House OKs funds for temporary nuclear storage

WASHINGTON — The House approved $30 million for the temporary storage of nuclear waste in the energy spending bill passed late Wednesday.

The bill's report says the Energy Department could consider private sites, which might make Private Fuel Storage's proposed site in Tooele County a possible contender to store waste before it went to Nevada's Yucca Mountain — if it ever opens.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is confident the bill is written in a way that would look to other sites before putting waste in Utah, while Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, is concerned about the money opening up the possibility for PFS to move forward. Bishop said on the House floor late Tuesday that a "key word" in the bill is "voluntary."

The bill says the department will "explore consolidation of spent fuel within states with high volumes of spent fuel. The department should conduct a voluntary, competitive process to select interim storage sites."

"Chairman Hobson added this important phrase and clearly understands that it is far wiser and better to voluntarily work with states than to try to impose mandates on states," Bishop said. "That not only protects the rights and positions of states in our federal state, but it is clearly a wiser policy of choice."

Bishop said this "reinforces" a commitment that Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, has made in the past about not forcing waste into Utah. Hobson is the head of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Committee, which wrote the energy spending bill.

"State and local officials in my state, military in my state, environmental groups and citizens in my state are encouraged with these particular words," Bishop said.

But Matheson said just the existence of the $30 million in the bill "is a step in the wrong direction." He worries that the funding may be viewed by PFS as an opportunity to push harder for customers.

"Because PFS has been granted a license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we have to be concerned about Congress seeing Utah as a viable interim storage site," said Matheson. "That is a non-starter, as far as I am concerned."

Matheson — and the rest of the Utah delegation — co-sponsored a bill that would keep nuclear waste at commercial reactors. Right now, federal law requires nuclear waste to go inside Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but the repository is eight years behind schedule.

Because of the delay, the government estimates it will cost the federal government about $500 million in legal liability on top of other costs. Utilities are suing the department because the waste is still there and not in Nevada.