Lawmakers Cut Funding
for Yucca Mountain to $450 Million in 2006
November 08, 2005 — By Erica Werner, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers agreed Monday
to cut 2006 spending for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump well
below past-year levels and President Bush's budget request, reflecting
the faltering prospects for the project in the Nevada desert.
They also ditched a House plan to supplement Yucca with interim storage
sites for nuclear waste, settling instead on spending $50 million to
promote recycling spent nuclear fuel.
House and Senate negotiators finished work on a $30.5 billion bill to
fund energy and water projects.
They agreed to spend $450 million in 2006 on Yucca Mountain, the planned
underground repository for 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive
nuclear waste.
The project's budget was $577 million in each of the past two years, and
Bush asked for $650 million for the dump in his 2006 budget request.
The final figure was also less than the House and the Senate agreed to
separately earlier in the year, but lawmakers and aides said delays on
the project kept the number low.
"No matter what side of Yucca you're on, the truth of the matter is
Yucca is ... not on the schedule that even was predicted the last time.
It's behind schedule," Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the
Senate Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee, told
reporters.
"We think that this will keep what should be done on schedule," he said.
Two years ago, the Energy Department projected needing $1.2 billion for
Yucca Mountain in 2006. That was when officials were hoping to quickly
submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
open the dump by 2010.
Since then, a series of setbacks -- including a required rewrite of
radiation safety standards for the dump -- have slowed the project.
Now it's not clear when the license application will be submitted, and
the projected opening date has slipped to 2012, at the earliest.
"While this funding decision may force us to go at a slower pace, it
will not deter us from our principles of using sound science to develop
a high-quality license application and a disposal facility that is safe
and reliable to operate," said Energy Department spokesman Craig
Stevens.
Lawmakers deleted a House proposal to spend $10 million for the Energy
Department to produce a plan for temporary aboveground storage for spent
reactor fuel from commercial nuclear power plants.
Instead the bill contains $50 million for spent fuel recycling,
including $20 million for states or localities to compete to host a
recycling facility and $30 million for research and other work.
The bill, expected to be approved later this week by the full House and
Senate, also:
--Spends $220 million to build a plant at the federal Savannah River
complex in South Carolina where weapons-grade plutonium would be
processed into a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel -- a less dangerous fuel for
commercial power reactors. That figure is $118 million lower than Bush's
request.
--Meets Bush's $337 million budget request for the National Ignition
Facility at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab in California.
Domenici had sought to slash construction funding for the project, a
giant laser being built to simulate the explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
Already $2.8 billion has been spent on it.
--Drops funding, as expected, for a proposed "bunker-buster" nuclear
warhead. Instead the administration plans to pursue a conventional
weapon that can penetrate hardened underground targets.
--Gives $5.4 billion to the Corps of Engineers, $1 billion above Bush's
request. That includes $8 million requested by Sen. Mary Landrieu,
D-La., for the Corps to design a plan to bring south Louisiana up to
Category Five hurricane protection.
Congress has mostly dealt with spending related to Hurricane Katrina
through separate spending bills.
Source: Associated Press
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