[Senate Hearing 109-736]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-736
NUCLEAR FUEL MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
on
S. 2589
TO ENHANCE THE MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AND HIGH-
LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE, TO ENSURE PROTECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND
SAFETY, TO ENSURE THE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY AND SECURITY OF THE
REPOSITORY AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
AUGUST 3, 2006
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
______
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31-808 WASHINGTON : 2006
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico, Chairman
LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska RON WYDEN, Oregon
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
MEL MARTINEZ, Florida MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
CONRAD BURNS, Montana MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia KEN SALAZAR, Colorado
GORDON SMITH, Oregon ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
JIM BUNNING, Kentucky
Frank J. Macchiarola, Staff Director
Judith K. Pensabene, Chief Counsel
Robert M. Simon, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
Clint Williamson, Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Beasley, Jr., J. Barnie, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Southern Nuclear Operating Company............................. 24
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from New Mexico................ 3
Domenici, Hon. Pete V., U.S. Senator from New Mexico............. 1
Ensign, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Nevada...................... 7
Fettus, Geoffrey H., Senior Project Attorney, Natural Resources
Defense Council................................................ 37
Koppendrayer, LeRoy, Chairman, Minnesota Public Utilities
Commission and Chairman, Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition...... 55
Loux, Robert R., Executive Director, Nevada Agency for Nuclear
Projects, Office of the Governor............................... 31
Reid, Hon. Harry, U.S. Senator from Nevada....................... 4
Sproat, III, Edward F., Director for the Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste, Department of Energy........................ 12
Virgilio, Martin J., Deputy Executive Director for Materials,
Research, State and Compliance Programs, Office of the
Executive Director for Operations, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission..................................................... 16
Wright, David A., Commissioner, South Carolina Public Service
Commission, on behalf of the National Association of Regulatory
Utility Commissioners.......................................... 18
APPENDIX
Responses to additional questions................................ 59
NUCLEAR FUEL MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL ACT
----------
THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in
room SD-628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Pete V.
Domenici, chairman, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PETE V. DOMENICI, U.S. SENATOR FROM
NEW MEXICO
The Chairman. Now, with the committee's permission, we are
going to proceed with the hearing that we have scheduled. We
have two distinguished Senators from Wyoming before us.
Senators, even though I know you are both busy, I have some
opening remarks that I have not been able to give on this
subject for a long time, to put in perspective where we are,
and I would like to give those and then yield. If Senator
Bingaman wants to follow me, fine, and if not, we'll proceed to
the two distinguished visitors. Good morning to both of you,
Senators.
The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S.
2589, the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act. The
administration proposed this legislation, which I introduced
with Chairman Inhofe, who has the jurisdiction over many
portions of it in his committee.
This legislation provides a number of critical authorities
needed to make Yucca Mountain operational: land and water
transfer, withdrawal and transfer; waste confidence; Nuclear
Waste Fund; environmental and regulatory requirements; raising
the cap from 70,000 metric tons; and taking the Nuclear Waste
Fund off-budget.
Two weeks ago the Department of Energy released a new
timetable for submitting a license application to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, NRC, for the Yucca Mountain project by
June 2008. DOE anticipates opening Yucca Mountain in March
2017, to begin acceptance of spent fuel and high level defense
waste. With this, the Department established a schedule by
which regulators, consumers, and Congress can monitor the
progress for the transportation and the storage of commercial
waste, spent fuel, and defense-related fuel.
Yucca Mountain is the cornerstone of a comprehensive spent
fuel management strategy for this country, and let me be clear:
We need Yucca Mountain, whatever its shortcomings may be. I
want to fix this program as best I can and try to make it work,
with the help of the committee and the Congress.
However, experience has shown that the schedule for Yucca
Mountain is a very slippery thing. My concern is that the new
timetable does not include any margin for any further project
delays by DOE, its contractors, or legal action by the State of
Nevada, all of which would cause the DOE to miss these new
deadlines. Nor does the schedule establish a total time frame
by which all commercial fuel will be moved to the repository.
Meanwhile, the Government's liability is piling up. The
Nation's electric ratepayers are paying twice--for Yucca, and
for storing the waste at the reactor sites. From my estimates,
if Yucca Mountain were to open by the goal of December 2017--
and I invite the Department or anyone else to show me that what
I am just going to say is not correct--ratepayers will be
paying until late in the century to keep spent fuel onsite, not
because Yucca will not be open but because under current plans
this is the fastest that waste can be moved.
DOE plans to send 3,000 metric tons per year to Yucca
Mountain, those are the plans, and that is all that the
Department thinks they can move there per year, 3,000 metric
tons. At that pace, it will be 2040 before DOE transports all
the spent fuel that exists today to Yucca Mountain. In the
meantime, we will continue to generate additional spent fuel
that is destined for Yucca.
So I would like to repeat, for those who don't think we
need to address temporary storage, if everything goes
perfectly, it will take over 30 years--longer than I have been
in the Senate, and that's pretty long--to eliminate the
existing backlog of spent fuel. In light of that, it only makes
sense to look for additional ways for the Government to meet
its obligations.
To address that part of the puzzle, the Senate
Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year 2007 Energy
and Water Appropriations bill with a new approach to nuclear
waste consolidation. That proposal offers utility ratepayers
relief and fulfills the Federal Government's obligation to take
spent fuel while the Government works off the enormous backlog.
Furthermore, I have done the math to understand whether
Yucca Mountain can address all of the spent fuel needs. As
proposed by the administration's bill, we must lift the 70,000
metric ton cap on Yucca Mountain because by 2010 there will
already be 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel at commercial
sites. We will have in excess of 2,500 tons of spent fuel from
our national defense and research efforts, and we will have in
excess of 10,000 metric tons awaiting processing and disposal
at Hanford and Savannah and Idaho.
Unless we take action to raise the cap, it will be 7 years
before Yucca Mountain is projected to be open. We must raise
the authorized limit, as DOE has proposed. However, even with
that increase in the limit to 120,000 metric tons, by the year
2050 DOE will have shipped enough fuel to Yucca Mountain to
fill it up, leaving an additional 40,000 metric tons at reactor
sites. This is without any increase in the size of the current
nuclear fleet.
The Energy Information Agency estimates that by 2030 our
Nation will need an additional 347 gigawatts of electricity
brought on line to just keep up with demand. What are we going
to build? Natural gas is expensive, stocks are hard to come by,
even though we are looking. The United States is the Saudi
Arabia of coal, but until proven coal technology comes online
that demonstrates sequestration of carbon emissions, nuclear is
the clean air solution. We must and we should build new nuclear
powerplants.
So I have reached a few conclusions: One, Yucca must be
opened. Two, even if Yucca is opened, significant quantities of
spent fuel will remain at reactor sites for many decades, thus
the need for practical interim solutions. And, third,
continuing to increase the authorized limit at Yucca Mountain,
while a necessary step, is not a complete solution.
That's where GNEP comes in. That is recycling. This year
the Bush administration took what I believe is the correct
path. It proposed to close the nuclear fuel cycle and recycle
spent fuel, leaving a reduced amount of material that must be
disposed of in Yucca. The fact is that unless we recycle, Yucca
can't contain everything.
We must use that time, the time we have before Yucca
Mountain opens, to take serious looks and take serious
opportunities that are before us to use the terrific new
technologies that can reduce the volume and toxicity of spent
fuel. It is no great shock that I urge everyone to support the
GNEP, the Global National Energy Partnership, and it should be
included as part of our nuclear waste solution.
The three pieces to the puzzle that we have discussed are
Yucca Mountain, GNEP, and interim storage, and those will
establish a program that will provide confidence that our
nuclear Nation's waste will be managed, and we ought to proceed
on all three fronts with dispatch. We can solve the problem,
and I hope we can solve it together. I look forward to a frank
discussion with witnesses today, of this difficult and
complicated subject, and to move ahead as rapidly as we can
from that point.
Senator Bingaman.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. SENATOR
FROM NEW MEXICO
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much for having the
hearing, Mr. Chairman. Let me just mention two or three things.
First, I'm interested in finding out from the
administration why they believe we need to move with this
legislation at this point, this legislation that they have
presented. As I understand it, the Department of Energy has
said it's not going to be ready to file a license application
for another 2 years, and there's nothing that I have detected
in this bill that would change that or speed it up. I would be
anxious to get clarification on that.
I also think we need clarification as to what the different
actions are that are authorized by the language of this bill. I
know that there is authorization for ``infrastructure
activities'' and that's not defined. I gather that means the
billion dollar, 300-mile-long railroad that is contemplated,
and also the interim storage facilities, but I think if so, we
need to understand that. I think we need to explicitly
authorize items of that size, if that's what the administration
intends for us to do with this bill.
I think the main thrust of the bill as I read it, is to
limit the authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the
Department of Transportation, and the State of Nevada, to
oversee the repository. I'm not sure how that is going to
ensure the safety of the repository or the public confidence in
the repository. I'm sure that our witnesses and Senators Reid
and Ensign may have thoughts about that.
Finally, I would just say you made reference to the
legislation that you and Senator Reid have developed as part of
the Energy and Water Appropriation bill. I think that is
obviously far-reaching, and I hope that we can have a hearing
on that legislation before we are faced with consideration of
it on the Senate floor. I think this committee should be able
to understand that legislation, and obviously that's not the
primary thrust or focus of this hearing, but it should be the
primary focus of a future hearing.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Bingaman.
All right, Senators, we're going to proceed with you in
order of seniority, obviously. Senator Reid, we're glad to have
you here. We are always considering Yucca matters, and we very
infrequently get to hear from you about your views, so it's
good to hear from you today.
STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY REID, U.S. SENATOR
FROM NEVADA
Senator Reid. Mr. Chairman, I'm very impressed with the
attendance at this hearing. This is very, very unusual, at
least as far as I've been able to determine with other
committees, so this is great.
Everyone knows that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear
waste dump can be described in many different ways, but it is
certainly on a life support system. Some have said it's a dying
beast, and it should die. It's a scientifically unsound project
that would needlessly threaten the public health and safety of
all Americans.
Even the administration knows this is flawed and dangerous.
We can see this in the legislation that they have submitted to
us. It tells you everything the administration knows that's
wrong with Yucca. They have sent us this legislation to change
the rules, to break the law and prevent States from protecting
their citizens--not Nevada, States.
If Yucca were scientifically sound, if it generally was a
safe place to store nuclear waste, the administration would not
need to gut the laws that regulate hazardous waste handling and
transportation, clean air, water rights, public land laws, and
environmental policy. If Yucca were scientifically sound, the
administration would not need to preempt States' rights. If
Yucca were scientifically sound, if it was genuinely safe, we
wouldn't have this bill and we wouldn't be here today.
So, to be honest, the administration is trying to prevent
the States from protecting themselves and their citizens--I
repeat, not Nevada only, the States. It's important to remember
that this proposal does not affect or preempt Nevada only, but
your States as well, and not just in the area of
transportation.
For instance, the administration also wants to preempt the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for any Department of
Energy facility where waste is transported or stored in Nuclear
Regulatory Commission-licensed casks, for example, the Waste
Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico. If Yucca were
scientifically sound and safe, the DOE would not need to remove
control of the project from agencies with expertise: the
Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection
Agency, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land
Management, and the Department of Defense.
Do members of this committee know that this bill
subordinates the authority of the Department of Defense to the
Department of Energy? No longer does DOD get to determine when,
where, and how our flights are conducted in Nellis AFB. Think
about that. The number one Air Force fighter training facility
in the world, without question, and in the future they'll need
to get permission from the DOE as to whether those airplanes
can take off from Nellis and where they go. If this legislation
passes, it would be a tremendous detriment to our military. We
can't sacrifice the Nation's security for this shortsighted
proposal.
What may even be worse is that Congress is being asked to
approve the gutting of all these laws and authorities for a
project with no details, no assurances of its safety, no
assurance of its viability, and no assurance of its long-term
integrity. In fact, the administration has not even done the
impact analysis of this proposed project as required by the
National Environmental Protection Act.
We have been trying and trying to get this analysis and
clarification of what the administration is or is not doing,
but we have been given the runaround. I don't think it exists.
Maybe that's partly because DOE doesn't have a final design for
the facility. That's right. DOE has announced that it is
completely redesigning the surface facilities, transportation
methods, and storage requirements. What are the details? Who
knows? We don't know. No one knows.
The truth is, DOE has never said what they're going to be.
They've never said whether the Department truly intends to
increase the amount of waste that can be stored at the
mountain. If they do, DOE will have to redesign the facility
itself. They're just saying, ``Trust us. Don't ask questions.
Trust us.''
Trust DOE? The Department has had more than 20 years of
quality assurance and control problems on this project alone,
with contractors who have the same problems, both of which have
been ignored, but they let them continue. Trust DOE, the agency
that does not care that data on water infiltration was
falsified? Falsified. Trust DOE? I don't think so.
Let me just address that incident. DOE likes to make a lot
of noise about the fact that the Department of Justice did not
bring criminal charges against the employees who falsified the
data. Avoiding a criminal indictment is not an exoneration. It
just means that DOE didn't push the Justice Department into
doing something. They lied. They acknowledged they falsified
scientific records, and it's in writing.
To meet the high burden of a criminal case--I don't know
what the prosecutors thought, but they weren't pushed by DOE--
prosecutors would have had to prove the employees made these
false statements, and I think they could have done that. They
decided not to do it. The employees knew that the statements
were false. We know that. They bragged about it. They bragged
about lying and falsifying documents. We have those.
So these employees averted Federal felony charges. Does
that mean the data is accurate? Of course not. They admitted
lying, falsifying the documents. False data is false data.
Worst of all, DOE has no intention of redoing the data. The
threat of criminal prosecution has passed, but the threat to
public health remains. It's not surprising.
Ward Sproat, who oversees the Yucca Mountain project,
admitted in testimony before the House just last month that DOE
does not have the expertise to design and construct Yucca
Mountain. They must rely on their contractor, Bechtel.
Bechtel, to whom DOE has given bonuses for substandard and
incomplete work. Bechtel, the contractor that was under a stop
work order because it ignored these problems. Bechtel, the same
company that ignored problems with the Big Dig, an action that
led to the continuing safety problems and, tragically, the
death of a motorist from a falling three-ton piece of metal
from the roof of the Big Dig.
The Governor of Massachusetts said the design of the Big
Dig was incompetent. The designer? Bechtel. So now we're having
DOE rely on them for their expertise? This is really a metaphor
for this entire project.
Mr. Chairman, you know, we have had conversations, I'm not
opposed to nuclear power. I'm opposed to nuclear power unless
we find something to do with the waste. I believe we can handle
this. I have faith in American ingenuity. America has the best
minds in the world, and I believe if we truly focus on solving
the real problems of spent nuclear fuel, we could solve our
problems.
So we should stop wasting time and money researching and
designing Yucca Mountain. After more than 20 years, we know
that it won't work, so we really should start trying to solve
the problem of nuclear waste.
What are we to do with the waste in the interim? Leave it
onsite in dry cask storage containers, where it is safely and
securely stored now, would be for 100 years, and where the
nuclear industry estimates it will continue to be safely stored
for the next 100 years. According to the Nuclear Energy
Institute--not my best friend--dry cask storage is here to
stay. And according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it's
safe, they say, for up to 200 years, and onsite storage saves
money.
DOE's last estimate for Yucca Mountain, very low-balled at
about $60 billion--$60 billion. Other outside experts say it
will never be done for less than $100 billion. Dry cask
storage, a few billion, way less than $5 billion at most, and
that's the Cadillac. NEI has shown us, with or without Yucca
Mountain, onsite storage will be widespread. It is right now.
Calvert Cliffs, right out here in Baltimore, they have been
doing it for years.
So we should embrace this option, and search for other
alternatives, and save the ratepayers and the Government tens
of billions of dollars. We should stop wasting our time and
money on Yucca Mountain, and on an administration proposal that
even Mr. Sproat himself said they don't need right now. We have
too much.
So I challenge all my colleagues to look at this. Let's go
with dry cask storage containment. Let's forget about this
boondoggle. That's really what it is. Let's take the focus away
from this dead project and find real solutions, and secure our
energy future by doing something reasonable with nuclear power.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator.
Now we're going to proceed to Senator Ensign. Thank you for
being so patient, Senator.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN ENSIGN, U.S. SENATOR
FROM NEVADA
Senator Ensign. Mr. Chairman, just to save the committee
some time, if I may ask that my full statement be made part of
the record, and I'll try to summarize this as briefly and as
succinctly as possible.
The Chairman. Absolutely. It's done.
Senator Ensign. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned in your
testimony the fact that interim storage is necessary because
there's going to be storage all over the country, simply
because you can't bring the waste to Yucca Mountain fast
enough.
In the past the Energy Secretary, right after 9/11, talked
about the security. We need one site. That was a big issue. We
need one site. It's obvious we're not going to have one site.
We will never have one site, so that security argument I think
is a bogus argument.
There are many problems with this legislation. I think my
testimony, written testimony, and Senator Reid's testimony
talks about a lot of the environmental laws and some of the
problems we have, but I want to look at this thing as maybe a
little bigger picture.
The new proposal, first of all, because we realize that
Yucca Mountain doesn't store enough waste, the old number was
somewhere around $60 billion. That number, by the way, is a
2000 number. With all the problems of Yucca Mountain, we know
that that number has to be a lot higher just today, without
expanding, dramatically expanding, what is going to happen. We
don't know what the cost of this proposal is going to be, and
certainly the way any other government projects have gone, the
costs continue to skyrocket.
Is it something that America can afford? Is it something
nuclear power can afford, to make it viable for the future? I'm
a believer in nuclear power. I think it's important that we
have nuclear power for the future energy needs of the United
States.
I think Yucca Mountain makes nuclear power less financially
viable because it's going to have to come out of the taxpayers.
The Nuclear Waste Trust Fund will in no way pay for Yucca
Mountain, especially with a new design. There is not enough
money in the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund, or not enough money into
the future with the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund.
Mr. Chairman, you mentioned recycling technology, and I
really believe that that's a big part of the answer for the
United States. What Senator Reid mentioned about leaving the
stuff where it is, dry cask storage technology works. It solves
a lot of the other problems that we have as far as
transportation, the controversy.
And recycling technology I believe is a big part of the
answer, because it's going to decrease the amount of the waste,
it's going to decrease the toxicity. It decreases the half-
lives of the waste, and obviously it produces a little bit of
energy along with it. Now, there's still some technology that
has to be worked out there, but that I believe is where we
should be putting our money and our efforts, is into developing
the recycling technology.
Senator Reid mentioned something very important that this
legislation talks about, and actually it's with Yucca Mountain
or even with the expanded part of it, and that is the ranges
for the Nellis Air Force Base, the most valuable ranges in the
United States. You talk to the Air Force, the most valuable
ranges in the United States are the Nellis ranges. No question.
The ranges above Nevada, they mimic the Middle East. They are
the most wide open. The rules, what they can do in the flying
up there is incredibly important to our national security.
The legislation that we have before us would make the DOD,
would make the Air Force second fiddle to the Department of
Energy, and I think that that is a very dangerous precedent to
start, and not knowing the full implications of what that would
bring is very dangerous for the national security of the United
States.
So, Mr. Chairman, nuclear waste, everybody agrees that the
big problem with nuclear power is nuclear waste, and what are
we going to do? How are we going to solve this? It is mostly a
perception problem, because everybody wants to get it out of
their State, knowing that they aren't getting it out of their
State.
Well, actually they don't know that. That is part of the
problem. Just because there's Yucca Mountain does not mean that
people get nuclear waste, all of the waste, out of their State.
They get some of the waste out of their State. If they
understood that they're only getting some of it out of their
State, I think that there would be much more public acceptance
to onsite dry cask storage.
We have 100 to 200 years to work out the technical problems
of recycling, of doing some of the other things. Building a
boondoggle in the Nevada desert I believe is wrongheaded, it's
the wrong financial policy, and it's the wrong nuclear waste
policy for the United States. We really should be putting our
efforts into modern, forward thinking so that we can make
nuclear power viable for the future of the United States.
We see the problems that we have with fossil fuels. You
know, we're doing some things about that. But the bottom line
is, nuclear has to be an important part of the future, and for
it to be an important part of the future, I think that we have
to solve this in a way that we can afford, in a way that allays
some of the people's safety concerns that we have around the
country, and this legislation is certainly the wrongheaded
approach.
So I know Senator Reid and I both appreciate you allowing
us to be here and share some of our thoughts with you, and we
look forward to working with you on some of these proposals for
the future.
[The prepared statement of Senator Ensign follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John Ensign, U.S. Senator From Nevada
I want to thank the Chair, the Ranking, and other members of the
Committee for the opportunity to present testimony on S. 2589, the
Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act.
I find the stated purpose of the bill to be outrageous--considering
its content. The stated purpose of this bill is to enhance the
management and disposal of nuclear fuel and high level radioactive
waste, to ensure protection of public health and safety, and to ensure
the territorial integrity and security of the repository at Yucca
Mountain. This bill fails on all three fronts.
First, this bill doesn't enhance the management and disposal of
nuclear waste--it simply expedites it. The bill tries to legislate
around the scientific and safety flaws of Yucca Mountain because
supporters of the project know that it will never be opened if current
laws and regulations remain in place. Congress has heard repeatedly
from experts who acknowledge that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository will never be built because of the numerous and
insurmountable scientific, safety, and technical problems with the
site. In addition, nearly three decades of poor management and
oversight have demonstrated that the vast body of scientific and
technical work done by the Department of Energy (DOE) and its
contractors, is incomplete or moot due to constantly changing
repository designs and plans which do not meet scientific standards.
This legislation does nothing to correct those problems; it merely
attempts to circumvent them. In fact, the bill changes the funding
mechanism to remove Congressional control and eliminates much needed
oversight of how taxpayer dollars are being spent on this project. It
also scales back NRC licensing requirements and eliminates regulations
with the idea of getting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain as fast as
possible, regardless of the potential consequences. With all the flaws
apparent in the project to date, I believe it is disingenuous to claim
that management and disposal will be enhanced by cutting corners and
taking a ``make it work'' approach to the nations' most hazardous
waste.
Second, this bill doesn't ensure protection of public health and
safety--it erodes it. It undercuts safeguards for both the
transportation and storage of nuclear waste, leaving the public more
vulnerable than ever. It removes all Department of Transportation
(DOT), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Surface Transportation
Board, and state authority over nuclear waste transport so that DOE has
sole control over a nuclear transportation scheme of unprecedented
magnitude. Shipments of waste would be exempt from present and future
DOT safe-routing regulations, from DOT safety regulations, and from NRC
safeguards regulations.
Furthermore, the bill would exempt material that is transported or
stored in NRC-licensed containers or located at Yucca Mountain from
federal, state, and local environmental requirements under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). This would eliminate the
requirement that hazardous non-nuclear contaminants mixed with the
nuclear waste be identified and treated according to RCRA. Clearly this
evasion of RCRA could serve as a precedent that would impact future
transuranic waste shipments to the WIPP facility, as well as DOE
environmental clean-up and legacy management sites across our nation.
In February of this year, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
released its report on the dangers associated with transporting nuclear
waste and advocated that states and local governments have a central
role in any successful waste transportation program. This legislation
directly contradicts that recommendation. It abolishes state, local,
and tribal government transportation authority and circumvents
involvement from other federal agencies, such as NRC, DOT and the
Department of Homeland Security, which is currently called for under
exiting law. According to DOE, 45 states, 700 counties, and 50 Native
American tribes will be affected by the transport of nuclear waste to
Yucca Mountain. Common sense would dictate that giving away all
transportation authority to DOE, rather than the agencies and
communities directly affected, does not protect the almost 11 million
people within a half mile of the transportation route.
Third, this bill does not ensure the territorial integrity and
security of Yucca Mountain. Instead, it jeopardizes national security
by withdrawing land currently controlled by the Air Force and the
Nevada Test Site. One of the premier test and training sites in the
country, Nellis Air Force Base has a varied mission portfolio that is
met only by the size and diversity of its ranges and capabilities.
Similarly, the Nevada Test Site is the only location that offers safe,
secure, and remote testing for defense systems and high-hazard
operations. Not only does this legislation call for a land withdrawal
from these two sites, it also hands DOE the rights to the airspace,
giving a non-defense agency the right to dictate what missions and
operations can be conducted. This is not a zero-sum game. Withdrawing
land to ensure the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain meets NRC
licensing guidelines would erode the integrity of Nellis and the Test
Site. It is not prudent to risk our national security by limiting the
ability of these unique assets for a project like Yucca Mountain, which
remains riddled with problems and questions and is doomed for failure.
We need to find another solution to our nuclear waste problem and
this legislation is not it. Instead, we need to amend the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act of 1982 to require the title to all spent nuclear fuel,
stored in dry casks, to be passed to the DOE upon on-site transfer from
storage pools to casks. Senator Reid and I introduced legislation to
allow the DOE to assume liability of the waste onsite before it is
transferred to Yucca Mountain. Conveying the title means that the DOE
will have full responsibility for the possession, stewardship,
maintenance, and monitoring of all spent nuclear fuel. The DOE would
also be made responsible for various maintenance and oversight that
would be associated with implementation.
The fact remains that if Yucca Mountain was a workable, safe, and
scientifically sound plan, it would not require legislation to move it
forward. This bill only makes Yucca seem workable on paper by rolling
back the many laws and regulations designed to protect the public
health and safety of all Americans.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senators. I might ask,
there are a number of Senators here, and I know you're in a
hurry, but----
Senator Reid. If you have any questions, Senator Ensign
will answer them.
The Chairman. All right, he's got your proxy.
Any questions of either Senator?
Senator Craig. Mr. Chairman?
The Chairman. Yes, Senator Craig?
Senator Craig. Mr. Chairman, I thank you both for being
here, and I appreciate the passion that you have always
approached this issue on. I also understand that all politics
is local, and this is important politics for your State. I
don't dispute that.
I have to agree with you, John, perception is everything.
There is a perception in Nevada, probably not different than
perceptions in other States as it relates to waste. That's part
of what drives this issue.
Senator Reid, my only observation, when one relates those
who constructed the Big Dig and those who are operatives at the
site at Yucca Mountain today, there are two other fine
facilities in your State that that same company built. One is
called Hoover Dam, and the other was the Las Vegas Airport,
McCarran. I don't think in any way anybody implies that those
are less than safe.
Design is critical. Those who build it need to have good
designs. That's what all of this is about at this moment. And
your due diligence, I suspect, if this ever happens, will cause
it to be a safe place that we can hold up to the citizens of
the State of Nevada not to impair their health. Without
question, that has to be a primary concern of all of us. To
date, our history of storing nuclear waste is excellent. I see
no reason why it would change.
Thank you, gentlemen, very much.
Senator Reid. My only response, I say to my friend from
Idaho, Hoover Dam was built with a number of companies, of
course, 75 years ago, and I don't think--we love McCarran
Field, a nice airport--but the Big Dig and Yucca Mountain are a
little more difficult to construct than some runways on the
flat desert.
Senator Craig. I'm only referencing the comparatives that
you gave. I found them to be interesting.
The Chairman. Senators, could I just ask, in my statement,
because I have a follow-up hearing soon on GNEP, that is,
recycling, I only touched on it as kind of the third part of
this. You know, I mentioned onsite storing, I mentioned Yucca,
which you disagree on, but I also mentioned then GNEP.
I have not asked heretofore, and perhaps I should wait, but
would it be fair to assume, first, Senator Reid, that you
support a major American effort to move toward recycling with
new and innovative technology?
Senator Reid. Senator Ensign and I have talked about that.
I have spoken to you about it. That's something I'm happy to
take a look at, but as far as signing off on it, I'm not going
to do that.
The Chairman. Oh, I understand.
Senator Reid. But sure, I'm interested. I'm interested in
anything to make the production of nuclear power safe.
The Chairman. Senator Ensign.
Senator Ensign. I have actually, since my very first time
looking at running for office, have been exploring and meeting
with scientists from around the country on the whole idea of
recycling. You know, there is obviously the reprocessing that
some of the other countries do, but there is modern recycling
that can be a lot better into the future because it reduces the
toxicity and half-lives dramatically without producing, for one
thing, weapons-grade plutonium, which has always been a problem
with reprocessing.
So I'm actually a big supporter in pursuing that research,
because I think that if that research can be perfected to a
commercial level, that it will be a bit part of our answer on
reducing the length of time you need to store the waste, the
amount of waste that will be there, and the cost of the waste
as well.
Senator Reid. And we may, Mr. Chairman, look back as
history books are written, as having made a very, very big
mistake in closing the facility at Clinch River in Tennessee.
That was there, it was ongoing, and the reasons as I understand
historically for stopping it was, they were afraid that the
plutonium would get out into other people's hands. Well,
certainly if we couldn't guard against that, we're not very
good at guarding against anything.
The Chairman. But the next step down the line is going to
be, Clinch River reactor is going to be in the engineering
picture when it comes to recycling. That's the point. Thank you
very much, Senator Reid.
Senator Cantwell. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, if I could
just thank the Nevada Senators for testifying, and certainly
for bringing up the specific information about under the
current proposal how much waste is left at various sites, I
think for the Hanford site under the Yucca Mountain proposal it
was somewhere between 13 and 18 percent would be moved. The
rest, under that current proposal, would stay. So I think
you're right in making sure that people are aware of what the
proposal actually means going forward and what the alternatives
are. So I thank them for their statements this morning.
Senator Reid. Mr. Chairman, in just brief response, one of
the things that you and I have had a very difficult time doing,
but we have done it, is look at the waste removal that is
absolutely necessary at Hanford. It takes a huge chunk of money
every year out of our energy and water bill, and I think this
year we met the expectations of the Washington delegation,
that's the House and Senate members. I have been there. We have
created some significant problems around the country with
nuclear waste, and Washington is a prime example of that.
Hopefully we are addressing it appropriately with the money we
are doing for removal.
The Chairman. Anything else?
[No response.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Senators.
We're going to proceed now with our next group of witnesses
here. Two roll call votes are going to come up very shortly,
but let's get started here.
Let's take panel number one: Hon. Edward Sproat, III,
Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management, Department of Energy; Martin Virgilio, Deputy
Executive Director for Materials, Research, State and
Compliance Programs, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; J.
Barnie Beasley, Southern Nuclear Company, Birmingham; Robert
Loux, executive director, Agency for Nuclear Projects, from the
Governor's office in Nevada; Geoff Fettus, Esq., Natural
Resource Defense Council, thank you for coming. David Wright,
commissioner, South Carolina Public Service Commission.
That's it. We're going to start at this side and move this
way. You can lead off for us, please, sir.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD F. SPROAT, III, DIRECTOR FOR THE OFFICE OF
CIVILIAN RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Sproat. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Bingaman,
and other members of the committee. My name is Edward Sproat.
I'm the Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management at DOE, and I'm in my seventh week on the job. I'd
like to thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning in
front of the committee. On behalf of the President and the
Secretary, I'd like to thank Senator Domenici and Senator
Inhofe for taking up this critical issue and introducing the
legislation, S. 2589, to consider these important issues
associated with Yucca Mountain.
I would ask that my written testimony be submitted for the
record, and I would just like to make a few summary comments,
if I could.
Two weeks ago I announced the best achievable schedule for
the Yucca Mountain project, the two key milestones being the
submittal of a license application to the USNRC by June 30,
2008, and based on that milestone, the best achievable opening
of the repository in March 2017. There has been a lot of
discussion among people all over about the reality or the
achievability of that schedule.
I want to make it very clear I did not say that was the
most probable schedule, I said it was the best achievable
schedule. And I want to make it very clear, as I did when I
made that announcement, that the probability of making that
schedule without this legislation is zero. That's how important
this legislation is to making that schedule happen.
There are several key provisions in this legislation that
the administration has proposed. I would just like to summarize
very quickly because I know there's a lot of misunderstanding
around them and what's being asked for.
The first issue is around the Waste Fund itself, and we
believe we need stability of funding to support the cash flows
for the design and the construction of the Yucca Mountain
project. By giving us access to the receipts into that Nuclear
Waste Fund on an annual basis, that will certainly help us and
go a long way in providing that stability.
I want to make it very clear, our proposal does not remove
congressional oversight or appropriations from those annual
decisions to fund the Yucca Mountain project. The congressional
appropriations are still a part of the project, a part of the
process, even with this legislation. If we don't get this
legislation and access to the Waste Fund, we won't have the
cash flows needed on an annual basis to construct the project
to the schedule that I have proposed.
