Domenici wants complete review of Yucca’s status

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, March 4, 2005 | 9:18 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to review the current status of the Yucca Mountain project so he will have a better understanding of what problems it faces.

Bodman said he was willing to work on such a review. He said the Yucca project was a "major responsibility" of his job and would try to determine what the "practical and reasonable and responsible way of proceeding is."

At a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing this morning, Domenici, the committee's chairman, said the problem is not just with the project's budget or a new licensing date, but a variety of things. The department should do an analysis to see "how we can get to where we need to go."

"I think you have to know, realistically, what this is all about," he said to Bodman.

Domenici added that Bodman may be the secretary who says the department should start looking at something else, because the Yucca project is taking so long.

The administration requested $651 million for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, a decrease from the $1 billion it had predicted the project would need by this time. Congress approved $577 million for the repository's 2005 budget, which was $303 million less than the department wanted.

The department -- and the nuclear industry -- have insisted for years that the repository needs sufficient funding to stay on track. The Bush administration strongly supports changing congressional budget rules to allow money collected through a fee paid by nuclear ratepayers to bypass the traditional money competition among federal programs and go straight to the project.

Domenici, who also heads the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, which writes the energy spending bill, supports the change.

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is the top Democrat on the same committee, fiercely opposes it and would not let any funding proposal go through. Reid and other Yucca critics believe putting money directly toward the program limits congressional oversight.

The department missed its goal of turning in a license application by the end of 2004, for a variety of reasons.

Nevada officials repeatedly called the project "dead" based on the lack of a radiation protection standard thrown out by a federal court last year, problems with documentation and other obstacles. At the same time, the department has shown no sign of backing off the project, declaring it has every intention to move forward. Just before she resigned, former Yucca Chief Margaret Chu said in January the repository was more likely to open in 2012 versus 2010.

The department anticipates submitting a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of this year.