Supporters want DOE to ask for $1 billion for Yucca

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005 | 9:47 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain supporters want to see the Energy Department ask Congress for $1 billion for the proposed nuclear waste repository, according to a letter sent to the Energy Department and Congress on Monday.

The Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition sent a letter to Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and key appropriations lawmakers asking for the higher budget, as well as a request to change congressional rules to make it easier to put ratepayer money directly toward the project. The letter bears the signatures of 73 state regulators and three governors

The department requested $651 million for the proposed used nuclear fuel site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Earlier budget estimates had called for a $1 billion request by this time, but program delays limited the request.

"We are concerned that further delays in the program will escalate costs into billions of dollars that will ultimately impact our state constituents, nuclear power utilities and the federal government," according to the letter. "The longer the Administration and Congress fail to find a permanent solution to fund the DOE program, the greater the potential liability will be to our states' taxpayers."

The government was supposed to take commercial nuclear waste in 1998 but Yucca is not set to open now until 2012. The department had planned to start talking with utilities this year about their shipping plans, five years before shipments would start but pushed that off to an unspecified time.

Nuclear power users in 41 states have put $24 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund since its creation more than two decades ago but about $16 billion still sits in the account, while the program goes underfunded, they argue.

The administration supports removing the project from congressional budget caps and allocating about $750 million annually to it directly from the waste fund. Congress probably would have to change its rules to allow that to happen, although some supporters think the administration might be able to it to without Congress's approval.

Yucca critics oppose a $1 billion budget for what they consider a flawed program or and they oppose the rules change. The state's congressional delegation and other critics believe changing the waste fund would remove congressional oversight on the project.