Abraham confident department will make Yucca deadline

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2003 | 9:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is confident it will meet its December 2004 deadline to submit an application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Monday.

"This will not be easy," Abraham said, when asked about the recent $11 million cut to the project after a speech at the National Press Club.

House and Senate negotiations on the 2004 energy and water spending bill ended last week with a $580 million final budget for the Yucca project, a decrease from the $591 million requested by the administration. The department intends to store 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"You know, throughout this project, there's been a challenge for us, not only in terms of the mechanical challenges that you face (with) a project of this magnitude, but we haven't received the funding levels which have been requested, and then we're criticized when we don't meet deadlines that were dependent on having sufficient funds to conduct the work that's required," Abraham said.

"I believe we will meet our target," Abraham said. "It won't be easy because we have been always kept a little below the funding level that we have requested. But we have a terrific team of people that work on radioactive waste in this department, and they're going to get their job done."

Sen. Harry Reid, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee that crafts the energy and water spending bill each year, has successfully cut the Yucca budget for years.

The nuclear industry and the department have argued that the project has been underfunded by more than $700 million below the administration's request even though the Nuclear Waste Fund has billions of dollars in it waiting to be used on the program.

The DOE has not determined transportation routes to move the waste across the country to Nevada, and Abraham said Monday he could not say when the agency would.

"That's an evolutionary process that requires a number of steps to take place. We engage states in that process, as I think people know. So it's a priority, but it's part of this ongoing process forward," Abraham said. " I will also say that doing it right will also require sufficient funding. And so, it's an important thing for us to have the funds we require for these programs, or else it takes longer to do them."

After it receives the Yucca Mountain application, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has three and possibly four years to review the document. It would then decide to grant a construction license so the department could begin to build the site.

But the state and other opponents to the site are hoping the project will be stopped by the courts. A Jan. 14 court date has been set in Washington for a federal court to hear several legal challenges against the site.