Yucca waste talks likely facing delay

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005 | 11:24 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A crowded congressional calendar may slow down talks on a government plan to move nuclear waste somewhere before Yucca Mountain would open, but House Appropriation Committee aides are happy that the discussion is expected to eventually take place.

Finding money for Hurricane Katrina aid and the confirmation process for two Supreme Court nominees will overshadow nuclear waste talks -- and rightly so -- aides said at a National Academy of Sciences meeting Monday, but they are still willing to debate the issue as spending bills compete for completion before the end of the year.

The House approved allocating $10 million for the Energy Department to begin moving nuclear waste to a government site that has yet to be determined. Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who leads the House Appropriation Energy and Water Subcommittee, earmarked the money because the plan to put 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is not moving forward right now.

The Senate version of the bill, passed earlier this year, did not include that additional money.

Hobson emphasized the money is not designed to replace Yucca or move away from the process at all; it is just a way to get waste out of the hands of utilities.

The government was supposed to take waste from nuclear power plants by 1998, but it missed the deadline. Nuclear power users are still paying toward a federal repository that does not exist yet as well as costs for storing waste on-site.

Hobson's subcommittee clerk, Kevin Cook told the Academy's Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board Monday that there are other things dominating the schedule now, as they probably should be. It is not clear when meetings would start between House and Senate negotiators to work out differences between the two versions of the bill. Cook said the Senate's bill is $1.5 billion higher than the House already.

"We intended to start a dialogue," Cook said. "We have been surprised by a lack of administration response." Although he said the administration may still submit a plan that would have to be introduced as a bill in Congress. He did not know when or if one would go to the Hill.

"We have obviously succeeded in stirring the waters," said Dixon Butler, of the subcommittee's Democratic staff. "We hope the administration will come through with something that could trigger legislation."

The energy and water spending bill, at the earliest, would come up in October, said Tessa Hafen, spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid is the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee that writes the bill. Hafen said it is not likely to come up this month at all.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval of the proposed Private Fuel Storage site in Utah may help calm transportation fears, Cook said.

"It helps prove the point the centralized interim storage makes more sense," Cook said. "Once you start moving it, it blows the whole 'mobile Chernobyl' argument out of the water."

Nevada officials, who strongly oppose Yucca Mountain, do not want to see waste moved anywhere but would rather the government pay to store waste on site a nuclear power plants.