Funding for the federal government's nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is in jeopardy this year, in part because Congress has yet to accept restrictions on how it uses a trust fund for the project. Failure to keep the repository in Nevada on track violates a federal promise for a waste disposal site, and further delay will only fuel political opposition to the project.
Indeed, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry recently promised to end the project if elected, according to the Las Vegas Sun. While that position should play well with critics of the repository, it doesn't answer the need to deal responsibly with commercial and defense nuclear waste.
The byproducts of commercial reactors and defense operations are currently stored at various sites across the nation. Savannah River Site, for example, holds 34 million gallons of high-level waste that is expected to be converted into glass logs and shipped to the central repository for long-term storage.
Meanwhile, 50 nuclear power companies have filed breach-of-contract lawsuits against the federal government for failing to provide for long-term disposal of commercial waste as promised. Initially, the Yucca Mountain facility was expected to open in 1998. Now, the Department of Energy estimates that the earliest opening date will be 2010. Scana Corp. and Santee Cooper are among the utilities that have filed suit, seeking federal payments to cover the cost of storing waste on site.
The Associated Press reports that a House budget subcommittee has approved $131 million for the program next fiscal year, or $749 million less than the Department of Energy requested. The administration's funding request for the project is linked to congressional restrictions on the nuclear waste trust fund, provided by utility payments. Congress has diverted $15 billion from the fund, mainly for deficit reduction, according to the AP.
The opposition of Nevada to the project is understandable from a parochial point of view. But the necessity of eliminating scattered interim waste storage around the nation is an overarching national concern. Congress recognized that when it promised to provide a secure, central site for waste storage. Providing the funds for its creation is a prerequisite for completing the preparations for Yucca Mountain, and eliminating further delays.
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