Yucca Mountain Overhaul Proposed

The Bush Administration sent legislation to Capitol Hill April 5 that attempts to clear obstacles and speed licensing and construction of the contentious and long-delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

"In order to expand our nuclear-power-generating capacity, we need a safe, permanent, geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain," says Department of Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman. "This proposed legislation will help provide stability, clarity, and predictability to the Yucca Mountain project and will help lay a solid foundation for America's future energy security."

Among other things, the bill would eliminate the current statutory 70,000-metric-ton cap on disposal capacity at the proposed Yucca Mountain facility, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. DOE says removing the cap would allow maximum use of the mountain's true technical capacity and safely isolate the nation???s entire commercial spent-nuclear-fuel inventory from existing reactors.

Currently, more than 50,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel is stored at more than 100 aboveground sites in 39 states. Every year, commercial U.S. reactors produce an additional 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel. ???We believe it is very important to get Yucca Mountain open so we can start moving waste from communities around the country, and it is our view that is a widely held position," says Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell. "We can make the case to get the legislation passed."

In 2002, President George W. Bush and Congress agreed that Yucca Mountain was the best location for a permanent repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Federal officials had hoped to open the facility in 2010. But after a series of setbacks, 2020 is now the approximate target date.??

The legislation contains most of what the nuclear power industry and other proponents say is necessary to get the repository back on track. "The bill will help achieve the opening of the Yucca Mountain repository and maximize the myriad benefits that the nation receives from nuclear energy for the long term," says Frank L. (Skip) Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The legislation will be introduced in the Senate by Energy & Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.). But the measure will face strong opposition from Yucca Mountain critics, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who says the bill is "not even on life support. It's dead when it gets here."