The second issue is around land withdrawal in the State of
Nevada. The proposal removes about 147,000 acres around the
Yucca Mountain project from public use, and gives the Secretary
of Energy the authority to deem the appropriate use of that
land. If the Secretary decides he still wants to allow grazing,
he can.
The issue was raised a couple times about the impact on the
Air Force. I want to make it very clear the amount of land in
the Nellis Air Force range that's being withdrawn under this
proposal is less than 1 percent of the total area of the Nellis
Air Force range, and the no-fly zone that would be established
by this is 4 miles in radius, a very, very small issue. And
from our discussions with the Air Force, they don't have a
problem and don't see an operational impact by this withdrawal
on their operations.
Without this, if we don't get this land withdrawal, I can't
demonstrate to the NRC that we have permanent control of the
repository area, which is a requirement to get the operating
license for Yucca Mountain. So basically, if I don't get this
land withdrawal, I can't get a license to operate Yucca
Mountain. It's that simple.
The third issue is about removing the 70,000 metric ton
limit on the mountain. That limit was established by the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act as an administrative limit. When the
Government performed its environmental impact statement looking
at the Yucca Mountain project, it examined a 120,000 metric ton
impact for that, so we've already examined what would happen if
we expanded the limit.
What we're asking for in this legislation is the ability to
analyze the mountain scientifically, present to the NRC what we
believe is a licensable upper limit for capacity of Yucca
Mountain, and allow the NRC to make that determination. Without
getting this 70,000 metric ton limit lifted, we will need a
second repository in this country, and the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act requires the Department to present a recommendation to the
Congress between 2007 and 2010 on the need for that second
repository. If we don't lift this limit and allow the NRC to
decide the technical license limit for the repository, I will
give Congress a report while I'm in this position that says we
need a second repository in this country and need to start that
process right away.
The fourth issue I would just like to summarize is about
water, and this is obviously a major issue to all States out in
the West. What we're asking for is for the Congress to declare
the Yucca Mountain project to be in the public interest. We are
not asking to bypass the Nevada water rights granting process.
What we're asking to do is to supersede the Nevada legislative
law that's currently in place, that declares the Yucca Mountain
project not in the public interest, and therefore the State
will not grant a water withdrawal right to the Department of
Energy. And without that, we have no water to either operate or
construct Yucca Mountain.
The fifth area is waste confidence, which we've already
talked about earlier today, and the importance of establishing
the waste confidence for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
allow the licensing of new plants and the extension of licenses
for existing plants.
The sixth and final area that covers a broad range of
issues is clarification of Federal authority and duplicative
regulatory review processes, and what we're trying to do is
provide needed clarification of Federal authority over some
issues that are currently subject to State review and approval:
air quality, transportation, the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, and infrastructure improvement. I'll be glad to
talk about those in more detail as needed to satisfy the
committee.
In summary, the President, the Secretary and I firmly
believe that this legislation is critical to the Yucca Mountain
moving forward, and moving forward with new nuclear generation
capacity, and I respectfully request the Congress to pass this
legislation. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sproat follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edward F. Sproat, III, Director for the Office of
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Department of Energy
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss S. 2589 entitled the
``Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act.'' Enactment of this bill
would significantly enhance the Nation's ability to manage and dispose
of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. I thank the
Chairman and Senator Inhofe for taking up the critical issue and
introducing the legislation.
Over the last 50 years, our country has benefited greatly from
nuclear energy and the power of the atom. We need to ensure a strong
and diversified energy mix to fuel our Nation's economy, and nuclear
power is an important component of that mix. Currently more than 50,000
metric tons of spent nuclear fuel is located at more than 100 above-
ground sites in 39 states, and every year, reactors in the United
States produce an additional approximately 2,000 metric tons of spent
fuel. In order to ensure the future viability of our nuclear generating
capacity, we need a safe, permanent, geologic repository for spent
nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain.
Recently the Department announced its plans to submit a License
Application for the repository to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) by June 30, 2008, and to initiate repository operations in 2017.
This opening date of 2017 is a ``best-achievable schedule'' and is
predicated upon enactment of the pending legislation. This proposed
legislation addresses many of the uncertainties that are currently
beyond the control of the Department that have the potential to
significantly delay the opening date for the repository, and I would
like to briefly summarize the bill's provisions for the Committee.
First, the most important factor in moving the Yucca Mountain
Project forward is the ability of the Department to have access to the
Nuclear Waste Fund to support the cash flows needed to implement the
Project. By making a technical budgetary scoring change, the proposed
legislation would correct a structural budget problem that currently
prevents use of the Fund as it was intended. This change would allow
the Fund to be used to provide consistent and sufficient funding for
the construction and operations of the repository. Funding for the
Program would still have to be requested by the President and
Congressional appropriations from the Fund would still be required.
Second, to meet NRC licensing requirements it will also be
necessary for Congress to approve the permanent withdrawal of the lands
needed for the operational area of the repository. The bill would
withdraw permanently from public use approximately 147,000 acres of
land in Nye County, Nevada. The Department is confident that the
permanent withdrawal of land would meet the NRC licensing requirement
for the Yucca Mountain repository and would help assure protection of
public health and the environment.
Third, to promote efficient management and disposal of the current
and projected future inventories of commercial spent nuclear fuel
located at reactors throughout the United States, the proposed
legislation would eliminate the current statutory 70,000 metric ton cap
on disposal capacity at Yucca Mountain and allow for maximum use of the
mountain's true technical capacity. By eliminating an artificial
statutory limit and allowing NRC to evaluate the actual capacity at
Yucca Mountain, this provision would help provide for safe isolation of
the Nation's entire commercial spent nuclear fuel inventory from
existing reactors, including life extensions, and may postpone the need
for a second repository elsewhere until the next century.
In addition the proposed legislation includes a number of
provisions that would promote prompt consideration of issues associated
with the Yucca Mountain repository or would address other matters that
have the potential to cause delays in moving forward with the Yucca
Mountain Project.
First, the proposed legislation contains provisions that would
provide for a more streamlined NRC licensing process by amending the
licensing process in several respects. In particular, it would make
clear that an application for construction authorization need not
include information on surface facilities other than those facilities
necessary for initial operations. The bill would also establish an
expedited one-year schedule and a simplified, informal process for use
by the NRC to consider the license amendment for the Department to be
able to receive and possess nuclear materials as well as applications
for other future license amendment actions. The bill would also direct
that the NRC, consistent with other provisions under the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act of 1982, need not consider in its environmental review any
actions taken outside of the geologic repository operations area; this
will help focus the licensing process.
Second, the proposed legislation would permit early initiation of
infrastructure and pre-construction activities at the Yucca Mountain
site for utility, communications, and safety upgrades, and the
construction of a rail line to connect the Yucca Mountain site with the
national rail network. Construction of repository surface and sub-
surface nuclear facilities would still require a construction
authorization from the NRC.
Third, the proposed legislation includes additional provisions that
would simplify the regulatory framework for the repository. In
particular, the legislation would designate the Environmental
Protection Agency as the appropriate agency to issue, administer, and
enforce any air quality permits required in connection with the Yucca
Mountain repository. Material owned, transported and stored in NRC-
licensed containers and NRC-licensed materials at Yucca Mountain would
also be exempt from Federal, State, and local environmental
requirements under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Fourth, the proposed legislation would address the use of water
needed to carry out the authorized functions under the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act of 1982. This legislation would allow the Department to be
treated like a private business in requesting water access, resulting
in a non-discriminatory treatment of the Department. The State of
Nevada would still review and administer water allocation to the
Department under this provision.
Fifth, the proposed legislation would address transportation and
ensure the expedited movement of shipments to Yucca Mountain. In this
regard, the legislation would provide the flexibility for the DOE to
regulate the transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste to the repository in the same manner that we currently move
nuclear weapons. The Department has been transporting such nuclear
materials safely for many years. In addressing this issue, we are not
proposing to change in any way our route planning activities with
State, Tribal and local authorities or how we work with them on
emergency planning, training and education. This provision would not
affect our longstanding commitment to transporting nuclear material in
a manner that meets or exceeds NRC and Department of Transportation
requirements for transportation of comparable material. Likewise, it
would not affect our longstanding practice of working with State,
Tribal and local governments, transportation service providers, and
other Federal agencies to utilize their resources and expertise to the
maximum extent practicable.
Finally, the proposed legislation would promote the licensing of
new nuclear facilities by addressing the need for a regulatory
determination of waste confidence by the NRC in connection with
proceedings for those new nuclear facilities. This provision directs
the Commission to deem that sufficient capacity will be available to
dispose of spent nuclear fuel in considering whether to permit the
construction and operation of a nuclear reactor or a related facility.
CONCLUSION
Nuclear power has been demonstrated to be a safe, reliable, and
efficient source of power. Enactment of the proposed legislation is
necessary to allow the Yucca Mountain Project to move forward and to
advance the Nation's energy independence, energy security, and national
security objectives. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you
and the Members of this Committee on this legislation to facilitate the
construction and operation of the repository and ensuring the continued
development of safe, clean, and efficient nuclear power in this
country. I would be pleased to answer any questions at this time.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Virgilio.
STATEMENT OF MARTIN J. VIRGILIO, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR
MATERIALS, RESEARCH, STATE AND COMPLIANCE PROGRAMS, OFFICE OF
THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
Mr. Virgilio. Good morning. My name is Martin Virgilio. I'm
the Deputy Executive Director for Operations at the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, with responsibility for this project.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it's a pleasure to
appear here before you today to talk about the Nuclear Fuel
Management and Disposal Act. I'd like to briefly summarize my
testimony and request that the record reflect a full statement
that I presented to you.
It's important to make clear at the outset that because of
NRC's licensing and adjudicatory responsibilities, the NRC is
not taking a position on most of the provisions of the
legislation, which appear aimed at facilitating the eventual
operation of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain.
However, some of these provisions, if enacted, could adversely
impact NRC's ability to meet its statutory obligations. These
provisions are included in a letter we sent to the committee on
June 30 of this year, and the points that we're going to make
here today are points we made in that letter.
Our experience in dealing with applications for major
nuclear projects such as this make us keenly aware of the level
of effort that's required to conduct a thorough licensing
review and meet all our statutory obligations to protect the
public health and safety, promote common defense and security.
Our main concern here is that NRC be given sufficient time and
adequate resources to conduct a comprehensive review of the
DOE's proposal.
Accordingly, we are concerned with section 4(b) because it
appears to give the NRC insufficient time in order to conduct a
review of the application to license. Section 4(b) imposes a 1-
year limit, with the possibility of a 6-month extension, on the
NRC's licensing decision. This deadline does not appear
achievable to us.
NRC must conduct a thorough technical, environmental, and
legal review, and this is likely going to take us more than a
year. NRC would urge that the time for deciding on the
application to receive and possess waste be increased to 2
years after the docketing of the application, with the
possibility of an extension for 6 months.
We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today,
and the Commission looks forward to continuing to work with
this committee on the proposed legislation. We welcome your
questions and comments. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Virgilio follows:]
Prepared Statement of Martin J. Virgilio, Deputy Executive Director for
Materials, Research, State and Compliance Programs, Office of the
Executive Director for Operations, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, it is a pleasure to
appear before you today to discuss S. 2589, the Nuclear Fuel Management
and Disposal Act, which has several provisions that affect the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC).
It is important to make clear at the outset that, because of the
NRC's licensing and adjudicatory role in the national repository
program, the NRC is not taking a position on most of the provisions in
the legislation, which appear to be aimed at facilitating eventual
operation of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain.
However, some of those provisions, if enacted, could adversely
impact the NRC's ability to meet its statutory obligations with respect
to radioactive high-level waste. The Commission offers the following
comments on provisions in the bill that would affect the timing of the
Commission's review of a Department of Energy (DOE) application for a
license to receive and store waste at the proposed Yucca Mountain high-
level waste repository. These provisions are the subject of a letter we
sent the Committee on June 30, 2006, and the points we are going to
make here today are the points that we made in that letter.
TIME NEEDED FOR ADEQUATE REVIEW
The Commission fully understands the importance of addressing the
storage and disposal of high-level radioactive waste in a manner that
is both safe and timely. The Commission has a record of moving
responsibly and promptly to meet its obligations under the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act. We continue our preparations for conducting an
independent safety review of a Yucca Mountain application. We are
confident that we will be ready to receive an application that DOE now
says it will submit to us in 2008. We are also confident that we will
reach a decision on the application within the time constraints set
forth in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act assuming DOE submits a high-
quality license application.
At the same time, our long experience in dealing with applications
for major nuclear projects has made us keenly aware of the level of
effort required to conduct a thorough licensing review that meets our
statutory obligations to protect public health and safety, and to
promote the common defense and security. Our main concern here is that
the NRC be given sufficient time to conduct a comprehensive review of
DOE's applications.
Accordingly, we are concerned with Section 4(b) because it appears
to give the NRC insufficient time to review an application to license
receipt and possession of waste at the proposed repository. Section
4(b) imposes a 1-year limit (with the possibility of a six-month
extension) on the NRC's licensing decision. This deadline does not
appear achievable to us for at least three reasons.
First, the NRC staffs technical, environmental, and legal reviews
are likely to take more than a year, particularly because the staff is
almost certain to ask questions about the application, and to ask for
additional information in support of the application. Even the staffs
reactor renewal reviews, which are widely recognized as efficient, have
required about two years for each application (22-30 months, depending
upon whether a hearing is requested and granted), and yet those reviews
focus on a relatively narrow range of issues at facilities we have
regulated for several decades.
Second, even the informal adjudicatory proceeding called for in the
bill would contain certain necessary processes that cannot be carried
out quickly. For example, the bill provides for limited discovery; add
to this the Commission's own default proceedings, which, though less
formal than trial-type proceedings, nonetheless call for written
testimony, allow for questioning by the presiding officer, and allow
for appeal of the presiding officer's decision to the Commission. The
NRC cannot complete, in one year, both the staff's safety review and
the adjudicatory proceeding.
Third, another provision in Section 4 might increase the scope of
the licensing decision, and thus the time needed to make the decision:
Section 4(a) of the bill provides that an application for construction
authorization ``need not contain information on surface facilities
other than surface facilities necessary for initial operation of the
repository.'' This provision might be read simply to place certain
surface facilities outside the NRC's jurisdiction, in which case the
provision would reduce the time licensing might take; on the other
hand, the provision might be read to provide for staged consideration
of surface facilities. Under this latter interpretation, the NRC would
review certain facilities as part of its decision on construction
authorization, but review others during the later receipt and
possession phase, with the result that Section 4(a) would increase the
scope of the receipt and possession review, and yet Section 4(b) would
decrease the time allowed for that review. The intent of this provision
needs to be clarified. Section 4(b) also should be revised to make
clear whether the use of informal proceedings in hearings is intended
to apply to the multiple amendments to the license to receive and
possess that are envisioned with a phased approach for the potential
repository.
For these reasons, the NRC would urge that the time for deciding on
the application to receive and possess waste be increased to two years
after the docketing of the application, with the possibility of an
extension of six months.
We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and the
Commission looks forward to continuing to work with the Committee on
this proposed legislation. We welcome your comments and questions.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wright.
STATEMENT OF DAVID A. WRIGHT, COMMISSIONER, SOUTH CAROLINA
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF REGULATORY UTILITY COMMISSIONERS
Mr. Wright. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and committee
members. My name is David Wright, and I am an elected
commissioner of the South Carolina Public Service Commission.
I also serve on the Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues and
Waste Disposal of the Electric Committee of the National
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, most often
referred to as NARUC. I'm testifying today on behalf of that
organization. On behalf of NARUC and my commission, I very much
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this morning.
In fact, I flew all night from our NARUC meeting in San
Francisco just so I could be here this morning.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your work on this
issue. Our questions are not meant to be construed as
opposition, but instead as an effort to gain more insight into
the details of the interim storage proposal. We generally
support the provisions found in S. 2589, and we want to be
involved and work with you on this issue throughout the
legislative process.
The issues that you are addressing in this hearing are very
important to NARUC's membership and to my State, and I'm
grateful to have this opportunity to present our views
concerning the disposition of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear
powerplant sites that is intended for ultimate disposal at the
Yucca Mountain geologic repository. I would like to summarize
my testimony and have the full statement entered into the
record.
As I stated earlier, NARUC just concluded a meeting in San
Francisco yesterday, at which the Board of Directors adopted a
resolution addressing interim storage. I ask permission today
that it also be made part of the record of this hearing, and I
brought a copy with me.*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The resolution has been retained in committee files.
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Now, Mr. Chairman, if you will let me, I would like to
summarize what we support in the nuclear waste program. First,
we urge reform of the Nuclear Waste Fund so collected fees are
available for their intended purpose, as proposed in S. 2589.
Second, DOE needs to press on with licensing the Yucca Mountain
repository. Third, we support central interim storage, away
from reactor sites, and that does not interfere with developing
the repository and meets a cost/benefit test. Fourth, we
support research and further study of all aspects of advanced
reprocessing as proposed in the GNEP initiative. Fifth, we
support infusing a sense of urgency in spent fuel repository
development, as the other provisions of S. 2589 support.
And, to be emphatic, let me summarize what we oppose. We
oppose continued diversion of the Nuclear Waste Fund fee
payments. Second, we oppose having DOE take title to spent fuel
to be retained at reactor storage sites. Third, we oppose the
use of the Nuclear Waste Fund for interim storage, certainly
not so long as appropriations for interim storage means less
appropriations for the repository. And, last, we oppose putting
as many as 31 States through a concurrent site search for
interim storage before the cost/benefits of the proposed
consolidation and preparation facilities have been determined.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today and testify. This concludes my testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wright follows:]
Prepared Statement of David A. Wright, Commissioner, South Carolina
Public Service Commission, on Behalf of the National Association of
Regulatory Utility Commissioners
Good Morning Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bingaman, and Members of
the Committee.
My name is David Wright. I am an elected Commissioner of the South
Carolina Public Service Commission. I also serve on the Subcommittee on
Nuclear Issues and Waste Disposal of the Electricity Committee of the
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). That
Subcommittee focuses directly on the issues that are the subject of
today's hearing; I am testifying today on behalf of NARUC. In addition,
my testimony reflects the views of the South Carolina Public Service
Commission. On behalf of those two organizations, I greatly appreciate
the opportunity to appear before you this morning. The issues that you
are addressing in this hearing are very important to NARUC's membership
and my State, and I am grateful to have this opportunity to present our
point of view concerning the disposition of spent nuclear fuel
currently stored at nuclear power plant sites that is intended for
ultimate disposal at the Yucca Mountain geologic repository.
I would like to summarize my testimony and have my full statement
entered into the record.
NARUC is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organization founded in
1889. Its membership includes the State public utility commissions
serving all States and territories. NARUC's mission is to serve the
public interest by improving the quality and effectiveness of public
utility regulation. NARUC's members regulate the retail rates and
services of electric, gas, water, and telephone utilities. We are
obligated under the laws of our respective States to ensure the
establishment and maintenance of such utility services as may be
required by the public convenience and necessity and to ensure that
such services are provided under rates and subject to terms and
conditions of service that are just, reasonable, and non-
discriminatory.
NARUC's goals in the nuclear waste area are well known and have
been stated before this and other Congressional committees on a number
of prior occasions. NARUC believes that the federal government needs to
meet its obligation under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as
amended, to accept spent nuclear fuel from utilities and other nuclear
generators in a timely manner. NARUC further believes that the nation's
ratepayers have upheld their end of the bargain struck in the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act by providing, either directly or through income
generated on prior payments, over $25 billion for use in constructing a
nuclear waste repository. Finally, NARUC believes that the Nuclear
Waste Fund should only be employed for its intended purpose and that
the monies in the Nuclear Waste Fund should be utilized, along with
appropriations from the Department of Defense budget, for the sole
purpose of supporting the opening of the Yucca Mountain facility in a
timely fashion. The basic principles underlying NARUC's approach to the
nuclear waste issue provide a solid foundation for future policy
decisions concerning the nuclear waste program.
Two years ago, the repository program seemed to be very close to
having the repository license application completed for submittal to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during 2004, but was further delayed
due to the need for the Environmental Protection Agency to revise the
radiation standard to be used in the license review. In addition, there
were some difficulties between DOE and the NRC in meeting the
documentation certification requirements of the Licensing Support
Network (LSN) that many of us outside the government did not fully
understand. And there was the revelation that there may have been some
records falsification by some employees of the United States Geologic
Survey who had worked on the project. Since then, EPA has issued their
proposed revised radiation standard and has concluded the public
comment period. We don't know the status of the LSN documentation but
the USGS and DOE records investigations seemed to be concluded, with
the program scientific work reaffirmed.
NARUC's primary concern with the civilian radioactive waste
management program is for Congress to reform the way the Nuclear Waste
Fund is managed and the way in which appropriations are made from the
Fund. Reform of the Fund appropriations process is necessary to provide
a stable financial footing so that the government can fulfill its
statutory and contractual obligation to provide safe disposal of spent
nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste as was the intent
of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Although the House Energy and Commerce
Committee voted favorably on H.R. 3981 in the previous Congress, the
bill never made it to a floor vote and no action was taken in the
Senate. We did not consider that a perfect bill (it was only for a five
year period) but it would have helped ensure that more of the fee
revenue collected by the Fund would actually be appropriated for its
intended use. While the FY 2006 budget referred to the Administration's
remaining interested in pursuing a similar proposal for
reclassification of NWF fees as offsetting collections and discussing
it with Congress, no legislation was developed that year.
NARUC's and State utility regulator's prime concern for the
repository program remains to reform the Nuclear Waste Fund
appropriations process. It is difficult for us to see how the
repository program can ever shift into an implementation phase when
funding requirements would need to increase by orders of magnitude
compared with the pre-licensing phase. Simply put, the repository
cannot be built without a more stable financing arrangement. Without
the repository, spent nuclear fuel continues to accumulate and be
stored in places that were never designed or permitted for indefinite
storage. Spent fuel would be stored at 72 locations along rivers and
lakes in 34 States instead of in a more secure, well-designed
repository. Although we see many favorable signs for investment in new
nuclear power plants, including provisions of the Energy Policy Act of
2005, we also continue to hear that lack of a clear path towards
disposal of spent nuclear fuel may hold back that investment.
We also need reform of the Nuclear Waste Fund because we owe it to
the ratepayers who pay the fees in their electric bill. For the past
five years, three quarters of the fees collected for nuclear waste
disposal have gone to other unrelated federal purposes. In the current
fiscal year total fee payments into the Nuclear Waste Fund are expected
to be $750 million. That compares with $99 million appropriated for the
repository program. All that we as utility regulators can show
ratepayers is a financial report from the Department of Energy that
there is an account in the Treasury called the Nuclear Waste Fund that
supposedly has $18 billion in it for the repository program. It is a
cruel fact of life that for all practical purposes those funds are
inaccessible or already spent. All the ratepayers want is for the
government to remove the spent fuel for disposal as they were promised
over 24 years ago would already have begun by now.
We are grateful for the leadership of House Energy and Water
Development Appropriations Subcommittee and its unwillingness to simply
do nothing last year while the repository license application was
delayed and no reform to the Nuclear Waste Fund was in the works. In
the markup of the FY 2006 budget, Energy and Water Appropriations
Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson sought to add $10 million to
initiate an interim storage program using DOE sites that are presumed
to already have the security and other support that could accommodate
spent fuel from commercial reactors. DOE would take title to and ship
utility waste to the unspecified locations that already store similar
government radioactive waste. We had many questions about that
approach, but it could have been a step in the right direction,
especially for spent fuel now stored at 14 shutdown reactor sites. We
doubt that any significant quantity could have been moved in FY 2006,
as the Subcommittee report indicated, or that much could be done for
the $20 million the bill would have appropriated. Of course, when the
Senate did not include similar provisions or equal funding, the
proposal did not survive in conference.
For FY 2007, the House again took up an interim storage proposal in
the appropriations bill, this time adding $30 million, not from the
Nuclear Waste Fund, for development of some undetermined amount of
interim storage of spent fuel at ``integrated spent fuel recycling
facilities'' that could be serve as a vanguard for demonstration of
spent fuel reprocessing under the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative being
pursued within DOE as part of the broader Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP.) There was a stipulation in the bill that
authorization be obtained for interim storage, since DOE has maintained
that it lacked authority to establish interim storage.
Then this Committee released its proposal, which later became
Section 313 of the Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the FY
2007 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (Senate Report 109-274), that
calls for DOE to propose ``consolidation and preparation facilities''
for interim storage of spent fuel in each State with a commercial
nuclear reactor or, alternatively, regional CAP facilities. We
understood Chairman Domenici wanted to stimulate a dialogue on interim
storage and to get States involved. I have been surprised at the muted
reactions from many States, who may be tending to more pressing matters
like wildfires, budget crises and other issues. I will say this,
however: States are involved in nuclear waste storage at reactors. In
my State, we have utilities expressing great interest in building new
nuclear plants to provide emissions-free reliable baseload power for
forecasted energy demand. Yet, the utilities indicate they may have
difficulty raising capital without greater certainty on nuclear waste
disposal. State utility commissioners are also involved in another way:
those utilities making payments into the Nuclear Waste Fund, pass those
costs on to their ratepayers. Since 1983, over $900 million has been
paid into the Fund from South Carolina.
We have many questions about the CAP proposal. Unless DOE is better
staffed than I suspect they are, it would seem unlikely that DOE could
undertake a delicate site search concurrently in 31 States within the
270 day timeline. There are environmental impact considerations and the
potential for litigation that could slow the process. Are we even sure
that every State has a storage deficiency? It is my understanding that
once it was apparent that DOE would not meet the 1998 waste acceptance
mandate, many utilities resigned themselves to the necessity to develop
dry cask storage on-site to supplement pool storage. There is
litigation over recoupment of those expenses, but for the active
reactors, there has been a steady increase (over 38 so far) of
separately licensed dry cask facilities and more are planned. The
shutdown plants had little choice but to put their fuel in dry cask
storage and some of those sites could stand some relief from continuing
to store spent fuel.
Governors will want to know how the site search process within
their States will proceed. Some States have restrictions on developing
new nuclear facilities within the State and, although the factual
record on nuclear waste transportation safety is superb, there is
nonetheless public concern over transportation and unease over siting
that is not likely assuaged by assurances that the CAP storage would
only be for 25 years.
NARUC has supported interim storage away from reactor storage sites
for some time, whether by the government or at private facilities
provided by the utilities themselves such as proposed at Skull Valley,
Utah. In our view, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act does not permit
government interim storage to be financed by the Nuclear Waste Fund
(Section 302.d.). Some of the expenses relating to waste shipping casks
and transportation might be permitted since they could be interpreted
as needed for the permanent repository. However, there is a broader
question of equity: why should the Nuclear Waste Fund, which is
supposed to be used to develop a permanent repository be used for
expenses that could have been avoided had DOE met its statutory and
contractual obligations to begin spent fuel acceptance in 1998? This is
at the heart of the ongoing litigation by numerous utilities against
DOE and it is not anticipated that the Nuclear Waste Fund will be used
to make damage payments that may be awarded in those cases.
Also relevant to the use of the Nuclear Waste Fund is the 2002
decision by the Eleventh Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals
(Alabama Power, Carolina Light and Power, et al. v. Department of
Energy) ruling that the Nuclear Waste Fund may only be used for
disposal and an expenditure for interim storage is not an act of
disposal.
Last year, the House Appropriations Report (109-086) called for DOE
to initiate a plan to begin spent fuel reprocessing (or re-cycling) in
FY 2007. Members of the Committee are familiar with the history of
reprocessing in this country and the experiences in other countries. We
know the 2001 National Energy Plan recommended that the subject be re-
visited, and that DOE has an Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative as part of
a research effort to look at what to many is an intuitively appealing
goal of `recycling' used fuel. Yet technology, economics, environmental
and proliferation concerns remain. Testimony by industry and academic
experts before the House Science Committee last July also suggested
there are many economic and other questions to be addressed. We will
leave that for others to sort through, but I want make a single point
here: There is no known reprocessing method in use today or possible in
the future that does not result in some quantity of high-level
radioactive waste that will require disposal in a repository.
Therefore, whether we reprocess in this country or not we will still
need a repository like Yucca Mountain. Put another way, reprocessing is
not an alternative to building a repository, as much as some might wish
it to be. There may be less waste if we reprocess and it may be of
different toxicity, but it still must be isolated from the human
environment. All of the countries that reprocess know this and are
planning long-term disposal.
Moreover, the repository design that is being proposed for Yucca
Mountain does not preclude a future decision to retrieve any or all
spent fuel emplaced in it for reprocessing (or other reasons) until the
decision is made to seal the repository, which, according to DOE, could
be anywhere from 50 to 300 years in the future. If spent nuclear fuel
is indeed an energy asset, Yucca Mountain will be an ideal place to
store it until needed.
With the FY 2007 Department of Energy Budget, Secretary of Energy
Samuel Bodman announced the initiative called the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP). It has many dimensions and purposes, but one that
we are interested in is the suggestion that if advanced forms of
reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel were to be developed
under the GNEP vision, that the amount of nuclear waste requiring
disposal might be greatly reduced and its radiation characteristics
would be hazardous over a much shorter period of time. Naturally, we
are interested in learning more about the proposal and its feasibility
in terms of achievable technology, economics, environment and non-
proliferation considerations. It is too new for us to take a position
on the matter until we learn more, but our existing policy remains
current. In 2000, we revised our Nuclear Waste Guiding Principles to
include: ``Reprocessing of spent fuel may be worthy of research, but,
even if feasible, does not eliminate the need for a permanent
repository.'' Accordingly, we support the research proposed for GNEP
and the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative in the FY 2007 DOE budget
request. It appears to be a worthwhile investment that could pay
dividends down the road while investigating the feasibility of
proliferation-resistant reprocessing.
We have been troubled by the legislative proposal to have the
Department of Energy take title to spent nuclear fuel at commercial
reactor sites and manage it there for some unspecified time, as in S.
2099. We see press reports that the scheme would be financed by the
Nuclear Waste Fund and we also interpret the real objective is to
somehow--with no clear terminating point--keep the spent fuel where it
is instead of building the repository. Obviously, to abandon the
repository would require amendment or possibly repeal of the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act. Proponents of this proposal seem to forget the
finding in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that ``Federal efforts during
the past 30 years to devise a permanent solution to the problems of
civilian radioactive waste disposal have not been adequate.'' Instead,
they would have us revert to that Square One posture.
We have been careful to avoid any suggestion that continued spent
fuel storage at reactor sites is not as safe and secure as the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, which regulates it, maintains that it is, but
let us at least suggest that the proposal to have DOE take title and
manage spent fuel at present reactor storage sites is not consistent
with the ``compelling national interests'' that former Secretary of
Energy Spencer Abraham referred to when he recommended Yucca Mountain
as a suitable repository site to the President and Congress in 2002. He
said, and we agree, that the repository is important to homeland
security.
We strongly oppose the suggestion that the government take title to
spent fuel which would remain at 72 reactor sites instead of going to a
repository. That is not what was promised in the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act and reaffirmed by joint resolution in 2002 and it is most certainly
not what ratepayers have paid $25 billion in fees and interest over the
past 22 years to achieve.
Before I conclude, there is one other item to discuss. We urge
strong leadership on the part of the Department of Energy and its
support contractors to keep this much-delayed repository program moving
forward. We have expressed our frustrations in the past with the
chronic underfunding and series of delays that have troubled the
program. DOE needs to work its way through whatever else needs to be
done to put the repository licensing back on course. We commend the
positive spirit and determination of Mr. Edward Sproat, the new
director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, when
he announced the revised schedule last month and we wish him and the
repository team well in meeting that schedule. We appreciate EPA
meeting the challenge of responding to the court remand with its
proposed revised radiation standard. Although we disagreed with
extending the regulatory period to one million years, EPA did meet the
mandate of the court and it is time to issue the final rule. We have
been aware that during the license application delay, DOE has been
conducting a re-examination of repository plans. We saw some of the
results of what is termed ``program re-direction'' in a press release
last October. A change in approach was described as being ``simpler,
safer and more cost-effective,'' mostly as a result of a shift to
standardized spent fuel canisters that will allow significant changes
in fuel handling at the receipt facilities at Yucca Mountain. We
certainly applaud cost savings, improved safety and the prospect of
reducing the licensing complexity, but we have two concerns that we
want to pursue:
1. Will these changes further delay the license application
and how will that affect eventual repository operational dates?
The schedule announced last month showing initial waste
disposal in 2017 is predicated on a number of variables
including adequate funding.
