Waste site request cut

WASHINGTON -- A Senate subcommittee voted Tuesday to cut $50 million from Yucca Mountain spending in 2008, but its chairman said the Department of Energy still should be able to meet the project's goals for the coming year.

The $444.5 million Yucca Mountain budget proposed by the energy and water appropriations subcommittee amounts to a 10 percent slash in the Bush administration request for the fiscal year that begins Oct 1.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the panel "tried to get as close as we could" to the request while setting aside some savings for other needs in a $32 billion bill that also funds a variety of DOE, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers programs.

On the Yucca Mountain Project, "we took a look at the president's request and talked to the folks about what was necessary," said Dorgan, who became chairman earlier this year.

The bill "provides sufficient funding for (the Department of Energy) to continue down the road to licensing," Dorgan said. "We cut about 50 million, that leaves them with a fairly substantial amount of money."

The action on Tuesday further shaped the 2008 budget bill for Yucca Mountain, the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas that is planned to be the nation's repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste.

The budget bill faces further Senate votes, and also must be reconciled later this year with a House energy spending bill.

The House bill fully funds Yucca Mountain, suggesting the final budget may be relatively close to the DOE request unless opponents like Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., force deeper cuts before final passage.

A leading critic of the "nuclear dump," Reid served as a chairman and also a ranking Democrat on the energy and water subcommittee until this year when he became Senate Majority leader and left the Appropriations Committee. He maintains influence over Yucca matters although it was not clear what input he had on the new spending bill.

Reid said the bill will serve the purpose of further crippling the project. Yucca Mountain spending has been cut by a cumulative $715 million in the past six years, including a $50 million cut last year.

The declining budgets have been forcing the Energy Department to postpone work on key segments, close public outreach offices and restrict access to the site.

Project director Ward Sproat testified to Congress earlier this year that the Energy Department would need full funding to keep the program on a "best case" schedule to begin accepting waste before 2020.

The department has set a June 30, 2008 deadline to file a repository license application.

"The Energy Department has said that any cut would be fatal to the dump so I am glad that we were able to cut funding by another $50 million," Reid said. "It is clear that our cuts are working and that the proposed dump will never be built."

Energy Department officials said they would not discuss budget implications. "We look forward to working with Congress to ensure full funding," spokesman Allen Benson said.

Other Yucca critics said they were hoping for a deeper cut.

"It certainly is disappointing from our standpoint. We would have liked to have seen the numbers quite a bit lower if not eliminated entirely," said Bob Loux, director of Nevada's nuclear waste office.

"I am disappointed. Any money that is spent on Yucca Mountain is a waste," said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an advocacy group.

Pro-repository lobbyists and officials said they were pleasantly surprised. Rumors in the spring hinted at slim funding for Yucca, prompting the Nuclear Energy Institute and others to launch a lobbying push.

"This is going to be a haircut, which is better than a scalping or a crew cut, let's put it that way," said David Blee, a consultant to several pro-Yucca groups.