$651 million requested for Yucca

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, Feb. 7, 2005 | 11:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush today asked Congress for $651 million in the coming fiscal year for Yucca Mountain, far less than his $880 million request last year.

The 2006 fiscal year request is about $73 million more than what Congress approved for the current budget year. The 2006 fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

Energy Department officials need the money to keep working toward the creation of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

In the proposed budget, the department has designated roughly $85 million for transportation, including rail cask designs and the new rail line in Nevada, as well as $427 million for the repository itself.

Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis today acknowledged there were numerous challenges facing the nuclear dump but said the budget request was a "responsible request to move forward." He said the money would be used for transportation planning and to complete the license application.

The department had aimed to submit that application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of last year, but now expects to do it by the end of 2005.

Davis would not specify why the proposed 2006 budget is lower than the $880 million the department wanted for 2005, but just reiterated the $651 million was the money it believes it can "responsibly spend moving forward."

In a separate budget request for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Bush requested $69 million for the NRC to begin reviewing the license, to hold hearings and to conduct full-scale testing of a high-level nuclear waste rail shipping container. The commission said it expects a license application in December and would begin its review work next year.

Yucca critics argue that the department's smaller budget request shows that the Energy Department is well behind in meeting its longtime goal of opening Yucca by 2010.

"It's certainly a shocking admission that from the DOE that they are seriously behind and that the project is in serious trouble," said Michele Boyd, an analyst for consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, who tracks Yucca issues. "They need to stop saying that they could open in 2010. It's incredibly unrealistic."

Critics point to huge hurdles ahead for the Energy Department, including: developing a comprehensive waste-transportation plan and constructing a $1 billion rail line in Nevada; overcoming complex licensing issues that could take at least four years to resolve; and actual construction of the repository -- roughly 40 miles of underground tunnels, as well as surface facilities.

They also point to a federal court ruling last year that threw out a 10,000-year radiation standard rule. The ruling stalled the project, delaying it indefinitely. The Environmental Protection Agency may work on setting a new standard this year, unless Congress passes a law to keep the 10,000-year standard in place.

The smaller budget could mean that the Energy Department is even further behind in its license application preparation than the department acknowledges, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. Or perhaps past budget requests have been inflated, he added.

Also part of the Bush request is $3.5 million for the state's oversight work on the repository and $7 million for eight Nevada counties and Inyo County, Calif. Nevada got $2 million last year and the counties received about $8 million.

Loux said state officials need about $5 million a year for their oversight work until the license application is filed and about $13 million after it is filed.

Nevada's congressional delegation continues to criticize the nuclear dump.

"I think it is irresponsible to continue to waste millions upon millions of dollars on a project that is unsafe and in no way will solve our nation's nuclear waste problem," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., slammed Bush's priorities.

"President Bush is calling for cuts in programs important to Southern Nevada families, yet he manages to find $650 million more to waste on Yucca Mountain," Berkley said. "Clearly the president is more focused on helping his friends in the nuclear industry than he is on helping to meet the needs of seniors, kids, veterans, small businesses, parents, schools and our communities."

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he does not believe the Yucca repository is a "done deal" and that the "scientific studies are still incomplete."

"I will continue to remain an active participant to oppose any funding or legislation that would require the transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste to Nevada," Porter said.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is also the top Democrat on the Senate energy and water appropriations subcommittee that writes the Yucca budget bill, vowed, as he does every year, to use his influence to slow the program.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., aims to use his positions on the Senate Budget Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Defense Department's involvement with the project, to argue for lower Yucca funding. Some waste bound for Yucca would be Defense Department waste, such as spent fuel from nuclear submarines.

Notably absent from the 2006 budget is a legislative request made in recent years to give the Energy Department direct access to a $16 billion national Nuclear Waste Fund, which nuclear-generated electricity ratepayers have paid into for years.

The administration still strongly supports allowing about $750 million a year to go toward the project. Bush included what Davis called a "policy statement" in the main budget documents expressing the administration's desire to make the change, but it is not tying any of the $651 million request to it.

"I think it is a really good approach," said John Kane, senior vice president for congressional affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry's top lobby group. "It's win-win for everyone."

In its 2005 request, the department asked Congress for $880 million, but tied $749 million of it to a controversial change in the budget rules that would have taken Yucca out of the competition for funds and funneled Nuclear Waste Fund money directly to it.

The change did not pass, leaving the House only able to approve $131 million.

The Senate never passed its own energy spending bill, but a deal made at the end of the year gave $577 million to the program, the same amount it received in 2004.