Energy Dept. wants to withhold nuke cleanup funds

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004 | 8:49 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department wants to withhold $350 million in federal money earmarked to clean up radioactive sites unless Congress or a court grants it authority to classify radioactive waste as high-level or low-level material.

The department has been trying to overturn a July 2003 federal court ruling that said it did not have the power to classify radioactive waste into high- and low-level categories.

Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the department thought it had the power to separate millions of gallons of radioactive liquids stored in tanks at former nuclear weapons construction plants with the intention of leaving low-level waste on site instead of moving all of the waste to the proposed permanent repository at Yucca Mountain.

Energy Department officials said the plan was to reduce the volume of waste set to go to Yucca and save as much as $29 billion, while reducing cleanup timelines.

But the court said this violated the 1982 nuclear waste law since it specifically says liquid waste produced by fuel reprocessing is high-level that needs permanent geological storage -- not just the portions the department wants to store there. The department expects the permanent storage site to open at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by 2010.

DOE attempts in Congress last year to amend the law failed.

The department's Savannah River site in South Carolina has more than 34 million gallons of the liquid waste, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has more than 900,000 gallons and the Hanford Site in Washington State has more than 53 million gallons of radioactive material underground and on-site, all from nuclear weapons construction activities.

The Energy Department says if it does not get the authority to classify the waste as it see fits, it will need to find permanent storage for more waste than it intended and more than Yucca could hold. Federal law allows Yucca Mountain to accept 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, but the department has to go to Congress in 2007 and tell it what it plans to do with the waste beyond that limit.

For the fiscal year 2005 budget, which begins Oct. 1, the department requested $5.9 billion for its Defense Site Acceleration Cleanup program, but noted $350 million of it will be requested only if it can get the Nuclear Waste Policy Act clarified in its favor.

If Congress agrees with the department and clarifies the language, $249 million would go to general operation and maintenance while $52 million would go to a waste processing facility at the Savannah River site, $24 million would go to a facility in Idaho, and about $23 million would go to another facility at Savannah River, according to budget documents.

The department wants to be able to determine which waste should be disposed at Yucca and which waste is "not properly considered high-level waste requiring, as a scientific matter, disposal in a geologic repository," according to its budget request.

The department has challenged the federal court decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in addition to trying to get Congress' help.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said the department is not seeking to reclassify waste, but instead looking for "confirmation from Congress of our long-standing authority to classify various material from reprocessing according to the risk it presents so that it can be disposed of in a manner appropriate to those risks."

But translates into the department just trying to change rules it does not like, Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said.

"This is the typical, arrogant, 'We're above the law' approach DOE likes to do with everything they do including Yucca Mountain," Loux said. "On every subject it is either their way or no way in their minds."

Nevada does not have a cleanup site that would lose money through the proposal but the change would indirectly affect Yucca Mountain since it has to do with the waste destined for it.

The state's congressional delegation has said the issue is more about the department trying to alter the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which guides the Yucca project, and its usual disregard for its own rules.

Last year the House accepted a motion offered by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., telling energy bill negotiators to not accept the department's request for the authority, based on the impact it could have on Idaho, Washington, South Carolina, where those plants are located, and possibly other states.

At that time Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who is now waiting final confirmation to take over the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he had no intention of including the department's change in the energy bill.

However, in an extension of his remarks made on the House floor and just inserted into the Congressional Record, Barton, said it is important that the department find a conclusion to the situation and that he would consider a change if the state and the department could reach an agreement.

"Without clarification of DOE's authorities with respect to high level wastes, we may experience cleanup delays as DOE tries to settle this in the courts," Barton said.

Meanwhile, earlier this month Thomas Cochran, Natural Resources Defense Council director of nuclear programs, and attorney Geoff Fettus sent a letter to the governors of Idaho, South Carolina, Washington and Oregon asking if they have been in private negotiations with the department over these changes.

The council asked the states to refuse to be "bullied, one by one" by the department trying to get them to agree to a change separately rather than together and in an open process.

The affected states all have agreement with the department on how cleanup will be completed.

Fettus said so far he has heard from an Oregon official, who insisted the state is not involved in any negotiations with the department. He was waiting to hear back from the the others.