2. How will DOE and the utilities be able to ensure that all
spent fuel presently stored at reactor sites (up to the current
planned amount of 63,000 metric tons) will be able to be
transferred into the standardized canisters? Spent fuel is
increasingly being stored in sealed canisters in dry casks that
will either have to be accepted as is or have the contents
transferred to the standard canisters.
Finally, NARUC has not taken any strong position on the other
elements of the proposed Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act,
aside from our support for the Nuclear Waste Fund reclassification
proposal. In general, we find the other provisions to be helpful for
the overall goal of licensing, building and operating the repository.
We agree that the 70,000 metric ton statutory limit on the repository
capacity is arbitrary and the proposal to have the capacity be among
the elements of the license review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
makes sense. We have always urged DOE to plan and eventually conduct
the spent fuel transportation in cooperation with other federal, State,
tribal and local governments and, to the best of our knowledge the
Department is planning to do that as required by the NWPA and as has
been done successfully in previous nuclear waste shipments.
Let me summarize what we support:
1. Reform of the Nuclear Waste Fund so that collected fees
are available for their intended purpose, as proposed in S.
2589.
2. DOE needs to press on with licensing the Yucca Mountain
repository.
3. Central interim storage away from reactor sites that does
not interfere with developing the repository.
4. Research of advanced reprocessing and further study of all
aspects of the GNEP initiative.
5. Infusing a sense of urgency in spent fuel repository
development.
And, let me summarize what we strongly oppose:
1. Continued diversion of the Nuclear Waste Fund fee
payments.
2. Having DOE take title of spent fuel at reactor storage
sites and to retain it there.
3. Use of the Nuclear Waste Fund for interim storage,
certainly not so long as appropriations for interim storage
would come at the expense of adequate appropriations for the
repository.
4. Putting as many as 31 States through a concurrent site
search for interim storage before the costs and benefits of the
proposed ``consolidation and preparation'' facilities have been
determined.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I look
forward to your questions.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Beasley.
STATEMENT OF J. BARNIE BEASLEY, JR., PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SOUTHERN NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY
Mr. Beasley. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my
name is Barnie Beasley. I'm president and CEO of Southern
Nuclear Operating Company, and it's indeed a privilege to be
here this morning on behalf of the nuclear energy industry's
support of this bill. The nuclear industry is grateful, Mr.
Chairman, for your strong leadership on this important issue,
and for calling this hearing, and for your commitment to
nuclear power.
We believe this bill is a good start toward comprehensive
legislation to reform the Nation's nuclear waste program. And
my testimony will also address additional provisions that we
believe would strengthen the legislation to enhance the
management and disposal of the used nuclear fuel and high-level
radioactive waste. And I have also submitted written testimony
for the record this morning. In keeping with the scope of this
hearing, I'll focus my testimony on the following key issues:
First, the need for real progress in licensing and
development of the Yucca Mountain repository is critical.
Second, the key role that this bill can play in establishing a
solid basis for making the necessary progress toward addressing
the challenges facing the Yucca Mountain project, as well as
helping set the stage for new nuclear plants. Third, additional
legislative provisions that we urge the committee to consider
in addition to those in this bill. The Federal Government
should initiate actions that will lead to the removal of used
fuel from commercial nuclear plant sites as expeditiously as
practicable.
Based on many years of experience in operating nuclear
powerplants, I am convinced that nuclear power is and offers a
safe, clean, and cost-effective answer to many of our Nation's
current and future energy needs. Maintaining even the 20
percent contribution that nuclear power currently makes to the
Nation's electricity needs will require construction of a
significant number of new nuclear plants beginning in the next
decade.
In order to fully realize the benefits that nuclear power
offers, however, a solution to the problem of disposal of used
nuclear fuel must be found. Since the enactment of the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act in 1982, our customers in Georgia and Alabama
have paid almost $900 million into the Nuclear Waste Fund.
In total, ratepayers across America have paid over $27
billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund, and continue to pay at the
rate of approximately three-quarters of a billion per year, yet
no used fuel has been removed from reactor sites as required by
this Waste Policy Act. Moreover, those same customers have had
to finance costly onsite storage facilities, and these
facilities expose the Federal Government to growing liability
that has already resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in
judgments and settlements.
The nuclear industry is encouraged by DOE's recent
publication of a schedule for the licensing and development of
the repository at Yucca Mountain. We recognize, however, that
DOE's most optimistic schedule would leave used fuel at reactor
sites for some 20 years longer than the deadline that was
mandated by the Waste Policy Act, and that past DOE schedules
have not been realized.
DOE's failure to comply with statutory mandates and
previous schedules demonstrates that more than new authorizing
legislation is needed to make real progress toward the removal
of the used fuel from our reactor sites, and it will also take
a firm commitment from the Congress and the administration to
adequately fund and implement the legislation. The industry
believes comprehensive new legislation can expedite DOE's
performance of its existing legal obligations, and this bill is
a very good start.
In particular, the provisions in the bill that eliminate
artificial constraints on the capacity of the repository, the
reform of the Nuclear Waste Fund, and the codification of the
waste confidence rule are all very important. The industry
fully supports this bill, and believes its enactment would be a
major milestone in implementing our national strategy for
managing used nuclear fuel.
Notwithstanding our strong support for the proposal, we
believe there are a number of additional issues that Congress
should consider. In particular, we believe that legislation
should require DOE to move used fuel from reactor sites to
existing Federal facilities on an expedited basis. The United
States currently stores foreign and defense reactor fuel at
such sites, and there is no good reason why one or two
centrally located Federal facilities should not be made
available for domestic fuel.
Second, we believe that any temporary storage solutions
should be economical, efficient, and should not unnecessarily
divert attention and resources from the repository development.
We are concerned that so-called take title provisions in bill
S. 2099 would both deplete resources of the Nuclear Waste Fund
and do nothing to materially impact the current situation.
And, finally, the execution of new contracts for the
disposal of used fuel is on the critical path for licensing of
new plants. We believe that direction from Congress would be
helpful in implementing contracts for new plants.
Again, Mr. Chairman, we thank you for this opportunity to
be here, and we'll entertain questions at the appropriate time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beasley follows:]
Prepared Statement of J. Barnie Beasley, Jr., President and Chief
Executive Officer, Southern Nuclear Operating Company
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, my name is Barnie
Beasley. I am President and Chief Executive Officer of Southern Nuclear
Operating Company. I also serve on the Executive Committee of the
Nuclear Energy Institute. I have attached a brief resume to my
testimony as Exhibit 1. Thank you for this opportunity to express the
nuclear energy industry's strong support of S. 2589, the Nuclear Fuel
Management and Disposal Act. I will also address additional provisions
that we believe would strengthen the legislation's role to enhance the
management and disposal of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste, to ensure protection of public health and safety, to ensure the
territorial integrity and security of the repository at Yucca Mountain.
Southern Nuclear is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, and is a
subsidiary of Southern Company. Southern Company is a public utility
holding company with its principal office in Atlanta, Georgia. In
addition to Southern Nuclear, Southern Company is the corporate parent
of five electric utilities: Alabama Power Company, Georgia Power
Company, Gulf Power Company, Mississippi Power Company, as well as
Southern Power Company and Southern Company Services, Inc. Southern
Company's subsidiaries provide reliable and affordable electric service
to 4.2 million retail and wholesale customers across the southeastern
United States.
Southern Nuclear is the licensed operator of the Alvin W. Vogtle
Electric Generating Plant and the Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant, which
are both two-unit nuclear plants partially owned by Georgia Power
Company, and the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant, which is a two-unit
nuclear plant owned by Alabama Power Company. The six nuclear units
operated by Southern Nuclear comprise over 6000 megawatts of generating
capacity and represent approximately 17% of the total annual generation
of the Southern Company system. Both Plants Hatch and Farley have
extended their operating licenses for 20 years. The application for the
extension of Plant Vogtle's operating license will be filed with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) next year. These plants provide our
customers with reliable and reasonably priced electric energy.
Southern Nuclear will file an application for an Early Site Permit
this month in order to determine the suitability of the Vogtle site for
potentially two additional nuclear units at Plant Vogtle and is on a
schedule to submit an application for a Combined Operating License
(``COL'') by early 2008.
SUMMARY
In keeping with the scope of this hearing, I will focus my
testimony on the following key issues:
The Department of Energy (DOE) must make visible and
measurable progress in implementing an integrated national used
nuclear fuel management strategy. The Yucca Mountain, Nevada,
repository is a critical component of any such integrated
strategy. This progress will help ensure that the expanded use
of nuclear energy will play a key role in our nation's strategy
for meeting growing electricity demand.
The key role that S. 2589 can play in establishing a solid
basis for making the necessary progress towards addressing the
challenges facing the Yucca Mountain project, as well as
helping set the stage for new nuclear plants.
Additional legislative provisions that we urge the Committee
to consider supplementing the solid foundation established in
S. 2589. The federal government must initiate actions that will
lead to beginning to remove used fuel from commercial nuclear
plant sites as soon as possible.
nuclear energy must play a key role in our energy future
In the 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush affirmed the
nation's commitment to ``safe, clean nuclear energy'' as part of a
diverse portfolio that will meet America's future electricity needs. A
long-term commitment to nuclear energy will make the United States more
energy independent and energy efficient. The Administration and
Congress demonstrated strong leadership by enacting the Energy Policy
Act of 2005, which encourages diversity of energy sources, including
emission-free sources of electricity, such as nuclear energy.
Based on many years of experience in operating nuclear power
plants, I am convinced that nuclear power offers a clean and cost-
effective answer to many of our nation's current and future energy
needs. Although our nation must continue to employ a mix of fuel
sources for generating electricity, it is important that nuclear energy
maintain at least the current 20 percent contribution to U.S.
electricity production. Maintaining that level of production will
require construction of a significant number of new nuclear plants
beginning in the next decade.
There is strong, bipartisan support for a continuing significant
role for nuclear power. More than two thirds of the public supports
keeping nuclear energy as a key component of our energy portfolio. The
industry appreciates the recognition of nuclear energy's importance
that Congress and the Administration demonstrated in the last year's
comprehensive Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Recently, a new coalition of diverse organizations and individuals
has been formed to educate the public on nuclear energy and participate
in policy discussions on U.S. energy issues. The Clean and Safe Energy
coalition, co-chaired by Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore and former
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman,
includes business, environmental, labor, health and community leaders
among its more than 200 members.
THE NEED FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION
In order to fully realize the benefits that nuclear power offers,
however, a solution for the problem of disposal of used nuclear fuel
must be found. Since the enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of
1982, the customers of Alabama and Georgia Power Companies have paid
over $897 million into the Nuclear Waste Fund. In total, rate payers
across America have paid over $27 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund,
and continue to pay an additional $750 million each year. Yet, no used
fuel has been removed from reactor sites as required by the NWPA.
Moreover, those same customers have had to finance costly on-site
storage facilities. Southern has had to construct two such facilities
to date.
The causes for the failure of the federal used nuclear fuel program
to date are well documented. The fundamental problem with the failure
of the federal government to remove used fuel from our plant sites has
not been the lack of authorizing legislation. It has been the failure
to implement the legislation that has been enacted for almost 25 years
by appropriating sufficient funds and by a consistent commitment to
execute plans to develop the repository. While new legislation to amend
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is important, it is even more critical
that the federal government commit itself to the implementation of
existing law.
The nuclear industry is encouraged by the ambitious schedule
announced by DOE on July 19, 2006, for submission of the license
application by June 30, 2008, and the ``Best-Achievable'' construction
schedule that could have the repository begin receipt of used fuel in
March 2017. The industry encourages DOE to submit the application as
soon as possible so NRC review can begin.
While DOE's announcement of a schedule for licensing the repository
is a significant development, past experience suggests that the
schedule will be difficult to achieve without congressional action in a
number of areas:
The Congress providing appropriations consistent with
Administration requests;
An NRC construction authorization decision consistent with
the timelines contained in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act;
Obtaining any necessary Federal or state authorizations or
permits for the repository and the transportation system; and
The DOE achieving a nuclear culture consistent with that
needed to be a successful NRC licensee.
Enactment of the Nuclear Fuel Management Disposal Act, S. 2589,
will help advance several of these important objectives.
S. 2589 SUPPORTS THE FUTURE ROLE FOR NUCLEAR POWER IN OUR
NATIONAL ENERGY STRATEGY
Waste Confidence Is Affirmed
The nation's policymakers must be confident that policies are in
place to ensure the safe and secure storage and disposal of used
nuclear fuel. This waste confidence determination is reflected in NRC
rules that support various licensing actions. Section 9 of S. 2589
takes the very important step of codifying the waste confidence rule.
This will help to avoid potential contentions in individual plant
licensing proceedings over the timing and certainty of the performance
by DOE of its responsibilities under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. We
strongly support this important step in creating certainty for major
new investments by the nuclear industry in response to Congress's
Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Managing the nation's used fuel is a firmly established federal
obligation and, as such, is a matter of broad national policy. There is
solid scientific and technical justification to affirm waste
confidence. In 2001, the National Academy of Sciences confirmed four
decades of international scientific consensus that geologic disposal is
the best method for managing used nuclear fuel. Congress approved a
geologic disposal site at Yucca Mountain in 2002.
In the Energy Policy Act, Congress included provisions that
encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants, illustrating
confidence in the nation's ability to manage used reactor fuel in the
future. In addition, DOE has safely operated a geologic disposal site
for transuranic radioactive waste near Carlsbad, N.M.--the Waste
Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP).
Issues regarding the timing and certainty of performance by DOE of
its used fuel management obligations should be resolved in proceedings
on the repository, or in Congress. Litigation of such issues in
individual plant licensing proceedings is neither efficient nor
appropriate. NRC has long recognized that individual plant licensing
proceedings should not be burdened with debates over DOE's development
of the repository. Congress should codify ``waste confidence'' as
called for in S. 2589, so that the NRC need not address this broad
public policy matter in routine licensing proceedings.
Artificial Constraints on Repository Operations Are Eliminated
Currently, there is a statutory limit of 70,000 metric tons (MT) on
the amount of nuclear waste materials that can be accepted at Yucca
Mountain. The Environmental Impact Statement for the project analyzed
emplacement of up to 105,000 MTs of commercial used fuel in the
repository. Additional scientific analyses suggest significantly higher
capacity could easily be achieved with changes in the repository
configuration that use only geology that has already been characterized
and do not deviate from existing design parameters. Advanced nuclear
fuel cycle technologies could provide significant additional capacity
for disposing of waste products in Yucca Mountain.
Decisions on licensing and operations of a deep geologic repository
at Yucca Mountain should be based on scientific and engineering
considerations through DOE technical analyses and the NRC licensing
process, not on artificial constraints. Given the decades of study and
the billions of dollars invested in Yucca Mountain, it makes sense that
we fully and safely utilize its potential capacity, rather than
developing multiple repositories when there is no technical reason to
do so. S. 2589 will allow the nation to do just that by lifting the
artificial 70,000 MT capacity limit.
S. 2589 INCLUDES KEY PROVISIONS FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROGRESS
Offsetting Collections Reclassification Will Enhance Funding
Predictability
Congress established the Nuclear Waste Fund to cover costs
associated with disposal of commercial used nuclear fuel. This fund is
paid for by a one-tenth-of-a-cent-per-kilowatt-hour fee on electricity
used by consumers of nuclear energy. Congress has routinely failed to
appropriate to the repository program the total fees paid into the
Waste Fund in that year. Further, restrictions on the federal budget
have prevented fees collected, but not appropriated, in one year from
being appropriated in subsequent years.
As a result, Yucca Mountain budget requests have been cut by more
than $1 billion over the last decade. Program funding requirements are
forecast to increase substantially over the next few years. If overall
spending totals remain flat, even more significant delays could result,
not because nuclear power consumers have not provided the funds
necessary to support the program, but because of inappropriate federal
budget accounting.
To date, consumers of nuclear power have committed more than $27
billion in fees and accrued interest into the fund, and continue to pay
at a rate of $750 million each year. However, only some $9 billion has
been spent on the project, leaving a balance in excess of $18 billion.
In recent years, fee income has been five times as high as annual
spending from the fund.
It is my understanding that S. 2589 would reclassify prospective
annual fees so that appropriations up to the full amount of fee
revenues for any year would not be limited by discretionary spending
caps. While this approach would be a major step forward, we believe
that the Congress should also reaffirm the compact with ratepayers in
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and provide that any appropriation for the
program could be offset by balances in the Nuclear Waste Fund whether
derived from prospective fees or past fees and interest.
In addition, we believe it is important for the Congress to act to
maintain the integrity of the Nuclear Waste Fund. We support amending
S. 2589 to clearly define that only activities that directly contribute
to meeting the federal government's obligation under the NWPA can be
supported from the Nuclear Waste Fund. This includes expenditures
related to transportation, storage, and disposal of used fuel and high-
level waste.
Advanced research on energy technologies has consistently been
funded through general revenues, and there is no reason research on
advanced fuel processing nuclear technologies--such as those
contemplated under the President's Global Nuclear Energy partnership
program--should be financed any differently.
Also, Congress should reaffirm its authority over any changes in
the Nuclear Waste Fee by requiring such changes be made by statutory
amendment.
S. 2589 WILL ENHANCE CLARITY AND STABILITY IN THE LICENSING PROCESS
The NRC repository licensing process should be restructured to
ensure that the proceedings are prioritized. First, there must be a
reasonable, but finite, schedule for review of the authority to
``receive and possess'' fuel that would follow approval of the
construction license. This would be consistent with an established
schedule for the initial review of the construction license application
and could avoid dilatory procedural challenges that would undermine the
government's ability to meet its contractual obligations and avoid the
significant costs of delay.
Second, clarification must be provided as to what activities are
authorized to develop used fuel management infrastructure prior to the
NRC granting a construction license, including the construction of a
rail line to connect the Yucca Mountain site with the national rail
network. Regulatory authority for the transportation system needs to be
clarified as well.
Third, the hearing process for the authorization to receive and
possess fuel should be simplified to provide for clear and concise
decision making.
Finally, clarification is needed with respect to land management,
what regulations will apply to repository construction and operations,
and which agencies will administer those regulations.
S. 2589 addresses each of these issues to increase the prospect
that the ``best achievable'' schedule announced by DOE can be met.
CONGRESS SHOULD CONSIDER ADDITIONAL STEPS TO PROMOTE COMPREHENSIVE
USED NUCLEAR FUEL MANAGEMENT
While industry fully supports S. 2589 and believes its enactment
would be a major milestone in implementing our national strategy for
managing used nuclear fuel, we believe there are a number of additional
issues that Congress should consider in comprehensive legislation.
DOE Should Move Used Nuclear Fuel from Reactor Sites As Soon As
Possible
The industry's top priority is for the federal government to meet
its statutory and contractual obligation to move used fuel away from
operating and decommissioned reactor sites. The government already is
eight years in arrears in meeting this obligation, and it will be at
least another decade before the repository is completed. That failure
is the subject of more than 60 lawsuits.
These lawsuits potentially expose the federal government to
billions of dollars of judgments and settlements.
Further delays in federal receipt and movement of used nuclear fuel
and defense waste products will only add to utility damage claims, and,
according to DOE, will increase taxpayer liability for defense waste
site life-cycle costs and Yucca Mountain fixed costs.
While DOE moves forward to license, construct and operate the Yucca
Mountain repository, the government must take title to used fuel and
move it to secure federal facilities as soon as practicable. A number
of proposals have been made to address the issue of ``interim
storage.''
The best approach would be for the federal government to begin to
move fuel in proximity to the planned repository. Both House and Senate
appropriations bills for FY 2007 have provided direction on this issue.
While there is clear interest in looking at options for early movement
of fuel, none of the options has yet demonstrated that it is
politically and technically workable and could be accomplished in a
timely manner. A cooperative and supportive host site is critical to
meeting these criteria.
It appears that one or two interim storage sites that provide
benefits desired by the host state and community are the appropriate
approach. Industry experience demonstrates that such facilities can be
sited, licensed, and constructed on an expedited schedule. We are
encouraged that DOE has advised the Congress, in its solicitation for
prospective sites for nuclear fuel recycling facilities, that there
will of necessity be some interim storage of used nuclear fuel
involved. A number of communities have expressed initial interest in
participating in such a project. We believe Congress should work with
DOE, industry and potential host sites to determine what steps will
best facilitate the movement of used fuel from utility sites, and
incorporate appropriate provisions into S. 2589.
The industry does not believe that the ``take title'' approach
suggested in S. 2099 either meets the federal obligation or provides
any benefit. The requirement in that legislation that all used fuel at
reactor sites be moved immediately into dry cask storage could add up
to $800 million a year over five years to the costs of producing
nuclear energy. Regardless of the interim storage strategy chosen, it
is critical that those activities--not divert attention and resources
from repository development.
New Reactor Waste Disposal Contract Issues Need to Be Addressed
As utilities prepare to license and construct new nuclear power
plants, it is important that appropriate changes be made in the
Standard Contract for Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and/or High-Level
Radioactive Waste originally established by rulemaking (10 CFR, Part
961) to reflect developments since these contracts were originally
drafted in the 1980s. While the language in both the NWPA and disposal
contracts allows for an existing contract to be amended adding new
plants, DOE's failure to perform, and the subsequent litigation, has
created a situation where this option may be difficult to execute.
Instead, the preferred path forward would be to enact legislation
directing DOE to enter into new disposal contracts for new nuclear
plants that are consistent in form and substance with the existing
disposal contracts, but which take into account the schedule for the
operation of new plants. In particular, the 1998 deadline in the
existing contracts should be revised in contracts executed for new
plants.
The Congress should also consider steps that could facilitate early
resolution of future claims by utilities against the federal government
for its continuing failure to meet its obligations under the NWPA.
THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN LICENSING PROCESS SHOULD PROVIDE FLEXIBILITY TO
ADDRESS FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
As provided by existing regulations, Congress should direct DOE to
incorporate features into its repository development plans that
maintain flexibility for future generations to make informed decisions
based on operational experience, changing energy economics, and
technological developments. It should be made clear that it was always
the intent that the repository design retains the ability to monitor
and, if needed or desired, retrieve the used fuel.
The nuclear energy industry supports enhancements to the Yucca
Mountain repository that would provide greater long-term assurance of
safety and permit DOE to apply innovative technology at the repository
as it is developed. These enhancements include:
extensive monitoring of the used nuclear fuel placed in the
repository and its effects on the surrounding geology for 300
or more years;
the ability to retrieve the used nuclear fuel from the
facility for an extended period; and
periodic review of updates to the repository license that
takes into account monitoring results and ensures that the
facility is operating as designed.
DOE already has committed to facilitate the use of these elements
in its repository planning For a period of 50 to 300 years, the federal
government will ``collect, evaluate and report on data'' to assess the
performance of the repository and the ability to retrieve the used fuel
within the facility, if desired. In addition to monitoring material
within the facility, DOE will conduct tests and analyses to ensure that
the repository is constructed and operated according to strict
guidelines. Although DOE is pursuing these elements, Congressional
direction on the proposed enhancements would provide greater certainty
on the scientific and regulatory oversight of long-term repository
operation and the condition of the material stored there.
Doing so would require no modification to the existing federal
statutory or regulatory framework. DOE could include these enhancements
as part of its ``receive and possess'' application and the commitment
to complete them should be incorporated as a condition of the NRC
license.
This direction will offer greater assurance to the public that
long-term stewardship of used fuel at Yucca Mountain will be carefully
monitored throughout repository operation. It would also allow DOE to
take advantage of future technological innovations to improve the
repository or provide for the potential reuse of the energy that
remains in the fuel.
Used Nuclear Fuel Recycling
The nuclear energy industry has shown consistent and strong support
for research and development of advanced fuel cycle technologies
incorporated in the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI). In
anticipation of a major expansion of nuclear power in the United States
and globally, it is appropriate to accelerate activities in this
program. The resurgence in development of nuclear energy is expected to
require advanced fuel cycles. However, a repository will be necessary
to handle defense wastes, legacy commercial used nuclear fuel, and
waste by-products regardless of which fuel cycle is ultimately
developed.
President Bush has presented a compelling vision for a global
nuclear renaissance through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
(GNEP). This initiative provides an important framework to satisfy U.S.
and world needs for an abundant source of clean, safe nuclear energy
while addressing challenges related to fuel supply, long-term
radioactive waste management, and proliferation concerns. It may be
possible that currently available technologies could be used creatively
to jump-start the development of the needed advanced nuclear fuel cycle
technologies.
We recognize that the Congress has important questions regarding
this program. DOE's near-term focus for GNEP is to determine, by 2008,
how to proceed with demonstration of advanced recycling technologies
and other technological challenges. Consequently, the industry fully
supports increased funding for AFCI in fiscal 2007. However, neither
AFCI nor GNEP, reduces the near-term imperative to develop the Yucca
Mountain repository.
A Constructive Role for Nevadans
The nuclear energy industry supports an active and constructive
role for Nevada in the development of Yucca Mountain to help ensure the
safety of its citizens. The industry also supports compensation for the
State to account for the program's socioeconomic impact, as called for
in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This model is consistent with the
siting and operation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
The industry is encouraged by the steps DOE has taken to work with
affected local governments in the State, and we further encourage DOE
to expand its interactions with Nevadans interested in constructive
engagement in the project. The industry urges the Congress to include
provisions in S. 2589 to foster these developments.
CONCLUSION
We must never lose sight of the federal government's responsibility
for civilian used nuclear fuel disposal, as stated by Congress in the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. The
industry fully supports the fundamental need for a repository so used
nuclear fuel and the byproducts of the nation's nuclear weapons program
are safely and securely managed in a specially designed, underground
facility. World-class science has demonstrated that Yucca Mountain is
an eminently suitable site for such a facility.
A viable used fuel management strategy is necessary to retain long-
term public confidence in operating existing nuclear power plants and
in building new nuclear power plants to meet our nation's growing
electricity needs, and to fuel our economic growth. The public
confidence necessary to support construction of new nuclear plants is
linked to successful implementation of an integrated national used fuel
policy, which includes a continued commitment for the long-term
disposition of used nuclear fuel. This requires a commitment from the
Administration, Congress, and other stakeholders to ensure that DOE
makes an effective transition from a scientific program to a licensing
and construction program, with the same commitment to safety. New waste
management approaches, including interim storage and nuclear fuel
recycling, are consistent with timely development of Yucca Mountain.
Enactment of S. 2589 is the critical pre-requisite to implementing
our national policy for used fuel management.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
I want to just inform the Senators and witnesses that I
just received notice that we have just started voting on the
floor, and there will be three votes, one after another, which
means that will be a long time, and I don't know quite what
will happen, what we'll do. But we're going to go right on to
you, Mr. Loux, right now, and then we'll go over to you, and
see if we can get one round in before we leave. If you can make
it brief, we would be greatly appreciative, sir.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT R. LOUX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEVADA AGENCY
FOR NUCLEAR PROJECTS, OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Mr. Loux. I will do so, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to thank you
for your invitation. As you know, my name is Robert Loux, and
I'm here on behalf of the Governor of Nevada.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Loux. I would like to also request not only my
statement but some additional materials I would like to make
available for the record, and give them to the committee this
afternoon, if that----
The Chairman. That will be done.
Mr. Loux. Thank you very much.
We have viewed, obviously, the provisions of this bill, and
we find it's the most extraordinary piece of proposed
legislation, even when viewed in the highly politicized and
conflict-laden context of the last 19 years of this program.
During that time we have witnessed the unraveling of scientific
screening and characterization of candidate sites, only to have
Yucca Mountain picked in a political process. We have seen the
Congress prohibit the study of crystalline rock sites for a
potential repository in order to avoid political troubles in
the Eastern part of the United States.
The 1992 Energy Policy Act was Congress' rescue vehicle for
Yucca Mountain when it was discovered that the site could not
meet the EPA's general standards for repositories, and DOE's
site recommendation guidelines and NRC licensing rules were
adjusted to assure the site would not be disqualified for
specific technical safety reasons. And in 2002, as you know,
the Secretary recommended, the President approved, and Congress
designated the Yucca Mountain site for a repository, even
though Department of Energy was totally unprepared to submit an
application to the NRC.
Now you have before you a bill that attempts, like a
cowcatcher on a locomotive, to anticipate and sweep aside every
potential health and safety obstacle that could upset the
relentless drive to begin receiving waste at Yucca Mountain 11
years from now. The bill is so dismissive of American
democratic values that it's not worthy of this committee or the
Congress' attention.
Each of the noted historical actions above is the result of
an incremental reduction of safety and an increased risk in the
Nation's program. This bill before you today is a continuation
of that process, in that it weakens or eliminates regulatory
processes and controls both for the repository and the
transportation arena.
Exempting waste transportation, storage, and disposal from
the requirements of the Resource Conservation Act, and relying
instead on the regulations adopted under the Atomic Energy Act,
is an unprecedented compromise of well-understood, long-held
and accepted protection to the public from risk of hazardous
materials in the environment. This bill's provisions would
allow the unprecedented release of hundreds of millions of
pounds of hazardous chromium, molybdenum, vanadium, and nickel
into the currently potable groundwater supply without any
regulatory review whatsoever.
The Secretary of Energy should not be permitted to exempt
waste transportation to the repository from external
regulation. These provisions constitute an unnecessary,
undesirable trading of public safety for an unspecified
increase in convenience for the Department of Energy.
The bill mandates both substantive and procedural measures
for the NRC license application review process, that curtail
the existing rights of parties to review the complete
application and take part in an adjudicatory hearing of the
entire proposed project. This also is an unacceptable
compromise of safety.
The bill usurps the State's traditional authority to
administer waters by commandeering the State to grant
extraordinary rights to the Department of Energy. The State's
constitutional authority and implementing laws, under which the
State Engineer makes water appropriation decisions, are ignored
when the bill declares the Department's use of any amount of
water it decides is necessary for Yucca Mountain is beneficial
to interstate commerce and not detrimental to the public
interest. The department, under this bill, would have no
obligation to protect the water resources of the State. This
too is unacceptable.
The proposed land withdrawal of 147,000 acres for land at
the Yucca Mountain project is premature. Without a construction
authorization by the NRC, which the Department is not expecting
until at least 2011, there is no need or basis for the
withdrawal.
The bill also gives the Secretary of Energy, as you have
heard, the authority to close airspace over the repository
withdrawal area, despite objections from the Secretary of the
Air Force. The Air Force Secretary has already objected to any
Yucca Mountain activity that would compromise the national
defense mission of the Air Force, and our conversations with
the Air Force indicate that an expansion of their range in the
area of Yucca Mountain is in the planning for future Air Force
missions with new fighters.
The bill's provisions for infrastructure improvement and
construction prior to the NRC construction authorization are
also premature and imprudent. Without a construction
authorization from the NRC, the proposed new and replacement
construction is not needed, not authorized by the act, and
certainly not prudent.
In concluding, the many provisions of the bill that are
aimed at eliminating health and safety requirements the
Department perceives as obstacles to meeting its latest
schedule for opening the Yucca Mountain repository have the
appearance of being a litany of excuses for continued poor
performance. Virtually all the issues raised in the bill
involve actions that are outside of the control of the
Department, yet the real obstacles the Department must deal
with are ones of its own making.
None of the provisions of S. 2589 are needed by the
Department to carry out the primary task at hand, and that is
to prepare a complete, high-quality license application and
submit to the NRC for review and hearing. The bill gathers the
power of numerous State and Federal agencies, local
authorities, and Indian tribes into the hands of the Department
of Energy, probably the most distrusted Federal agency in the
human health and environmental arena. It boldly does this for
the sole purpose of attempting to force a faltering Yucca
Mountain repository into becoming a reality.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Loux follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert R. Loux, Executive Director, Nevada Agency
for Nuclear Projects, Office of the Governor
I am Robert Loux, Executive Director of the Nevada Agency for
Nuclear Projects. The Agency was established in 1985 by the Nevada
Legislature to carry out the State's oversight duties under the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act.
We have reviewed the provisions of the bill S. 2589 entitled
``Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act.'' It is a most
extraordinary piece of proposed legislation, even when viewed in the
highly politicized and conflict-laden context of the past nineteen
years of this nation's high-level nuclear waste disposal program.
During that time we have witnessed the unraveling of the scientific
screening and characterization of candidate repository sites, as set
out in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, to be replaced with the
unabashed, politically driven naming of Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, as
the only potential repository site to be studied.
We have seen Congress prohibit the study of crystalline rock sites
for a potential repository in order to avoid the brewing political
turmoil over siting a second repository in any of the populous states
of the northern mid-west and the eastern seaboard, where a large number
of the nation's nuclear power reactors are located.
