House panel slashes project funding

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, June 10, 2004 | 11:34 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A House subcommittee approved $131 million for the Yucca Mountain project on Wednesday, a severe cut from the Energy Department's $880 million request.

There are several steps to go before the final budget is approved for fiscal year 2005, and that amount could certainly change before the budget is approved.

The House Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee passed the energy spending bill by a unanimous voice vote Wednesday in under 30 minutes. The full Appropriations Committee could take up the bill as early as next week.

Energy Department officials have insisted that without full funding the department will not be able to meet its 2010 deadlines to open the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Congress has still not approved the department's request to sidestep the regular budget process and take $749 million of next year's money directly from the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account funded directly by a surcharge on nuclear power.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, subcommittee chairman, has said for months that with no "Plan B" there was nothing he could do but fund the program with the $131 million that could go to the program without the policy change.

"As I have mentioned many times, OMB (Office of Management and Budget) has played Russian roulette when they assumed the House and Senate would pass the proposed reclassification language," Hobson said. "I don't like going forward with so little money for Yucca Mountain, but we are playing the hand frankly that we were dealt."

Two bills that would make the change have yet to move through committee and Congress has limited time left this election year.

Hobson said he did not think the change would get through this year "but this is one of the few times I want to be proven wrong."

He would not expand on suggestions he has given to the Office of Management and Budget for other ways to solve the problem. Even beyond this fiscal year, the department will need the policy change to fund upcoming bigger budgets in coming years.

Hobson emphasized he wanted to give more money to the project, as he did last year with a more than $100 million increase over the department request, but he did not have the power to do it.

"I don't have the money allocated for me," he said.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told Hobson last month that more than 1,700 department employees and contractors in Nevada could be laid off if Congress does not allocate the full $880 million for the program. "Reduction in Force" notices would need to be given by July 31, Abraham said.

The license application, expected to be delivered at the end of this year, would be at risk and the site would not be able to open in 2010 as planned, Abraham also told Hobson.

"This is a problem," department spokesman Joe Davis said. "We made it clear that the funding we requested in the funding we needed."

Davis noted it is early in the appropriations process and that Congress needs to fund the program it approved two years ago.

The Senate has not created its spending limits for each of the appropriations bills, so it is not clear year how much money it will allot for the project.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is the top Democrat on the subcommittee that creates the bill and works to cut the project's budget every year. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., fought earlier to keep the funding change out of the budget approved by Congress, which forced the department to try separate bills to get the change through.