Budget problems may delay facility at Yucca Mountain

WASHINGTON — A House panel approved only a fraction of the money the administration says it needs to keep a proposed nuclear waste project in Nevada on schedule, jeopardizing its planned completion by 2010.

While the facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has widespread congressional support, a budget glitch forced a House Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday to provide only $131 million for the program in the next fiscal year.

The Energy Department had requested $880 million it says it will need to begin seeking permits for the waste repository, go ahead with design work and develop a plan for transporting waste to the site from nuclear power plants around the country.

"I think we have an obligation to get (the facility) opened and funded," said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the subcommittee. "But I don't have the tools right now to get that done."

The Yucca Mountain money is part of a $28 billion spending bill for energy and water projects that the subcommittee approved by voice vote Wednesday. While there may be opportunities to increase funds for Yucca Mountain as the bill works its way through the House, Hobson was not optimistic about the prospects.

Hobson said funding for the program has been put in jeopardy because the administration, in requesting the funds, linked the remaining $749 million to Congress passing separate legislation on how lawmakers use a special nuclear waste fund for the Yucca project.

Congress has used that fund, which now totals nearly $15 billion, to help shrink the federal deficit, and there is little prospect that the legislation offered by the administration will pass this year.

Given the tight budget situation, Hobson could not find the money elsewhere, so Yucca Mountain funding for the 2005 fiscal year, beginning in October, was limited to the $131 million allocated for defense waste.

The government wants to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste — used reactor fuel now held at power plants in 31 states as well as defense waste — at Yucca Mountain. Next year has been described as pivotal for the program since the Energy Department will begin the process for getting a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and developing a transportation plan for the waste.

Nuclear waste would likely travel through Utah en route to Yucca Mountain.