Nuke Waste Stalls DOE Budget

Nuke Waste Stalls DOE Budget

Sep 23 - Albuquerque Journal

Senate Bill Includes Needed Cash for N.M.

A dispute over how to pay to get rid of nuclear waste has stalled Senate action on the Department of Energy's budget, raising the possibility of budget cuts.

"We're at loggerheads," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

The Bush administration wants Congress to dip into the Nuclear Waste Fund, which holds billions of dollars collected from nuclear utilities.

Congress has balked, meaning it can either cut the nuclear waste program, or cut somewhere else in the DOE budget.

Energy Department funding is critical in New Mexico. The department will spend $4 billion this year in New Mexico -- more than any other state. Only Washington state, with its massive Hanford nuclear reservation, and the District of Columbia, site of DOE's headquarters, come close.

At issue in the budget fight is $750 million for work at Yucca Mountain, a mine being dug in the Nevada desert to dispose of highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants.

Since Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982, utilities that generate electricity with nuclear power have paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund, which would eventually be used to dispose of spent nuclear fuel.

One-tenth of a cent is charged for every kilowatt hour of nuclear- generated electricity.

More than $15 billion sits in the fund, according to Steve Kerekes of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry advocacy group.

The Bush administration this year asked Congress to use some of the fund to pay for more work at Yucca Mountain.

Congress has so far been unwilling to go along.

In the House of Representatives, the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee chose to slash the Yucca Mountain budget, giving the Bush administration just $130 million of the $880 million it requested, leaving the $750 million gap.

Other differences exist between the House bill and the Senate spending plan Domenici wants to put forward. In particular, the House bill would cut money for key nuclear weapon programs favored by the Bush administration.

The administration wants money to begin designing a new nuclear weapon to attack underground bunkers and money to make advance preparations in case a resumption of nuclear weapons tests is needed.

The bill passed by the House cuts money for both efforts.

In a Sept. 8 letter to congressional leaders, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld complained that the House cuts "are contrary to our efforts to transform the U.S. nuclear stockpile to be smaller and more responsive to the threats we may face in the 21st century."

But the Yucca Mountain dispute is responsible for the battle currently being fought behind the scenes, Domenici acknowledged.

The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Domenici, has not produced a bill, repeatedly postponing action as Domenici tries to find a workable compromise.

Domenici, in a telephone interview last week, expressed his options in stark terms. He can either slash the Yucca Mountain budget -- something sure to draw strong opposition from congressional colleagues -- or "take it away from everything else" in the DOE budget.

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