Budget Crunch May Stall Yucca

Budget Crunch May Stall Yucca

Jul 27 - Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

WASHINGTON -- While a court battle threatens to derail the Energy Department's plans to ship nuclear waste to Nevada, the department could see the Yucca Mountain project delayed by a budget crunch.

Nevada officials have placed their hopes to kill the project on the courts, which issued a favorable ruling earlier this month, but so far the budget could be the key.

Congress began its monthlong summer break Friday without passing the budget for Yucca Mountain project.

Without requested increases to work on the project next year, the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have said they will have a hard time meeting the project's self-imposed deadlines.

The department says it must submit its license application for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in December, but will need money from Congress to keep the project on schedule.

It also may need new scientific guidelines, after a federal appeals court struck down Environmental Protection Administration standards that say the repository must keep radiation from the environment for 10,000. The court said the EPA did not follow National Academy of Sciences recommendations, which were for a much longer period of time.

The Energy Department is expected to appeal that ruling in court, and work will continue during any appeals, but the department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission still face the immediate problem of a lack of money for Yucca Mountain work.

Congress has little time when it comes back from recess before the November election. If it does not pass the 13 spending bills individually, all of the outstanding spending bills could be rolled into one large one, called an omnibus, or Congress could pass a continuing budget resolution, leaving the agencies to work at this year's budget levels until next year.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Nils Diaz told Congress last month that a continuing resolution "would delay the NRC's review of the Department of Energy's high-level waste repository application," according to a letter to the Senate made public Wednesday.

The commission requested $69.1 million to work on the license application next year, a $36 million increase from this year. Diaz said keeping the funding level at just over half its request "would disrupt our preparation to review the DOE application."

Planned tests for containers used to ship the spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain would also be put on hold, Diaz said.

For the department's budget, the House has passed only $131 million for the project, despite the department's $880 million request. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill that would permanently change the way Congress puts money toward the program, allowing Yucca Mountain money to come directly from the Nuclear Waste Fund without having to compete with other federal programs. But even supporters of the bill say it is unlikely to go through the Senate.

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