Plan would hike Yucca funding

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, Nov. 3, 2003 | 11:26 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain project would be guaranteed at least $725 million in 2005 and beyond if a proposed change to its funding rules wins approval.

Illinois Reps. John Shimkus, a Republican, and Bobby Rush, a Democrat, introduced a bill Friday that would satisfy the nuclear industry's desire to use more money from the Nuclear Waste Fund to build the planned nuclear fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Nuclear utilities have paid about $20 billion into the fund since its creation in 1983 to help finance a permanent place for nuclear waste. Close to $14 billion still sits in the account waiting to be spent on the project.

This has frustrated the nuclear industry, which wants to see the 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel moved to Nevada from on-site storage at utilities. It argues that the money in the account is earmarked specifically for the project but is not being used for it.

Each year, like almost all federal programs, the administration proposes a budget for the project and then the House and Senate fit it in among the other programs in the annual energy and water spending bill. The bill is subject to a limit that it cannot exceed. The system pits programs against each other for funding.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid is the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees Yucca spending. He has been successful in the past in getting lower funding levels than what the department has requested for the project.

"There's no way I will allow DOE to have access to unlimited amounts of money with no accountability," Reid said.

Right now the spending bill negotiations are trying to find middle ground between the $765 million approved by the House and the $425 million passed by the Senate.

The department will likely request $1 billion for the program in the near future to keep its licensing and possible construction schedule on track, but it will be hard to satisfy that request without hurting other programs in the bill.

Terry Freese, the Nuclear Energy Institute director of legislative programs, explained that the Shimkus-Rush proposal sets aside at least $725 million for 2005 from the Nuclear Waste Fund that would not fall under the funding cap.

"You could spend from the waste fund without having to compete for other revenues," Freese said.

The designated amount would fluctuate each year depending on how much money is paid into the nuclear waste fund. Freese called $725 million a "conservative estimate," since more money may go into the fund. The number varies each to year since it depends on how much nuclear power gets produced.

"Requiring Yucca Mountain to compete with the other energy and water needs of the nation will keep the process open and force those who want to bury nuclear waste in Nevada to justify every dime that is spent on this potentially deadly white elephant," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "And at a time when we are struggling to fund education, health care, security at home and our military abroad, we should not allow special budget favors for the pro-Yucca crowd."

Freese said Congress and the department still have the authority to propose any funding level they want, and any additional money beyond the $725 million would still be subject to the bill's cap.

The industry and the department have tried similar approaches before, even recommending the fund be taken completely out of the appropriations process, but none of the proposals has been approved.

"They lost the battle earlier this year and they're going to lose the battle again," Reid said.

A Reid aide said the bill is unlikely to pass since none of the appropriators wants to give up any control over the spending process.

Shimkus and Rush are members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which will have to approve the bill before it can be considered by all members of the House. Both voted in favored of the House resolution passed last year that allowed the department to move forward with the project. Illinois gets 51. 6 percent of its power from nuclear energy, more than any other state. Ratepayers there have paid just under $3 billion in the Nuclear Waste Fund and just over 6,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel is stored in Illinois.