Saturday, March 20, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Congress to hear appeal to free Yucca money

Energy officials want access to $20.4 billion collected from utilities for nuclear waste storage

WASHINGTON -- Energy Department officials will make their case in Congress on Thursday for help in easing financial pressures on the Yucca Mountain Project.

The House energy and air quality subcommittee is set to consider bills that would change the way the government's nuclear waste repository program is funded.

While the changes involve accounting practices, as a practical matter they would enable the Energy Department to gain easier access to portions of a special fund that has collected more than $20.4 billion from utilities for nuclear waste storage.

The legislation is being promoted by the Bush administration, by the nuclear industry and by utilities and state regulators that monitor the planned repository, which would be built 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

On the other side are officials from Nevada and environmental groups that oppose the repository. They view the changes as an effort to rush a program they say should be terminated, not encouraged.

Similar accounting changes have been proposed before but have not gained traction. Congressional budget hawks have resisted loosening the strings on the nuclear waste fund, whose balance helps offset the federal budget deficit.

The matter has taken on increasing urgency among repository backers, because the Energy Department is nearing construction phases of the Yucca Mountain project that will demand more than $1 billion in annual funding.

Congress has never appropriated more than $580 million for the Yucca Mountain Project in the face of resistance from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has engineered opposition to the program.

The fund balance at the end of 2003 was $14.46 billion, according to an Energy Department report. Almost $6 billion has been spent from the fund since the government began collecting fees in 1983.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced a bill at the Bush administration's request this month to reclassify annual fees that utilities pay into the nuclear waste fund. About $749 million would be reclassified this year if the bill passes.

That means those fees could be made available to the Energy Department without running afoul of congressional budgeting regulations, although Congress would retain authority to review how the money is spent.

Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Bobby Rush, D-Ill., have sponsored a bill that would have a similar effect.

"Legislation has been introduced that follows our common sense Yucca funding proposal," Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said Friday. "We believe that the money taxpayers have already paid Washington, which has been set aside to build Yucca Mountain, should be used for Yucca Mountain, rather than on other things unrelated to Yucca Mountain."