States balk at paying into nuclear waste fund

WASHINGTON — With the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository on a slow path for years, and now possibly ended for good, some states finally are asking for relief on money their residents are paying into a multibillion-dollar construction account.

Legislators in Maine on Tuesday approved a resolution urging Congress and the Obama administration to reduce the fees that electricity ratepayers are contributing to a special nuclear waste fund.

In Minnesota, state Rep. Joe Atkins is pushing legislation to place the state's nuclear waste payments, about $13 million annually, into an escrow account.

Resolutions introduced last month in the Michigan Senate directs the state's Public Service Commission likewise to establish an escrow fund. Ratepayers have contributed $503 million so far.

Another Michigan resolution, by Sen. Bruce Patterson, a Republican from Lansing, urges the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "to do everything necessary to allow the Yucca Mountain repository to begin accepting high level nuclear waste."

States with nuclear power plants long have complained about how money from the waste fund was being spent, or not spent, on the destination site for spent fuel 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca Mountain opponents led by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., successfully suppressed annual appropriations in a bid to slow the project.

The Maine legislature passed a similar resolution two years ago. But its concerns have taken on a new urgency with President Barack Obama declaring opposition to the Yucca project, and with Energy Secretary Steven Chu moving to form a commission to study alternatives.

"With the Obama administration moving away from Yucca Mountain, it leaves no path forward for the waste we have in Maine. That is the impetus," said state Sen. Deborah Simpson, a Democrat from Auburn who sponsored the resolution.

"It doesn't make sense for ratepayers to pay for a waste plan, and then having no plan," said Simpson, whose resolution noted that Maine ratepayers have contributed $65 million to the fund.

Maine's urging is for Congress to authorize two interim storage sites for used nuclear fuel, like the 540 metric tons sitting in 64 above-ground casks at the shutdown Maine Yankee reactor site in Wiscasset, which is on an inlet to the Atlantic Ocean.

The nuclear waste construction fund is evidence that from tiny seeds, mighty oaks can grow. Consumers of electricity generated by nuclear power pay one-tenth of a penny for every kilowatt-hour they consume.

But since 1983, the fund has raised $29.7 billion in fees and investment interest. Only $7.1 billion has been spent, with the balance being $22.6 billion, according to a February report from the Department of Energy.

With the nuclear waste fund cemented in federal statute, states and utilities have been reluctant to withhold payments altogether for fear of breaking the law, even though the government failed to take control of waste from their reactors by 1998 as it promised .

Instead, the Department of Energy is being sued by dozens of utilities for partial breach of contract. Damages are expected to exceed $11 billion, and possibly more the longer the waste issue remains unresolved.

Martez Norris, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, said communities with nuclear plants perked up when Obama confirmed a campaign pledge to shelve the Nevada project, and Chu began talking about alternatives.

"This business of having a blue ribbon commission is starting to resonate that the waste is going to be at their sites forever," said Norris, whose organization is composed of state and utility officials.

They also took notice of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposal to lengthen by 20 years the period of time that nuclear waste can be stored safely onsite, Norris said.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the policy arm of the nuclear industry, has begun calling for Congress to re-examine the nuclear fund, which takes in about $750 million a year in fees.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said last week he would prepare amendments to an upcoming energy bill that would send money back to ratepayers if Obama was serious about ending the Yucca project.

In February, Rep, Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., tried to advance an amendment that would allow states to put nuclear waste funds into escrow, resolving their legal fears.

The House Rules Committee declined to accept Paulsen's amendment. His aides said Wednesday he may reintroduce it as a stand-alone bill.

Atkins said Minnesota would be the first state to halt payments to the nuclear fund if his bill passes. Ratepayers in that state have contributed $375.9 million into the account.

“The average Minnesotan has paid more than $549 to this idle fund, expecting safe storage of our spent nuclear fuel in return," said Atkins, a Democrat from suburban St. Paul. "A quarter of a century later we still have nothing to show for it. Until we see some results, Minnesotans have paid enough.”