Lawmakers spar over nuke storage

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 | 10:50 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The newly hatched House plan to begin storing the nation's high-level nuclear waste at temporary sites is on a collision course with the Senate, which could doom it for this year.

Two key senators on Tuesday said House legislation that offers the Energy Department $10 million to launch the plan was woefully short on funds and specifics.

A massive new interim program cannot be started with "$10 million and a paragraph" of legislation, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water programs.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the House plan a "half-baked" proposal.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, had inserted the interim storage provisions in a House energy and water spending bill, saying that temporary sites were prudent given all the obstacles that have delayed Yucca Mountain, which Congress selected as the nation's permanent waste storage repository.

But Domenici said he doesn't want the legislation included in this year's energy and water bill.

Domenici's opposition will make it difficult for the interim plan to survive when a panel of House-Senate negotiators begin meeting to iron out differences on the broader spending bill.

Reid has said the nation should simply leave nuclear waste where it currently sits, on-site at nuclear plants nationwide. Nuclear utilities say that plan is not a long-term solution, and they have sued the government because Congress agreed to begin hauling waste away to a repository by 1998.

But Reid still plans to revive his legislation that would allow the Energy Department to "take title" -- ownership -- of nuclear waste at the plants. Reid on Tuesday said he had not decided how to best re-introduce the legislation this year.

The energy and water spending bill also included $577 million for Yucca Mountain in the next fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1. President Bush had requested $651 million and the House approved $661, which included the extra $10 million for the interim program. The differences set up an annual tussle over the Yucca budget, which usually plays out behind closed doors where Reid negotiates to slash Yucca funds.

"Every year I cut the budget because it's a project that's fraught with fraud and mismanagement and the more time we have, the more the facts come to light," Reid said in a statement. "There is no way to safely open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain."

The Senate bill also includes more than $300 million for Nevada projects, including money for flood control and environmental programs, as well as increased funding for homeland security training at the Nevada Test Site, Reid aides said. Included in the bill:

Yucca program oversight money -- $3.5 million for Nevada, $8.5 million for eight Nevada counties affected by Yucca to split, plus a special $500,000 pot for Nye County.

Roughly $45 million for Test Site programs, including money for subcritical nuclear weapons experiments, bio-terrorism first-responders programs, and general upgrades, including road maintenance.

Research at UNLV, including: $4 million for a solar-produced hydrogen program; $4 million for hydrogen fuel cell research and development; $4 million for a renewable hydrogen refueling station system; $3 million for photoelectric chemical production of hydrogen; and $4 million for biofuels development.

$2.5 million for UNLV's Institute for Security Studies, which offers a master's degree in homeland security.