Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Faces Problems

WASHINGTON -- - A White House panel approved only a fraction of the money the administration says it needs to keep a proposed nuclear waste project in Nevada on schedule, jeopardizing its planned completion by 2010.

While the facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has widespread congressional support, a budget glitch forced a House Appropriations subcommittee recently to provide only $131 million for the program in the next fiscal year.

The Energy Department had requested $880 million it says it will need to begin seeking permits for the waste repository, go ahead with design work and develop a plan for transporting waste to the site from nuclear power plants around the country.

"I think we have an obligation to get (the facility) opened and funded," said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the subcommittee. "But I don't have the tools right now to get that done."

The Yucca Mountain money is part of a $28 billion spending bill for energy and water projects that the subcommittee approved by voice vote Wednesday. While there may be opportunities to increase funds for Yucca Mountain as the bill works its way through the House, Hobson was not optimistic about the prospects.

Hobson said funding for the program has been put in jeopardy because the administration, in requesting the funds, linked the remaining $749 million to Congress passing separate legislation on how lawmakers use a special nuclear waste fund for the Yucca project.

Congress has used that fund, which now totals nearly $15 billion, to help shrink the federal deficit, and there is little prospect that the legislation offered by the administration will pass this year.

Given the tight budget situation, Hobson could not find the money elsewhere, so Yucca Mountain funding for the 2005 fiscal year, beginning in October, was limited to the $131 million allocated for defense waste.

The government wants to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste -- used reactor fuel now held at power plants in 31 states as well as defense waste -- at Yucca Mountain. Next year has been described as pivotal for the program since the Energy Department will begin the process for getting a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and developing a transportation plan for the waste.

Margaret Chu, director of the Energy Department office that heads the program, has told lawmakers that if it does not get the full $880 million it would be impossible to meet the 2010 deadline for accepting the first load of waste.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., also a strong supporter of the Yucca project, said it would take "something extraordinary" to find the funding the administration says is needed given the legislative box that the White House Office of Management and Budget has created by linking the funding to separate legislation."

The administration has always relied on the House to come up with the needed money for Yucca Mountain and counter problems in the Senate, where Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, an ardent Yucca opponent, is in the leadership and has the ability to sidetrack legislation or keep funding down for the waste project.

Although Congress overrode Nevada's objections to the waste facility in 2002, the state and its congressional delegation continue to fight the project in the courts and anywhere else possible.

Domenici said he planned to discuss with administration officials ways to get out of the budget problem and ensure full funding for the program. But he said finding the money may be "very, very difficult."