Yucca funds reportedly not available

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, May 20, 2004 | 10:59 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- House appropriators can only give the Yucca Mountain project $131 million -- $749 million less than the Energy Department wants -- because there is no way yet to get more money to the program, a key congressman said Wednesday.

The department and the nuclear industry have repeatedly said that without the $880 million requested for the project next year, it will be very difficult to open the nuclear waste storage site planned for Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by 2010.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, said that unless the administration comes up with an alternative to its proposal to take $749 million for the project out of the usual congressional budget process, there is not much he can do to get more money for Yucca Mountain.

Hobson is the chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, which crafts the Energy Department's budget, including funding for the Yucca Mountain project. He discussed the expected funding shortfall Wednesday at a conference of the U.S. Transport Council, a group of nuclear industry officials and those interested in moving waste to Yucca.

Conference-goers will visit Capitol Hill today to press lawmakers to get more Yucca funding this year.

The department split its $880 million request into $749 million to be taken directly from the Nuclear Waste Fund, an account into which the nuclear industry pays, and $131 million to come from the Defense Department to pay for its share of the waste. The $749 million can only be taken directly from the fund if Congress approves a policy change.

Hobson said the policy change could probably pass the House, but couldn't be pulled off in the Senate because of the influence of Nevada's senators.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who sits on the Senate budget committee that sets the spending level each year, successfully prevented the policy change from getting into the budget resolution. That forced the Yucca Mountain project onto a level playing field with other projects competing for federal funds.

"I don't know how I am going to negotiate this bill in the Senate if I don't have the money to do it," Hobson told the nuclear industry group Wednesday. "I've been told this is not possible but there could be a creative way to do it."

The Office of Management and Budget is evaluating whether it can make the policy change through an administrative action, which would require some congressional approval but not a bill.

Rick Mertens, the OMB's energy branch chief, said this involves a technical side of the budget that probably will require some changes as the Yucca project grows to $1 billion in the next few years. He said the administration can not just reclassify the Nuclear Waste Fund on its own but it can work with members of Congress for approval.

Hobson also suggested the OMB would amend the budget request to include the $749 million without the change or the department could propose its own cuts in other areas such as nuclear weapons activities and defense cleanup program to divert money to the program.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the top Democrat on the Senate version of Hobson's committee, still aims to cut the project's budget, however.

Reid spokesman Tessa Hafen said he is waiting to see what final number Hobson and the administration produce. But, she noted, Reid always works to cut the Yucca Mountain budget. She said any money that does go toward the project Reid wants to go toward more science, not just finishing a license application.

Hobson said he would like to give the project more money but said it will be hard to find more since other projects in the energy and water spending bill also need money.

"I've done everything except personally get in the face of the president," Hobson said.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the department is still working to get the policy change passed and he has not given up on it.

"Unless I am convinced otherwise, (the administration) is going to go for the proposal we offered," Abraham said at a meeting with reporters Tuesday.

The Office of Management and Budget, meanwhile, is evaluating whether it can make the policy change through an administrative action, which would require some congressional approval but not a bill.

Hobson said he has tried to be respectful of Nevada and its residents and that the new rail line to be built to move nuclear waste to the mountain might actually "improve their way of life" since it would add the train.

But he also said Congress has to follow the law of the land, which says the repository can be built.

"This the potential funding cut--may be popular in certain parts of Nevada but it's not popular in Massachusetts and other parts of this country." Hobson said. "It's a tragedy for the next generation if we don't continue."

Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry promised Sunday in Las Vegas that he would stop the project. But nuclear power plants in Kerry's home state of Massachusetts have waste that needs to be moved, Hobson said.

Hobson said if the project gets put off, it is only going to get more expensive and cause problems for using nuclear power, which produces electricity with no carbon dioxide emissions.