Friday, March 11, 2005 | 9:48 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Money is really the only thing stopping the Energy Department from moving forward on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, a high-ranking project official told a House panel Thursday.
The department and nuclear industry made their case before the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Thursday to have Congress change budget rules to make it easier to allow billions of dollars to flow more easily to the project.
The department has been saying for years that the project can only stay on schedule with an adequate budget, but Congress has shortchanged it by $1 billion during the last decade.
"The current challenge is not so much technical as it is financial," Theodore Garrish, deputy director of the Energy Department's Yucca program, said at a House hearing Thursday.
The department wants to put 77,000 tons of used commercial nuclear fuel and waste from nuclear weapons construction plants at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, despite strong opposition from state officials and the congressional delegation.
The department and nuclear industry officials want Congress to give the project direct access to billions of dollars in a fund of ratepayer fees designed to go toward the disposal of nuclear waste.
Nevada's three House members testified against the project, citing their usual arguments against it, but also tailoring their remarks to focus on the budget aspect. All three feel changing the rules would limit congressional oversight of the project.
"In a time when Republicans on the Hill are demanding congressional oversight on spending, it is hypocritical to then make more spending not subject to strict yearly congressional oversight," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said changing the rules could set a "dangerous precedent" for other federal projects that do not meet their plans.
"Any budgetary gimmicks like this are dangerous and cannot be allowed," Porter said.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., reminded the panel of the project's problems, including the lack of a radiation protection standard, which a federal court threw out last year.
"This project is in a downward spiral, even members of the nuclear industry are looking for other ways to store the waste,and throwing more money at this problem-ridden albatross will not fill gaps in the science because the science is not there," Berkley said.
Garrish acknowledged the department has to wait for the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a new radiation standard and get the appropriate documents to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before anything can move forward. He dismissed any claims that the program was at a dead end.
"That is absolutely not true," Garrish said. Opening the repository by 2012 "is possible if the circumstances all work right."
Part of the "circumstances" include Congress changing budget rules to allow money collected in the Nuclear Waste Fund to be put toward the repository without affecting other federal programs. Nuclear power ratepayers have put about $17 billion in the fund, which is set aside to specifically fund the repository. Caps on how much money can be spent every year by Congress limit how much money is put toward the program.
"We've got the money in the bank," Garrish said. "We just can't get to it."
The subcommittee passed a bill last year that would have made $750 million available to the program a year, which is the same amount paid annually into the Nuclear Waste Fund, but it did not advance. Garrish said. It is possible for the Office of Management and Budget to make the change through an administrative action, but the House and Senate Budget Committees and the Congressional Budget Office would have to agree to the change.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., sits on the Senate Budget Committee and strongly opposes any attempt to change the repository's budget rules.
The change supported by the department -- and the nuclear industry -- would allow Congress to allocate money to the project without having to compete with other federal programs within the department. Right now, in order to give money to the repository, the money has to come from another programs, even though it has its own fund sitting there waiting to be used, according to the department.
Garrish said if the project does not get about $10 billion between now and when it opens, estimated between 2012 and 2015, the department would still be able to submit a license application but could not build surface facilities or tunnels within the mountain, a rail line in Nevada or move waste to the state.
Despite all the obstacles in front of the program right now, Garrish showed the same optimism at the House hearing that he showed at a Senate Appropriations hearing Thursday morning, saying the program is in the best position it has ever been.
"I can see the light at the end of the Yucca Mountain tunnel," Garrish said.
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