Nevadans say panel shouldn’t consider Yucca budget proposal

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, March 4, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The House Budget Committee should not consider an increase in funds or a proposal to change how the Energy Department receives money for the Yucca Mountain project, Nevada's members of the House of Representatives said Wednesday.

As part of a "Members Day" hearing in the House Budget Committee, where lawmakers can discuss any issue for the upcoming 2005 budget process, the Nevada lawmakers explained their opposition to the department's $880 million request for nuclear waste storage site and its attempt to funnel money from the nuclear utilities directly into the project.

"As fellow fiscal conservatives, you and I both understand that annual congressional oversight of every funding measure that is signed into law is key in executing our duty of ensuring that every cent of American taxpayers' dollar is spent responsibly and efficiently," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said in testimony submitted to Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.

"Certainly, the unanswered scientific questions, public safety and health concerns, and unresolved issue of how the nuclear waste will be shipped across the country to Yucca Mountain warrant further examination before Congress allows the budget for this proposed repository balloon to this unprecedented level."

Gibbons said it would be "ill-considered" for Congress to allow a $303 million increase from last year to move forward when it should be "tightening its spending belt whenever possible."

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said allowing money to be spent on the project "without congressional oversight would deny my constituents their right to be represented when taxpayer dollars are spent."

Nuclear utilities have put about $20 billion into a special fund earmarked to fund the Yucca project, but only about $7 billion has been spent so far because Congress does not usually allocate the department's full request for the project. The department wants to use $750 million from that fund that can only be used to fund the Yucca project and nothing else.

The department was supposed to have had a federal repository complete in 1998 to take the waste from the utilities, but failed to do so. Now companies must pay into the fund as well as figure out a way to pay for extra on-site storage.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., on Wednesday advised the committee that "in view of our staggering deficit and considering the rapidly mounting proof that the Yucca Mountain Project is dangerous policy ... there is absolutely no need to provide this administration with the funding to accelerate a project that has not even met the qualifications for licensing."

The department anticipates submitting it license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year. It wants to open the Yucca Mountain site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by 2010.