[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3178-S3179]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Yucca Mountain

  While I have an opportunity to take the floor, I want to change the 
subject, if I may. I want to talk about the concern I have of one of 
the President's priorities in the 2018 fiscal year budget. That 
priority is Yucca Mountain.
  Specifically, the President included $120 million in his budget for 
the Department of Energy to restart licensing activities for the Yucca 
Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository.
  As a proponent and author of the legislation called No Budget, No Pay 
Act, which would restore regular order to the budget and appropriations 
process, I am pleased to see the President did submit to Congress a 
detailed budget proposal.
  As a small government, fiscal conservative, I hoped that this new 
administration would focus on budget priorities that would reduce 
duplicative spending and streamline programs in order to save taxpayer 
dollars. You can imagine my disappointment that they, instead, decided 
to prioritize funding to restart licensing activities for a failed 
proposal.
  Over the past few weeks, I have outlined on the Senate floor some of 
the issues with Yucca Mountain, whether it is the crippling effect it 
would have on Nevada's economy or the public safety issues associated 
with transportation of this nuclear waste. I will continue to come to 
the floor to educate my colleagues on the many issues associated with 
Yucca Mountain, because, plain and simple, it is not a viable option 
for the long-term storage of our Nation's nuclear waste. Instead of 
throwing more taxpayer dollars into a failed proposal, we should be 
working on a real long-term solution rooted in consent-based siting.
  You have heard me raise the question that many Nevadans be thinking: 
Why should a State with no nuclear powerplants of its own be forced, 
against its will, to house all of the Nation's nuclear waste?
  I stand by the Department of Energy's 2010 decision to terminate the 
Yucca Mountain program, and I stand by its 2015 recommendation for a 
consent-based siting.
  Yucca Mountain is dead. Let me take you through what it would take to 
put this failed program back on life support. Prior to the suspension 
of the program in 2010, the Federal Government had spent close to $15 
billion on Yucca Mountain.
  Now, I recognize that some of my colleagues might say: Well, the 
government has already spent this much on the government repository; 
shouldn't we complete it?
  First of all, let me say that restarting the program would need $2 
billion more just to complete the licensing process--$1.66 billion for 
the Department of Energy and $330 million for the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission.
  After 3 to 5 years spent on licensing, there could well be another 5 
years in legal challenges, and there is no certainty that Yucca 
Mountain would ever be built.
  Second, even if Yucca Mountain were to go forward, it would be an 
expensive repository project. The Department of Energy's best estimate 
is that another $82 billion--let me repeat that; another $82 billion--
would be needed to license, litigate, build, operate, decommission, and 
eventually close Yucca Mountain. On top of the money that has already 
been spent, that adds up to more than $96 billion for what is called 
the total system life cycle cost.
  That leads to my third point. We need to reevaluate the whole nuclear 
waste cost question. There is a business case to be made against Yucca 
Mountain. The Department of Energy's own estimates for Yucca Mountain 
say that the nuclear waste fund will only pay about 80 percent of the 
total life cycle costs, or about $77 billion. The remaining $19 billion 
would have to come from an annual appropriations voted by this 
Congress. That means more money for this project paid by taxpayers.
  But it does not have to be that way. In 2012, the Department of 
Energy did its own cost assessment and concluded that all other costs, 
like transportation, being equal, walking away from Yucca Mountain and 
starting with a new repository site in a deep salt bed or deep shale 
formation would actually save between $12 billion and $27 billion over 
the life of the repository.
  Before we spend any more taxpayer dollars on Yucca Mountain, we need 
to ask the Department of Energy experts to come before us and explain 
what they learned about repository costs in their previous studies. 
Beyond that, we need new cost studies on geologic disposal in 
repositories, studies that include the lessons learned from recent 
progress with repositories in Europe, and new studies that look at the 
nuclear waste program overall and incorporate the cost of safe on-site 
reactors, early removal of spent fuel from shutdown reactors, and 
consolidated interim storage facilities, as recommended by the Blue 
Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.
  It is clear that rather than forcing the State of Nevada to accept 
nuclear waste at a scientifically unsound site, taxpayer dollars would 
be better spent identifying viable alternatives for the long-term 
storage of nuclear waste in areas that are willing to house it. Finding 
alternatives is the commonsense path forward, as well as the fiscally 
responsible decision.
  I urge my colleagues, as we continue the budget appropriations 
process for this next fiscal year, to conduct oversight over the life-
cycle costs of repositories and to focus on further implementing the 
Department of Energy's consent-based siting process, instead of wasting 
more taxpayer dollars on a failed proposal.

[[Page S3179]]

  I stand ready to partner with my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle on this issue, and I am confident that together we can find a 
solution to this problem once and for all.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.