DOE to seek less money for Yucca

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is seeking $650 million in funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump, a lower amount than it requested this year, apparently because of significant delays in the project's schedule, according to energy trade magazines, nuclear industry sources and a congressional source.

The final number will be announced with the president's budget, set to be released Feb. 7, but energy trade publications have reported and nuclear industry sources have heard the $650 million figure. A congressional source, who asked not to be identified, confirmed the number today.

Chad Kolton of the Office of Management and Budget could not confirm the number Wednesday and the Energy Department, like all federal agencies, refuses to give out budget numbers until the president releases his plan. However, it is usual in Washington this time of year for some budget numbers to slowly leak out of some offices, although sources will rarely agree to be identified.

Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said Wednesday that the lower amount would not surprise him because there is a lot of uncertainty on the project's license application.

The department did not submit the license application for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, at the end of last year as it intended. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in July that threw out a key safety standard, problems with getting its documents in order and uncertainty on its budget threw the program off track.

A 2004 year-end project budget report estimated a $1.2 billion request would be necessary for the coming year, so $650 million would be a little more than half of what had been expected. However, if Congress agrees to change budget rules to allow the $749 million that nuclear ratepayers are expected to pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund to be directly provided to Yucca's coffers, the estimated request would still be met.

The administration supports changing the budget rules and nuclear utilities, public utility commissioners and other Yucca supporters have lobbied for it to pass. A House committee approved the proposal last year but it did not advance through the legislative process.

The measure would likely pass the House, but Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., are expected to fight against it in the Senate and could stop it.

In addition to his new leadership spot, Reid also is the top Democrat who creates the energy spending bill each year and Ensign sits on the Budget Committee, where he has successfully blocked the change from getting into the budget guideline.

During the last round of budget negotiations, the department requested $880 million for the project, but tied $749 million of it to a proposal to remove the Nuclear Waste Fund from the spending bill caps. The proposal did not go through, forcing the House to only approve $131 million for the project. The Senate never passed a stand-alone energy bill, but a deal made at the end of the year gave $577 million to the program, the same amount it received in 2004.

Lawmakers have warned the Office of Management and Budget against trying that proposal a second time. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked Energy Secretary nominee Samuel Bodman to not make the "same mistake" when creating the budget.

Rep. John Dingell, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wants to know if the change could be done without Congress but through an administrative action, because it is not likely to pass the Senate.

"I would observe that such a strategy is unlikely to be any more successful this year than last," Dingell wrote to OMB earlier this month.