Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Top Yucca manager urges full allocation

Licensing application in jeopardy, Chu tells Senate panel; Reid to fight for funding cuts

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's top nuclear waste repository manager renewed calls this week for full funding of the Yucca Mountain Project, but the program's chief critic in Congress signaled he again will stand in the way.

At a Senate budget hearing Monday, Margaret Chu emphasized that the Energy Department will need Congress to allocate all of the $591 million requested this year if there is any hope to complete a license application for a nuclear waste repository at the Nevada site by December 2004.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must approve the license application before construction can formally begin on a repository.

"I hope we get full funding," said Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. "The next 12 to 18 months is extremely critical."

While Chu received supportive remarks from several senators, the program received poor grades from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a leader of efforts to stop or delay the nuclear waste project.

Confirmed to her job 13 months ago, Chu on Monday made her first appearance before the Senate's energy and water spending panel and Reid, its ranking Democrat.

Given the Yucca Mountain Project's continuing financial and technical challenges, "It strikes me as somewhat unlikely" that the Energy Department can meet a 2004 license application goal even if Congress granted full funding, Reid said. A 2001 congressional audit concluded that 2006 would be a more realistic goal, he noted.

"Even if you do file an application on time, your supporters are going to wonder how you were able to get everything done correctly and properly given that Congress has not been granting your budget requests for more than a decade," Reid said. "And all of us will want to know what you did wrong or not at all."

Reid also criticized the Energy Department for not planning to have a national nuclear waste transportation plan in place by the time of its license application for the planned repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Chu responded that persistent budget setbacks in Congress have caused Yucca managers to rework the program, delaying transportation segments so that work could concentrate on license preparation.

Even then, she said, a $134 million cutback in 2003 spending "forced us to reduce, eliminate and defer some of the work we have planned, significantly increasing the risk of not meeting the goal."

She said the Energy Department was completing a new analysis of the program amid reports that it is considering delaying the license application or revising key elements of the program for cost savings.

Reid has played roles in decreasing Energy Department nuclear waste budget requests for the past nine years in Congress. On Tuesday, his spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said he "will actively work to cut the budget this year, just as he has in years past."