The 1992 Energy Policy Act was Congress' rescue vehicle for the
Yucca Mountain repository site when it was discovered that Yucca
Mountain could not meet the EPA's general safety standard for
repositories. EPA's subsequent standard, aimed at protecting the
viability of the Yucca Mountain site, was thrown out by the court, and
its proposed replacement, if adopted, will likely meet the same fate.
DOE's site recommendation guidelines and NRC's licensing rule were
adjusted to assure the site would not be disqualified for specific
technical safety deficiencies.
And, in 2002, the Secretary of Energy recommended, the President
approved, and Congress designated the Yucca Mountain site for
development of a repository despite the fact that the Department of
Energy was unprepared to submit an acceptable license application to
NRC. Just last month, Congress was told that a license application is
planned to be submitted in 2008, six years later than the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act's required 90 days after site designation by Congress.
Now you have before you a bill that attempts, like a cowcatcher on
a locomotive, to anticipate and sweep aside every potential health and
safety obstacle that could upset the relentless drive to begin
receiving highly radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel at Yucca
Mountain in 2017--eleven years from now. (Ironically, in 1987, when
Congress singled out Yucca Mountain, in an attempt to anticipate and
fix the burgeoning waste program problems, the planned opening date
also was then eleven years in the future--in 1998.) The bill is so
dismissive of American democratic values that it is not worthy of this
Committee's or the Congress' consideration.
Removal of potential health and safety obstacles to expedite
licensing and operation of a Yucca Mountain repository does nothing to
advance the primary safety finding of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act:
``high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel have become major
subjects of public concern, and appropriate precautions must be taken
to ensure that such waste and spent fuel do not adversely affect the
public health and safety and the environment for this or future
generations.'' (Sec. 111(a)(7)). Each of the historical actions noted
above has resulted in incremental reductions of safety (and increased
risk) in the national nuclear waste program. This bill before you today
is a continuation of that trend to the extent that it weakens or
eliminates regulatory processes and controls, both for the repository
and in the nuclear waste transportation arena.
RCRA EXEMPTION
Exempting waste transportation, storage, and disposal from the
requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and
relying on regulations adopted under the Atomic Energy Act is an
unprecedented compromise of well-understood, long-held and accepted
protection of the public from the risks of hazardous materials in the
environment. This is a step backward, away from the accepted policy.
The Department of Energy's activities associated with hazardous
materials are currently subject to external environmental regulatory
oversight, more comprehensive in scope than that afforded under the
Atomic Energy Act. This bill's provision would allow the unprecedented
release of hundreds of millions of pounds of hazardous chromium,
molybdenum, vanadium, and nickel into the currently potable groundwater
supply without any regulatory review. The amount of hazardous metals
released would vastly increase if the repository's nuclear waste
capacity limit was lifted, as proposed by this bill.
TRANSPORTATION PREEMPTIONS
The Secretary of Energy should not be permitted to exempt waste
transportation to the repository from external regulation. Also, the
Secretary should not be given the ability to take the initiative in
preempting State, local, and Indian tribal transportation requirements
``irrespective of whether the transportation otherwise is or would be
subject to regulation under the Hazardous Materials Transportation
Authorization Act of 1994.'' These provisions severely compromise these
entities' ability to be informed and knowledgeable of sources of risk
passing through their jurisdictions and take measures required of
public officials to protect public safety. They constitute an
unnecessary and undesirable trading of public safety for an unspecified
increase in convenience for the Department of Energy. They also ignore
a recent National Academy of Sciences study that found, in part, that
nuclear waste transportation can be acceptably safe if all existing
regulatory requirements are rigorously enforced.
NRC LICENSING AND EIS
The bill mandates both substantive and procedural measures for the
NRC license application and review process that curtail the existing
rights of parties to review a complete application and take part in an
adjudicatory hearing of the entirety of the proposed project.
Permission to limit the information in the application for construction
authorization to ``surface facilities necessary for initial operation
of the repository,'' coupled with the elimination of formal proceedings
for license amendments following the construction authorization,
greatly inhibits the ability of parties to participate in a
comprehensive safety review of the facility.
Furthermore, any Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) written to
accompany a construction authorization decision will be insufficient in
its required description of the project and evaluation of potential
impacts if the complete planned surface facility and its operations are
not available for analysis. The surface facility design concept is
currently undergoing a major revision because of operational safety
concerns that could not be mitigated. This provision allowing the
complete surface facility design and operation to avoid full formal
safety review during initial licensing proceedings invites unknown
future safety and operational issues to arise, putting the public and
workers at increased risk.
STATE DELEGATED AUTHORITIES
Nevada exercises lawfully-delegated authority to regulate emissions
affecting air quality. This bill would usurp that authority for any
activity or facility associated with the Yucca Mountain project, which
according to provisions of the bill, could include construction and
operation of a 319 mile-long new rail line to Yucca Mountain. Effective
air quality management relies on familiarity with local conditions, and
the public benefit of this valuable experience, especially related to
construction in essentially pristine areas, would be lost under this
bill.
STATE GROUNDWATER AUTHORITY
The bill usurps the State's traditional authority to administer its
waters by commandeering the State to grant extraordinary rights to the
Department of Energy. The State's constitutional authority and
implementing laws, under which the State Engineer makes water
appropriation decisions, are ignored when the bill declares that the
Department's use of any amount of water it decides is necessary for the
Yucca Mountain project is beneficial to interstate commerce, and not
detrimental to the public interest. The commandeering of the State
Engineer's authority would extend to water needed for the proposed
rail, line which, in some places, passes through basins where the safe
yield of the groundwater is already fully appropriated. The Department,
under this bill, would have no obligation to protect the water
resources of the State.
LAND WITHDRAWAL, LAND USE AND AIR SPACE ISSUES
The proposed withdrawal of 147,000 acres (approximately 230 square
miles) of land for the Yucca Mountain project, which could include land
for the 319 mile-long rail access to the site, is premature. Without a
construction authorization by NRC, which the Department does not expect
until at least 2011, there is no need or basis for the withdrawal. In
order to receive a repository license, the Department must demonstrate
ownership and control of the repository site, but this is not necessary
prior to submitting a license application. DOE could simply agree to a
condition that, if construction authorization is granted, a land
withdrawal will be accomplished.
The proposed withdrawal unnecessarily limits public entry and use
of current Public Land for at least the next five years, a period
during which the Department has not demonstrated a need for the Public
Land portion of the withdrawal.
The bill also gives the Secretary of Energy the authority to close
airspace over the repository withdrawal area, despite any objection
from the Secretary of the Air Force, whose aircraft currently use the
airspace for thousands of training missions each year, with the
frequency of use expected to increase in future years. The Air Force
Secretary already has objected to any Yucca Mountain associated
activity that would compromise the national defense mission of the Air
Force.
And, the withdrawal would give the Department authority to exchange
land within the withdrawal for federal land outside the withdrawal.
With the various limitations for use of withdrawal lands, if exchanges
were made to acquire land for the rail access line, this could greatly
disrupt, without recourse, public use and access to lands currently
used for grazing, mining and mineral exploration, and recreation.
PRE-LICENSE CONSTRUCTION
The bill's provisions for infrastructure improvement and
construction prior to NRC construction authorization are also premature
and imprudent. The Department recently has released for review and
comment, an Environmental Assessment outlining the six new buildings
and many miles of new road and electrical power line construction and
replacement, it plans over a two year period prior to construction
authorization. In the EA, the Department claims the approximately $100
million worth of new and replacement construction is not intended to
support repository construction and operation, yet the bill gives a
green light for just that purpose, even though, according to the
Department's recently announced plans, the anticipated construction
authorization is just five years away. Without a construction
authorization from the NRC, the proposed new and replacement
construction is not needed, not authorized by the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act, and certainly not prudent, despite the thin claims in the EA that
it will improve safety for workers, visitors, and regulators, and
support continuing scientific work and testing.
PROGRAM FUNDING
Opening the annual receipts of the Nuclear Waste Fund as
discretionary offsetting collections to fund the program is not an
entirely new concept. Well over a decade ago, then Energy Secretary
Hazel O'Leary made the plea to Congress, ``Untie my hands,'' when
seeking full access to the Nuclear Waste Fund. Since that time, we all
have come to see that full access to the waste fund would not have been
the solution to the problems that the program has inflicted on itself,
and are beyond the scope of the anticipated and potential problems that
this bill seeks to sweep aside.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
Throughout its history, the inability of the program to implement a
satisfactory quality assurance program has been chronicled by the
General Accounting Office (now Government Accountability Office) and
the NRC, yet to date the problems persist. But, according to Department
managers, as always, they are on the verge of being solved. Quality
assurance failures were at the core of the now infamous e-mail incident
whose fallout has caused millions of dollars of expense and
immeasurable loss of credibility that still is ongoing. Open access to
the Nuclear Waste Fund would not have provided an obvious solution to
the persistent quality assurance failures. Instead, the Department sees
it as a ``culture'' issue and is now (after more than 20 years)
claiming to be implementing measures to make individual managers more
accountable for their work and the work they supervise. In the
licensing proceeding, the Department must demonstrate that it has
management systems in place and functioning that would support an NRC
finding that the Department would be a qualified and competent
licensee. The Department itself does not seem to believe that it yet
passes this test, but is confident that it will by the time of license
application.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The many provisions of this bill that are aimed at eliminating
administrative and regulatory requirements the Department perceives as
obstacles to meeting its latest schedule for opening a Yucca Mountain
repository have the appearance of being a litany of excuses for
continued poor performance. Virtually all of the issues raised in the
bill involve actions that are outside of the control of the Department.
Yet the real obstacles that the Department must deal with are of it own
making. A most telling example was the Department's inability to comply
with the NRC's requirement to provide an adequate and acceptable
documentary record to support its then-anticipated 2004 license
application. The Department's recently announced fantasy schedule calls
for its next effort to provide such a record to take place on December
21, 2007, providing just a few days more than the required six months
prior to submitting a repository license application, which is
scheduled by the Department for June 30, 2008.
None of the provisions of S. 2589 are needed by the Department of
Energy to carry out the primary task at hand--prepare a complete, high
quality license application and submit it to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission for review and hearing. This bill gathers the powers of
numerous federal and state agencies, local authorities, and Indian
tribes into the hands of the Department of Energy, probably the most
distrusted federal agency in the human health and environmental arena.
It boldly does this for the sole purpose of attempting to force a
faltering Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository into becoming a
reality.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Loux.
Mr. Fettus.
STATEMENT OF GEOFFREY H. FETTUS, SENIOR PROJECT ATTORNEY,
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
Mr. Fettus. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, thank you very
much. My name is Geoffrey Fettus, and I'm a senior attorney
with the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'd like to thank
the committee for inviting me to testify on this bill, and I
will be very brief and request that my more extensive written
comments be submitted into the record.
As this committee with its expertise is well aware, Yucca
Mountain is a project of monumental importance. It knows that
nuclear waste permanently buried in a Federal geologic
repository will be lethal for hundreds of thousands of years.
Rather than treading carefully with these issues, this bill
undercuts external regulatory oversight and protective
environmental laws.
If Yucca Mountain is to meet the twin goals of protecting
human health and, most importantly, public acceptance of the
Federal solution, then this bill is a misguided effort. For the
entire 35-year history of NRDC, we have supported deep geologic
disposal of nuclear waste, but any repository must rely
primarily on geologic isolation and meet protective public
health standards. We have worked to ensure that the Government
agencies charged with developing and regulating a geologic
repository set strict standards to protect public health.
In contrast with S. 2589, our national focus should be on
promulgating adequate environmental standards, then testing
whether Yucca Mountain meets those standard through a thorough
and transparent licensing process. That process currently
exists in law. The public will not have confidence in the
safety of the repository if the law has to be changed in order
to make the site licensable.
My focus is on three objectionable sections of the bill:
the severe dilution of the NRC licensing procedures; the
blanket preemption of State environmental regulation; and the
codification of the waste confidence rule. And I again will be
very, very brief.
The licensing process is not without its flaws, but it
still retains portions of the original and coherent vision of
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. There is opportunity for a
careful adjudicatory process.
However, section 4 of the bill would dramatically undercut
the current legal framework as it does away with the current
deliberative proceedings. It would require the NRC to use
expedited, informal procedures which limit discovery and the
NRC's oversight. It would require the NRC to act on any
application within 1 year after the application has been filed.
The NRC has stated that this is not an achievable standard, and
we agree. Moreover, limiting discovery and weakening oversight
is unwise, as it further degrades the transparency and rigor
needed for one-of-a-kind projects like this.
Section 4 also removes from the NRC any meaningful
regulation of surface facilities, including any proposed
facilities built for interim storage, an act that could
essentially make the use of the repository a fait accompli
regardless of the outcome of any construction license.
The bill undercuts the National Environmental Policy Act.
The bill waives the requirement that DOE consider alternatives
for a range of activities. The discussion and presentation of
alternatives is the heart of the NEPA process, and to waive
those obligations removes the fundamental meaning of the law.
Section 6 of the bill nullifies the application of
hazardous waste laws. The same section amends the Clean Air Act
to nullify Nevada's air permitting authority. And I cite
several other examples in my written testimony.
Finally, the issue of whether or not the availability of
permanent geologic disposal should factor into nuclear
powerplant licensing has been with us for decades. A compromise
on how the issue would be addressed in a scientific and
publicly acceptable manner was reached. Section 9 of this bill
would undo that decades-old compromise.
Section 9 would require that the NRC must ``deem, without
any further consideration,'' that there is sufficient capacity
to dispose of nuclear waste now, without hearing scientific
debate or any meaningful inquiry into a problem that will last
for tens of thousands of years. This bill directs the NRC to
potentially ignore any new analysis, regardless of what the
future holds. Such provision would stand the NRC's waste
confidence rule on its head and run counter to the D.C.
Circuit's careful designation of where scientific expertise
should reside.
Respectfully, Congress should not be deciding issues of
ultimate certainty in health and safety judgments, nor should
it be resolving technical disagreements with the stroke of a
pen. If we are ever to have a robust repository program that
both follows the original intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act and gains the trust of the American public, then the
Federal Government must cease efforts to weaken meaningful and
protective health and environmental standards for Yucca
Mountain.
Thank you for allowing me to testify, and I look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fettus follows:]
Prepared Statement of Geoffrey H. Fettus, Senior Project Attorney,
Natural Resources Defense Council
Good morning. My name is Geoffrey Fettus and I am a senior attorney
with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). I have been the lead
attorney on nuclear matters at NRDC for five years, but I have worked
on nuclear waste and fuel cycle issues for nearly a decade. Before my
current job I was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New
Mexico and subsequently practiced for the New Mexico Environmental Law
Center. I thank the Committee for inviting me to testify on S. 2589,
Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act.
S. 2589 was submitted to the Committee by Department of Energy
(DOE) Secretary Bodman and introduced by Senator Domenici at the
Administration's request. The bill is designed to ``facilitate the
licensing, construction and operation'' of the repository. The bill
would perform a broad array of what DOE envisions as necessary tasks
from land withdrawal to changes in the regulatory structure governing
the proposed repository.
Unfortunately, S. 2589 is yet another effort to relax or remove
appropriate environmental oversight and standards that must apply if
the proposed repository is to meet the twin goals of protecting human
health for the length of time the waste is dangerous and public
acceptance of the federal solution to the nuclear waste problem. This
is a project of monumental importance and unprecedented complexity. The
nuclear waste to be permanently buried in a federal geologic repository
will be lethal for hundreds of thousands of years. If this waste is
inadvertently accessed or leaks uncontrolled into the environment,
incalculable damage could result. Rather than grappling carefully with
those issues, this bill would undercut external regulatory oversight
and protective environmental laws.
Respectfully, this bill overreaches and should be withdrawn. If it
is not withdrawn, it should be defeated. For the entire 35 year history
of NRDC, we have supported deep geologic disposal for nuclear waste as
long as any repository relies primarily on geologic isolation and meets
protective environmental and public health standards. Our litigation on
this matter has been to ensure that the government agencies charged
with developing and regulating a geologic repository set strict
standards protect public health and complied with the original
intentions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), 42 U.S.C. Sec. 10101
et seq. and other applicable laws.
In contrast with the provisions of S. 2589, our national focus
should be on promulgating adequate environmental standards and then
testing whether Yucca Mountain meets those standards through a fair,
thorough and transparent licensing process. That process is required by
existing law. The environmental community and the public will not have
confidence in the safety of the repository if the law has to be changed
in order to make the site licensable.
To understand the many objectionable components of S. 2589 and its
proposals to weaken regulatory oversight over the proposed Yucca
project, what follows is a short summary of federal action on geologic
repositories and the many previous efforts to weaken regulatory
standards applicable to the project. Then I turn to some of the
specific objectionable sections of the bill.
BACKGROUND ON GEOLOGIC REPOSITORIES
Efforts to geologically isolate high-level nuclear waste began more
than 40 years ago. The National Academy of Sciences in 1957 reported
that a number of geologic disposal alternatives were possible, but
indicated a preference for disposal in salt. In 1967 the Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC) proposed Project Salt Vault, a plan to develop a
geologic repository in the Carey salt mine at Lyons, Kansas. This plan
was abandoned by the AEC in the early-1970s after the Kansas Geological
Survey mounted a strong campaign against the site, pointing out that
the area had been subjected to extensive exploratory drilling for oil
and gas deposits, and noting that an adjacent salt mine could not
account for the loss of a large volume of water used during solution
mining of the salt.
In 1974 the Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA), formed
out of the AEC and the predecessor to the DOE, retreated from
geological disposal by proposing a Retrievable Surface Storage Facility
(RSSF) for interim storage of high-level waste while pursuing geologic
disposal at a more leisurely pace. This idea was rejected by
environmentalists and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the
grounds that it would delay permanent disposal.
In the mid-1970s it also became clear that commercial spent fuel
reprocessing was uneconomical, environmentally unsound and represented
a serious proliferation risk. President Gerald Ford refused to
subsidize the completion of the Barnwell reprocessing plant, and then
President Jimmy Carter pulled the plug on reprocessing. This gave a new
urgency to finding a site suitable for geologic disposal of both spent
fuel and high-level nuclear waste. In the late 1970s President Carter
initiated an Interagency Review Group (IRG) process to solve once and
for all the nuclear waste problem in the United States. The IRG process
involved numerous scientists, extensive public involvement, and a
consultation and concurrence role for the states. The outcome of the
IRG effort was a two-track program. The DOE was tasked with the
responsibility for identifying the best repository site in the country,
and the EPA and the NRC were tasked with developing nuclear waste
disposal criteria against which the selection and development of the
final repository site would be judged.
THE NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT
In 1982, Congress enacted the NWPA, which embodied in law the
principal recommendations that grew out of the IRG process, including a
commitment to geologic disposal, two repositories, and characterization
of three sites before final selection of the first repository. The NWPA
established a comprehensive program for the disposal of spent nuclear
fuel and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) from the nation's
commercial reactors and nuclear weapons complex.
At the time the NWPA was passed nearly 25 years ago, the U.S.
Government enjoyed fairly widespread support from within the Congress,
the environmental community and state governments for the site
selection and development process proposed by the IRG. Now, twenty
years later the U.S. Government has little, if any, support from the
State of Nevada, and virtually no public support from the environment
and public health community for the Yucca Mountain project.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
A whole host of things, but suffice to say that over the last
twenty years, a substantial segment of the environmental community
believes the process of developing, licensing, and setting
environmental and oversight standards for the proposed repository have
been, and continue to be rigged or dramatically weakened to ensure the
licensability of the site rather than provide safety for the length of
time the waste is dangerous. This bill, S. 2589, is yet another example
of that continuing effort. The site selection process and the radiation
standards are examples that illuminate this perspective.
SITE SELECTION
First, DOE and then the Congress corrupted the site selection
process. The original strategy contemplated DOE choosing the best four
or five geologic media, then selecting a best candidate site in each
media alternative, then narrowing the choices to the best three
alternatives, and then picking a preferred site for the first of two
repositories. Site selection guidelines were strongly criticized as DOE
was accused of selecting sites that they had previously planned to
pick. In May of 1986 DOE announced that it was abandoning a search for
a second repository, and it had narrowed the candidate sites from nine
to three, leaving in the mix the Hanford Reservation in Washington (in
basalt), Deaf Smith Co., Texas (in bedded salt) and Yucca Mountain in
Nevada (in unsaturated volcanic tuff).
All equity in the site selection process was lost in 1987, when the
Congress, confronted with a potentially huge cost of characterizing
three sites, amended the NWPA of 1982, directing DOE to abandon the
two-repository strategy and to develop only the Yucca Mountain site. At
the time, Yucca Mountain was DOE's preferred site. The abandonment of
the NWPA site selection process led directly to the loss of support
from the State of Nevada, diminished Congressional support (except to
ensure that the proposed Yucca site remains the sole site), and less
meaningful public support for the Yucca Mountain project.
RADIATION STANDARDS
The second track of the process has, if possible, fared worse.
Section 121 of the NWPA of 1982 directs EPA to establish generally
applicable standards to protect the general environment from offsite
releases from radioactive materials in repositories and directs the NRC
to issue technical requirements and criteria. Unfortunately, it has
been clear for years that the projected failures of the geologic
isolation at Yucca Mountain are the determining factor in EPA's
standards.
EPA has repeatedly issued standards that are concerned more with
licensing the site than establishing protective standards. EPA's
original 1985 standards were vacated in part because the EPA had failed
to fulfill its separate duty under the Safe Drinking Water Act; 42
U.S.C. Sec. 300h, to assure that underground sources of water will not
be ``endangered'' by any underground injection. Natural Resources
Defense Council v. Environmental Protection Agency (NRDC v. EPA), 824
F.2d 1258 (1st Cir. 1987).
EPA's second attempt at setting standards that allow for a
projected failure of geological isolation was again vacated, this time
by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The D.C.
Circuit found that EPA's Yucca Mountain rule (and the corresponding NRC
standard), which ended its period required compliance with the terms of
those rules at 10,000 years was not ``based upon or consistent with''
the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (``NAS'') as
required by the 1992 Energy Policy Act and therefore must be vacated.
Nuclear Energy Institute, Inc. v. EPA, 373 F.3d 1251 (2004).\1\
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\1\ In August 1995, the National Research Council of the NAS
published the study referenced under section 801 of the Energy Policy
Act of 1992, entitled Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards
(``NAS Report''). Among other findings, the NAS Report found that it
would be scientifically unsupportable for the EPA to limit the period
of performance for its Yucca Mountain site standards to the 10,000-year
period used in its generic standards under 40 C.F.R. Part 191.
Concluding that peak radiation risks at the Yucca Mountain site were
likely to exceed that time limitation, the NAS panel recommended that
the standards for individual risk apply at the time of peak doses. Id.
at 55. Drawing on its own prior research, the NAS Report instructed EPA
that adopting the 10,000-year limitation ``might be inconsistent with
protection of public health.'' Ibid.
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Giving significant deference to the agency, the D.C. Circuit did
not vacate EPA's strangely configured compliance boundary for the Yucca
Mountain site. See Appendix A * to this testimony for a map of EPA's
compliance boundary (inside the oddly drawn line, the repository need
not protect water quality and radiation can leak in any amount). The
dramatically irregular line that represents the point of compliance has
little precedent in the realm of environmental protection, and its
shape is perhaps more reminiscent of gerrymandered political districts.
Rather than promulgate protective groundwater standards, EPA pieced
together a ``controlled area'' that both anticipates and allows for a
plume of radioactive contamination that will spread several miles from
the repository toward existing farming communities that depend solely
on groundwater and perhaps through future communities closer to the
site.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Appendix A has been retained in committee files.
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EPA's next proposed and revised rule, issued in 2005, retains the
15 millirem/year and groundwater standards for the first 10,000 years,
but then establishes 350 millirem/year standard for the period after
10,000 years and does away with the groundwater standard entirely. This
two-tiered standard fails to comply with the law and fails to protect
public health, especially if the repository's engineered barriers were
to fail earlier than DOE predicts. But fundamentally, NRDC's objection
to EPA's proposed is not a dispute about what happens between the years
10,000 and 10,001 after the repository is opened for business. Rather,
EPA has once again proposed a rule that allows for faulty geologic
isolation rather than setting a protective standard that will ensure
the waste is isolated for the length of time it is dangerous.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS ON S. 2859
Turning to the bill before the Committee, we comment on three
primary areas: the severe dilution of NRC licensing procedures, the
blanket preemption of state environmental regulation, and the
codification of the ``waste confidence'' rule.
1. Dilution and Limiting NRC Licensing Authority
The licensing process for the repository, though not without its
flaws, still retains portions of the original, coherent vision of the
NWPA in licensing an unprecedented project that must last for tens of
thousands of years. There is opportunity for a careful, deliberative
adjudicatory process in licensing the project.
For example, under current law, the NRC will use formal
adjudicatory rulemaking procedures to (1) license DOE to construct the
repository; and (2) license DOE to receive and possess nuclear waste at
the repository. Under the construction license, the NRC must grant a
permit for the entirety of the proposed facility, i.e. ``both surface
and subsurface areas at which high-level radioactive waste and spent
nuclear fuel handling activities are conducted.'' Along with this, the
NRC has strict licensing authority over the entirety of the complex.
Statutory limits are placed on the repository, such as a 70,000 metric
ton cap on the amount of waste. And under the NRC's current rules,
``DOE may not begin construction of a geological repository operations
area at the. Yucca Mountain site unless it has filed an application
with the Commission and has obtained construction authorization.'' If
DOE fails to comply with this requirement, the NRC may deny DOE a
license. And finally, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
remains fully applicable to federal actions related to the site. If
followed carefully and deliberately, this current legal framework could
lead to a decision on the site the public could accept.
Section 4 of S. 2859 Undercuts Protective Standards and
Applicable Environmental Law
If enacted into law, Section 4 of S. 2859 would dramatically
undercut the current legal framework by removing meaningful NRC
oversight and compliance with NEPA. First, Section 4(b)(2) of the bill
does away with transparent, deliberative proceedings and requires the
NRC to use ``expedited, informal'' procedures (which limit discovery
and NRC's ability to ensure safety) with respect to the authorization
to receive and possess nuclear waste at the repository or ``to
undertake any other action concerning the repository.'' It also
requires the NRC to act on any application within one year after the
application has been filed. In a June 30, 2006 letter from NRC
Commissioner Diaz to Congressman Porter of the U.S. House of
Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, the NRC stated that it
believes such a standard to be ``unachievable.'' We believe the
standard is not only ``unachievable,'' but limiting discovery and
weakening the oversight process is unwise as it further degrades the
transparency and rigor needed for licensing a one-of-a-kind nuclear
waste repository that will be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of
years. And if, as is quite likely, the DOE license application is
inadequate and incomplete and the NRC must respond within one year, do
the authors of this bill really mean to say that the NRC can only
reject the application and rule that Yucca Mountain cannot be used?
Undercutting NRC authority continues. Section 4 of the bill
eliminates the need for DOE to include in its license application any
``information regarding any surface facility other than surface
facilities necessary for initial operation of the repository.'' Such a
rewrite removes the NRC from any meaningful regulation of surface
facilities, including any proposed facilities built for the interim
storage of nuclear waste--an act that could essentially make the use of
the repository a fait accompli, regardless of the outcome of the
construction license. Section 4 also authorizes DOE to ``undertake
infrastructure activities,'' on its own, without NRC approval and even
before, the NRC authorizes construction of the repository, if DOE finds
the activity ``necessary or appropriate.'' This provision sets the
stage for creating an interim storage facility at Yucca Mountain and
allows DOE to commence huge transportation projects without meaningful
NRC oversight.
Ignoring the years and millions of dollars spent on modeling the
facility for a proscribed amount of waste, Section 4(b)(2) eliminates
the 70,000 metric ton repository limit. Ostensibly, this is to (1)
allow for all of the waste from the current generation of nuclear power
plants (and perhaps some relatively larger but still inadequate portion
of the repository for defense HLW) and (2) ``postpone indefinitely the
need to initiate a second repository program.'' In reality, this
section takes no notice of the years of modeling that have demonstrated
that the proposed repository may not be able to adequately isolate
70,000 metric tons of waste, much less two or three times that amount.
The bill undercuts the application of NEPA to the site as well.
Section 4(b)(2) commences with the appropriate statement that DOE must
``comply with all applicable requirements under the National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969 . . . with respect to an
infrastructure activity,'' but then waives the requirement that DOE
``consider the need for the action, alternative actions, or a no-action
alternative.'' The discussion and presentation of alternatives and
options to mitigate environmental harm is the heart of the NEPA process
and to waive those obligations is to do violence to the law.
Section 4(c) requires other federal agencies to adopt DOE's EIS
``to the maximum extent practicable''; which will have the effect of
halting other federal entities from complying with NEPA with respect to
Yucca Mountain. This runs counter to well-established federal law as
NEPA's implementing regulations encourage agencies to adopt EISs
authored by sister agencies, but only if the reviewing agency finds,
after an ``independent review of the statement,'' that the EIS in
question ``meets the standards for an adequate statement.'' 40 C.F.R.
Sec. 1506. NRDC can point to numerous examples where federal agencies
have responsibly disagreed with one another over the environmental
impacts of a major federal action, and it is wrong to relieve federal
agencies of their NEPA obligations in order to increase the likelihood
of licensing Yucca Mountain.
And finally, Section 4(c) relieves the NRC of the obligation to
consider under NEPA any ``action connected or otherwise relating to the
repository, to the extent the action is undertaken outside the geologic
repository operations area and does not require a license from the
Commission.'' Broadly read, such an exemption would allow NRC to avoid
any NEPA review of DOE transportation projects and even facilities that
may be used to transition the site toward an interim storage facility
were DOE to argue such work is outside geologic repository operations
areas or related to infrastructure activities that do not require NRC
license.
2. Preempting State Environmental Regulation
Under current law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA), 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6901 et seq., prohibits the treatment, storage,
or disposal of hazardous waste at DOE facilities (and at all other
private or federal facilities) without an EPA or State permit. Certain
radioactive materials are excluded from the definition of hazardous
waste under RCRA, but EPA or a delegated state may regulate the
hazardous constituents in the waste that contains both hazardous and
radioactive constituents (i.e., mixed waste). See L.E.A.F. v. Hodel,
586 F.Supp. 1163 (D.Tenn. 1984). This issue of mixed waste has broad
and important application to DOE facilities. State regulation of mixed
waste has been one of the key drivers in ensuring that the DOE cleans
up the radioactive and toxic legacy of the nuclear weapons complex.
Section 6 of S. 2589 nullifies the application of hazardous waste
laws at Yucca Mountain, and if the provision is read broadly, it could
nullify state oversight of a great deal of mixed waste at DOE generator
sites. Specifically, Section 6(a), in pertinent part, bars the
application of any part of RCRA Sec. 6001(a) from ``applying to any
material owned by the Secretary if the material is transported or
stored in a package, cask, or other container that the Commission has
certified for transportation or storage of that type of material; or
any material located at the Yucca Mountain site for disposal if the
management and disposal of the material is subject to a license issued
by the Commission.''
This is a dramatic exemption. RCRA 6001(a) states in pertinent
part:
Each department, agency and instrumentality of the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal government .
. . engaged in any activity resulting, or which may result, in
the disposal or management of solid waste or hazardous waste
shall be subject to, and comply with, all Federal, State,
interstate and local requirements, both substantive and
procedural (including any requirements for permits or reporting
or any provisions for injunctive relief) respecting control or
abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal in the
same manner, and to the same extent, as any person is subject
to such requirements . . . Neither the United States, nor any
agent, employee, or officer thereof, shall be immune to or
exempt from any process or sanction of any State or Federal
Court with respect to the enforcement of any such injunctive
relief.
42 USC Sec. 6961 (emphasis added).
Thus, under S. 2589, any waste ``owned'' by DOE that is
``transported or stored in a package, cask, or other container that the
Commission has certified for transportation or storage of that type of
material'' is exempt from ``all Federal, State, interstate and local
requirements, both substantive and procedural (including any
requirements for permits or reporting or any provisions for injunctive
relief) respecting control or abatement of solid waste or hazardous
waste disposal.'' Such an exemption could include not just waste DOE
plans to send to Yucca Mountain (and thus ending Nevada's RCRA
authority over the mixed portion of the waste), but even mixed waste at
DOE generator sites where DOE manages that waste in containers that the
NRC has certified for storage or transportation. Properly used, DOE
could game the system and obtain a complete cradle-to-grave exemption
for some undefined portion of mixed waste and highly contaminated DOE
sites around the country.
