling to pay for homeland security projects and the war on terrorism.

"This is nothing short of ignorance," Berkley said.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., was surprised by the bold budget proposal, spokesman Jack Finn said. "At the same time, he is confident that it will not remain at that level," Finn said.

Setting a Yucca budget follows a familiar path in Congress each year. Typically the House approves a larger budget than the Senate, and ultimately Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., negotiates to slash it in an effort to slow the project's development. Reid plans to do the same this year, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.

"This is the largest number we have seen, but it doesn't come as a surprise to Sen. Reid that the Republican House is doing the President's bidding," Hafen said.

Nuclear industry officials have said urging lawmakers to approve the Energy Department's budget request is a lobbying priority this year. Pro-Yucca lawmakers have done some lobbying of their own, urging their colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to approve at least $591 million, the Energy Department request presented in President Bush's federal budget.