Monday, April 5, 2004 | 11:23 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain project, which would build a place to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in Nevada by 2010, will need a $1.4 billion annual budget by 2007, and it will need more yearly after that, according to Energy Department estimates.
The size of the budget, a large one for a single program, even by federal standards, has proponents of the nation's first proposed nuclear waste repository fighting to remove the project from the annual battle for federal funding. But the project's opponents want to keep Yucca Mountain in the thick of the budget debate, giving them a yearly forum to question its safety and the soundness of its science.
To put it in context, the estimated cost of the Hoover Dam bypass bridge, a fairly large and complex project, is estimated at a total $234 million. One year of Yucca money is almost four times the cost of the bridge.
The Energy Department requested $880 million for next year. Similar requests in past years have been cut -- and this year's request has been cut in committee -- but this year's debate is also marked by an Energy Department move to tap directly into a fund set aside for nuclear waste disposal.
The $14 billion Nuclear Waste Fund comes from a fee nuclear utilities pay for every kilowatt hour sold. The law requires the fee to be paid, yet there is no law requiring the money to be spent, said Steve Kraft, director of waste management for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear power industry group.
Each year Congress sets an overall budget limit that it divides among the 13 spending bills. Lawmakers negotiate how to allocate that money among numerous federal programs in each bill, especially since each person has different priorities. The Yucca Mountain project is among the programs whose budgets get increased and cut as deals get made to finalize the bill and stay within its spending cap.
Since 1995 Congress has provided the Yucca program with $712 million less than the department requested, Kraft said. The shortfall forces the Energy Department to "find ways of coping" as it tries to stay on track for the 2010 opening date, he said.
"There are a small number of members of Congress who have significant questions in their mind about the project and don't want to fund it," Kraft said.
As the Yucca price tag increases it will strain the energy and water spending bill, which funds other Energy Department programs, Army Corps of Engineer projects and some defense activities, since lawmakers who want to fund Yucca will have to take money from other programs. Even if the limit for the energy spending bill were increased, the money would have to come from other bills to stay within the overall budget cap.
Kraft said the department, with the industry's support, has tried at least 20 different proposals to get more money from the nuclear waste fund to go toward the site.
"In none of the proposals did we ever say there should be no control by Congress," Kraft said. "We want Congress to control spending but make it easy for Congress to give it (the Yucca Mountain project) the money Congress wants it to have."
This year, the department wants $750 million of its $880 million request to be removed from the annual budget fight. Any amount over $750 million -- which is the what utilities will pay into the fund this year -- would still have to compete with other programs, but it all would come out of the waste fund.
"They (Congress) can decide Yucca funding on its own merit. It takes it out of the equation," Kraft said. "It's subject to the same controls, subject to the same oversight. The statement that they (the department) are taking controls from Congress is ridiculous."
But critics say the proposal would reduce congressional control by leaving the Yucca budget out of the competition. Congress controls the budget, and sets priorities, in part based on how the requests for money stack up against each other during the budget process.
"It should have to compete with other programs to prove its muster," said Michele Boyd, a legislative representative for Public Citizen. "It needs to prove it is a valid program to get all that money."
Rep. Shelley Berkley's spokesman, David Cherry, said if Congress were to give up control on any portion of the budget, it would lose oversight on the program.
Berkley, D-Nev., as well as Rep. Jon Porter and Rep. Jim Gibbons, both R-Nev., all made that argument last month when testifying before the House energy and commerce subcommittee.
"People who would benefit from the change the most want to look at it as spending ratepayer's money," Cherry said. "They want to spend the money whether it is a good program or not." The House and Senate budget resolutions, now in final negotiations, did not contain the change. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who sits on the Budget Committee, kept the project at the $577 million mark, the same amount of funding it received last year.
Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said Ensign uses different angles to fight against the program, not only pointing to the scientific problems and safety concerns but its cost as well.
"We attack it on all fronts," Finn said.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has regularly cut the Yucca budget. Reid, who is the top Democrat on the energy and water appropriations subcommittee that funds the project every year, said the department's efforts to change the funding have "moved nowhere."
"There's a chance, but I don't think it's a very good one," Reid said, pointing out that Sen. Don Nickels, R-Okla., who heads the Budget Committee and Sen. Kent Conrad, N.D., the committee's top Democrat also oppose the idea.
The House and Senate budget resolutions, now in final negotiations, did not contain the change. Two pending bills in the House are keeping the option alive, but supporters admit it will be tough to get them approved in the Senate.
"Obviously, Senator Reid of Nevada is not supportive of the repository," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, said. Barton sponsored a bill that would implement the change. He could not pinpoint the next step for the bill but said he aims to move it through the House.
"The president is very supportive and the secretary is, but we still have to work with the budget committee," Barton said. "We're going to try. I can't guarantee success."
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said it is wrong that the nuclear industry pays money toward the Yucca project but can't get it spent on the project.
"We are going to work as hard as we can," Abraham said. "We recognize we'll have to work very hard in the Senate, but we are going to everything we can to make that happen. We think it's appropriate to fence that money off."
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