In short, any application of state law to DOE mixed waste could be
potentially be preempted, ignoring decades of established state
prerogatives to protect public health and the environment.
Section 6(b) in essence amends the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C.
Sec. 7401 et seq in a discriminatory manner, only applicable to Nevada
by taking away state and local government air permitting authority.
NRDC also strongly opposes that provision.
And finally, Section 7 of S. 2589 would abolish state, local and
tribal government transportation authority over the shipment of spent
nuclear fuel by highway and rail from around the country to Yucca
Mountain, and gives this authority to DOE. Specifically, this provision
would eliminate any decision or appeal by non-federal (and mostly non-
DOE) jurisdictions on highway transport. The provision does this in two
ways. First, it puts issues that are regulated now by the Hazardous
Materials Transportation Authorization Act of 1994, such as the ability
of states to designate alternative highway routes, under the
jurisdiction of DOE as regulated by the Atomic Energy Act. Second, it
gives the Secretary of Energy the ability to ask the Secretary of
Transportation to preempt any state, local or tribal requirements, for
example time of day restrictions.
This provision directly contradicts the February 2006 National
Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on nuclear waste transportation that
advocated a central role for state and tribal governments. According to
DOE, shipments to Yucca Mountain will affect 45 states, 700 counties,
and 50 Native American tribes. As many as 120 million people live in
the counties that would be crossed by rail and truck routes and between
8 million and 11 million people live within half a mile of a potential
truck or rail route to the site. The NAS study concluded that a
successful transportation program requires the active involvement of
other federal agencies, including the NRC, the Department of Homeland
Security, and the Department of Transportation, ``in strict adherence
to regulations.'' The NAS found that states and tribal governments must
also play a central role in any waste transportation program. In
particular, the report found that ``state- and tribal-supplied
information on local transport conditions is an essential element in
route selection decisions.'' Relieving states, tribes and local
government's of their transportation authority is unwise and will
further diminish public acceptance of the project.
3. Codifying the Potential Fiction of the Waste Confidence Rule
The issue of whether or not the availability of permanent geologic
disposal should factor into the NRC licensing of commercial nuclear
power plants has been with us for decades. As I explain below, a
compromise on how the issue would be addressed in a scientific and
publicly acceptable manner was reached over twenty years ago. Section 9
of S. 2589 would undo that compromise and seeks to codify what very
well may be a fiction. This is an inappropriate exercise of legislative
power over a matter that should be left up to the licensing body, the
NRC, and the continued advancement of science as we learn more about
how to dispose of nuclear waste in a manner that does not leave the
risk to future generations.
In June of 1977, the NRC denied NRDC's petition for (1) a
rulemaking proceeding to determine whether high-level radioactive
wastes generated in nuclear power reactors can be permanently disposed
of without undue risk to public health and safety; and (2) withholding
of action on pending and future applications for operating licenses for
nuclear power reactors until such time as an affirmative determination
has been made. We then petitioned the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit to review the NRC decision. The 2nd Circuit
found in part:
it is neither necessary nor reasonable for the Commission to
insist on proof that a means of permanent waste disposal is on
hand at the time reactor operation begins, so long as the
Commission can be reasonably confident that permanent disposal
(as distinguished from continued storage under surveillance)
can be accomplished safely when it is likely to become
necessary. Reasonable progress towards the development of
permanent disposal facilities is presently being accomplished.
Under these circumstances a halt in licensing of nuclear power
plants is not required to protect public health and safety.
582 F.2d 166, 169 (2nd Cir. 1978). And so it was in 1978.
In a parallel action only one year later, the State of Minnesota
challenged an NRC decision granting two operators of nuclear, plants
amendments to licenses to expand on-site spent fuel storage without
first determining whether the federal government could permanently
dispose of the nuclear waste. The United States Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit held that NRC could properly consider the complex
issue of nuclear waste disposal in generic proceeding such as a
rulemaking and then apply its determinations in subsequent adjudicatory
proceedings, noting the NRC's ``reasonable assurance'' a permanent
solution would be found. Minnesota v. NRC, 602 F.2d 412, 416 (D.C. Cir.
1979). However, the D.C. Circuit remanded the matter before the
particular parties to the NRC for further proceedings to determine
whether those reasonable assurances existed. Id. at 419.
These cases gave rise to the NRC's ``waste confidence'' rulemaking.
In 1984, after varying rounds of development, the NRC made the five
following findings that constituted the waste confidence rule:
(1) The Commission finds reasonable assurance that safe
disposal of high level radioactive waste and spent fuel in a
mined geologic repository is technically feasible.
(2) The Commission finds reasonable assurance that one or
more mined geologic repositories for commercial high-level
radioactive waste and spent fuel will be available by the years
2007-09, and that sufficient repository capacity will be
available within 30 years beyond expiration of any reactor
operating license to dispose of existing commercial high level
radioactive waste and spent fuel originating in such reactor
and generated up to that time.
(3) The Commission finds reasonable assurance that high-level
radioactive waste and spent fuel will be managed in a safe
manner until sufficient repository capacity is available to
assure the safe disposal of all high-level radioactive waste
and spent fuel.
(4) The Commission finds reasonable assurance that, if
necessary, spent fuel generated in any reactor can be stored
safely and without significant environmental impacts for at
least 30 years beyond the expiration of that reactor's
operating licenses at that reactor's spent fuel storage basin,
or at either onsite or offsite independent spent fuel storage
installations.
(5) The Commission finds reasonable assurance that safe
independent onsite or offset spent fuel storage will be made
available if such storage capacity is needed.
49 Fed. Reg. 34659 (Aug. 31, 1984) (emphasis added).
The NRC last revised the waste confidence rule in 1990, when it
amended the second and fourth findings as follows:
Finding 2: The Commission finds reasonable assurance that at
least one mined geologic repository will be available within
the first quarter of the twenty-first century, and that
sufficient repository capacity will be available within 30
years beyond the licensed life for operation (which may include
the term of a revised or renewed license), of any reactor to
dispose of the commercial high-level radioactive waste and
spent fuel originating in such reactor and generated up to that
time.
Finding 4: The Commission finds reasonable assurance that, if
necessary, spent fuel generated in any reactor can be stored
safely and without significant environmental impacts for at
least 30 years beyond the licensed life for operation (which
may include the term of a revised or renewed license) of that
reactor at its spent fuel storage basin, or at either onsite or
offsite independent spent fuel storage installations.
55 Fed. Reg. 38474 (Sept. 18, 1990) (emphasis added).
It is now 2006 and the Yucca Mountain process has been fraught with
problems--among them massive cost overruns, a finding of moderate to
weak technical support from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board,
falsification of quality assurance data, and continuing litigation over
weakening the applicable human health and environmental standards.
Section 9 of S. 2589, would require the NRC ``deem, without further
consideration, that sufficient capacity will be available in a timely
manner to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste resulting from the operation of the reactor and related
facilities.''
Such a provision would stand the NRC's waste confidence rule on its
head and run counter to the D.C. Circuit's careful designation of where
scientific expertise should reside. Discussing the 2nd Circuit opinion
in NRDC v. NRC, the D.C. Circuit noted:
We do not read that opinion, however, to hold as a matter of
law that storage and disposal concerns are never relevant to
the licensing of nuclear plants. Rather, as the NRC itself
recognized, Congress has chosen to rely on the NRC's (and its
predecessor's) assurances of confidence that a solution will be
reached. There is no implication that Congress intended that
the NRC ignore new knowledge or analysis in its licensing
decisions. As the Supreme Court implicitly recognized by
remanding for a review of the sufficiency of the S-3 evidence
in Vermont Yankee, this court does not exceed its judicial
province by inquiring into the basis of those assurances of
confidence. As Commission counsel rightly notes, it is for the
Commission to decide the ultimate question of certainty
implicit in health and safety judgments and to resolve
technical disagreements, but that is not to say that these
matters are totally immune from judicial review.
602 F.2d at 419 (emphasis added and citations omitted).
Congress should not be deciding issues of ultimate certainty in
health and safety judgments, nor should it be resolving technical
disagreements with the stroke of a pen. To allow the waste confidence
rule to be thus legislated into permanent existence does away with any
concerns about relative amounts of nuclear waste that can be produced
and disposed of, and all the concomitant matters that must be resolved.
Without hearing, scientific debate, or any meaningful inquiry into a
problem that will last for tens of thousands of years, this bill
proposes to codify that an adequate geologic repository to isolate
nuclear waste is a certainty. If the technical and legal disputes of
the last twenty years have taught us anything, it is that very little
to do with Yucca Mountain is a certainty. To enact Section 9's waste
confidence presumption would only serve to further validate the widely
held view that federal efforts on the Yucca Mountain project have been
about making sure the site is licensed, regardless of its scientific or
technical merits.
CONCLUSION
The legislative history of the NWPA of 1982 includes the following
admonition:
The Committee strongly recommends that the focus of the
Federal waste management program remain, as it is today, on the
development of facilities for disposal of high-level nuclear
waste which do not rely on human monitoring and maintenance to
keep the waste from entering the biosphere.
This wise legislative direction has been ignored over the past
several years. A central problem with the process for developing a
geologic repository, and especially Yucca Mountain, has been that the
site conditions have driven the standard. We observed this years ago
when EPA abandoned its collective dose standard when it appeared that
Yucca Mountain could not meet it. We observed this in 2001 when DOE
placed all its hopes on engineered barriers rather than the geology of
the site. We observed this again in 2001 when EPA limited the period of
compliance to 10,000 years and gerrymandered the area of site
compliance to allow for a massive (and diluting) spread of radioactive
contaminants, and we're observing the same dynamic now with S. 2589. It
is essential that this not continue.
The bill before this Committee is just another symptom of what has
been going wrong with the program for nearly two decades. From a
technical stand point, the current analysis appears to show: a) well
designed canisters may be able to safely sequester the waste for
several hundred or a few thousand years, but not nearly the length of
time the waste will be dangerous; b) there is not a great deal of water
flowing through Yucca Mountain; but c) the repository leaks like a
sieve. Ultimately, it is apparent that the proposed repository will not
keep nuclear waste out of the biosphere.
If we are ever to have a robust repository program that both
follows the original intent of the NWPA and gains the trust of the
American public, then the federal government, in both its executive and
legislative incarnations, must cease efforts to weaken meaningful and
protective health and environmental standards applicable to the
program.
Thank you for allowing me to testify and I look forward to your
questions.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Now, what we're going to try to do, to accommodate you in
the best way, the vote is just about up. We're going to leave
and we're going to vote, and I think the way we're going to
arrange it, we'll have a minimal amount of time on the floor
and return, and we'll put you back there and we'll each have
some questions. So if you'll wait, we'll appreciate it greatly.
Thank you very much.
We stand in recess until our return from voting.
[Recess.]
The Chairman. I think we have adequate time now to take a
few questions, and what we don't get completed, we'll submit.
What we submit, we'll ask you to answer as expeditiously as you
can.
I'm going to start by asking if Senator Bingaman has any
questions. Senator Craig, we'll ask if you have any, and then I
will follow up.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you all for being here.
Let me start with a couple of questions for you, Mr.
Sproat. I understood your testimony where you said that if we
don't enact this legislation, your ability to meet this
schedule that you laid out is zero, I believe you said.
Mr. Sproat. That's correct.
Senator Bingaman. But I'm not clear what in this
legislation relates to your ability to file the license
application on time. Will the enactment of this legislation
allow you to file it sooner? Is that what you're contending? Or
is it not related to the timing for your filing of that
application?
Mr. Sproat. Senator, this legislation is not related to the
filing of the license application itself. Assuming that the
program receives essentially the President's requested budget
funding for fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2008, even without
this legislation I will make that milestone of submitting that
license application by June 2008.
What we did, though, as we were trying to put together the
schedule, to really answer the requirements of the Congress to
put together a credible schedule for the project, we took a
look at all of the issues that were out there that we had
identified, that would impact the ability to open Yucca
Mountain: land withdrawal, water rights, and the other issues
we have put in there. And so we said based on our looking at
this project at this time, this is what we need. This is what
we think makes sense to allow us to move forward with the
project, with an aggressive schedule to get it open as soon as
possible.
Senator Bingaman. Section 4(b) of this proposed legislation
authorizes the Department of Energy to ``undertake
infrastructure activities'' at Yucca Mountain without NRC
approval.
Mr. Sproat. Yes.
Senator Bingaman. Could you specify what infrastructure
activities that authorizes, in your view? Does it authorize the
construction of the railroad? Does it authorize interim storage
facilities? What else?
Mr. Sproat. This legislation does not authorize any of
those. What it does, its intent is to clarify the regulatory
regime under which the approval that the Department needs to
get to execute those projects would be received. And let me
just give you an example.
When we talk about infrastructure at the site, we're
talking about roadways, we're talking about water systems,
we're talking about electrical power systems. We're not talking
about building any permanent safety-related systems,
structures, or components which would require an NRC
construction license.
[Clarification from the Department of Energy: On page 62 of
the transcript, line 3, and page 79, line 20, Senator Bingaman
asked if the proposed legislation S. 2589 entitled the
``Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act'' would authorize
the construction of the railroad. The proposed legislation does
not authorize construction of the rail line to Yucca Mountain,
it merely clarifies that receipt of the repository construction
authorization from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not a
prerequisite for commencing construction of the rail line. The
Department still would need to comply with all applicable legal
requirements, including those established by the National
Environmental Policy Act, in order to proceed with construction
and operation of the rail line.]
Senator Bingaman. What about an interim storage facility?
Mr. Sproat. There is nothing in this legislation that would
allow us to build an interim storage facility at Yucca
Mountain. We have not requested that.
Senator Bingaman. And nothing that would allow you to build
the railroad that I've mentioned?
Mr. Sproat. No. This would be--I'm trying to be very clear
that the railroad is what's considered as a connected activity
to the Yucca Mountain repository. And what we want to make
clear is that any environmental reviews of that railroad would
be conducted under EPA regulations, not NRC, as connected
activities, and that's what we're trying to get clear.
Senator Bingaman. Section 5 of your proposed bill allows
the Department of Energy to use money in the Nuclear Waste Fund
for ``infrastructure activities.''
Mr. Sproat. Yes.
Senator Bingaman. As I understand the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act that's already on the books, it authorizes the use of the
fund for facilities that are ``necessary or incident to'' the
repository and to the transportation of waste for disposal at
the repository, so I'm not clear. What does section 5 authorize
you to use Nuclear Waste Fund monies for that is not already
authorized by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act?
Mr. Sproat. As I understand it, when the Department
reviewed the existing Nuclear Waste Policy Act and looked at
areas that were in contention in the past--and one of the
issues, one of the areas that has been in contention in the
past is the allowed uses of the Nuclear Waste Fund associated
with Yucca Mountain. For example, there has been litigation and
case law about how could the Nuclear Waste Fund be used for
interim storage, either onsite at utilities or offsite at
another location?
So this was an attempt to remove some ambiguities, at least
as viewed by some people, around clarifying that the Nuclear
Waste Fund could be used not only for constructing the
repository but the infrastructure associated with the
repository and the transportation systems needed to get the
fuel from the plants to the repository.
[Clarification from the Department of Energy: On page 63 of
the transcript, line 11, Senator Bingaman questioned what
authority the proposed legislation provides the Secretary as it
relates to the use of the Nuclear Waste Fund that is not
already authorized under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The
proposed legislation would not expand the activities for which
the Nuclear Waste Fund may be used. It would clarify, however,
that ``infrastructure activities'' are included in the set of
activities for which the Nuclear Waste Fund currently can be
used. The proposed legislation does not identify interim
storage as an infrastructure activity.]
Senator Bingaman. So the interim storage facilities that
would be decided upon would be an appropriate use under this
new language, whereas that was not clear before?
Mr. Sproat. I don't want to say that. I wouldn't say that,
Senator. Let me make that clear. First of all, we're not asking
for interim storage authority in this legislation.
Senator Bingaman. I understand that.
Mr. Sproat. And we're not including interim storage
capability as part of infrastructure as we're defining it here.
The issue of whether or not the Nuclear Waste Fund could be
used for interim storage I think is--quite frankly, I just
don't know what the current case law is regarding the
acceptability of use for that. I know that that has been the
subject of----
Senator Bingaman. But are you saying that if we pass this
proposed bill, that will be clarified----
Mr. Sproat. Yes.
Senator Bingaman [continuing]. That those funds will be
usable for interim storage?
Mr. Sproat. No. That point would not be clarified because
we're not asking for interim storage capability or authority
under this legislation. This is for what I call the auxiliary
infrastructure around Yucca Mountain: the roads, the water, the
electricity, that type of thing.
Senator Bingaman. If the Congress were to enact the spent
fuel storage provisions that are in the Energy and Water
Appropriation bill that's coming to the Senate floor at some
stage, how would that affect, if at all, your schedule for work
on this repository?
Mr. Sproat. It would depend on a couple different factors.
One would be if the responsibility to site and build those
facilities would come into my organization. Clearly that would
divert a lot of management attention and technical attention
away from the Yucca Mountain project, if we were given that
responsibility, and I have no idea whether that would come to
us or to a different part of the Department.
The second issue would be regarding the impact on the Waste
Fund, and depending on how that interim storage capacity and
capability was designed, built, how many different facilities
were to be built, and if that was to be funded by the Waste
Fund, as I believe the appropriations language currently reads,
the financial impact on the long-term viability of the Waste
Fund would have to be looked at. We just haven't looked at that
yet.
Senator Bingaman. My time is up. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Bingaman, your last questions had to
do with the appropriations bill?
Senator Bingaman. Just that last question, yes.
The Chairman. That last question, yes. Thank you.
Senator Craig.
Senator Craig. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me make an
observation and then I'll ask one question.
Within the last couple of months oil has surged to $75 a
barrel, gas has soared to $3.25. I was out Tuesday evening
filling my car at $3.25 a gallon. I guess that's the bad news,
but ironically enough, in that we have found some good news.
Mr. Chairman, gas prices soared to $3 a gallon and this
week you, the Senate, we passed a bipartisan piece of
legislation to allow drilling in an area that a year ago was
totally and politically off limits to touch, out in the gulf;
something that a year ago, if we had been debating EPAct on the
floor and that were an issue within it, there would have been
an amendment to block it, it might have passed.
It has been an extremely hot few weeks that we're now into.
PEPCO just announced that it had metered the largest amount of
use of power in this region in its history yesterday. Is that
good news or bad news?
What I am trying to suggest to this committee and for the
record, Mr. Chairman, is that times change and situations
change, and right now we're struggling with the reality of this
country awakening to our failure to bring about the levels of
energy that it expects and it needs.
And because of the two of you, and I mean that most
sincerely, last year with the very forward-looking effort that
you produced in EPAct, we are now having more movement toward
getting this country back into production than we ever have,
and part of that is nuclear, a very large part of that. Twenty-
five reactors on the drawing boards. A year ago we couldn't
have even dreamed of that happening, but it's out there today.
And, as a result of that, I'm suggesting that the
circumstances of today are changing the political realities of
tomorrow. Circumstances of the last 12 months changed the
political reality on the floor of the U.S. Senate just this
week. Mr. Chairman, you were far-sighted enough to grab that
opportunity and move us in the right direction and build a
majority to do that.
As we march down this road toward a greater nuclear future
for our country, I'm extremely concerned about the issue at
hand that is reflective of where we go with licensing, and the
issue of waste confidence and how we get there, and what's real
and what isn't real, and what is expected of us, and more
importantly what the public and the interests involved expect.
The minority leader was just before us a few moments ago
and he ultimately said no to Yucca Mountain. Can we write
legislation then, Mr. Chairman, that says that the Congress is
convinced that there will be a solution to nuclear waste? I
think we can, but that's a struggle, and we all know that. I
don't know if tomorrow or if next year the answer will move
from no to maybe on the part of the minority leader, but I
doubt it. But clearly I think the public, if they are saying no
today, after this summer will be ready to say maybe.
$3 gas changed the politics on the floor of the Senate this
week. Unprecedented heat across America today and yesterday and
the last couple of weeks, and an unprecedentedly hot summer
around the world, I think are going to allow some of our
environmental friends who are concerned, as most of us are,
about climate change, to be much more willing to work with
Congress in a positive and productive way to resolve the issue
and to make sure that we have a clear path forward.
I am suggesting that in what has been proposed to us in the
bill that we have before us today is something that we have to
work on in a very progressive fashion, and I applaud your
leadership, Mr. Chairman, not only in finding a permanent
geologic repository but pushing ahead the reprocessing that is
necessary in the long term. And in the long term reprocessing
has a waste stream, and that will have to go somewhere. That
may be an opportunity that even the Governor of Nevada would
see as less threatening than he sees it today, as expressed by
his representative before the committee.
So what I think you're doing and what I appreciate you
doing for our future energy needs is to have both the Congress
ready and the issues ready, because the public attitudes are
changing out there as America tries to figure out what went
wrong and why all of a sudden they're having to reallocate
their personal household budgets beyond where they thought they
would have to go.
With that, my question, and I ask this of the panelists:
Lack of waste confidence is seen by the industry as a potential
impediment in licensing new nuclear reactors. Do you believe
that legislating waste confidence will be enough to license new
reactors, or do you think it is important for Yucca Mountain to
be a more certain path in that combination of issues?
Mr. Beasley. If I could, Senator, I'd like to begin with
that question.
Senator Craig. Mr. Beasley.
Mr. Beasley. From an industry point of view, I think it's
going to take two things. First of all, this bill I think makes
a very positive step in the direction of waste confidence, but
I also think that we need to couple that with significant
progress, sufficient progress toward bringing Yucca Mountain to
fruition, toward bringing Yucca Mountain to the final
repository that we have said it was going to be since 1982.
Mr. Sproat. I would say the Department agrees with Mr.
Beasley on this point, exactly.
Senator Craig. I didn't hear you.
Mr. Sproat. I would say the Department agrees with Mr.
Beasley on this point, exactly. It requires both.
Senator Craig. Anyone else wish to comment on that
question? If not--yes?
Mr. Fettus. Senator, thank you. The problem that we have
with S. 2589's deeming that the waste confidence rule is now
essentially codified and in law, what it would do, it would
essentially say Congress says there will be this, X. And that
codifies something that may be true, or it codifies what may be
a fiction. We don't know. But it takes it out of the hands of
any scientific or potential debate or new analysis.
In the original decision that elicited the waste confidence
rulemaking by the NRC, the D.C. Circuit very, very carefully
did not insert itself into matters that were beyond its
technical competence. It said Congress has decided to trust
these technical disputes to the NRC, and they remanded it back
to the agency to deliberately and carefully go forward.
Senator Craig. What issue was that? What case was that?
Mr. Fettus. This case was, the original case, I'm giving
you the cite, was a Minnesota case, the State of Minnesota
versus the NRC, and I will provide your staff with the cite
promptly after the hearing. It was a 1979 case. Sorry, 602 F.2d
at 412. And it was a D.C. Circuit case.
The Chairman. What's the purpose of your discussion in that
regard? What were you telling us?
Mr. Fettus. I'm telling you that the good Senator was
asking what kind of confidence do you need, and I'm saying
Congress shouldn't be in the business of arbitrarily providing
that confidence. That confidence should remain where it is
right now, with the NRC looking at the science and making a
decision.
Senator Craig. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen,
thank you. Oh, excuse me. Yes, Mr. Virgilio?
Mr. Virgilio. Thank you, Senator. I would just say, on
behalf of the NRC, we believe that Congress has the
information, the capacity, and the opportunity and authority to
make the decision on waste confidence. The basis that we see in
section 9 of the legislation is consistent with some of our own
staff thinking, and we would not object.
Senator Craig. Thank you.
Mr. Loux. Senator, I guess we would like to associate
ourselves with Mr. Fettus' remarks. We believe it's better left
to the agency that knows best about health and safety, and not
the Congress.
Senator Craig. My only comment back to you on that
statement, and I say this in as nice a way as I can.
Mr. Loux. I'm sure.
Senator Craig. I don't know that you have credibility
before this committee. Your job description is such, and you so
stated it before the committee last time, your purpose is to
kill Yucca Mountain, period.
Mr. Loux. True.
Senator Craig. In that status, can you have any objectivity
at all? I doubt it, because you have a mission.
Mr. Loux. Certainly as much as anyone who is advocating it,
Senator.
Senator Craig. I see. Well, that's how I believe your
testimony to be. If your mission and your job and your paycheck
is for one purpose only, your objectivity is tied to that.
Thank you.
Gentlemen, thank you all very much for your testimony as we
work our way through this issue. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Craig, did Mr. Virgilio respond? He
had his hand up. Did he have an answer?
Mr. Virgilio. Yes, I did. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. I thank you for your comment. I heard what
you said. I didn't hear the question. Yes, I understand.
Let me see. I have a lot of questions. I'm going to submit
them to you all. But I'm beginning to, the more I look at the
cost for interim storage, whether you call it interim storage
by virtue of it being a plan for interim storage or whether
it's just interim storage because you have not changed it from
where it is up alongside a reactor to something else, that time
frame is getting longer and longer no matter which plan you
talk about, in that the waste is going to be around a long time
for people to have to pay for it, and the consumer is the one
paying for it now.
That's what prompted us to do something in the
appropriation bill, to see if we could move in the direction of
something that was not a huge new interim storage that was
unachievable, where you had to go out and find three sites and
plow up the country, but rather to look at it from the
standpoint as we did in the bill.
Mr. Sproat, you know we said that we're going to take it
all over and own it, so immediately the consumer is not going
to pay for it anymore. We got rid of that, right? The U.S.
Federal Government is responsible for that. We took the cap off
the trust fund, so we had the trust fund to spend. And then we
said let's see if we can move around within States and make
some readjustments here and there.
In any event, even if this plan works, which there is more
and more negative testimony about whether we could get it done,
we're going to be 40 years moving it because we can only move
3,000 tons a year, as a matter of what has been told to us.
That's the capacity of the United States, on its railroads and
other things, to move it. Is that a correct statement?
Mr. Sproat. I believe it is, Senator.
The Chairman. So that's a long, long time. In my opening
remarks, I said we'd still be moving it, if everything went
well, and even if we expanded the capacity to 240,000 tons
instead of 70,000, we would still be moving it past the year
40, which means it would be in an interim status for a huge,
long, long period of time.
Now, Mr. Sproat, as an expert, doesn't that fact that
that's going to happen in all events give some life to the
notion that recycling is really important?
Mr. Sproat. Yes, Senator, it does. I believe recycling is
very important for a number of reasons. Interim storage, the
need for interim storage, when you look at the issue of
reducing the Government and the taxpayers' liability associated
with nonperformance, is obviously one consideration. Obviously
the economics of nuclear power in the future is really, in my
mind, is the key driving issue around recycling and making sure
we have enough uranium and enough nuclear fuel to power the
future reactors. That's probably the major driver, I would
think, in terms of----
The Chairman. Well, a secondary if not major driver is, you
dramatically alter the waste load, too. You don't have the same
kind of waste, right?
Mr. Sproat. No, that's correct, you would not have the same
type of waste.
The Chairman. Much smaller quantity, much smaller in
toxicity. You need to establish in between there, which you
would have to, a breeder reactor, which I note the
distinguished Senator from Nevada today said we probably made a
mistake. He was alluding to the breeder reactor. I think he's
understanding what's going on here. If we had had the breeder
reactor, the Clinch River breeder reactor, we would be looking
at a real fix in terms of the technology for changing waste to
a much smaller quantity to put in this facility you're
licensing.
Mr. Sproat. Well, the technology to transmute is still
somewhat theoretical and undemonstrated, so there's questions
of how long that will take to allow us to get the point where
we have a commercially viable process that will allow us to
transmute and actually come up with a smaller volume out of the
waste stream.
And so I just want to make sure that as we look at the
issues associated with recycling and interim storage,
anticipation of recycling and volume reduction, that it really
is an economic discussion that has to be based on the time
frames that we can reasonably expect to get to commercially
viable processes which allow us to do this, because those
processes are not commercially available today.
The Chairman. Mr. Sproat, you are not correct in what you
say. Transmutation, I am not talking about transmutation. I'm
talking about the French process using MOX as a source, as a
means. That's not transmutation. They are able to handle 3,000
tons a day. By accident, it's the same equivalent amount. You
run it through their machine, it comes out as a different
process.
Mr. Sproat. Yes, it does.
The Chairman. And that process, the thing that comes out
there does not require transmutation.
Mr. Sproat. That's correct, but the volume reduction,
significant volume reduction, does require some transmutation.
The Chairman. Well, the volume reduction can come from
reusing that fuel that comes out of that MOX facility, plus
having a----
Mr. Sproat. A chemical process that can----
The Chairman. Yes, plus a breeder reactor attached onto it.
That's not transmutation, and that reduces it dramatically,
doesn't it?
Mr. Sproat. That's correct.
The Chairman. I think that will be the proposal that will
be forthcoming, believe it or not, this year, with the $250
million that we have appropriated for GNEP, Senator Craig. I
think the administration plans to ask for a plan for what you
called transmutation, I would call it recycling.
Mr. Sproat. I understand.
The Chairman. That would be over on the side. You ought not
be objecting.
Mr. Sproat. Certainly not. I'm not objecting to that at
all.
The Chairman. It doesn't take the place of this, but it
sure is an interim storage--it says to interim storage, there
may be a solution for that interim storage, for a lot of it,
besides Yucca, at some point in time.
Mr. Sproat. Yes.
The Chairman. It may go another way.
Mr. Sproat. That's absolutely correct.
The Chairman. I think it will. I mean, if it doesn't, we're
in bad shape, in my opinion.
Let me see. I had one for Mr. Wright. This week FERC
approved a $16 million increase for the owners of Yankee, a
shut-down reactor, to reflect the cost of the spent fuel
storage before 2010. I guess you might get that soon. It will
cross your desk when you read the news.
In 2004 Yankee Rowe estimated that its damage for
government failure to meet its 1998 deadline to move fuel would
be $231 million if Yucca Mountain opened in 2010 and all the
fuel moved by 2020. Today we have heard that Yucca will open in
2017. That's the earliest date, and this is just one plant I'm
talking about.
Mr. Wright. Yes.
The Chairman. So, Mr. Wright, today FERC is passing those
costs along to the consumer. Is this an acceptable solution? If
not, what do you suggest we do about it?
Mr. Wright. Well, Mr. Chairman, I have not read about that
yet because I haven't been in the office.
The Chairman. I hope it's understandable, what I said.
Mr. Wright. I would like to make just a couple of points.
In South Carolina already, the Savannah River sites there, I
kind of think we know a little bit about what interim storage
is, not that we want to be permanent, but we do understand that
we do have the waste there.
I think that what you're trying to accomplish is to turn
waste into a resource, which we're for. And I believe that the
association that I'm speaking for and my State would agree with
that, whether it be a MOX facility or any other type, because
it would reduce ultimately the waste that would go into Yucca
Mountain.
I think that what we're curious about is that while you're
talking about the interim storage facilities proposed, there
are two facilities that haven't been addressed. One is actually
at Yucca, and the second is the private fuel storage facility
in Utah, that haven't made the discussion, and we're just
curious as to that. We'd like to maybe see some discussion take
place there, too.
But for the ratepayer it's all about keeping costs low.
That's what it's about, and anything that you, this committee
can do and the Congress can do to affect that is going to be
well received by utility commissioners and by customers around
the country. So, I mean, not to dodge your question
specifically about the Maine Yankee thing, but it doesn't have
a lot for me in South Carolina.
The Chairman. All right. I think that some of you asked
that your statements be made a part of the record as you
talked, and I didn't do it as a matter of record. I'll do that
now, for all those statements.
I yield now to Senator Bingaman.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to
do a followup question. I asked you, Mr. Sproat, about whether
this legislation authorized the construction of this railroad,
and I think you said it did not.
Mr. Sproat. That is correct.
[Clarification from the Department of Energy: On page 62 of
the transcript, line 3, and page 79, line 20, Senator Bingaman
asked if the proposed legislation S. 2589 entitled the
``Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act'' would authorize
the construction of the railroad. The proposed legislation does
not authorize construction of the rail line to Yucca Mountain,
it merely clarifies that receipt of the repository construction
authorization from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not a
prerequisite for commencing construction of the rail line. The
Department still would need to comply with all applicable legal
requirements, including those established by the National
Environmental Policy Act, in order to proceed with construction
and operation of the rail line.]
Senator Bingaman. I'm reading over on page 14 and 15 of the
bill, and it seems to me to say very specifically that it does.
