Waste storage plan not legal without US NRC Yucca nod: Bodman

Washington (Platts)--6Mar2007

US Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman Tuesday said that, under
law, the agency cannot make plans to store nuclear waste at a centralized
facility unless the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves DOE's license
application to build and operate the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository
in Nevada.

Testifying on DOE's fiscal-year 2008 budget request before the House
Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, Bodman said if NRC
approves the license application, the department can then begin evaluating
interim storage, even if construction of the Yucca Mountain site does not
begin. He rebuffed, however, calls for a DOE interim storage plan, saying he
was not legally authorized to craft such a plan before NRC approves the
license application.

"I cannot propose anything under law," Bodman said. "Under the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act of 1992, I am precluded from having anything to do with
interim storage until such time as I get the Yucca Mountain license."

The department plans to submit a license application to NRC in June 2008,
but it faces strong opposition to building the repository and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid, Democrat-Nevada, has said he would block the proposal DOE
sent to Congress to remove barriers to the repository. DOE resubmitted the
proposal Tuesday after a virtually identical plan went nowhere in Congress
last year.

Bodman said just getting NRC approval of the license application could
jumpstart consideration of a plan to send the nation's waste to one or more
central interim storage facilities. Waste currently is stored at 103 reactor
sites in more than 30 states.

--Dan Whitten, dan_whitten@platts.com