[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 94 (Thursday, June 27, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5501-S5502]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Mr. WYDEN (for himself, Ms. Murkowski, Mrs. Feinstein, and Mr.
Alexander):
S. 1240. A bill to establish a new organization to manage nuclear
waste, provide a consensual process for siting nuclear waste
facilities, ensure adequate funding for managing nuclear waste, and for
other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in
introducing the Nuclear Waste Administration Act.
This bipartisan legislation, which has been years in the making, is
also cosponsored by Senators Ron Wyden, Lisa Murkowski, and Lamar
Alexander.
This legislation represents our best attempt to establish a workable,
long term nuclear waste policy for the United States, something our
Nation lacks today, by implementing the unanimous recommendations of
the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.
First, the bill would create an independent entity, the Nuclear Waste
Administration, with the sole purpose of managing nuclear waste.
Second, the bill would authorize the siting and construction of three
types of waste facilities: a ``pilot'' waste storage facility for waste
from shut down reactors, additional storage facilities for waste from
other facilities, and permanent repositories to dispose of nuclear
waste.
Third, the bill creates a consent-based siting process for both
storage facilities and repositories, based on the successful efforts to
build waste facilities in other countries.
The legislation requires that local, tribal, and State governments
must consent to host waste facilities by signing incentive agreements,
assuring that waste is only stored in the States and communities that
want and welcome it.
Fourth, the bill would direct the fees currently collected from
nuclear power ratepayers to fund nuclear waste management, currently
about $750 M annually, into a new Working Capital Fund available to the
Nuclear Waste Administration to fund construction of waste facilities.
Finally, the legislation ensures that the new Nuclear Waste
Administration will be held accountable for meeting Federal
responsibilities and stewarding Federal dollars.
The Nuclear Waste Administrator will be appointed by the President
and confirmed by the Senate. The Administration will be overseen by a
five-member Nuclear Waste Oversight Board, modeled on the Defense
Nuclear Facilities Board. The administration will have an Inspector
General. The administration will not be able to access the corpus of
the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund until it reaches agreement with a host
community. Appropriators may limit the administration's spending, if
necessary. Finally, if the agency fails to open a nuclear waste
facility by 2025, additional funding will cease.
[[Page S5502]]
The United States has 104 operating commercial nuclear power reactors
that supply \1/5\ of our electricity and nearly 75 percent of our
emissions-free power.
However, production of this nuclear power has a significant downside:
it produces nuclear waste that will take hundreds of thousands of years
to decay. Unlike most nuclear nations, the United States has no program
to consolidate waste in centralized facilities.
Instead, we leave the waste next to operating and shut down reactors
sitting in pools of water or in cement and steel dry casks. Today,
approximately 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste is stored at
commercial reactor sites. This total grows by 2,000 metric tons each
year.
In addition to commercial nuclear waste, we must also address waste
generated from creating our nuclear weapons stockpile and powering our
Navy.
The byproducts of nuclear energy represent some of the nation's most
hazardous materials, but for decades we have failed to find a solution
for their safe storage and permanent disposal. Most experts agree that
this failure is not a scientific problem or an engineering
impossibility; it is a failure of government.
Although the Federal Government signed contracts committing to pick
up commercial waste beginning in 1998, the Federal government's waste
program has failed to take possession of a single fuel assembly.
Our government has not honored its contractual obligations. We have
been sued, and we have lost. So today, the Federal taxpayer is paying
power plants to store the waste at reactor sites all over the nation.
The cost of this liability is forecast to reach $20 billion by 2020.
As we try to manage our growing national debt, we simply cannot
tolerate continued inaction.
In January 2012, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear
Future completed a two-year comprehensive study and published unanimous
recommendations for fixing our Nation's broken nuclear waste management
program.
The commission found that the only long-term, technically feasible
solution for this waste is to dispose of it in a permanent underground
repository. Until such a facility is opened, which will take many
decades, spent nuclear fuel will continue to be an expensive, dangerous
burden.
That is why the commission also recommended that we establish an
interim storage facility program to begin consolidating this dangerous
waste, in addition to working on a permanent repository.
Finally, after studying the experience of all nuclear nations, the
commission found that siting these facilities is most likely to succeed
if the host states and communities are welcome and willing partners,
not adversaries. The commission recommended that we adopt a consent
based nuclear facility siting process.
Senators Wyden, Murkowski, Alexander, and I introduce this
legislation in order to begin implementing those recommendations,
putting us on a dual track toward interim and permanent storage
facilities. The bill also reflects much work by former Senator
Bingaman, who put forward a similar proposal as one of the last bills
he wrote.
In my view, one of the most important provisions in this legislation
is the pilot program to begin consolidating nuclear waste at safer,
more cost-efficient centralized facilities on an interim basis. The
legislation will facilitate interim storage of nuclear waste in above-
ground canisters called dry casks. These facilities would be located in
willing communities, away from population centers, and on thoroughly
assessed sites.
Some members of Congress argue that we should ignore the need to
interim storage sites and instead push forward with a plan to open
Yucca Mountain as a permanent storage site.
Others argue that we should push forward only with repository plans
in new locations.
But the debate over Yucca Mountain, a controversial waste repository
proposed in the Nevada desert, which lacks State approval, is unlikely
to be settled any time soon.
I believe the debate over a permanent repository does not need to be
settled in order to recognize the need for interim storage. Even if
Congress and a future president reverse course and move forward with
Yucca Mountain, interim storage facilities would still be an essential
component of a badly needed national nuclear waste strategy.
By creating interim storage sites, a top recommendation of the Blue
Ribbon Commission, we would begin reducing Federal liability while
providing breathing room to site and build a permanent repository.
Interim storage facilities could also provide alternative storage
locations in emergency situations requiring spent nuclear fuel to be
moved quickly from a reactor site.
Both short- and long-term storage programs are vital. Permanently
disposing of our current inventory of nuclear waste will take several
decades.
Because of that long timeline, interim storage facilities allow us to
achieve significant cost savings for taxpayers and utility ratepayers
by shuttering a number of nuclear plants.
One thing is certain: inaction is the most costly and least safe
option.
Our longstanding stalemate is costly to taxpayers, utility ratepayers
and communities that are involuntarily saddled with waste after local
nuclear power plants have shut down.
It leaves nuclear waste all over the country, stored in all different
ways.
It is long overdue for the government to honor its obligation to
safely dispose of the Nation's nuclear waste.
This will be a long journey, but we must take the first step.
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