It says at any time before or after the Commission issues a
final decision on an application from the Secretary, under this
subsection, ``the Secretary may undertake infrastructure
activities,'' and then it goes on to say ``including
infrastructure activities such as'' and the third one down is
the construction of a rail line to connect Yucca Mountain with
the national rail network.
Mr. Sproat. Senator, the intent of that section is to make
it clear that the environmental review associated with building
that railroad is a connected activity associated with licensing
Yucca Mountain, and it is not under the purview of the NRC. In
other words, we don't need an NRC license to build the
railroad, and the NRC doesn't need to conduct the environmental
review of the railroad. It is not intended as an authorization
to build the railroad.
Senator Bingaman. I see.
Mr. Sproat. That's the intent. I can't speak to whether or
not the words are--what they do or don't do, since I'm not an
attorney.
Senator Bingaman. Okay. Well, we'll need to look at that
and be sure that it does not in fact constitute an
authorization for construction of the railroad, because I would
read it the other way right now, but I appreciate that.
That's all I had. Thank you very much.
Senator Craig [presiding]. There are no further questions
from those of us of the committee, and we thank all of you
again for being with us. We will be submitting some questions
to you for response in writing, for the record, and again we
thank all of you for your focus on this issue.
With that, the committee will stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[The following statement was received for the record:]
Statement of LeRoy Koppendrayer, Chairman, Minnesota Public Utilities
Commission and Chairman, Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition
Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the Committee, the
Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition (NWSC) appreciates this opportunity to
present a Statement for the Record regarding a hearing on S. 2589, to
enhance the management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-
level radioactive waste, to ensure protection of public health and
safety, to ensure the territorial integrity and security of the
repository at Yucca Mountain, and for other purposes.
ABOUT THE NWSC
The Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition (NWSC) is an ad hoc group of
state utility regulators, state attorneys general, electric utilities
and associate members representing 46 member organizations in 26
states. The NWSC was formed in 1993 out of frustration at the lack of
progress DOE had made in developing a permanent repository for spent
nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLRW), as well as
Congress's failure to sufficiently fund the nuclear waste disposal
program (Program). The mission and purpose of the NWSC is to seek on
behalf of the ratepayers of the United States:
1) The removal of commercial spent nuclear fuel from more
than 73 temporary commercial storage sites located in 33
states.
2) The authorization of a temporary, centralized commercial
spent nuclear fuel storage facility.
3) The allocation of appropriate funds from the Nuclear Waste
Fund (NWF) by the U.S. Congress to the DOE so that it will
fulfill its statutory and contractual obligations.
4) The augmentation of transportation planning and
regulations to facilitate transportation systems.
5) The capping of the NWF payments at the present one-tenth
of a cent per kilowatt-hour by the U.S. Congress.
6) The operation of the permanent repository as soon as
possible.
NUCLEAR WASTE FUND REFORM
NWSC members believe it is vitally important that Congress and the
Administration work together to ensure the Program is funded in a
manner that will allow the DOE to implement the Federal Program in
accordance with the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, amended (NWPA). The
Program is already in default of its requirement to open a facility by
1998, and is slipping further behind schedule. It is imperative that a
long-term fix of the current funding process be implemented and we urge
Congress to fast track legislation that reclassifies the fees paid into
the NWF as offsetting collections in the 109th Congress.
The NWSC is not calling for carte blanche funds for the DOE without
Program oversight. Over the years, the NWSC has been very supportive of
the OCRWM program and worked to ensure that Congress appropriate
sufficient funds for the nuclear waste transportation and disposal
program. We continue those efforts today as we are working very hard
for passage of comprehensive legislation that reforms the NWPA.
Congress has an opportunity to fast track comprehensive legislation in
the 109th Congressional session to enhance the management and disposal
of SNF and HLRW, ensure protection of public health and safety and
territorial integrity and security of the permanent repository.
Moreover, reforming the annual funding for the Program, assures the 41
states' ratepayers that their payments into the NWF are being used for
their intended purpose--the removal of SNF and HLRW from commercial
nuclear power plants.
The members of the NWSC are supportive of S. 2589, the Nuclear Fuel
Management and Disposal Act of 2006, introduced by Chairman Domenici at
the request of the Administration. We note that S. 2589 would provide
funds through the end of the fiscal year during which construction is
completed for the Nevada rail line and surface facilities for the fully
operational permanent repository. In addition, fees collected by the
DOE and deposited in the NWF, shall be credited to the NWF as
discretionary offsetting collections each year in amounts not to exceed
the amounts appropriated from the NWF for that year. Most importantly,
Congressional oversight of the Program funding will continue, similar
to the annual appropriations process of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and the Corps of Engineers.
The DOE recently announced a new schedule to begin receiving SNF
and HLRW at the permanent repository by March 31, 2017. As stated by
Ward Sproat, Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
during recent hearings, this schedule can only be achieved by, ``. . .
the enactment of pending legislation proposed by the Administration,''
that includes the reclassification of the NWF receipts as offsetting
collections. Only a long-term funding fix will enable the DOE to stay
on schedule; submit a high-quality licensing application; foster
exemplary standards of quality assurance, accountability and integrity
in the Program's activities; and implement a transportation
infrastructure systems plan that meets the deadlines it sets.
NUCLEAR WASTE FUND
There are adequate funds available to implement the Federal policy
for permanent disposal of SNF and HLRW. That statement is conditioned
on the premise that Congress will vote to support its own legislation--
Congress has failed to support the NWPA. Since 1983, ratepayers from 41
states have paid more than $27 billion, including interest, into the
NWF to fund the DOE's establishment of a safe, timely, and cost-
effective centralized storage and permanent disposal of SNF and HLRW.
The nation's ratepayers pay more than $750 million per year into the
NWF, and with interest credits, this amount exceeds $1 billion
annually. After deducting expenses to date, the fund now holds
approximately $18 billion, including interest. This account balance has
been used to support other programs and camouflage the Federal deficit
rather than the development of the permanent repository. Consequently,
more than 50,000 metric tones of SNF and HLRW are presently stranded at
more than 100 sites (commercial and defense) in 39 states. Congress'
support to codify the NWF annual receipts will ensure that every cent
collected from the ratepayers will be delivered to the Program, as
intended by the NWPA.
LAWSUITS
It is more than eight years since the DOE defaulted on its
obligations, as stated in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, to
remove SNF from the nation's nuclear power plants. In its 1996 Indiana-
Michigan decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed that the DOE was
obligated to start moving waste on January 31, 1998, ``without
qualifications or condition.'' The DOE ignored the Court, prompting 46
state agencies and 36 utilities to again seek relief through the
Courts. The DOE has meanwhile ignored repeated Court orders to begin
moving waste from commercial nuclear plant sites on the grounds that it
has yet to build a permanent repository and has no authority to provide
an interim storage and transport of high-level nuclear material from
plant sites. Several lawsuits are currently being heard in the U.S.
Court of Claims and could find the DOE liable for several billions of
dollars in damages due to its failure to meet its 1998 obligations.
Further, the 11th Circuit Court of the U.S. Court of Appeals has
already ruled that these damage payments will not come from the Nuclear
Waste Fund. Consequently, Congress will have to choose where the funds
should come from and which programs will be affected. If the DOE fails
to meet the deadlines it sets, the financial liability the DOE faces
through lawsuits will continue to mount. As the DOE continues to delay
honoring its contracts with the utilities to remove spent nuclear fuel
from plant sites, both the amount of SNF and HLRW stored and the costs
associated with storing it increase. A DOE contractor has
conservatively estimated that each year's delay will escalate Program
costs by approximately $1 billion per year for the civilian and defense
nuclear waste disposal programs. The longer Congress refuses to fully
fund the DOE requirements, the greater the potential liability will be
to the nation's taxpayers.
TRANSPORTATION--RIGOROUS SAFETY STANDARDS
The DOE has proven that it can safely transport SNF and HLRW from
plant sites across the nation. Since the 1960s, more than 3,000
shipments of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants, government
research facilities, universities and industrial facilities traveling
over 1.6 million miles, ``without a single death or injury due to the
radioactive nature of the cargo.'' \1\ This equates to more than 70,000
metric tons of SNF, an amount equal to what the NWPA authorizes for
Yucca Mountain. Shipments include 719 containers from the Naval Nuclear
Propulsion program between 1957 and 1999, and 2,426 highway shipments
and 301 railway shipments from the U.S. nuclear industry from 1964 to
1997. In addition, since 1996, shipments of spent nuclear fuel have
been safely transported to the United States from 41 countries to the
DOE facilities; \2\ again, without a single death or injury--not one.
If a repository is licensed at Yucca Mountain, the DOE projects
approximately 4,300 shipments over a 24-year period, averaging 175
shipments of spent nuclear fuel per year, a relatively small amount
compared with the approximately 300 million annual shipments of
hazardous materials (explosives, chemicals, flammable liquids,
corrosive materials, and other types of radioactive materials) that are
currently transported around the country every day.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ National Conference of State Legislatures' Report, January
2000.
\2\ U.S. Department of Energy Report to the Committees on
Appropriations, January 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Furthermore, the DOE has safely and successfully made more than
4,835 shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico
as of July 24, 2006.\3\ The Western Governors' Association (WGA) signed
an agreement with the DOE in April 1996 that affirmed regional planning
processes for safe transportation of radioactive material. All regional
high-level radioactive waste transportation committees also endorsed
the WGA approach. The WIPP transportation planning system is setting
the standard for safety and proving to be a critical step toward
solving the nations spent nuclear waste disposal transportation
program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Information Center, May 8, 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To ensure safety at on-site spent fuel storage facilities and
during transportation, the material is stored in containers that meet
the NRC's rigorous engineering and safety standards testing. To satisfy
the NRC's rigorous standards for subsequent transportation approval,
these containers have been dropped 30-feet onto an unyielding surface,
dropped 40 inches onto a 6-inch vertical steel rod, exposed for 30
minutes to a 1,475 F fire, submerged under 3 feet of water for eight
hours, immersed in 50 feet of water for at least eight hours (performed
in a separate cask), and immersed in 656 feet of water for at least one
hour.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Nuclear Regulatory Commission Testing Requirements, 10 CFR
Sections, 71.61, 71.71, and 71.73.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION
Chairman Domenici, we respect your long standing leadership in
addressing nuclear issues and nuclear waste policy. The viability of
the nuclear waste disposal program will only succeed with your
continued support and strong leadership in the U.S. Senate.
The members of the NWSC strongly urge you to work with House Energy
and Commerce Committee, Chairman Joe Barton, to implement a long-term
solution by fast tracking S. 2589 and H.R. 5360 in the 109th Congress
that helps to ensure the DOE meets the 2017 deadline; reform the annual
funding mechanism; implement a timely solution to the development of
transportation infrastructure system plans and a repository facility
that accepts material in existing and future NRC-licensed canisters and
Greater-Than-Class-C waste. Taking title of and stranding SNF and HLRW
indefinitely across the nation is not an option. The members of the
NWSC are supportive of a recycling program and new nuclear power
plants. However, these programs do not diminish in any way the need
for, or the urgency of, a permanent geologic repository at Yucca
Mountain. On the contrary, the Yucca Mountain permanent repository is
still vitally important to moving SNF and HLRW from defense and
commercial sites that cannot be recycled. Additionally, Under Section
160(b) of the NWPA, the Secretary will report to the President and
Congress on or after January 1, 2007, but not later than January 1,
2010, on the need for a second repository. The DOE has already stated
that they would start with the two-dozen candidate sites that they
looked at the first time.
We urge members of Congress to take a long-term view for the best
interests of their own state and our country. The members of the NWSC
reiterate the importance for Congress to fast track S. 2589 and H.R.
5360 to keep the DOE on target and schedule by reclassifying the NWF
annual receipts as offsetting collections to bring the nuclear waste
disposal program to fruition as promised and mandated by the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act of 1982, amended.
APPENDIX
Responses to Additional Questions
----------
Responses of DOE to Questions From Senator Domenici
PROGRAM SCHEDULE
Question 1. In your testimony you state that the ``Department
announced its plans to submit a License Application for the repository
to the NRC by June 30, 2008, and to initiate repository operations in
2017. This opening date of 2017 is a ``best-achievable schedule'' and
is predicated upon enactment of the pending legislation.''
Does the Department's plan account for litigation by the State of
Nevada?
Answer. No. The Department's schedule is the ``best achievable
schedule'' for the licensing, construction, and start of operations of
Yucca Mountain and does not account for litigation by the State of
Nevada. The Administration's proposed legislation contains provisions
that would limit the potential for delays.
NUCLEAR WASTE FUND
In your testimony you state that the ``most important factor in
moving the Yucca Mountain Project forward is the ability of the
Department to have access to the Nuclear Waste Fund to support the cash
flows needed to implement the Project.''
Question 2a. If the Congress were to take the Nuclear Waste Fund
off-budget, in the department's view, would Congress be forfeiting its
oversight responsibility as many have said, yes or no?
Explain your answer.
Answer. No. If Congress were to take the Nuclear Waste Fund off
budget it would not forfeit its oversight responsibility. How Congress
would exercise that responsibility would be dependent on the details of
the statutory provision that took the Nuclear Waste Fund off budget.
However, the funding reform provisions outlined in the Administration's
legislation do not propose to take the Nuclear Waste Fund off budget.
The Administration's proposal would still require an annual request of
funds by the Department, and Congress would retain authority to
annually appropriate funds, above or below the request. The proposal
would permit fees annually paid by utilities to offset the funds
appropriated, which is consistent with the intent of the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act. By offsetting the appropriation with a direct revenue
source, the Department's request would not have to compete for limited
discretionary resources.
Question 2b. If you had access to the corpus of the Nuclear Waste
Fund, would Congress be forfeiting its oversight responsibility?
Explain your answer.
Answer. No. The Department would expect Congress to provide access
to the corpus in a manner that provided for Congressional oversight.
S. 2589 ``NUCLEAR FUEL MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL ACT''
In your testimony you state ``the bill would withdraw permanently
from public use approximately 147,000 acres of land in Nye County,
Nevada.''
Question 3a. In developing the land withdrawal language, did the
department consult with the Department of Defense?
Answer. Yes. The Department consulted the Department of Defense,
along with other affected Federal agencies, during the development of
the Administration's legislative proposal.
Question 3b. In the departments communications with the DOD were
you told that the land withdrawal would interfere with training at
Nellis Air Force Base?
Answer. The Department of Defense did not express concern that the
land withdrawal would negatively impact or interfere with training
activities at Nellis Air Force Base.
The committee has received more input on the transportation
section, section 7 of S. 2589 than any other section. This
transportation section would make clear that the Secretary of Energy
can make the determine the extent to which any transportation done in
carrying out the Secretary of Energy's functions under the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act would be regulated exclusively under the Atomic Energy
Act of 1954.
Question 4a. Isn't it true that the Department has a long history
of cooperation with the states on transportation issues?
Answer. Yes. The Department has successfully transported nuclear
and other hazardous materials for decades and has actively involved
States and Tribes in the planning and execution of those shipments.
Question 4b. If the transportation provision in this bill was
passed, do you plan to do business any differently in terms of
cooperation with the states?
Answer. No. The Department intends to continue its current
collaborative process with States and Tribes in the planning and
execution of shipment of spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain.
Question 4c. Will [sic] provide to this committee in the next two
weeks a budget estimate for the Yucca Mountain project?
Answer. We anticipate having the revised budget estimate and cash
flow available to provide to the Committee by the end of calendar year
2006.
Responses of DOE to Questions From Senator Craig
NEW NUCLEAR REACTORS
Question 1. How many states currently prohibit construction of new
nuclear reactors before a repository is completed?
Answer. The Department is aware of eight States which currently
prohibit the construction of new nuclear power plants until there is an
approved Federal disposal facility. These States are California,
Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Oregon, Wisconsin and West
Virginia.
INTERIM STORAGE
Question 2. Could the DOE successfully implement a storage program
well before YM could begin accepting waste? At what cost?
Answer. The cost and the time required to site, license and build
an interim storage facility (ies) would depend on the size, location,
number, and available appropriations for funding these projects, as
well as the transportation routes available to those locations. If such
an effort were to be pursued in addition to the reforms contained in
the Administration's proposed legislation, however, it is unlikely that
such a facility would be available appreciably before the repository.
Moreover, without separate and additional funding for interim storage
siting, design, licensing, construction and operations and overall
funding reform for the Program, the Department would not have
sufficient resources, both human and financial, to establish interim
storage facilities and still meet its 2017 target for beginning to
accept waste for disposal at the Yucca Mountain repository.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) limits the manner in which it
can undertake interim storage of commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF)
destined for the Yucca Mountain repository. Subtitle B (Interim Storage
Program) of the NWPA provides authority for interim storage of SNF.
That provision, however, limits the quantity of SNF that the Department
could store on an interim basis to 1,900 metric tons and cannot be
used, because the authority under Section 136 of the NWPA to contract
for interim storage expired in the early 1990s.
Under Subtitle C of the NWPA, the Department presently has
authority to establish a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility,
but the construction of an MRS cannot begin until the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission issues the construction authorization for a
repository at Yucca Mountain and the capacity of the MRS is limited to
no more than 10,000 MTU until the repository is operational with a
maximum capacity of no more than 15,000 MTU. As a result, the
development of an MRS would not allow DOE to begin storage appreciably
before Yucca Mountain could begin accepting waste. If Congress were to
consider changing these limitations on interim storage, we would look
forward to working with Congress in evaluating interim storage
alternatives as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing the
Nation's nuclear waste storage needs. The Department continues to
emphasize, however, that interim storage is a temporary solution and is
not a substitute for permanent geologic disposal.
Question 3. Do you think that establishing a storage program,
whether under the direction of OCRWM or as a separate directorate
within DOE [as proposed by Domenici-Reid for CAP], would divert
attention and resources away from YM?
Answer. See response to Q2 above.
Question 4. Do you know of any states that have expressed interest
in hosting a CAP facility?
Answer. The Department is not aware of any State that has expressed
an interest in hosting a Consolidation and Preparation (CAP) facility
as proposed under the Domenici-Reid legislation.
ANNUAL FUNDING
Question 5. What level of annual funding do you estimate OCRWM will
need to open the repository at Yucca Mountain by 2017?
Answer. We are currently re-evaluating the cash flows required for
meeting the March 2017 ``best achievable schedule'' and anticipate
providing revised cash flows to the Committee by the end of calendar
year 2006.
GNEP AND YUCCA MOUNTAIN 70,000 MTHM LIMIT
Question 6. Would you please explain the connection between GNEP
and the legislated limit of 70,000 metric tonnes of waste to be
disposed at Yucca Mountain?
Answer. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act limits the repository to the
70,000 metric tons of heavy metal that were contained in the original
spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assemblies prior to and regardless of
reductions in volume (size) that may result from recycling through the
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) processes. Without a change in
this provision, such as that proposed by the Department, recycling
would have no effect on the amount of SNF that could be disposed of in
the Yucca Mountain repository.
YUCCA MOUNTAIN SCHEDULE
Question 7. The DOE has received a great deal of criticism for
missed deadlines and inadequate planning. What do you believe is
necessary to prevent such problems from recurring?
Answer. Passage of the Administration's proposed legislation will
provide stability, clarity, and predictability for the Program to meet
the 2017 repository operating schedule. The legislation simplifies and
expedites the regulatory framework and provides adequate and
predictable funding source, and authorizes the timely development of
vital infrastructure activities to start operations in 2017.
Question 8. To what degree do you think opposition from the state
of Nevada has delayed this project?
Answer. While opposition by the State of Nevada certainly has
impeded progress of the Yucca Mountain Project, it is hard to quantify
the delay attributable to such opposition.
Question 9. Where do you think the project would be at this time if
adequate funding had been provided for the last ten or fifteen years?
Answer. It is likely that the Department would have commenced the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process for the repository and
possibly would have begun or even completed construction of the
repository.
SCHEDULE FOR TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Question 10. Do you believe DOE will have the necessary
transportation infrastructure in place when YM is ready to accept waste
as early as 2017? Can you do so with your existing resources?
Answer. The Department's recently announced schedule includes the
development of the necessary transportation infrastructure to support
waste acceptance operations at Yucca Mountain in 2017, assuming the
adoption of the Administration's legislation. Without adoption of the
Administration's legislation the Department will not have the stable
and predictable funding needed for large transportation procurements
such as the rail line.
WORKING WITH STATES AND TRIBES
Question 11. If the regulatory provisions in this bill were passed,
would DOE do business any differently in terms of cooperation with the
states, tribes and local governments?
Answer. No. The Department intends to continue its current
collaborative process with States, Tribal and local governments on the
planning and execution of shipment of spent nuclear fuel to Yucca
Mountain.
WASTE ACCEPTANCE
Question 12. Will Navy & DOE Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-level
waste currently being stored in Idaho be received at the Initial Fuel
Handling Facility as soon as it opens?
Answer. The Initial Fuel Handing Facility is being designed to
handle Navy and most forms of DOE and high-level waste. The 1995
settlement agreement between DOE, the Navy, and the State of Idaho
provides that naval spent fuel stored in Idaho shall be among the early
shipments of spent fuel to the first repository or interim storage
facility.
TADS
Question 13. Are there any R&D needs that must be addressed before
deploying the Transport, Aging, and Disposal (TAD) canister, and if so
what is the schedule for addressing these needs, and are adequate funds
available?
Answer. No, the Department does not believe there are any R&D
issues to be addressed before deploying the transport, aging, and
disposal canister.
Responses of DOE to Questions From Senator Allen
Mr. Sproat, as you are aware, the Department is facing over 60
lawsuits by current and former nuclear power plant operators seeking
damages caused by the Government's failure to construct a permanent
nuclear waste repository and place it into operation by 1998, as the
Government had contractually agreed to do. The Government has settled a
couple of these suits, lost a couple of these suits, and has yet a
[sic] win a single one. As I understand it, most (if not all) of these
lawsuits have withstood motions to dismiss by the Government, and
therefore all that remains is the determination of damages.
[Note: These questions were submitted at the request of a Virginia
constituent:]
LIABILITY
Question 1. Assuming DOE were to lose all of the suits currently
pending on this topic in the Claims Court, what is the Government's
projected aggregate liability as of today?
Answer. The plaintiffs in the litigation have not fully quantified
damages claimed in these cases nor has the Government estimated what
amount may be awarded by the Court should the Government not prevail in
any of these cases.
Question 2. Assuming, as has been projected, that the permanent
repository is not completed until 2017, what would the Government's
projected aggregate liability be as of 2017?
Answer. Based upon the settlements entered into by the Government
to date, the Department has estimated the Government's potential
liability in the spent fuel lawsuits to be on the order of $7 billion,
assuming the Yucca Mountain repository begins operation in 2017.
Question 3. Has the Department formally assessed this contingent
liability, i.e. ``handicapped'' its chances of losing or prevailing in
these lawsuits and estimated what the Government's losses might be?
Answer. The government assumes it will prevail in all its cases and
does not ``handicap'' its chances of losing or prevailing in lawsuits.
For potential liability purposes, Department has estimated the
Government's liability in the spent fuel lawsuits, as noted in the
previous answer.
Question 4. What steps has the Department taken to mitigate this
contingent liability, either retrospectively by exploring settlement
options, or prospectively, by exploring ways to at least stay the
mounting bill such as interim storage until the permanent repository is
completed?
Answer. The Department of Justice represents the United States in
defending these lawsuits. The Department has actively supported the
Department of Justice in the ongoing litigation, as well as in
negotiating settlements of the spent fuel lawsuits as an effort to
limit the liability. The Department of Justice has entered into three
settlement agreements and negotiations are underway with several other
contract holders.
Question 5. You've stated publicly that you want to settle these
cases. How exactly does a plaintiff in one of these Claims Court suits
go about initiating a settlement process with the Government?
Answer. The plaintiffs should have their attorneys contact the
Government's attorneys at the Department of Justice to express an
interest in entering into settlement discussions.
Question 6. In your opinion, what impact does the Government's
failure to resolve these outstanding claims have on the development of
new nuclear construction?
Answer. The ongoing litigation over the delay in spent fuel
acceptance should have little or no impact on the development of new
nuclear power plants. The Government's commitment to accept and dispose
of all spent nuclear fuel generated by existing nuclear power plants
remains unaffected by the temporary delay. The Government is prepared
to enter into new contracts with owners of new nuclear power plants to
dispose of spent nuclear fuel generated by these new facilities.
Responses of DOE to Questions From Senator Bingaman
S. 2589 ``NUCLEAR FUEL MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL ACT''
Question 1. Please provide the Committee with a copy of each of the
Public Land Orders and accompanying conditions or memoranda of
understanding referred to in section 3(b)(1), the project right-of-way
reservations N-48602 and N-47748 referred to section 3(b)(2), and the
map referred to in section 3(c)(1).
Answer. The following have been retained in committee files:
1. Public Land Orders 6802 (best available copy) and 7534.
(Enclosure 1)
2. Copies of Right-of-Way Reservations N-47748 (dated January
5, 2001) and N-48602 (please note that the most recent renewal
of ROWR N-48602 is dated April 8, 2004). (Enclosure 2)
3. Map YMP-03-024.2, dated July 21, 2005, and entitled
``Proposed Land Withdrawal.'' This map generally depicts the
proposed land withdrawal area boundaries. An electronic copy of
this map is also provided. (Enclosure 3)
Question 2. Please provide the Committee with a list of the mining
claims referred to in section 3(e)(2)(F)(ii).
Answer. A copy of the Bureau of Land Management Mining Claim
Geographic Report, dated August 15, 2006, is provided. This report was
obtained from the Bureau of Land Management's LR-2000 on-line database.
The Mining Law of 1872 is administered by the U.S. Department of
the Interior, Bureau of Land Management. The official records related
to mining claims are maintained by the Bureau of Land Management.
(Enclosure 4)
Question 3. Please explain the purpose and intended effect of
section 3(e)(2)(F)(iv) [sec]. Is the Cind-R-Lite mining claim a ``valid
existing right'' protected by section 3(a)(1)? If so, is it necessary
to say that the claim ``shall not be affected by establishment of the
Withdrawal''? Or is clause (iv) simply intended to exempt the Cind-R-
Lite mine from the mining prohibition in section 3(e)(2)(F)(I)?
Answer. The proposed legislation recognized that valid existing
mining rights occurred within the land withdrawal area. Section
3(e)(2)(F) addresses mining rights. Subsection (i) precludes any new
mining claim applications and provides a process for disposition of any
existing non-patented mining claims. Subsection (ii) addresses the sole
patented mining claim, belonging to Cind-R-Lite, which occurs within
the land withdrawal area. Cind-R-Lite, a manufacturer of cinder blocks,
holds Patent 27-83-0002 which is a 203-acre patented mining claim, the
approximate location of which is shown on Map YMP-03-024.2. A patented
mining claim is the result of the conveyance of fee title (surface and
subsurface) to a parcel of land from the United States to a private
claimant. As a result, the Federal government no longer holds title to
this parcel. If necessary to meet repository mission, Subsection (ii)
allows the Secretary, following consultation with the Secretary of the
Interior, to acquire the mine through providing just compensation.
As a ``patented'' mining claim, the operational Cind-R-Lite mine
would be a ``valid existing right'' protected by section 3(a)(1). For
that reason Section (e)(2)(f)(ii) is intended to protect that existing
claim so that it ``shall not be affected by establishment of the
Withdrawal.'' The mining prohibition in Section 3(e)(2)(F)(ii) is
intended both to protect that existing operation and to exempt it from
the mining prohibition.
Question 4. Please explain the need for section 3(f). Why does the
legislation need to hold the United States harmless from damages
suffered in the course of mining activities in subsection (f), if
mining is prohibited in subsection (e)?
Answer. The mining prohibition in section 3(e)(2)(F)(i) is not
absolute. It is subject to section 3(e)(2)(B), under which the
Secretary, in theory, could authorize mining. Several unpatented mining
claims exist within the Withdrawal's boundaries. The immunity provision
in section 3(f) (which is fairly standard in other land withdrawal
legislation) is intended to prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to
pay for injury or damages resulting from any private mining, mineral
leasing, or geothermal leasing activities that conceivably could be
authorized within the Withdrawal.
Question 5. Please explain the need for general land acquisition
authority within the Withdrawal under section 3(g) if the Withdrawal is
already owned by the United States.
Answer. To the extent that there are private in-holdings within the
Withdrawal, the land acquisition authority would permit the Secretary
to acquire them. Such authority may be particularly important if the
Secretary determines, among other things, that these private interests
conflict with the construction and operation of the repository or that
these interests interfere with the repository's ability to isolate
waste from the human environment. Land acquisition authority is a
useful tool that appears in other land withdrawal legislation.
Question 6. Please identify the ``surface facilities'' that section
4(a)(2) would exclude from the application for construction
authorization. Would a storage or ``aging'' pad be a ``surface
facility''?
Answer. The term ``surface facilities'' is intended to include
those facilities at the Yucca Mountain site that must be licensed by
NRC and thus would include a storage or ``aging'' pad. The proposed
legislation would not eliminate the need for these facilities to be
licensed before they could be constructed and operated. It would merely
make clear that they need not be included in the initial license
application if not needed for initial operation of the repository.
Question 7. Please define the term ``infrastructure activities.''
Are the items listed in clauses (i) through (iv) meant to be exclusive?
Could a storage or ``aging'' pad be considered an ``infrastructure
activity.''
Answer. The term ``infrastructure activities'' refers to actions to
support the construction or operation of the repository and which do
not themselves require an NRC license. The items listed in section
4(b)(3)(A)(i)-(iv) are examples. The list is not intended to be
exclusive. Aging pads are not ``infrastructure activities.''
Question 8. Please reconcile section 4(b)(3)(A)(iii), which lists
``the construction of a rail line to connect the Yucca Mountain site
with the national rail network,'' and the sectional analysis
accompanying the bill, which said that ``section 4 would authorize the
Secretary to undertake infrastructure activities . . . including the
construction of a rail line . . .,'' with your statements at the
hearing that section 4 would not authorize construction of the rail
line.
Answer. Section 4 does not authorize construction of the rail line.
Rather, it makes clear that construction of the rail line may commence
prior to the granting of a construction authorization for the
repository.
Question 9. Please explain the purpose and intended effect of
section 4(c). What actions ``connected or otherwise relating to the
repository'' does the Department anticipate taking ``outside the
geologic repository operations are [sic]'' that will not require a
license from the NRC?
Answer. Section 4(c) would focus NRC's responsibilities under NEPA
to all activities and facilities inside the Geologic Repository
Operations Area (GROA) and to activities and the facilities outside the
GROA requiring a license rather than non-nuclear matters outside the
GROA that do not require an NRC license, such as the listed
infrastructure activities. This section would not affect the NEPA
responsibilities of DOE and other agencies with respect to these
facilities and activities.
Question 10. Please identify any conceivable ``infrastructure
activities'' that may be ``necessary or appropriate to support
construction or operation'' of the repository under section 5(b) of the
bill that are not also ``necessary or incident to such repository''
within the meaning of section 302(d)(5) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
of 1982.
Answer. The proposed language in Section 5(b) is not intended to
expand the scope of facilities and activities for which the Waste Fund
may be used under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Rather, it makes clear
that the Waste Fund can be used for infrastructure activities.
Question 11. Please identify any transportation expenses that would
be covered under the amendment proposed to be made by section 5(b) that
are not already covered under section 302(d)(4) of the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act.
Answer. There are no transportation expenses that are not covered
under the amendment or under Section 302(d)(4) of the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act. The proposed language clarifies that costs incurred for
transportation may include development of transportation infrastructure
(i.e. a rail line) as well as costs associated with transportation
operations. No new transportation infrastructure is contemplated by the
amendment proposed by section 5(b) that was not implicit in section
302(d)(4).
Question 12. Please identify all waste streams ``owned by the
Secretary'' that may now be subject to regulation under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act or state hazardous waste laws, but would
be exempt from such regulation if section 6(a)(1) is enacted.
Answer. All Navy and DOE SNF, as well as DOE HLW, are potentially
subject to claims that it is covered by RCRA. The intent of proposed
section 6(a)(1) is to eliminate litigation over whether such material
is covered by RCRA, because the use of NRC certified canisters and NRC
regulation of the SNF and HLW at Yucca Mountain site makes RCRA
regulations unnecessary to ensure safety.
Question 13. Please identify all waste streams that may be covered
by section 6(a)(2).
Answer. Section 6(a)(2) is limited to waste streams during their
transport to the Yucca Mountain site and during their storage and
disposal at the Yucca Mountain site.
Question 14. Please describe the status of the Department's efforts
to obtain any air quality permits that may be needed for the repository
from the State of Nevada.
