Roughly a dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives spoke on the House floor late March 5 to promote a bipartisan bill that would pave the way for interim and permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel.
The lawmakers gave special order speeches in defense of House Bill 3053, or the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017. The measure, sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., would authorize the U.S. Department of Energy to start a consolidated interim storage program for U.S. commercial nuclear waste and allow waste to be kept at privately owned storage facilities.
Before the interim program could begin, the bill would require the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether to allow a permanent waste repository to be built at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, a project the Obama administration defunded in response to environmental concerns.
H.R. 3053 seeks to end the years-long stalemate over how to permanently dispose of the country's nuclear waste, but the measure has stalled in the House, partly over an impasse on appropriations. Although the federal government has collected billions of dollars for a permanent storage repository under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Congress must appropriate funds to the DOE to carry out the program, something the lawmaking body has not done since the Obama administration halted Yucca Mountain.
The proposed bill would require at least some of those appropriations to DOE to be mandatory rather than subject to Congressional approval, an idea that lawmakers have opposed in the past. "We're continuing to work through the issue with appropriations," Shimkus' spokesperson Jordan Haverly told S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The lawmakers speaking March 5 stressed the need for the bill, noting that the lack of a permanent storage site is leaving spent fuel sitting in 121 communities across 39 states.
"We have the chance now in a bipartisan way to successfully build a permanent solution," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said.
Walden noted that electricity consumers have already paid $40 billion to have the federal government develop, license and construct a nuclear waste storage repository. "Yet ratepayers have little to see for their investment because, I'll call it political science has deprived the public of the actual science to prove that nuclear waste can be safely and permanently disposed of."
Democrats also spoke in favor of the bill. Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., mentioned the pending retirement of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon nuclear facility, which the company plans to replace with renewable generation. Carbajal said the plant was built near an earthquake fault line, making waste storage there risky.
"Without a long-term solution, Diablo Canyon would become a defacto storage facility for radioactive nuclear waste and would hinder our ability to repurpose any of the scenic coastline where the power plant currently sits," he said.
But resistance to the bill remains, including from many Nevada lawmakers. Rep. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., said the legislation would turn his district into a "dumping ground" for nuclear waste and that he would work to make sure the Yucca Mountain project "stays dead."
The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 49-4 in June 2017 to advance H.R. 3053. During his House floor speech on March 5, Shimkus said the legislation has 108 co-sponsors and would likely receive affirmative votes from 300 of the chamber's 435 members.
Shimkus also stressed that many Nevadans living near Yucca Mountain back construction of a long-term repository there, with five surrounding counties passing resolutions of approval for the project.
"This issue has national support," he said. Shimkus asked that House leaders and appropriators provide money in a final omnibus bill to adjudicate or hold public hearings on the project.
A spokesperson for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., did not respond to questions on when the House could vote on the bill.
