Senate budget won’t add more Yucca funding

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, March 8, 2004 | 9:43 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate's pending budget proposal includes $303 million less for the Yucca Mountain Project than the Energy Department requested for 2005, according to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

Ensign, who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, which passed its budget resolution last week, said he would not stand for the department's $880 million request for the proposed nuclear waste storage site, planned for 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"My colleagues have come to understand that, when it comes to Yucca Mountain, my position is not negotiable and I will not waiver," Ensign said.

Instead, the resolution includes $577 million for the project, about the same as was approved for 2004. The Senate resolution was expected to go to the floor this week.

The budget resolution serves as a guide for the annual process to fund federal projects. The House version still needs to be approved. If if both resolutions contained a lower amount for Yucca, it does not automatically mean it will get less money, since lawmakers could shift funds among projects in the upcoming energy and water spending bill, which actually allocates the money into the project.

Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said the senator also took the department's proposed spending mechanism for the project off the table. The department wanted to take about $750 million each year from the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account funded by a surcharge on nuclear-generated power, and put it directly into the project.

Finn said by reducing the budget to $577 million, the committee removed this option.