Answer. The Department has not filed applications for air quality
permits to support repository construction. According to State of
Nevada regulations, these applications can be filed no later than 12
months prior to the requested start of construction. For repository
construction, similar to other large construction projects, the
Department expects to file a Class I Air Quality Permit application
because of the projected emissions from air quality point sources
(e.g., batch plants, generators, and various other diesel equipments).
Under Nevada air quality regulations, actual assembly of this equipment
can not proceed until issuance of the permit and equipment assembly
must be completed no later than 12 months after permit issuance. The
Department intends to file air quality applications approximately 18
months prior to the anticipated repository Construction Authorization.
To meet the Department's License Application and waste receipt
schedule, the air quality permit must be issued prior to Construction
Authorization. An additional permit, a Title V Air Quality Operating
permit, must be obtained to support repository operation. Considering
the delays, permit denials, and litigation that the Department has
encountered in water right applications with the State of Nevada, the
Department seeks to have air quality permitting actions remanded to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Question 15. Please describe the status of the Department's efforts
to acquire water rights that may be necessary for the repository from
the State of Nevada.
Answer. In 1992, the Department secured temporary water rights in
the amount of 430 acre-feet per year expiring in April 2002. In 1997,
the Department submitted to the Nevada State Engineer five applications
for permits to permanently appropriate water in the amount of 430 acre-
feet per year. The State of Nevada requires the applicant to prove that
adequate ground water resources are available, that there is no
conflict with other existing water rights, and that the application is
not detrimental to the public interest. In February 2000, the State
denied the Department's permit applications on the basis that state law
effectively prohibited the development of the repository and that, as a
result, the requested use was detrimental to the public interest. The
Department successfully appealed this decision, and the U.S. District
Court remanded the issue to the Nevada State Engineer for further
hearing. In 2003, the Nevada State Engineer again denied the
Department's application based on a determination that the development
of a repository was detrimental to the public interest. The
Department's appeal of these decisions continues.
It is also important to note that in 2002 the Nevada State Engineer
denied the Department's request to extend its temporary water rights
while the litigation was pending on the permanent rights. As a result,
the Department's field activities at Yucca Mountain were significantly
impacted for nine months. During this nine month period, the Department
was forced to utilize only water that had been previously stored in
tanks on site. Only limited operations were allowed to continue at the
site. Additionally, other restrictions were put into place including
the prohibition of site worker use of restrooms in favor of porta-johns
and hand-wash stations, and limited field activities due to the
inability to provide water for dust suppression as required under the
State of Nevada issued Air Quality permit. The State Engineer at this
same time also revoked a previously issued approval for a major aquifer
test planned at the Alluvial Tracer Complex, approximately 15 miles
south of the Exploratory Studies Facility. This test would have
provided additional information on saturated zone flow and transport at
the connection of the shallow alluvial and the volcanic water tables.
In December 2002, the court recognized the Department's right to
maintain the status quo during litigation and imposed a Joint
Stipulation allowing for ground water pumping supporting potable water
use. A similar agreement in June 2003 secured ground water for non-
potable use (e.g., scientific testing, and air quality dust abatement).
To meet the requirements of 10 CFR 63.121, the Department must
demonstrate to the NRC that water rights adequate to support
construction and operation of a geologic repository have been secured.
While the Department has affirmed that existing water is available, and
that there are no apparent conflicts with other right holders, it is
unlikely that the Nevada State Engineer will reverse previous rulings
that a geologic repository is detrimental to the public interest of the
people of Nevada.
Question 16. In his prepared statement, Mr. Wright stated that
``ratepayers have paid $25 billion in fees and interest'' into the
Nuclear Waste Fund. Mr. Beasley stated that ``ratepayers . . . have
paid over $27 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund. . . .'' The
Department has previously indicated that the ratepayers have paid
$14.276 billion in fees, and interest on the balance has accrued in the
amount of $10.572 billion. How much have the ratepayers paid? Who pays
the interest? Is it fair to count the interest payments as ratepayer
contributions?
Answer. As of December 31, 2005, ratepayers have paid $14.276
billion in fees, and interest on the balance has accrued in the amount
of $10.572 billion. Interest is earned by the Nuclear Waste Fund
through investment in Government securities. The interest earned by the
fund is not considered a ratepayer contribution. Expenditures from the
fund through December 31, 2005, have totaled $6.576 billion leaving a
balance in the fund of $18.272 billion.
______
Responses of David Wright to Questions From Senator Domenici
Question 1. In your testimony you state that ``without the
repository, spent nuclear fuel continues to accumulate and be stored in
places that were never designed or permitted for indefinite storage.
Spent fuel would be stored at 72 locations along rivers and lakes in 34
States instead of in a more secure, well-designed repository.''
Given the history of the program, are you confident that Yucca
Mountain will open according to the new schedule in 2017?
Answer. Sadly, based on past history of the repository program, we
are not confident the repository will open in 2017. In the April 18,
1983 Federal Register, DOE made this statement, ``The 1998 date (to
begin permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel) is called for in the
Act, and we believe it to be a realistic date. Our performance will be
judged by meeting that date.'' We are pleased and encouraged to have
the new Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
so enthusiastic and committed to submitting the construction license to
the NRC in 2008, but we have seen similar schedules before that were
not met, for one reason or another. We have confidence he will do his
best to be ready to submit the license in 2008. We agree with his
cautionary forecast that there is ``zero probability that the
repository will open in 2017 without the pending legislation,''
referring to S. 2589.
Likewise, although we support the reform of the NWF appropriations
process provided for in Section 5 of S. 2589, we are not optimistic of
its enactment. There are two reasons for that outlook:
Legislation pertaining to nuclear waste disposal tends to
not get passed in the Senate.
We have concluded that many members of Congress like the
status quo in which, for example in FY 2006, 87 percent of the
NWF fee revenue gets to be used for other government purposes
unrelated to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Even if S. 2589 were to be enacted, we note the DOE disclaimer that
the 2017 date is the ``best-achievable schedule.'' For example, it
assumes the NRC license review will be complete in the three years
provided for in the NWPA (a fourth year can be requested if needed.)
Although there is a commendable pre-licensure exchange between DOE and
the NRC, this will be a complex license such as has never been done
before and we know there will be sustained involvement in the process
by parties to the license that could lengthen the review. As a
reference point, the license action for the existing technology spent
fuel storage proposed by PFS in Utah, took eight years to be completed.
We have yet to see the latest surface facility design for the
repository, but both surface and subsurface construction will need to
be well planned, executed and subject to licensing inspection
requirements and could encounter any number of delays. Maybe it is
possible to complete construction for initial repository operations in
four and one-half years, as the latest schedule shows, but there is no
history of building a geologic repository to give us confidence that
that will be how long it takes at Yucca Mountain. We do not know, for
example, whether the State of Nevada will cease to oppose the project
once it is licensed by the NRC or it will continue its present policies
unabated. That could make a difference, regardless of whether the
construction proceeds smoothly or not.
Question 2. What's NARUC's back-up plan should the project not open
to receive spent fuel in 2017?
Answer. NARUC and its utility commission members are not direct
parties in spent fuel management. The parties directly involved are
DOE, the owners and operators of the reactors and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission which licenses both reactors and on-site spent
fuel storage. There is potentially a fourth party at the federal level.
The Department of Homeland Security has maintained an interest in spent
fuel storage at both active and shutdown reactor sites. The National
Academy of Sciences has studied safety of spent fuel storage at reactor
sites and has made recommendations to the NRC. There may be reasons
that we are not privy to that may warrant certain actions to further
protect spent fuel storage.
We imagine the utilities would continue to add more dry cask
storage if DOE does not meet the 2017 date. That simply means more
liability for the government to pay damages with the open-ended
lawsuits that have had judgments and the others that are still in
litigation.
Some State utility commissions have looked into some means of
escrowing NWF fee payments in view of the government's partial breach,
but the utilities that actually make the fee payments, have been
reluctant to take such steps that might complicate the ongoing waste
acceptance delay litigation with DOE or which might place their
operating license in jeopardy. With over $25 billion having been added
to the NWF in fees and interest, some State may want to press the
escrow notion further. You can understand how helpless some States
might seem in this.
Question 3. If Yucca Mountain opens to receive spent fuel in 2017,
how long can you (states) await shipment? 40 years? 50 years? 90 years?
Answer. As stated earlier, this would be a matter among the
utilities, the NRC and DOE. There may also be site-specific limits on
how much spent fuel can accumulate. There is also the question of the
service life of the reactors themselves that may have a bearing on
decisions by the utility owners. From what we understand of the next
generation of nuclear plants being considered, the new plant designs
offer considerable technological and economic advantages that would
likely be weighed by the owners. As far as the States are concerned,
there would be at least two considerations. We would want to have the
benefits of reliable and economic electricity generation, while having
assurance that the legacy of spent fuel is well managed by the utility
until the federal government fulfills its obligation to accept the fuel
for either interim storage elsewhere, reprocessing or disposal--all of
which are to be performed away from current reactor sites.
I cannot forecast how all States and the public may feel about how
long they can wait for spent fuel to be removed from present reactor
sites if the repository is ready to accept spent fuel in 2017, but it
would seem that if the repository does open then, it will show some
promise that the disposal process has at last begun and then other
measures might be taken. By then, we will know more about the technical
and economic prospects for reprocessing. By then, DOE and NRC might
have concluded that the full physical capacity of Yucca Mountain can be
utilized if the 70,000 MT statutory limit is lifted.
Looking 40 to 90 years ahead, it may become a matter of national
security to consolidate spent fuel storage in a few government secured
and operated central storage facilities to protect against future
threat conditions that may arise.
Question 4. How would you handle accumulations while waiting?
Answer. Subject to site limitations and public concerns or
acceptance, the utilities might continue to incur added costs to add
additional dry cask storage (with the likelihood that the government
will eventually be financially liable.) Some utilities might relocate
and consolidate spent fuel storage at the PFS site or another that
might be developed elsewhere. We would foster having the federal
government take responsibility for its failure and develop and operate
an interim storage facility.
Maybe the Consolidation and Preparation facilities proposed in the
FY 2007 Energy and Water Development appropriations bill in the Senate
will have led to the establishment of State or regional interim storage
facilities. That would put DOE more in charge of spent fuel management,
but we are unable to foresee how Congress could authorize use of the
Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for those interim storage costs --as the bill
proposes--and still provide sufficient annual appropriations to make
progress on the repository. We know the forecast revenue with
confidence--short of some industry-wide reversal of production success.
We do not know either the cost of the CAP program nor have we seen yet
a projection of repository program needs to make 2017. Our hunch is
that by around 2010, if the CAP approach meets some success, there will
come a point at which simultaneous execution of the repository and some
CAP storage will require more funds than the annual NWF revenue and the
Congress will have to tap the NWF balance.
Responses of David Wright to Questions From Senator Craig
Question 1. Do you believe interim storage should be a priority for
DOE?
Answer. Yes, however it should be managed by a separate DOE
organizational unit other than the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management to avoid distracting OCRWM from developing the repository.
It seems to us that DOE presently lacks a sense of obligation to
mitigate the effects of its failure to begin waste acceptance in 1998
and its partial breach of contracts. It is as though the matter has
been turned over to the courts, whereas in the business world if a
service provider is not meeting agreed performance terms of a contract
there is a best practice by most responsible contractors to try to
provide mitigation to help their customer work around the delay and the
inconvenience it causes. Where that does not occur, there is always the
threat or actual stopping of payments. Here we have a ``contractor''
(DOE) which is going to be at least 19 years late in meeting a
contracted obligation, yet the customers are compelled by law to
continue to make payments in advance of the promised service.
We found the suggestion by the House Energy and Water Development
Subcommittee two years ago to develop interim storage on DOE
installations attractive and could have provided some storage relief on
a timely and economic basis. The physical practicalities of setting up
such a stopgap accommodation seem to be subordinate to political and
financial considerations. We note that DOE seems able to ship and store
foreign research reactor fuel at DOE sites rather routinely. Yet, DOE
has foreclosed the possibility of doing the same for its utility
``customers'' with which it has signed contracts.
The failure to meet the NWPA 1998 waste acceptance mandate may not
rise to the crisis proportions that DOE sometimes is drawn into to
address, such as post-Katrina gas and oil supply disruption, the 2003
electric blackout or the BP North Slope oil field pipeline shutdown.
That may be because the nuclear industry is almost coping too well: it
has not let the government's failure disrupt its ability to continue
providing 20 percent of the Nation's electricity. That does not mean
DOE should not seek to take reasonable (and not logistically difficult)
measures to mitigate the consequences of the continued repository
delay.
Question 2. Do you believe that an interim storage plan can be
implemented in a timely manner--that is, before Yucca opens and begins
to accept waste?
Answer. There is one possibility that would seem able to begin
interim storage within this decade. The Private Fuel Storage LLC
proposed spent fuel storage facility in Skull Valley, Utah was licensed
in 2005 to provide temporary storage for up to 40,000 tons of spent
fuel. In December 2005, PFS Chairman Parkyn wrote to Chairman Domenici
and other congressional leaders offering to either have DOE take title
to spent fuel now at commercial reactors and enter into a storage
contract with DOE or have the utilities retain title to their fuel
which would be stored at PFS with DOE reimbursing the utilities for
their costs. The offer was made to provide storage for around $60
million per year and to start in three years.
PFS followed up by sending the offer to DOE. There has been no
response that we are aware of, but the Deputy Secretary of Energy was
quoted in a Utah newspaper in March 2006, saying, ``We have never
really considered Private Fuel Storage as something consistent with our
obligations to take spent fuel under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.''
While Sec. 313 of the Senate Energy and Water Development
Appropriations bill seeks to develop interim storage in each State with
a commercial nuclear reactor, the bill excludes from consideration
storage in any State in which the NRC has authorized the construction
and operation of a commercial spent fuel storage facility, which
eliminates PFS. PFS is the only such facility that meets the conditions
for exclusion. We recommend that exclusion be stricken and DOE be
directed to investigate the possibility of using the PFS facility for
interim storage.
Can interim storage be put in place in a timely manner? Yes, it
can. There are already 35 licensed dry-cask facilities around the
country. The cask industry seems to have been readying to meet the
expected orders to provide shipping and storage containers ever since
the NWPA was enacted. The storage facilities themselves are not
particularly complicated. Site selection is likely to be contentious,
as it was in Skull Valley and even in some instances of adding dry
storage at reactor sites, as recently in Vermont and Diablo Canyon in
California. The public will want assurances that the interim storage
will not somehow become de facto permanent which is why it is important
that credible progress continue in developing the permanent repository.
Question 3. What can the utilities do to renew a sense of urgency
needed to push for timely repository development?
Answer. It remains awkward for those utilities still in litigation
to communicate directly with DOE on matters subject to litigation, but
it might be illuminating to all stakeholders, including Congress, to
have an order-of-magnitude estimate developed of the additional cost of
delay in spent fuel acceptance from the previously forecast repository
opening of 2010 to 2017. We don't know where the $500 million per year
delay cost estimate came from, but if it is still valid, there is an
additional $3.5 billion.
It would seem beneficial to tap the nuclear industry's technical
and management expertise from its cumulative experience as NRC
licensees. Perhaps DOE could develop a loaned executive program with
industry to augment the current government employee and contractor
repository development team. Congress may not realize the destabilizing
effects of nearly routine budget cuts or uncertainties of operating a
professional workforce under continuing resolutions. If there were more
stable appropriations available to the repository development, such as
would be provided by Section 5 of S. 2589, DOE could sustain a focused
sense of urgency.
It is totally outside the cautious and conservative ``nuclear
culture'' for the nuclear industry to threaten or engage in
brinksmanship as a tactic to stir a sense of urgency in developing the
repository. If anything, the industry's ``defense in depth'' in nuclear
operations works against them: if the ``primary'' spent fuel strategy
is for the government remove spent fuel from reactor sites carries a
risk of failure, then the industry norm is to have a ``secondary'' plan
as back-up. That is why, even before DOE conceded it would be unable to
meet the 1998 NWPA-mandated waste acceptance schedule, the industry
already was expanding the capacity of its cooling pools and later
installing dry-cask storage. It was not their preferred way to use
their resources, but it was the prudent course to continue their
ability to maintain operations and continue to serve their electric
customers. It is also a common trait for utilities to honor their
``obligation to serve'' the public.
I regret to say that the lack of a sense of urgency in spent fuel
disposal starts with Congress. Congress continues to ``cash the
checks,'' sent faithfully each year by the utilities, and appropriates
only a small fraction of that amount to the repository program while
freely distributing the balance for other unrelated government
purposes. Efforts, such as the reclassification of the NWF fees as
offsetting collections as proposed in S. 2589, have been made to assure
the NWF fee revenue is used solely for its intended purposes year after
year, yet the result is to continue the status quo.
______
Responses of Robert Loux to Questions From Senator Domenici
Question 1. You have said before this committee earlier this summer
that the State of Nevada never intends to work with the Department of
Energy in getting Yucca Mountain open.
Are there any circumstances where you would work collaboratively,
side-by-side if you will, with the Department--yes or no?
Answer. We would certainly work with the Department to take
reasonable and necessary steps to reclaim the site and to mitigate any
significant adverse environmental impacts caused by site
characterization activities at the site. Other than that, no.
Question 1a. If the Department submits a high quality license
application that the NRC dockets and that meets or exceeds all of the
local, state and federal requirements, is the State of Nevada prepared
to grant DOE the permits needed to construct the repository?
Answer. Mere submission of a high quality license application, in
and of itself doesn't mean that the site will necessarily receive a
construction authorization. Until such time it is premature to respond.
Question 2. Can you confirm the following data:
The Yucca Mountain Repository Program employs approximately
200 federal employees and approximately 1800 contractor
employees today?
The annual payroll for the federal employees plus benefits
is approximately $40 million?
The annual payroll for contractors is $300 million?
According to DOE, the construction of Yucca Mountain to
begin operations is expected to employee up to 2500 contractor
employees for the construction of the site, and the average
salary for construction employees will be $100,000 per year?
It is estimated that there will continue to be approximately
200 federal employees with an average salary of $100,000?
DOE estimates that the peak employment for the Nevada Rail
Project (railroad construction) is expected to be up to 2200
employees, with an average of 1400 employees over the 4-year
construction period?
After opening of the facilities the project is assumed an
estimated 1900 contractor employees with an estimated average
base salary of $125,000?
The anticipated number of federal staff that will be at the
site for operating the repository is 200 with an average salary
of $100,000?
Answer. We cannot confirm any of this data, as DOE doesn't share or
provide any information to the State of Nevada. Even the most modest
request is denied and requires a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Department even routinely denies most of these requests. The data
you cite appears consistent with DOE's Environmental Impact Statement
for Yucca Mountain. It is worth nothing that the Clark County, Nevada
economy is creating over 3000 news jobs per month.
Responses of Robert Loux to Questions From Senator Craig
Question 1. Do you think it would be in the best interest of this
country, the state of Nevada--and the taxpayers--to allow the DOE and
the NRC to expeditiously perform their duties, rather than continuing
to stall the project at every opportunity?
Answer. DOE's inability to submit a high quality license
application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a problem of the
Department's own making. Their failure to adhere to the requirements of
the NRC to comply with the Licensing Support System is an example of
the Department's incompetence that keeps it from following the law and
other regulatory requirements. It isn't the State of Nevada that keeps
DOE from proceeding.
Question 2. Would we be wrong to assume that you will never be
satisfied with the scientific work done at Yucca Mountain?
Answer. As long as the data and the process to collect that data is
flawed, Nevada will continue to challenge the scientific work at Yucca
Mountain. What scientific work that has been done suggests the site is
flawed and should abandoned, and as long as the Federal government
persists to attempting to move this scientifically unsafe site forward,
we will continue to challenge it.
Question 3. If the NRC licenses the repository will you abide by
their decision, or will you and the state of Nevada continue to impede
the Department's construction and operation of the facility?
Answer. Depending on the decision itself, we will whatever action
we deem appropriate to protect the health and safety of Nevada
citizens.
Question 4. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act directs the Secretary to
enter into a consultation and cooperation agreement with the state of
Nevada. To date, the State has consistently refused to enter into such
an agreement with the Department. Does the state have any intention of
ever entering such an agreement with the Department?
Answer. When the Department refuses to follow the law, as passed by
Congress, what value would any written agreement have?
Question 5. Are there any circumstances under which you would be
willing to work collaboratively with the Department of Energy to open a
repository at Yucca Mountain?
Answer. We would certainly work with the Department to take
reasonable and necessary steps to reclaim the site and to mitigate any
significant adverse environmental impacts caused by site
characterization activities at the site. Other than that, no.
Question 6. If the Department submits applications that meet or
exceed all local, state and federal requirements, is the State prepared
to grant DOE the permits needed to construct the repository?
Answer. Mere submission of a high quality license application, in
and of itself doesn't mean that the site will necessarily receive a
construction authorization. Until such time it is premature to respond.
Question 7. Is it not true that under this bill the State Engineer
of Nevada could still deny the Department's application for water--
based on availability and competing uses, for example--if that was
appropriate?
Answer. Preempting the State Engineer's authority, by limiting two
of the three the statutory prongs of his authority is unconstitutional
and will be challenged. Federal case law strongly supports Nevada is
this arena. The three prongs of the state engineer's authority are
intertwined and cannot be separated.
______
September 14, 2006.
Hon. Pete V. Domenici,
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission appeared
before your Committee on August 3, 2006. As a result of that hearing,
you forwarded questions that were submitted for the hearing record by
Senator Jeff Bingaman. The Commission's responses to those questions
are enclosed. Under separate letter, Commissioner Gregory B. Jaczko
intends to provide additional views.
If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to
contact me.
Sincerely,
Rebecca L. Schmidt,
Director Office of Congressional Affairs.
[Enclosure: As stated]
Responses of the NRC to Questions From Senator Bingaman
Question 1. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act defines a ``repository''
to include ``both surface and subsurface'' areas, but section 4(a) of
S. 2589 would exclude any ``surface facility'' that is not ``necessary
for initial operation of the repository'' from consideration as part of
the license application. The Commission has said, both in Chairman
Diaz's June 30 letter and in Mr. Virgilio's statement, that this
provision can be read to ``place certain surface facilities outside the
NRC's jurisdiction.''
Question 1a. Please identify the types of facilities that this
provision may exclude from the Commission's jurisdiction.
Answer. Because the terms ``necessary for initial operation,''
``infrastructure activities,'' ``safety upgrades,'' and ``site
preparation'' are not defined within S. 2589, the Commission is unable
to determine what additional facilities might also not be necessary for
initial operation. Under this provision, the Department of Energy would
make such determinations. Section 4(a) provides that an application for
construction authorization shall not be required to contain information
regarding any surface facility other than those necessary for initial
operation of the repository. Facilities other than those necessary for
initial operation would result from some of the infrastructure
activities discussed in Section 4(b) of S. 2589. Examples of
``infrastructure'' activities given in Section 4(a)(B)(3)(A) include,
but are not limited to:
(i) safety upgrades;
(ii) site preparation;
(iii) rail line construction and facilities to facilitate
rail operations; and
(iv) construction, upgrade, acquisition, or operation of
electrical grids or facilities, other utilities, communication
facilities, access roads, rail lines, and non-nuclear support
facilities.
Question 1b. Would the provision enable the Department to exclude
plans to construct spent fuel storage facilities from the license
application on the grounds that interim storage facilities are not
``necessary for initial operation of the repository''?
Answer. Yes, one possible reading of section 4(a) is that
information about any surface facilities the Department of Energy
decides it does not need for initial operation of a repository at Yucca
Mountain, such as interim facilities for surface storage, or ``aging''
of spent fuel, could be excluded from the license application under
Section 4(a) of S. 2589.
Question 1c. How might this provision affect the Commission's
statutory responsibility to protect the health and safety of the
public?
Answer. If the Department of Energy determines, under Section 4(a)
of S. 2589, that interim storage or ``aging'' of spent fuel is not
essential to operations of a repository, then the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission may not have full jurisdiction over some of the surface
facilities.
Question 2. Section 4(b) of S. 2589 authorizes DOE to ``undertake
infrastructure activities'' at the repository without NRC's prior
approval.
Question 2a. How does this provision compare with the NRC's
``limited work authorization'' rule for nuclear power plants? The
limited work authorization rule requires an NRC licensing board to make
a preliminary safety determination and environmental findings and the
NRC regulatory staff to approve the activity before the applicant can
begin work, does it not? Where are the similar protections in Section
4(b)?
Answer. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) ``limited work
authorization'' rule, 10 CFR 50.10(e), does contain the provisions
paraphrased in the question. Section 4(b) of S. 2589 does not contain
similar provisions and authorizes the Department of Energy to undertake
certain activities without NRC review or approval. Of course, section
50.10(e) of NRC's regulations does not apply to Yucca Mountain. The
current NRC regulations for Yucca Mountain contemplate some work at the
site (see 10 CFR 63.2, definition of ``commencement of construction'')
without NRC approval, but not as much work as the bill would allow.
Question 2b. Would section 4(b) enable the Department to construct
spent fuel storage facilities at the repository before applying to the
Commission for a license to receive and possess spent fuel at the site?
Answer. Yes. If the Department of Energy (DOE) determines that
spent fuel storage facilities are necessary or appropriate to support
construction or operation of a repository at the Yucca Mountain site,
or to transport wastes to the site, DOE may designate such facilities
as ``infrastructure activities,'' and construct them pursuant to
Section 4(b)(3). During the hearing on S. 2589, DOE said that the bill
was not intended to allow DOE to build unregulated storage facilities,
but the bill's language does not make DOE's stated intent clear.
Question 3. As I understand it, the NRC generally regulates
transportation packaging and security, and the Department of Energy
regulates shippers and routing.
Question 3a. How does Section 7 affect this division of authority?
Answer. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) role for Yucca
Mountain shipments is the review and approval of spent fuel and high-
level waste shipping packages, as required under Section 180(a) of the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended (NWPA). We have also
developed requirements calling for advance notification of State and
local governments prior to the transportation of spent fuel and high-
level waste under Section 180(b) of NWPA. Adoption of Section 7 would
not affect these provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and
therefore, Section 7 does not appear to affect the existing division of
authority between the NRC and the Department of Transportation (DOT).
Since the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to take title and possession
of the spent fuel at commercial reactor sites prior to shipment to
Yucca Mountain, DOE would be responsible for safety and security of the
shipments outside of NRC regulatory oversight (except for use of NRC
certified package designs). DOE has stated its intention to follow
NRC's security regulations for its shipments to Yucca Mountain.
The DOE's stated policy is also to follow the DOT regulations
governing shippers, carriers, and routing. Shipping routes are selected
by the shippers or carriers in accordance with DOT regulations. The NRC
has a role in reviewing and approving the security of selected shipping
routes for commercial spent fuel shipments, but not for shipment of
DOE-titled spent fuel.
Question 3b. Does the Atomic Energy Act give the NRC the authority,
and does it have the expertise, to regulate shipping routes?
Answer. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has broad
authority to regulate shipment of commercial radioactive material under
the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), including the routing of NRC-licensed
materials, this authority does not extend to shipments by or for the
Department of Energy (DOE).
To avoid duplication with Department of Transportation (DOT)
regulations, NRC requires, under a memorandum of understanding (MOU),
that its licensees follow DOT regulations for routing and carrier
safety. In implementing this MOU, the NRC has exempted public and
contract carriers making commercial shipments from the requirement to
have an NRC license, with the exception of carriers shipping spent fuel
and special nuclear materials. In these cases, public and contract
carriers are granted a limited general license under 10 CFR 70.20b as a
way of ensuring that physical protection measures are being implemented
during spent fuel shipments.
This has resulted in a system in which highway routes for
commercial spent fuel shipments are selected by shippers and carriers
based on DOT safety requirements, and subsequently reviewed and
approved by NRC for implementation of its security requirements. The
DOT has not implemented routing requirements for rail shipments.
However, rail routes used for commercial (not DOE) shipments of NRC-
licensed materials are reviewed and approved by NRC for compliance with
NRC security requirements. Thus, NRC's primary expertise and experience
in reviewing shipping routes for NRC licensed material is focused on
security concerns.
Question 4. Under current law, the NRC can license new nuclear
power plants, even though a nuclear waste repository is still not
available, on the basis of the Commission's ``waste confidence'' rule,
which says that the Commission has a reasonable assurance that a
repository will be available soon. Section 9 requires the Commission to
``deem'' that sufficient disposal capacity will be available ``without
further consideration.''
Question 4a. Does the Commission support Section 9?
Answer. The NRC does not object to this provision of the
legislation.
Question 4b. The Court decision that gave rise to the Commission's
waste confidence rulemaking found ``no implication that Congress
intended that the NRC ignore new knowledge or analysis in its licensing
decisions.'' Minnesota v. NRC, 602 F.2d 412, 419 (D.C. Cir. 1979).
Section 9 would require the Commission to ignore new knowledge or
analysis on the availability of waste disposal capacity in its reactor
licensing decisions, would it not?
Answer. Section 9 of S. 2589 would direct the Commission to deem,
without further consideration, that sufficient capacity will be
available in a timely manner to dispose of the spent fuel and high-
level waste from the operation of new reactors and related facilities.
In its 1990 Waste Confidence decision, the Commission concluded that
spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored without significant
environmental impact for at least 100 years, if necessary. Spent
nuclear fuel is being managed safely today and the Commission has every
expectation that it can and will be managed safely in the future with
at least the same level of protection as is in place today.
``Waste Confidence'' is a consideration in the Commission's
environmental review when deciding whether to permit the construction
or operation of a new reactor or related facility. It is not unusual
for Congress to specify the bounds of environmental reviews. Moreover,
Congress has the authority to impose such bounds. Of course, the NRC
would retain the authority to inform Congress of all relevant new
knowledge or analyses.
Question 4c. How can the Commission discharge its statutory
responsibility to ensure adequate protection of the health and safety
of the public if it is forbidden to consider whether there is
reasonable assurance that adequate waste disposal capacity will be
available in the foreseeable future?
Answer. The NRC has a statutory responsibility only with respect to
facilities within its jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction does not
include all nuclear facilities. Congress has chosen to assign
responsibility for some decisions on nuclear activities to other
agencies, and even to Congress itself. The Commission has expressed
confidence that spent fuel and high-level waste produced by nuclear
facilities can be safely disposed of and safely stored until disposal
is available. In its 1990 Waste Confidence decision, the Commission
concluded that spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored without
significant environmental impact for at least 100 years, if necessary.
Spent nuclear fuel is being managed safely today and the Commission has
every expectation that it can be and will be managed safely in the
future with at least the same level of protection in place today.
The Commission does not read Section 9 of S. 2589 as forbidding all
future consideration of the availability of future disposal capacity.
Instead, Section 9 appears to apply only in the context of decisions
about permitting construction of new reactors or related facilities.
For example, the issue of safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-
level waste will be considered in the licensing proceeding for a
geologic repository.
______
September 8, 2006.
Hon. Pete V. Domenici,
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: On August 3, 2006, Mr. Martin Virgilio, of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff, appeared before the Committee on
Energy and Natural Resources to give testimony regarding S. 2589,
``Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act.'' From that hearing, you
forwarded questions that were submitted for the hearing record. In
particular, you asked the Commission for its views on Section 9, which
presumes that sufficient capacity to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and
high-level radioactive waste resulting from reactor and related nuclear
facilities will be available in the future. This provision would
obviate the need for the Commission to make future policy decisions
regarding waste confidence.
The Commission has determined as part of the so-called ``waste
confidence rule'' at 10 CFR 51.23 that commercial spent nuclear fuel
can be safely managed at either onsite or offsite independent spent
fuel storage installations. I believe that the Commission should
continue to have the authority to make such determinations in the
future to ensure public health and safety and increase public
confidence. As a result, I believe that Section 9 should not be
retained.
Sincerely,
Gregory B. Jaczko.
______
Natural Resources Defense Council,
Washington, DC, August 30, 2006.
Hon. Pete V. Domenici,
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Domenici: Thank you again for the opportunity to
testify before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on
August 3, 2006 on S. 2589. Please find attached my responses to the
Committee's questions for the record.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me at
(202) 289-2371. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and for
including these responses in the record.
Sincerely,
Geoffrey H. Fettus,
Senior Project Attorney.
Responses to Questions From Senator Domenici
Question 1. Your testimony reviews the ``waste confidence''
rulemaking and describes NRC's findings related to the safety of spent
fuel generated at the reactor and its ultimate disposal.
