Friday, May 13, 2005 | 11:13 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department may get $10 million to start moving nuclear waste to an interim storage site as early as 2006, based on a provision included in a House spending bill Thursday.
The House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee approved $661 million for the Yucca Mountain project, fulfilling the department's budget request while adding an additional $10 million in a vague request to begin moving waste to other department sites.
"It's time to rethink our approach to dealing with spent fuel," Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, said. "It's irresponsible the policies we have now. It delays us."
The bill does not name a site to take the waste or implement a specific policy but gives the department the ability to start moving waste to a site as early as next year, Hobson said.
"This stuff is not in the safest place right now," Hobson said. "This is a vision to move forward."
The Energy Department plans to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The department was supposed to move the waste in 1998 but the project has suffered a series of delays and setbacks.
Hobson said the effort should not been seen as losing confidence in the Yucca Mountain project, saying it is "critical" the government gets the project "done right and done soon."
"I have 100 percent of the funding in there," Hobson said. "I will fight to the death for Yucca Mountain just as my opponent says he will fight against it."
Hobson's "opponent," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. Reid works to cut the Yucca budget every year and disagrees with Hobson's effort for it to move forward.
Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen this is an acknowledgement that the department cannot move forward on Yucca. She noted that the House usually asks for more than the department's request but usually gets less after final negotiations with Reid.
She said the ongoing investigations into possibly falsified data at the project give Reid "added ammunition" in his fight to lower the funding.
"It's proof that was he has been saying over the years about this money going down a dark hole," Hafen said.
The additional $10 million can go toward casks or plans to move waste to a site. It builds on the request the department already had to buy casks, committee spokesman John Scofield said. It gives the department the ability to pick a site or sites, make plans and decide how to move forward.
The subcommittee will not release the exact language in the bill until the House Appropriations Committee takes it up next week. The Senate will not begin finalizing its bill at least until after the Memorial Day recess.
Hobson said he has a site in mind but would not offer details. He also said it could be more than one site.
"It is not in Nevada," Hobson said. "If one happens to be in Ohio, OK."
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, an interim storage site can not be in Nevada. Congress killed an effort to amend the law and have temporary storage at Yucca Mountain five years ago.
Hobson suggested in March that the Nevada Test Site could serve as a site to store waste for 100 to 500 years as scientists figured out a better way to store or reprocess fuel.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., spokesman Jack Finn did not want to comment until had seen a copy of the exact language.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., opposes any funding for Yucca Mountain, according to spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer. He wants to see the country invest money on "21st century technology" to fight the waste problem and keeping waste safe where it is.
David Cherry, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., called the proposal an "absolute non-starter."
"There is nothing in there to be in agreement with," Cherry said.
He said she would oppose any plan to move waste away from nuclear power plants. An interim site, with the final destination still at Yucca, creates a double risk for terrorist attacks or accidents.
He said there is no plan on how to move it or where it would go.
But Hobson says the Energy Department accepts waste from foreign reactors already to store at some of its facilities and nuclear waste is moved around the country all the time.
"Give me a break, we have to get real," Hobson said. "This is not brain science. This is not inventing a new wheel."
Hobson said the country loses about $500 million every year Yucca Mountain does not open. He emphasized that other countries are reprocessing fuel and storing nuclear waste with no problems. The government has not fulfilled its contract with nuclear companies to take the waste and legal decisions force the government to pay damages to some utilities.
The bill also puts an additional $5 million to the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. The department will have to pick a process to use to recycle nuclear waste by 2007, according to the subcommittee.
Hobson included the extra money because it is "time we rethink our reluctance to reprocessing fuel."
"I don't want to get to 'Yucca Mountain Two' right away," Hobson said.
The recycling would be aimed at how to decrease the amount of existing waste without creating dangerous byproducts or more waste in the process.
archive
