Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
States skeptical about Yucca
Budget woes threatening project's timetable
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department ran into skepticism Monday from state officials who questioned whether the budget-strapped Yucca Mountain Project can be kept on schedule to take nuclear waste off their hands by 2010.
Speaking at a convention of state regulators, the head of the nuclear waste program said officials are weighing the latest financial shortfall in the Nevada repository plan and what changes may be made.
Without giving details, Margaret Chu said "there are ways" for DOE to rebalance the project.
She delivered remarks to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, a group generally supportive of the Yucca program.
In the latest in a string of budget setbacks, Congress this month set 2003 nuclear waste disposal spending at $460 million, short of the $593 million that the Bush administration said was needed to plan a repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Several state officials questioned Chu on the program's budget woes.
Laura Chappelle, chair- woman of the Michigan Public Service Commission, wondered if any new funding strategy could pass Congress, which has cut DOE's budget for the past nine years.
Hullihen Williams Moore, a Virginia commissioner, questioned DOE's ability to keep the Yucca program on a schedule to begin burying nuclear waste in 2010.
Chu, head of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said the latest shortfall "has significantly impacted the program's progress and it has compressed the schedule and it has increased the risk of submitting a high quality license application" to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December 2004.
