Nevadans cite potential Yucca budget problems

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, March 25, 2004 | 11:20 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada's members of the House of Representatives this morning argued that a proposal to fund the Yucca Mountain project directly from money set aside for nuclear waste disposal would require Congress to give up its oversight.

Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., Jon Porter, R-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., testified at a House energy and air quality subcommittee hearing today outlining their familiar arguments against the project and strongly criticizing the potential budget change.

The department wants Congress to change its budget rules so that each year at least $749 million would come directly from the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account paid into by users of nuclear power. That would save the item from competing with other programs in the energy and water spending bills that Congress must fund. For the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 the department requested $880 million for the project, leaving $131 million to come from general taxpayer money.

So far the House and Senate budget resolutions, which guide how Congress can spend money, do not allow for such a change.

"With all the problems that have plagued the Yucca Mountain project since its inception and the hundreds of scientific questions still left unanswered, why would we even give such a budgetary gimmick consideration when now, more than ever, the project, the federal agencies involved and the people of Nevada need the strong support of congressional authority?" Porter asked the subcommittee.

"The American people deserve more from us than wasting our time throwing billions of dollars at an industry that has spent too long already at the public trough."

Energy Undersecretary Robert Card said the proposal, "does not reduce congressional control of the program's budget in any way. Congress will still have to appropriate the funds, as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act."

Card said that over the past 10 years nuclear utility ratepayers have averaged annual payments into the fund of about $636 billion, while the appropriation from the fund averaged $198 billion a year.

Card said the proposal would let Congress make decisions "without having to worry about the impact on the funding of other programs within the energy and water development appropriation. Why should other programs continue to have to compete with a contractually mandated program that is or is intended to be fully self-financing?"

Berkley, in urging urging the subcommittee members to reject the proposal, said the competition was a good thing. "Funds for the Yucca Mountain project should have to compete with our need to expand clean energy resources and to break our dependence on foreign oil."

Gibbons said he had serious concerns about the Energy Department's management of the project, and Congress' control of the budget "is key in executing our duty of ensuring that every cent of American taxpayer dollars is spent responsibly and efficiently."

"Certainly the unanswered scientific questions, public safety and health concerns and unresolved issues about how the nuclear waste will be shipped across the country to Yucca Mountain, warrant further examination before Congress allows our oversight of this proposed repository to be rescinded," he said.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, introduced a bill last week that would allow for the change until the department completed construction on the nuclear waste storage site at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Illinois Reps. John Shimkus, a Republican, and Bobby Rush, a Democrat, introduced their bill in November that would remove at least $725 million from the regular appropriations process for the Yucca program each year through 2010.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House energy and water development subcommittee, which crafts the Yucca budget in the House each year, said Wednesday the committee will defend the Energy Department request, but he criticized the department's method of asking for the money this year.

Hobson said he doubted the proposal would pass the Senate. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who sits on the Budget Committee, kept it out of the budget resolution, and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Committee, is also against the idea and works to cut the budget every year.

Hobson said the department and the Office of Management and Budget have not offered an alternative to the funding plan.

But until he knows how much money his committee will be able to allot to water and power programs, it is too early to tell how the failure of the funding change would affect the Yucca project, Hobson said. He said he intends to fully fund the project at $880 million and "could do more" to make up for lost money Congress has not allocated to the program in past years, perhaps without hurting other programs.

Hobson pushed through $765 million for the project in the House bill last year, compared with the $425 million approved by the Senate. Congress eventually approved $580 million for this year's budget.