Nevada reps fight Yucca funds

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, March 26, 2004 | 10:29 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The annual battle for Yucca Mountain money continued in Congress Thursday, with the nuclear energy industry and the Energy Department pleading for $880 million and more control over the budget, while critics questioned the need.

At an House energy and air quality subcommittee hearing Thursday, Nevada lawmakers insisted the project is a waste of time and money as they outlined numerous problems with the plan to ship and store 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But Yucca supporters said continued delays will only cost the taxpayers more money as lawsuits pile up from utilities suing the Energy Department for its failure to pick up waste in 1998. The department pays $500 million a year to store waste destined for Yucca at former nuclear weapons plants and laboratories.

Meanwhile, nuclear power companies want to see a return on their $20 billion investment for permanent nuclear waste storage, now six years overdue.

"In all honesty, the biggest obstacle to the beginning of waste acceptance at the proposed repository in accordance with the Department of Energy's current schedule is the risk of inadequate funding during the next few years," Sam Ervin of the North Carolina Utilities Commission said. "Congress should act to ensure that adequate money is made available for the licensing, construction and operation of the proposed facility."

The committee will have to evaluate two bills that would change how Congress allocated money to the program's budget. Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Hall and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, both Texas Republicans, did not have a timeline on when the panels would vote on the bills.

Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., Jon Porter, R-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said the project's estimated $60 billion price tag is more money than the utilities will ever pay into the fund, leaving taxpayers to pick up the rest of the tab. All three also mentioned the safety threat of moving the waste via truck and rail across the country to Nevada.

Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., said that to his knowledge there has never been an accident while moving nuclear waste, which is currently done between sites across the country.

But Porter pointed out that the country had never seen an airplane used as a weapon before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"It's not about yesterday, it's about tomorrow," Porter said.

Hall also discounted Nevada's concerns by asking Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Nils Diaz about the chance and outcome of a "Sept. 11-style" attack hitting a transportation cask.08