Domenici to cut Yucca Mountain's FY-07 cash, may submit own bill

Washington (Platts)--30Mar2006

Senate appropriators are expected to cut fiscal year-2007 funding for the
Department of Energy's proposed nuclear waste repository project at Yucca
Mountain, Nevada after key members of an appropriations subcommittee said
Thursday the $544 million being sought for that program was too high.

"That has got to come down," the subcommittee chairman Pete Domenici,
Republican-New Mexico, said following a hearing on the DOE fiscal 2007 budget
request.

The panel's ranking Democrat, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, told
reporters as he left the hearing he didn't know how the long-delayed program
could spend that much money. Reid opposes DOE plans to build a nuclear waste
disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, roughly 100 miles outside Las Vegas.

Separately, Domenici said in his opening statement at the hearing he
would introduce his own nuclear waste bill if the department didn't present
draft legislation to the Senate and House soon. Domenici declined to reveal
details of his bill.

DOE has been promising a draft bill since early February.

Domenici said during the hearing Thursday he would introduce a DOE bill
out of courtesy to the administration, but that didn't necessarily mean he
would support the entire bill.

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http://nucweek.platts.com.



 

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