Yucca’s new boss facing a moving target

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005 | 8:33 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- It may not matter much if White House nominee Edward Sproat knows little about the Yucca Mountain project he will potentially inherit. The program has possibly changed more in the last month than it has in the past two decades.

Sproat, a former executive at Exelon, the country's largest nuclear power utility, who now runs an energy consulting firm, will face the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today for a hearing on his nomination to take over the Energy Department's office of civilian radioactive waste management.

If confirmed by the Senate, Sproat would take over a program in flux and face challenges not seen by his predecessors.

He told the Sun in September that he was "John Q. Public" on his overall perception and knowledge of plans at Yucca. He said he was hoping to be educated quickly on the proposed repository.

But the department may be waiting for its own education as well.

"DOE will be unable to estimate realistically when the license application will be submitted," attorney Michael Shebelskie, who represents the Energy Department, wrote in a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week.

The department is reworking the project and officials say they want to simplify it.

There is also increased talk in Washington of reprocessing or recycling nuclear waste. This would not eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain but would change the type of waste it would store.

Acting director Paul Golan sent a memo to all top Yucca officials assigning them new tasks to get this new version of the project off the ground.

This is a complete shift from where the program was a year ago.

Around this time last year, the Energy Department was working relentlessly to turn in a license application for the Yucca Mountain project by Dec. 31, 2004.

It was not until Nov. 22 that Margaret Chu, then the director of department's civilian radioactive waste office that oversees Yucca, admitted it would not be turning in an application.

Now, the department will not even talk about dates. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Golan have transformed the project from being based on a schedule to one focusing on quality work. Golan has made this statement publicly and the department's spokesman sticks to the same line.

If Sproat is confirmed, Golan is likely to stay on as the principal deputy secretary and maintain this new plan.

"I think that this is so screwed up, it doesn't matter who is in charge," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "DOE has got to be the most incompetent agency in the federal government."

Sproat would be the sixth director confirmed by the Senate to lead the program. Other officials, including Lake Barrett, sometimes referred to as the "grandfather" of the program, served only as acting directors and were not formally approved by Congress.

The department created the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in 1983. Eight Energy Department secretaries have held office since its creation.

Suzanne Struglinski can be reached at (202) 662-7245 or at suzanne@lasvegassun.com.