States resist adding to nuclear waste construction fund

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

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

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

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

Another Michigan resolution, by Sen. Bruce Patterson, 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 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., suppressed annual appropriations in a bid to slow the project.

Maine's legislature passed a similar resolution two years ago. 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, 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 into the fund.

Maine is urging 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.

Consumers of electricity generated by nuclear power pay one-tenth of a penny for every kilowatt-hour they consume into a nuclear waste construction fund.

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 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 probably more the longer the waste issue remains unresolved.

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@ stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.