Defense bill seeks studies on Yucca Mountain

WASHINGTON -- The House passed a defense bill on Friday that calls for studies on what it would take to restart the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and what the impact would be if the project is closed for good.

The studies were inserted into a 600-page bill report by two congressmen from South Carolina who have been protesting the Obama administration's decision to terminate the Yucca project.

There was little discussion of the issue during the two days the House debated its annual defense authorization bill.

While the administration's moves to shut down the project have been criticized in Congress, it still might be too soon to tell whether efforts to revive the program are isolated to a few dozen angry lawmakers or whether a broader uprising is brewing.

Aides to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader and the chief shot blocker against Yucca Mountain bills, said the studies will be dropped when the defense bill is debated in the Senate.

One of the South Carolina lawmakers, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, said Obama's moves to terminate the Nevada repository demand more scrutiny.

"Before the administration irresponsibly considers walking away from a $10 billion investment and a 23-year bipartisan agreement, we need to provide America's taxpayers and decision-makers with adequate information," Wilson said in a short speech Friday.

From the standpoint of Nevada leaders who oppose Yucca Mountain, Republican Rep. Dean Heller said the defense bill was troubling. He said he expected Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., to work to delete the repository provisions.

Heller appealed to the House Rules Committee this week for permission to sponsor an amendment that would strip out the studies, but was denied.

"I explained to them the language was wrong," Heller said. "It was out of touch with the administration, it was out of touch with the (Senate) majority leader and with the delegation in Nevada."

"We don't need another report on Yucca Mountain," added Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "What we need is an end to this $100 billion boondoggle."

Obama has proposed an end to funding the repository plan that had been the centerpiece of the government's nuclear waste policy since the early 1980s.

A blue-ribbon commission has been given two years to recommend alternatives for managing spent fuel from nuclear power plants and highly radioactive waste that was generated by government weapons programs and is now stored at a handful of secure reservations.

In the defense bill, a provision authored by Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., calls for the Secretary of Energy to deliver a report to Congress in 120 days "on the steps and actions required to preserve and restart the nuclear waste repository located at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as an option for disposing of defense nuclear waste."

A section inserted by Wilson calls for the secretaries of Defense and Energy to report to Congress in 180 days on how closing the repository would impact the management of high level radioactive waste now stored at defense sites.

That study also would assess how the government would comply with signed agreements with states that host the defense installations.

South Carolina is home to about 4,000 metric tons of waste from seven commercial reactors plus 36 million gallons of defense waste being converted to glass logs at the Savannah River complex.

Officials from the state, along with those in Washington state, which has the Hanford nuclear reservation, have been most critical of the planned Yucca Mountain shutdown. They say without a repository in the works, the deadly material will remain at those sites for years to come.

Heller said he spoke with Wilson this week.

"Obviously (South Carolina) has their agenda and they want to move (nuclear waste) out of their state," Heller said. "I just told them I don't want it in Nevada."