[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 49 (Tuesday, March 24, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1783-S1784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ALEXANDER (for himself, Ms. Murkowski, Mrs. Feinstein, and 
        Ms. Cantwell):
  S. 854. 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, a bill to establish a 
national nuclear waste policy.
  This bipartisan legislation, which has been years in the making, is 
also cosponsored by Senators Maria Cantwell, 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. It does so by implementing the unanimous 
recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear 
Future.
  First, the bill would create a new independent entity, the Nuclear 
Waste Administration, with the sole purpose of managing nuclear waste.
  Second, the bill would authorize the siting and construction of two 
types of waste facilities: permanent repositories for disposal and 
interim facilities for storage, including a pilot facility prioritizing 
waste from shut down reactors.
  Third, the bill creates a consent-based siting process for both 
storage facilities and repositories, based on other countries' 
successful efforts.
  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 resume collection of the nuclear waste 
management fees from nuclear power ratepayers at a rate of \1/10\ of a 
cent per kilowatt-hour, or about $750 million annually, and would 
rededicate these revenues to the Nuclear Waste Administration to fund 
construction of waste facilities.
  Finally, the legislation ensures the 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 Safety Board and will have an Inspector General. The 
administration will collect fees from nuclear utilities to pay for the 
development of storage and disposal facilities; those fees will be 
immediately available without appropriation, unless otherwise limited 
in an appropriations or authorization act. The current balance of the 
Nuclear Waste Fund, now valued at $32 billion, will be available by 
appropriation only. Finally, if the agency fails to open a nuclear 
waste facility by 2025, fees paid by utilities will cease to be 
collected.
  The United States has 99 operating commercial nuclear power reactors 
that supply \1/5\ of our electricity and \3/5\ 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, 
nearly 74,000 metric tons of nuclear waste is stored at commercial 
reactor sites. This total grows by about 2,000 metric tons each year.
  In addition to commercial nuclear waste, we must also address waste 
generated from having created our nuclear weapons stockpile and from 
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, this waste program has failed to 
take possession of a single fuel assembly.
  Our government has not honored its contractual obligations. We are 
routinely sued, and we routinely lose. So today, the taxpayer is paying 
power plants to store the waste at reactor sites all over the Nation. 
This has cost us $4.5 billion so far, and our liability continues to 
grow each day. The lack of action is estimated to cost taxpayers 
another $22.6 billion between now and 2065 if the government can start 
taking possession of waste in 2021. Further delays will only increase 
these costs.
  We simply cannot tolerate continued inaction.
  In January 2012, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear 
Future completed a 2-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 Alexander, Murkowski, Cantwell, 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 bipartisan bill is the product of thoughtful 
collaboration, building on our work last Congress with Senator Wyden 
and before that with former Senator Bingaman in the 112th Congress.
  In my view, one of the most important provisions in this legislation 
is the pilot program to immediately 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 for 
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 the federal liability while 
providing

[[Page S1784]]

breathing room to site and build a permanent repository.
  Interim storage facilities are of particular importance for the sites 
of decommissioned power plants that are maintained solely to store the 
spent nuclear fuel. In the last fourteen months alone, four nuclear 
power plants have been taken out of service: the Crystal River plant in 
Florida, the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin, the San Onofre plant in 
California, and the Vermont Yankee plant in Vermont.
  Until there is an interim storage facility for this waste, these 
sites will join the likes of Rancho Seco and Humboldt Bay, which 
stopped operating in the 1980s but continue to store spent nuclear 
fuel. All told, there are more than 6,500 metric tons of nuclear waste 
stored at sites that no longer have operating reactors.
  Interim storage facilities could also provide alternative storage 
locations in emergency situations, if spent nuclear fuel ever needs to 
be moved quickly from a reactor site.
  Both short- and long-term storage programs are vital.
  Because of the long timeline for permanent facilities, interim 
storage facilities allow us to achieve significant cost savings for 
taxpayers and utility ratepayers and finally start the process of 
securing waste from decommissioned plants by finally removing waste 
from the sites of decommissioned power 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--and this bipartisan bill 
is the way to do that.

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