DOE MUST USE YUCCA MTN, STORE WASTE

Energy Dept. Cannot Drop Nuclear Waste Plan
Mathew L. Wald, June 29, 2010 (NY Times)

"In a setback for the Obama administration, a panel of judges at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled…the Energy Department could not withdraw its application to open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

"Making good on a campaign pledge by President Obama, the Energy Department had formally sought to drop its plan for Yucca Mountain…But states with major accumulations of waste from nuclear weapons production had petitioned to prevent the department from doing so…[T]he three-member panel of administrative judges said the Energy Department lacked the authority to drop the petition because it would flout a law passed by Congress."

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"In the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Congress directed the Energy Department to file the application and the commission to consider it…[and]…D.O.E. may not single-handedly derail the legislated decision-making process…Congress would have to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the Energy Department to pursue the application. But the president’s budget for next year proposes no money at all; and while some members of the House are eager to appropriate funds, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, is adamantly opposed to the project.

"…[T]he decision could keep the application alive long enough for the politics to change…That would not end the debate over scientific and engineering issues related to the project, which is markedly different from the waste burial strategy being pursued in other countries. Some experts say the geology of the Nevada site, selected by Congress in 1987, is unsuitable…[to] contain the waste for hundreds of thousands of years…[T]he Energy Department was not claiming that Yucca was unsafe or that there was anything wrong with the 86,000-page application, but was saying only that the site was [not workable]…The decision… could be overruled by the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission…"

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"President Obama had promised in his election campaign to drop the Yucca Mountain plans…But the states of Washington and South Carolina, with major stores of waste, had petitioned to prevent the Energy Department from withdrawing the application. So did the Nuclear Energy Institute…and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners… [who] are concerned because the Energy Department’s waste program has been mostly financed by electricity consumers…[They have] asked that payments…be suspended because there is now effectively no program…

"…Mr. Obama said he would establish a commission to seek solutions to nuclear waste…[T]he commission…[is] considering ways of recycling and reusing some of the waste…That could reduce the number of repositories needed, but at least one would still be required; national policy still dictates that the waste should eventually be buried…"