What impact would consolidated dry cask storage at a location other
than the reactor site, have on your assessment of a ``waste
confidence'' determination? Interim Storage?
Answer. The consolidation of spent fuel at an interim storage site
would have no impact on our assessment of Congress codifying the
``waste confidence rule.''
First, as I stated in my testimony before the Committee, whether or
not there is adequate confidence that there will be available a
permanent solution for disposal of high-level radioactive waste and
spent nuclear fuel should be a decision made by technical experts via a
public process. A compromise on how the issue would be addressed in a
scientific and publicly acceptable manner was reached over twenty years
ago. The bill currently under consideration, S. 2589, would do away
with that carefully created process and would legislate a potential
fiction into permanent existence. Just because Congress has codified
that there will be a final, safe resting place for nuclear waste does
not necessarily mean that this is true. Put more bluntly, simply
legislating the ``waste confidence'' rule into existence does not
change the reality that the proposed Yucca Mountain is not yet
licensed, and may never be, and the fact that at this time our nation
does not currently have in place a viable, permanent solution for
commercial and defense nuclear waste.
Second, we agree with the long-held scientific consensus that the
best option for nuclear waste disposal is a deep geologic repository
that meets strict, protective environmental and public health
standards. By contrast, spending significant amounts of time and money
on ``interim'' measures could have the misguided and inappropriate
effect of distracting the nation's attention from permanent, publicly
acceptable solutions. Consolidating dry cask storage at existing sites,
under a strict security regime, would certainly be an improvement over
more years of spent fuel rods sitting in pools long after they have
cooled. But creation of an interim site, or multiple interim storage
sites, will ensure high costs and greatly increase nuclear waste
transportation prior to a final disposal solution. In short, it is an
unnecessary distraction.
Question 1a. What impact would spent fuel recycling have on your
assessment of a waste confidence determination?
Answer. None. The question of ``waste confidence'' is, again,
whether a permanent location for final disposal of defense and
commercial nuclear waste is certain within a reasonable time frame.
Even if the historically dysfunctional technologies of reprocessing
spent nuclear fuel and plutonium fast reactors could be instituted some
time in the next half century (a prospect we doubt will transpire), our
nation will still require at least one deep geologic repository.
Indeed, the current Administration has been very clear that it is
pursuing both a plutonium reprocessing and fast reactor program (the
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership of GNEP) and Yucca Mountain. Even if
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is able to develop the necessary
reprocessing, fuel fabrication, and reactor technologies required for
GNEP, the resulting waste would still include long-lived radionuclides
that would need disposal in a geologic repository. For example,
technetium, which has a half-life of 212,000 years and poses one of
greatest public health risks at the proposed Yucca Mountain site, would
be part of the resulting reprocessing waste under DOE's current plans.
DOE has indicated that they intend to store the shorter-lived
radioactive waste above ground for hundreds of years in order to put
more long-lived radioactive waste into Yucca Mountain.
Reprocessing and plutonium recycle programs in other countries have
not solved their nuclear waste problem either, and those few countries
that have adopted the technology recognize that they need deep geologic
disposal. To achieve GNEP's claimed reduction in the radioactivity of
future nuclear waste, every fourth or fifth reactor in the United
States would have to be a fast reactor. Yet, fast reactors have proved
to be highly unreliable and prone to fires from leaks of their highly
corrosive liquid sodium coolant. Fast reactors are also uneconomical,
and would cost $80 to $100 billion for the 20 to 25 fast reactors
needed to transmute the fuel annually discharged from existing U.S.
power reactors. Globally, this would add hundreds of billions to a
trillion dollars to the cost of nuclear-generated electricity and in no
way resolve the long-term waste problem.
Moreover, approximately $100 billion has already been spent
globally trying to develop a plutonium economy, but no country has
successfully commercialized reprocessing and transmutation
technologies. On the contrary, reprocessing programs in the UK, France,
Japan and the other countries are heavily dependent on overt and hidden
government subsidies and ownership. The U.S. National Academy of
Sciences estimated in 1996 that reprocessing would ``easily'' cost $100
billion just for the backlog of waste that had been produced up to that
time. Meanwhile, wastes from past defense and commercial reprocessing
in the U.S. continue to threaten major water resources, including the
Savannah River, the Columbia River, the Snake River Plain Aquifer, and
Lake Erie. Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars will ultimately be
required over several decades to cleanup nuclear weapons sites and the
failed commercial reprocessing site at West Valley, New York. This
reprocessing waste cannot be reused and is slated for deep geologic
disposal.
Thus, a misguided national program for plutonium reprocessing and
fast reactors would not alter our assessment that the ``waste
confidence rule'' should be addressed in a scientific and publicly
acceptable process, not by legislative fiat.
Question 2. Your testimony mentions that nuclear recycling in the
mid-1970's was uneconomical, environmentally unsound and represented a
serious proliferation risk.
Are you familiar with recent study by the Boston Consulting that
shows that the economics of recycling and disposal of high level waste
in Yucca Mountain are comparable to the economics of the targeted once-
through U.S. fuel cycle?
Answer. Yes, NRDC is familiar with the July 2006 study by the
Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Economic Assessment of Used Nuclear Fuel
Management in the United States. We have reviewed the study in detail
and also include herein the comments of Matthew Bunn at Harvard
University. NRDC's assessment is that the study lacked the necessary
independence and expertise to be credible, its conclusions are
therefore biased and overly optimistic, and not even its authors will
stand by its assertion that the economics of plutonium reprocessing are
cost-competitive with other forms of power generation. For example, the
report commences with a disclaimer that essentially states that the
authors stand by nothing in their report. Quoting from the first page
of the report in pertinent part:
Disclaimer: This report was prepared by The Boston Consulting
Group at the request of AREVA. BCG reviewed publicly available
information and proprietary data provided by AREVA, but did not
undertake any independent verification of the facts contained
in those source materials. Changes in these facts or underlying
assumptions could change the results reported in this study.
Any other party using this report for any purpose, or relying
on this report in any way, does so at their own risk No
representation or warranty, express or implied, is made in
relation to the accuracy or completeness of the information
presented herein or its suitability for any particular purpose.
Economic Assessment of Used Nuclear Fuel Management in the United
States, at ii (emphasis added). This disclaimer makes perfectly clear
the degree of attention readers should give to the study, but we went
ahead and assessed the document anyway.
We corresponded with Matthew Bunn at Harvard University and his
analysis and comments follow, designated by the indented bullets:
The study is replete with optimistic assumptions.
BCG assumes a unit cost for plutonium reprocessing and
mixed-oxide fuel fabrication (MOX) of $520/kgHM, far lower than
AREVA has ever managed to achieve for either process. Page 17
of the Executive Summary, for instance, includes a chart
showing BCG estimates costs per kilogram for reprocessing at
roughly one-third the costs actually achieved in France. As the
BCG authors put it, one of the ``key differentiating elements''
between their study and other studies are ``integrated plant
costs significantly lower than previously published data.'' See
Executive Summary at 14.
By contrast, the current effort to use AREVA technology and
plant designs in the United States--i.e., the construction of a
MOX plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina--is
leading to unit costs several times higher than those cited by
the report and achieved in France. This experience is not
mentioned in the BCG report, and no argument is offered as to
why the projected facility will have a cost result that is the
opposite of the real experience in this country.
Mr. Bunn continued with more specifics, addressing the specifics,
BCG arrives at its low unit cost estimates for their projected plant by
using a number of dubious assumptions:
BCG assumes that plant capacity can be scaled up
dramatically with only a minor increase in capital or operating
cost. On p. 16, for example, BCG notes that the capital cost of
the existing French facilities was $17.8 billion (in 2006
dollars), but then assumes that the capacity can be increased
by more than 50% (assuming, generously, that the two La Hague
plants should be considered to have a combined capacity of 1600
tHM/yr) with an additional capital cost of only $1.5 billion,
less than 10% of the original capital cost.
BCG assumes that the plant will always operate at full
capacity with no technical problems, no contract delays, etc.
No reprocessing plant or mixed oxide (MOX) plant in the world
has ever done so.
BCG assumes that there will never be any substantial lag in
fuel fabrication, since, to save money, the plan cuts out all
funding for having a plutonium storage area. In France, by
contrast with this wishful scenario, tens of tons of plutonium
have built up in storage as a result of lags in the use of this
plutonium as fuel. [NRDC Comment: This is a significant cost
that is simply ignored. In fact, DOE's revised GNEP plan
assumes and indeed requires a major capacity for on-site
storage of separated product at its newly proposed commercial-
scale ``Consolidated Fuel Treatment Center,'' as the revised
plan would provide 2000-3000 MTHM/yr of separation capacity
well in advance of the capacity to fabricate transmutation
fuels and burn them in a sufficient number of fast reactors].
BCG assumes government financing at a 3% rate. As in the
2003 Harvard analysis of reprocessing economics (The Economics
of Reprocessing Vs. The Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel,
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Project on
Managing the Atom, December 2003), a plant with the same
capital and operating costs and nameplate capacity as the
British reprocessing plant, THORP (whose costs are generally
similar to those of UP3), financed at such a government rate,
which successfully operated at its full nameplate capacity
throughout its life with no interruptions (a far cry from the
real experience) would have a unit cost for reprocessing alone
of roughly $1000/kgHM. By contrast to this real world
experience, BCG assumes $520/kgHM for BOTH reprocessing and MOX
fabrication combined. But if the exact same plant were financed
privately, at the rates EPRI recommends assuming for power
plants owned by regulated utilities with a guaranteed rate of
return, the unit cost would be over $2000/kgHM. If financed by
a fully private entity with no guaranteed rate of return, the
cost for the same facility would be over $3000/kgHM. For the
government to own and operate a facility that would not only
reprocess spent fuel but manufacture new MOX fuel on the scale
BCG envisions would represent an immense government intrusion
on the private nuclear fuel industry.
In the 1996 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) review of
plutonium recycling and transmutation technologies, the NAS
concluded that estimates like this effort by BCG of unit costs
for a new plant were unrealistically low, and that the actual
costs of real plants provided the best guide for future costs.
BCG appears to have ignored that advice.
Notably, the capital cost BCG acknowledges for the existing
French plants is higher than the estimates used in the 2003 MIT
study; had BCG taken this actual experience as the basis for
estimating future costs, BCG would have found reprocessing and
MOX prices higher than those used in the 2003 study, not lower.
Moving on from the specifics provided by Mr. Bunn, the reduction in
repository capacity touted in the conclusion of the BCG report requires
the introduction of fast reactors on a massive scale. We believe this
to be an unwise policy for a number of reasons. The United States,
Europe and Japan spent tens of billions of dollars in the 1970s and
1980s trying to develop plutonium fast-breeder reactors (like the
proposed GNEP ``advanced burner reactors,'' but with uranium
``blankets'' added to ``breed'' more plutonium than is consumed in the
reactor). These fast reactors proved to be uneconomical, highly
unreliable, and prone to fires due to leaking liquid sodium coolant,
which burns spontaneously when it comes in contact with air or water.
Thus, we have little faith there will be a ``fleet'' of fast reactors
and any meaningful reduction in what must eventually be sent to a
repository.
Reprocessing proved to be uneconomical in the U.S., U.K, Japan and
France. Implementing just the initial demonstration phase of the GNEP
as described by the DOE in its Advanced Notice of Intent to Prepare an
Environmental Impact Statement (May 2005), will cost taxpayers $30
billion to $40 billion over the next 15 years without generating a
single kilowatt of commercially available electric power. Even with
newly announced orientations of the program--frontloading some of the
more expensive items like a commercial scale Fast Burner Reactor--we
doubt that initial 15 year estimate will be any less than what we
calculated in May of this year. Equally troubling, DOE has, to date,
refused to make public any detailed cost studies.
And there are immediate budgetary concerns. Funding requests for
plutonium recycle related programs total more than $1 billion dollars
in fiscal year 2007 (this figure includes not only GNEP, but DOE's
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative and spending on a MOX plutonium fuel
plant, among other items). In short, the entire scheme represents a
bizarre departure for an administration professing abhorrence of
excessive federal spending and reverence for the workings of the free
market. Only the plutonium lobby would be so bold as to propose that
the blueprint for meeting our electricity needs be based on the
marriage of two technologies that are proven commercial failures. For a
more detailed presentation of our concerns with the GNEP program,
please see our document, Peddling Plutonium, An Analysis of the
President's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, found on our website at
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/gnep/agnep.asp.
Responses to Questions From Senator Craig
Question 1. Do you believe that new nuclear plants are needed to
help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
Answer. The threat of climate change is sufficiently dire that all
low-carbon technologies should be intensively reviewed for their
potential to effect a timely response to the challenge of swiftly
stabilizing and then reducing global carbon emissions. Unfortunately,
the nuclear power industry in its present state suffers from excessive
costs and too many security, safety, and environmental problems to
qualify as a leading means to combat global warming pollution. The vast
majority of expert forecasts suggest that nuclear power will likely
play at best a modest role in generating the world's future electrical
output, and that the industry will be doing well if it manages to
maintain its current 16% share of global electricity production
Large-scale nuclear plants remain uneconomic to build. And while
the nuclear fuel cycle emits little global warming pollution, nuclear
power still poses globally significant risks that need to be further
reduced, including:
Diversion of ``peaceful'' nuclear facilities and materials
to secret nuclear weapons programs;
Theft and terrorist use of nuclear materials;
Accidental releases of radioactivity, ranging from locally
harmful to potentially catastrophic;
The vulnerability of some spent nuclear fuel storage pools
to terrorist attack;
Occupational and public health risks associated with uranium
mining and milling; and
Long-term leakage from underground repositories intended to
isolate high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel from the
human and natural environment for tens to hundreds of thousands
of years
Dependence on fluctuating inland water bodies for cooling in
a future of characterized by more frequent droughts and higher
surface water temperatures, leading to more frequent shutdowns
or requirements for less efficient, higher cost dry-air cooling
systems
The underlying facts of energy economics have not changed--there is
still no ``nuclear renaissance.'' Rather, there is a renaissance of
federal subsidies for the industry. The nuclear industry has
historically received over $80 billion in development support and
subsidies, in today's dollars. And recently, Congress granted
approximately $10 billion in new subsidies and regulatory assistance in
the 2005 Energy Policy Act, affecting the first 6000 megawatts of new
nuclear generation to be constructed. But a ``nuclear renaissance''
depends on the economics of the next 1000 megawatts of new capacity
after the subsidies, and so far we see nothing that indicates the
nuclear industry will be able to reduce its capital costs to
competitive levels. To gain sufficient economies of scale to compete,
nuclear reactors need to be large--typically 1000 MW. This makes their
capital requirements ($2.5-$4 billion each) quite daunting, and these
reactors require a long investment recovery period, so in the absence
of continuing subsidies, we believe private capital will continue to
look unfavorably on this option. A mandatory and declining carbon cap
that results in pricing carbon emissions allowances at $50-100 per ton
would significantly aid nuclear's ability to compete with fossil fueled
plants, but such a cap would also advantage nuclear's decentralized and
renewable generation competitors, so it remains to be seen who will win
that race.
Even if a few new nuclear plants managed to get underway with the
assistance of the subsidies provided in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, the
economics of wind, solar, efficiency and combined cycle generation are
a moving target, and continually improving. Unless the cost of natural
gas rises above $14/MMBtu and stays there for a prolonged period, and
renewable and efficiency options are stymied by misguided policies, we
do not believe private capital will have substantial interest in
financing new nuclear plants.
Indeed, the most we would get under the current 2005 Energy Policy
Act level of subsidies is 6,000 megawatts (MW) of new capacity, divided
into 4-5 big units. For the build cost of one 1,000 MW reactor $2.9
billion--the State of California thinks it can use tax credits to
leverage in 10 years some 3,000 megawatts of private investment in net-
metered solar-rooftop distributed generation, with payback periods
after subsidy on the order of five years, rather than the 25-40 years
needed for a nuclear reactor.
Throw in similarly enlightened public policies to encourage easily
achieved efficiency improvements, and nuclear could have a very hard
time competing after the first few heavily subsidized units. NRDC's
energy efficiency expert David Goldstein notes that the $2.9 billion
California subsidy could also leverage 1,500 MW of efficiency at end
use operating 8,760 hours per year, with zero or lower continuing
operational costs and no incremental costs for transmission, based on
10 years of California measured results. After accounting for reserve
margins, transmission losses, and system load factors, meeting this
much additional demand through nuclear additions to baseload would
likely require on the order of 2000-2500 megawatts of new capacity, or
roughly two nuclear power plants at a cost of $5.8 billion.
In short, subsidizing detailed engineering design, licensing, and
construction of a few large nuclear power plants will cost the
taxpayers billions of dollars, but will not significantly reduce the
high capital cost of subsequent nuclear plants relative to alternative
sources. Hence these subsidies are unlikely to stimulate the widespread
deployment of non-carbon emitting technology needed to make a dent in
reducing global warming emissions, and may even be counterproductive by
siphoning scarce government resources away from more productive
investments that have the actual potential to transform energy markets
on a global scale.
Looking at the problem on a global scale, for nuclear power to have
any appreciable impact on global warming, nuclear capacity globally-now
about 440 plants-would have to be increased several-fold over the next
few decades. This would mean adding a dozen or so new uranium
enrichment plants worldwide, a similar number of Yucca Mountain--type
geologic repositories for spent nuclear fuel, and a significant
expansion of uranium mining. Current international arrangements are
insufficient to prevent a non-weapon state, such as Iran or Japan, from
suddenly changing course and using ``peaceful'' uranium enrichment or
spent-fuel reprocessing plants to separate nuclear material for
weapons. Finally, there is not one single long-term geologic repository
for spent nuclear fuel in operation anywhere in the world.
All of these problems have solutions, but for nuclear power to
qualify as a significant global carbon reducer, the international
nuclear industry, the respective governments, and the International
Atomic Energy Agency must insure that:
Nuclear fuel cycles do not afford access, or the technical
capabilities for access, to nuclear explosive materials,
principally separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium;
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regulating nuclear
power's peaceful use is reinterpreted to prohibit the spread of
latent as well as overt nuclear weapons capabilities, by
barring national ownership and control of uranium enrichment
(or reprocessing) plants in non-weapon states;
The occupational and public health risks associated with
uranium mining, milling, and the nuclear fuel cycle are
remedied; and
Existing and planned discharges of spent nuclear fuel and
high-level radioactive waste will be safely sequestered in
geologic repositories.
Until such time as the nuclear industry is able to meet these
requirements, NRDC favors more practical, economical, and
environmentally sustainable approaches to reducing both U.S. and global
carbon emissions, including clean, flexible, renewable energy and
efficiency technologies.
In sum, the most economically efficient way to address these risks
is to internalize their costs in the market price of electricity and
fuels. The United States can do this by regulating carbon dioxide
emissions, the unique risks of nuclear power, and other associated
energy production risks, and then letting the market pick the lowest-
cost supply and demand technologies. The nuclear industry rejects this
approach. Its lobbyists seek additional federal subsidies so they can
reap profits on what would otherwise be dubious investments. The likely
outcome of this approach, exacerbated in this time of severe budget
deficits, would be to displace cleaner, more competitive technologies
while failing to reduce global warming pollution in any meaningful way.
The fastest, cheapest, and cleanest solutions to global warming will
come from providing energy efficiency and renewable energy a chance to
compete on equal terms with other energy investments.
______
Responses of J. Barnie Beasley Jr. to Questions From Senator Domenici
Question 1. Southern Company and its subsidiaries own both the
Farley Nuclear plant in Alabama and the Vogtle Plant in Georgia.
I looked up in the DOE Acceptance Priority Ranking spent fuel
booklet to see where Farley and Vogtle are in the acceptance queue for
DOE to pick-up spent fuel at these sites. Farley is number 253 and
Vogtle is number 757.
I find it interesting that according to the current plan, Farley as
number 253 will have 21.2 metric tons of its spent fuel picked-up on
the first visit by DOE.
I say first visit as the next visit is number 334 when they are
scheduled to pick-up 24.2 metric tons. According to the Library of
Congress in 2004, the Farley plant had 903.8 metric tons of spent fuel
on site.
According to DOE's own estimates they wouldn't get to Farley until
sometime in the sixth year, not until 2023 and then only take
possession of 21.2 metric tons. DOE will not make [it] to Vogtle for
several more years and then again only take a small fraction of what's
currently on site.
If DOE is able to keep to the schedule they have proposed and begin
to accept fuel in 2017, both your current plants will still have fuel
on site for over a decade beyond 2017.
Question: Doesn't it make sense for the federal government to go
ahead and meet its obligation to [your] company and your ratepayers and
begin to accept fuel before Yucca Mountain opens at an interim storage
facility?
Answer. Yes. It is important to the nuclear power industry as a
whole that spent nuclear fuel be removed from reactor sites. The
storage of this used fuel diverts resources and manpower from other
productive uses at the nuclear power plants and exposes the federal
government to growing liability for the continuing breach of contract.
It also creates continuing litigation costs for both parties and
utilizes court resources unnecessarily. The federal government should
strive to meet its obligations and minimize the impact of this breach.
Furthermore, the continued storage of used fuel at the reactor site
also threatens to impact the decommissioning of the nuclear power
plants, which could further increase costs for which the federal
government will be liable. In fact, there are several utilities that
have begun decommissioning but cannot at this time complete that
process because of the presence of used fuel on the reactor site. This
additional cost impacts utilities and their ratepayers even after the
nuclear power plant has ceased to be productive. The industry strongly
supports measures that require and enable DOE to fulfill its obligation
as soon as possible and believe that some form of interim storage is
the only option that can accomplish that objective.
Although my role in the hearing is to represent the industry as a
member of the NEI Executive Committee, I am pleased to address the
points you've raised with regard to Plants Farley and Vogtle. While
there may be minor variations in the precise priority of acceptance of
specific quantities of used fuel, depending on the document in
question, The Acceptance Priority Ranking and Annual Capacity Report
published by the Department of Energy (DOE) in 2004 indicates that the
first delivery of used fuel to DOE from Plant Farley would occur in the
fifth year of repository operations. Similarly, the first shipment from
Plant Vogtle would occur in the ninth year of repository operations,
using the same APR/ACR Report. As a result, current inventories of used
fuel, in addition to the discharges of additional used fuel from the
reactors occurring after the commencement of repository operations,
will likely continue to be stored at Southern Nuclear's reactor sites
for several years after the commencement of repository operations
regardless of when that occurs. Prompt commencement of interim storage
by DOE would allow the process of removing this used fuel from the
plant site to begin and be completed earlier than with the repository
alone.
Question 2. Please explain why this is important and the
contribution it could make toward reducing potential litigation in the
license application process for new nuclear plants.
Answer. If DOE were to begin removal of used fuel from plant sites
on an expedited basis--in advance of the schedule for the commencement
of repository operations--the impact on plant operation and the growing
federal liability for the costs of on-site storage could be mitigated.
Further, the commencement of interim storage by DOE would provide the
public with added confidence that the federal government will satisfy
its obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in the context of
new plants. In addition to interim storage, accelerating the annual
rate of acceptance of used fuel by DOE from 3000 metric tons per year
to a rate that reflects the need to overcome the effects of DOE's delay
in performance, currently in its eighth year, would also benefit all of
these areas. The potential for mitigation of the problems caused by
extended on-site storage of used fuel, mitigation of the liability of
the federal government, as well as the demonstration by the government
that it is capable and willing to satisfy its legal and contractual
obligations for both existing and new plants, all make expeditious
transfer of used fuel from reactor sites to federal interim storage
facilities a responsible course of action.
In order to accomplish these objectives, however, interim storage
must be accomplished in a reasonable and efficient way that does not
impair the schedule for the opening of the repository. Experience tells
us that siting, licensing, and developing an interim storage facility
for used fuel could be a controversial and contentious process. In
order to commence operation of such facilities on a schedule that
results in the delivery of used fuel to DOE significantly in advance of
the schedule for repository operations, the siting and licensing
process must be streamlined, and the number of such facilities must be
manageable. DOE's resources, which ultimately come from our customers,
should not be stretched thin by overly bureaucratic siting and
licensing processes, or by trying to develop more sites than are needed
to accomplish the job. Similarly, interim storage should not detract
from the licensing and development of Yucca Mountain, which has been
designated by the President and Congress as the principal used fuel
storage and disposal facility for the United States.
Accordingly, the industry prefers locating interim storage
facilities at or near the Yucca Mountain site. The siting of such
facilities at the site of the repository would be efficient, cost-
effective, and would simplify transportation of used fuel by
eliminating an intermediate leg of the journey from plant site to Yucca
Mountain. Moreover, Congress could authorize the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) to issue a general license, similar to those issued to
licensed reactors, for interim storage at Yucca Mountain. The extensive
site characterization work conducted at Yucca Mountain that led to the
President's recommendation of Yucca Mountain as the repository site and
Congress' affirmation of that recommendation justifies such a general
license for interim storage. Absent designation of Yucca Mountain as
the site of an interim storage facility, the designation of one or two
existing federal sites provides the best chance of achieving the
benefits of interim storage without diverting resources and attention
from the repository.
Question 3. Do you believe Congress should clarify that Yucca
maintain for a considerable period the ability to monitor and retrieve
waste packages to help foster public confidence in the project and
allow future generations the option of taking advantage of
technological developments?
Answer. Yes. Yucca Mountain should maintain the ability to monitor
and retrieve waste packages for an extended period. I believe that the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended (NWPA), directs DOE to
maintain this flexibility, but does not specify the period of time
during which such capability should be maintained. It is my
understanding that DOE intends to monitor used fuel placed in the
repository for as long as 300 years. I believe that legislation that
not only clarified DOE's obligation for future generations, but which
also takes the extended period of monitored retrieveability into
consideration in connection with the licensing of the repository, would
be a very positive step.
Responses of J. Barnie Beasley Jr. to Questions From Senator Craig
Question 1. Would you please explain the issue about the Standard
Contract for Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel as mentioned in your
testimony and what you think Congress should do to address this issue?
Answer. The NWPA requires applicants for licenses for the
construction and operation of nuclear power plants to have executed, or
be in the process of negotiating, a contract with DOE under the NWPA
for the removal of spent nuclear fuel. Although the NRC has not
officially addressed the issue, at least one Commissioner has indicated
that an executed contract will be a prerequisite to the issuance of a
Combined Operating License (COL) for a new nuclear power plant. At a
minimum, the NWPA requires that an applicant for a COL be engaged in
good faith negotiations for such a contract. It would be desirable to
have such contracts in place by the time the application for a COL is
submitted to NRC. The Standard Contract, as set forth in 10 C.F.R. Part
961, codifies the terms of the contracts executed by DOE with the
existing fleet of plants.
Unfortunately, the federal government is already in breach of the
contracts executed with respect to the existing fleet of nuclear
reactors because of, among other things, its failure to commence
acceptance of used nuclear fuel. It is my understanding that DOE has
not responded to requests by some utilities for information regarding
the execution of contracts for new plants.
It is important for DOE to satisfy its existing obligations under
the NWPA by entering into contracts that cover new plants that may be
built. Such contracts should satisfy the requirements of the NWPA by
including deadlines for the commencement of acceptance of used fuel
from the new plants. The deadline for the commencement of acceptance
should reflect DOE's obligation under the NWPA, the date scheduled for
the commencement of operation of the new plants, and the date such new
plants are expected to have their first fuel ready for delivery to DOE.
I want to emphasize that the contracts should not be amended simply
because DOE has failed to perform or to relieve DOE of its obligation
to remove used fuel on a firm schedule that is consistent with DOE's
obligation under the NWPA. DOE should undertake discussions through the
Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) with companies interested in applying
for a COL with the objective of executing new contracts prior to the
time COL applications begin to be filed in late 2007.
Question 2. Do you believe that the DOE should accept and transport
fuel in NRC certified systems already purchased and loaded by
utilities?
Answer. Yes. Utilities have expended millions of dollars loading
used fuel into dry casks solely as a result of the federal government's
breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the
contracts executed in accordance with the Act. These casks can be used
for transportation and there is no practical reason why they should not
be used. If utilities are required to remove used fuel from these
containers in order to deliver that used fuel to DOE, those activities
will further increase DOE's liability to the utilities under the
contracts. It will also expose plant workers to additional dose for no
practical reason. Additionally, for some utilities that have already
begun decommissioning and demolished their spent fuel pools, such a
transfer will be an even more expensive and time-consuming process.
DOE can limit that liability and exposure, and reduce the amount of
wasteful spending by both the federal government and utilities in
litigating these claims, by accepting used fuel from utilities in any
NRC-certified container and/or transportation cask. Any transportation,
storage and disposal scheme should include the acceptance of used fuel
by DOE without forcing the utility to first remove the fuel from the
system. Acceptance of the used fuel in utility storage containers could
also potentially provide a mechanism for the resolution of claims by
utilities for the cost of the containers without the necessity of
additional litigation.
Question 3. What is the cost of litigation due to DOE not
fulfilling its obligation (over 60 cases pending)?
Answer. The total cost of the litigation arising out of the federal
government's failure to satisfy its obligations under the Act consists
of the damages for dry cask facilities, modifications to plant
structures and ongoing operation and maintenance of the facilities,
among other costs. Without knowing when the Government's breach of
contract will end, it is impossible to quantify the ultimate cost of
DOE's breach with precision. Settlements with companies such as Exelon
and South Carolina Electric and Gas, and judgments in favor of TVA and
the Sacramento Municipal Utility District have been estimated by some
to be valued in the hundreds of millions. Other utilities, including
but not limited to Alabama Power Company and Georgia Power Company,
have finished the trials of claims against the Government but the Court
of Federal Claims has yet to render a judgment.
It is important to note that the claims that have been tried, such
as TVA's and Georgia and Alabama Power's, only cover damages incurred
by the utilities prior to the year of trial. Because of a ruling by the
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 2005, additional claims
will have to be filed by these utilities in future years to recover the
additional costs that will be incurred in storing used fuel that should
have been removed by the Government. The exact amount of the cost to
the Government from such claims will have to await judicial
determination. Most estimates of the Government's liability for these
claims are measured in the tens of billions of dollars.
The damages for on-site storage costs referred to above do not
include the litigation costs of both the utilities and the federal
government. The litigation that utilities have been forced to pursue
against the federal government is extremely expensive for both sides.
In addition, the costs above do not include the millions of dollars
each year paid by utilities to the Nuclear Waste Fund. In most cases,
these costs are borne by customers, through rates or other charges for
electricity. These ratepayers are paying for a service that is not
being provided, as well as paying for the cost of the litigation and
the on-site storage. Finally, the Department of Justice has fought
attempts by utilities to recover the financing costs (i.e. cost of
capital) associated with expanding used fuel storage capacity that have
been claimed by utilities. If that challenge is successful, another
large cost attributable to the Government's failure to perform would go
uncompensated.
Question 4. Can you please discuss the potential impacts on
ratepayers of interim storage?
Answer. The impact of interim storage on ratepayers depends on the
funding mechanism selected by Congress to finance the construction and
operation of interim storage. First of all, to the extent interim
storage enhances the Government's ability to satisfy its obligations
under the NWPA, it could reduce the cost of on-site storage of used
nuclear fuel. On-site storage costs are ultimately borne by ratepayers,
so interim storage would reduce ratepayer costs. If, however, the cost
of interim storage were funded from the Nuclear Waste Fund, ratepayer
contributions to that Fund would be redirected from repository
development to interim storage, without a corresponding decrease in
repository cost. This would potentially increase ratepayer payments to
the Nuclear Waste Fund. If the cost of interim storage were paid from
sources other than the Nuclear Waste Fund, it would provide a clear
economic benefit to ratepayers. Regardless of the funding mechanism
chosen, it is essential that the practice of diverting Nuclear Waste
Fee revenue to purposes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the
disposal or storage of used nuclear fuel be stopped. If the cost of
interim storage were to be paid from the Nuclear Waste Fund, the
ultimate impact on ratepayers would depend on whether the cost of
centralized, federal interim storage can be provided in a more cost-
effective way than on-site storage at individual reactor sites. The
industry believes that interim storage at one or two federal facilities
provides a clear economic advantage over either on-site storage at
every reactor site in the nation, or the development of multiple
interim storage sites across the country.
Finally, it is important to remember that, even to the extent the
cost of at-reactor storage is recovered by utilities from the federal
government through litigation, the time and expense involved in such
litigation make it a very costly option for ratepayers. Performance by
the Government of its obligations is obviously a far superior result
from the standpoint of the ratepayer, even if every utility recovered
on each of its claims in full. Interim storage is certainly more cost
effective for the federal government than litigating and paying such
claims.