Bush eyes Yucca funds

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Jan. 23, 2006 | 8:29 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration as early as next month is expected to renew efforts to give the Energy Department expanded access to a national fund created to pay for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

If successful, the administration's move could advance planning for the controversial, proposed nuclear waste dump. Nevada lawmakers, however, have turned back similar attempts in the past and hope to do the same again.

Bush and pro-Yucca lawmakers for years have pushed an effort to take the Yucca fund "off-budget," in effect, wresting annual budget-setting control for the project from Congress by giving the department more direct access to the fund.

Nuclear-generated electricity ratepayers since 1982 have paid a special fee into the fund, which now has roughly $18 billion.

Each year Congress sets an annual budget for the high-level radioactive waste repository, limiting the amount of money that the Energy Department can spend from the fund. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., typically negotiates to slash funding from what the White House requests, frustrating Yucca advocates.

Nevada lawmakers have long fought efforts to give the department more access to the Yucca fund, and they are marshaling to quickly shoot down any new effort. In the past they have had key allies in Congress unwilling to cede any budget-setting authority.

Given bureaucratic and legal setbacks and recent scientific controversy surrounding Yucca, it would be more difficult than ever to push such a proposal through Congress, said Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen.

"Support for Yucca Mountain is fading," she said.

The legislation reportedly is being prepared by the White House. Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., plans to introduce it as early as February -- and shepherd it through the legislative process -- on behalf of the administration, said his spokeswoman, Marnee Funk.

The bill also could include other nuclear power-related proposals that Bush might mention in his State of the Union speech Jan. 31, according to the trade publication Energy Washington Week. Those proposals could include plans to expand nuclear power worldwide, including a plan to provide India, China and other nations with uranium fuel for new nuclear plants, the publication said.

"As expanding economies continue to grow, the one source of energy that we can develop rapidly, cheaply and with next-to-no emissions is nuclear energy," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said.

Bush -- and his bill -- also may re-assert a commitment to reprocessing nuclear waste, considered a "complement" to the White House plan to continue Yucca development.

But Stevens would not confirm what Yucca or nuclear-related proposals, if any, Bush would outline in his address or include in any forthcoming legislation.

Stevens would not even confirm that Yucca- or nuclear-related legislation was even taking shape.

"There's nothing fully cooked yet," he said.

Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or grove@lasvegassun.com.