Senators quiz Energy Department on Yucca budget

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2004 | 11:30 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Senators questioned the Energy Department's $880 million request for the Yucca Mountain Project today at the department's first hearing to justify its budget request for the next fiscal year.

The department's effort to reclassify some nuclear waste in Washington and Idaho as well as its slow process in completing claims for former employees now sick with certain diseases also came up at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing this morning.

Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow reiterated the department's determination to meet its 2010 opening for the nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"There is still much work to be done -- at the site, at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and throughout the country -- but at the end of the day America will finally have a long-promised, safe repository for nuclear waste." McSlarrow said. "This is key to ensuring the future use of nuclear power in this nation. It is also key to helping us complete the cleanup of our weapons facilities and to consolidate high-level nuclear waste in one safe, secure location."

Several senators expressed concern that the Energy Department was asking that $749 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account that collects money from nuclear ratepayers to be used to build the project, be put directly in the project's account. That would remove the money from congressional oversight.

"I thnk we need to ask about this," Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said, although he did not bring up the issue later.

The $880 million for Yucca Mountain includes $186 million for transportation research and close to $48 million to complete its Nuclear Regulatory Commission license. The department intends to submit its application to the NRC by December.

McSlarrow said the transportation planning at this point will consist of figuring out what routes to use to move the waste and building a rail system within Nevada.

"We want to avoid the city of Las Vegas," he said, pointing out that the department's preferred route in Caliente does not go through Las Vegas.

He said the department will issue a record of decision on its final method of transportation "very soon."

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., had concerns on the department's plans to change the titles of some waste, so some may actually stay on site in neighboring Washington at a former nuclear weapons construction site in Hanford.

McSlarrow said the department is not trying to change how it will take care of the waste, just trying to get legislative resolution to a problem created by a court decision last year.

"We are not going to do anything that is not in complete agreement with we have with the state of Washington," McSlarrow said. "We and the state regulators are working together."