Obama plans lean Yucca budget

By Lisa Mascaro (contact)

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 | 1:59 p.m.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will propose the lowest budget for Yucca Mountain since the Nevada site was selected as the nation’s nuclear waste dump, according to a summary of the fiscal 2010 budget obtained today by the Sun.

Obama’s budget will propose $196.8 million for the repository — down from the already anemic $288 million for fiscal 2009 — and will include language that reinforces the administration's decision to end the Yucca Mountain project as it pursues alternatives for nuclear waste disposal.

The president’s budget document is scheduled for release on Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid worked with the administration to ensure funds would be limited. His office provided a summary.

“Senator Reid sees it a major victory for Nevada’s fight against Yucca Mountain,” said Reid spokesman Jon Summers.

“It’s absolutely clear there’s no way the dump will be built. It’s dead.”

The low funding comes after Obama on the campaign trail opposed Yucca Mountain as a waste dump for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.

In Obama’s budget blueprint released earlier this year, the president pledged to substantially scale back the project he has vowed would never open as a repository.

Obama has tapped Energy Secretary Steven Chu to form a Blue Ribbon Commission to seek alternatives to Yucca Mountain, and devise a new strategy for the nation’s nuclear waste. Congress is also considering such a commission.

The proposed $196.8 million shows the turn around from just a few years ago when the Bush administration supported the site 90 miles north of Las Vegas for the waste repository. In 2005, then-President George W. Bush proposed $880 million for Yucca, though Congress never appropriated that amount.

The Energy Department has already been forced to lay off workers on the project and scale back operations because of substantial budget cuts engineered by Reid and approved by Congress in recent years.

The fiscal 2010 funds will allow the Energy Deaprtment to seek alternatives while keeping the project’s license application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would receive $56 million under the Obama budget, which is $7 million above last year’s level.

The commission is now considering the license application under a process that is expected to continue for several years. Some have wanted to maintain the application process as a learning exercise, even if the dump is never opened. However, others have cautioned that allowing the application process to continue leaves the door open for the dump.

On the campaign trail, Obama’s staff had pledged that he would withdraw the application if he became president.

Reid’s spokesman said the senator believes the funding level for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be lower, but he’s confident the administration will stand by its decision to terminate the dump.

Congress will take up the budget proposal later this year.