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27–759 PDF 2018

EXAMINING AMERICA’S NUCLEAR WASTE 

MANAGEMENT AND STORAGE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE INTERIOR, ENERGY, AND ENVIRONMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 26, 2017 

Serial No. 115–39 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://oversight.house.gov 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman 

John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee 

Darrell E. Issa, California 

Jim Jordan, Ohio 

Mark Sanford, South Carolina 

Justin Amash, Michigan 

Paul A. Gosar, Arizona 

Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee 

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 

Blake Farenthold, Texas 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Thomas Massie, Kentucky 

Mark Meadows, North Carolina 

Ron DeSantis, Florida 

Dennis A. Ross, Florida 

Mark Walker, North Carolina 

Rod Blum, Iowa 

Jody B. Hice, Georgia 

Steve Russell, Oklahoma 

Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin 

Will Hurd, Texas 

Gary J. Palmer, Alabama 

James Comer, Kentucky 

Paul Mitchell, Michigan 

Greg Gianforte, Montana 

Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

Carolyn B. Maloney, New York 

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia 

Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri 

Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts 

Jim Cooper, Tennessee 

Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia 

Robin L. Kelly, Illinois 

Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan 

Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey 

Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands 

Val Butler Demings, Florida 

Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois 

Jamie Raskin, Maryland 

Peter Welch, Vermont 

Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania 

Mark DeSaulnier, California 

Jimmy Gomez, California 

SHERIA CLARKE, Staff Director 

ROBERT BORDEN, Deputy Staff Director 

WILLIAM MCKENNA General Counsel 

RYAN HAMBLETON, Subcommittee Staff Director 

KILEY BIDELMAN, Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE INTERIOR, ENERGY, AND ENVIRONMENT

Blake Farenthold, Texas, Chairman 

Paul A. Gosar, Arizona, Vice Chair 

Dennis Ross, Florida 

Gary J. Palmer, Alabama 

James Comer, Kentucky 

Greg Gianforte, Montana 

Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands 

Jamie Raskin, Maryland 

Jimmy Gomez, California 

(Vacancy) 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on September 26, 2017 ..................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Anthony J. O’Donnell, Commissioner, Maryland Public Service Commission, Chair, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues, Waste Disposal 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

Mr. Chuck Smith, Council Member, Aiken County, South Carolina on behalf 

of Energy Communities Alliance 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15 

Mr. David G. Victor, Chairman, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, 

Community Engagement Panel, Professor, UC San Diego School of Global 

Policy & Strategy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 16 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 19 

Dr. Edwin Lyman, Senior Scientist, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 27 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 29 

Ms. Katie Tubb, Policy Analyst, Institute for Economic Freedom, The Heritage Foundation 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 39 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 41 

APPENDIX 

Statement for the record by Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, submitted by 

Chairman Farenthold .......................................................................................... 64 

The Costs of Inaction on Nuclear Waste Management, submitted by Mr. 

Palmer ................................................................................................................... 68 

Questions for the record for Mr. Anthony O’Donnell, submitted by Chairman 

Farenthold ............................................................................................................ 71 

Questions for the record for Mr. Chuck Smith, submitted by Chairman 

Farenthold ............................................................................................................ 74 

Questions for the record for Ms. Katie Tubb, submitted by Chairman 

Farenthold ............................................................................................................ 78 


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EXAMINING AMERICA’S NUCLEAR WASTE 

MANAGEMENT AND STORAGE 

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE INTERIOR, ENERGY AND

ENVIRONMENT

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:04 p.m., in Room 

2154, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Blake Farenthold 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Farenthold, Gosar, Ross, Palmer, 

Comer, Gianforte, Raskin, and Gomez. 

Also Present: Representatives Issa and Clay. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. The Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, 

and the Environment will come to order. 

Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at 

any time. 

Without objection, we are going to allow Mr. Clay to sit in, a 

member of the full committee, to participate in this subcommittee. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Good afternoon. Today, the Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and the Environment will examine America’s nuclear waste 

management and storage. 

Over the last 40 years, the U.S. produced 76,000 metric tons of 

nuclear waste. That’s enough volume to cover a football field 24 

feet high. This waste is scattered around our cities at nuclear 

power plants and other facilities because our country can’t get moving on a proper long-term plan for storage and disposal. 

Today, we’ll explore our existing regulations for nuclear waste 

management and possible opportunities for improvement. 

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, or NWPA, of 1982 directed the 

Department of Energy, aka the DOE, to develop a national repository for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste. Way back in 

1987, the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada 

was designated as this site. The DOE submitted a licensing application for Yucca Mountain to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

in 2008. However, the Obama administration’s disapproval of the 

proposal and a series of court cases significantly delayed the application’s review. Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has yet 

to approve the license for Yucca Mountain rendering the site unusable. 

To cover the cost of permanent removal, the NWPA established 

a Nuclear Waste Fund to collect fees under contractual obligation 


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from nuclear power utilities in exchange for removal of nuclear 

waste. The DOE has, in fact, collected around $750 million annually, despite their inability to dispose the utility’s nuclear waste. 

The DOE now owes roughly $29 billion in liabilities since they 

failed to fulfill their contracts. 

With nearly 2,000 metric tons of nuclear waste produced each 

year, the need for a long-term storage solution is becoming crucial. 

In my home State of Texas, there’s currently a site in Andrews 

County used for low-level radioactive waste. A licensing application 

to upgrade the sight to an interim nuclear repository was submitted to the NRC. But similar to Yucca Mountain, the application 

faced numerous roadblocks ultimately stalling, in their view, process. 

Due to the barriers faced in establishing a national repository, 

nuclear power of utilities often store nuclear waste in reactor sites. 

This is costly and unsustainable over the longterm and places significant burdens on the communities that house them. The Federal 

Government has a designated site and the resources necessary to 

make it operational, yet has struggled every step of the way to get 

the approval required to move forward. It’s been 35 years since the 

passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and we have hardly anything to show in that time period, despite billions of dollars spent. 

We have to find a way to move past the gridlock. 

I look forward to hearing ideas and suggestions from our panel, 

and am hopeful the committee can create solutions to improve the 

management and storage of America’s nuclear waste. 

At this point, I will yield 5 minutes to Mr. Raskin, the acting 

ranking member, as Ms. Plaskett is detained in the U.S. Virgin Islands for obvious reasons. 

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important 

hearing. And welcome to all of our fine witnesses, including my 

former colleague from the Maryland General Assembly, Mr. 

O’Donnell. It’s really good to see you. 

And I am serving in the place of our distinguished ranking member, my friend and former law student, Ms. Plaskett, who is attending to her constituents in the U.S. Virgin Islands who are struggling to recover from the devastating hurricane and all the flood 

damage. They are in our thoughts, and prayers are with her and 

with her constituents. 

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss an issue on the 

minds of a lot of Americans. Nuclear waste storage is a pressing 

nationwide concern that requires a nationwide solution. There are 

currently over 700,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel in our 

country, an additional 13,000 metric tons from defense-related activities. This radioactive waste is currently being stored at dozens 

of deteriorating nuclear storage sites across America. And I believe 

we can all agree that this is not a viable or safe long-term solution. 

I believe we can also agree that our government owes the American people an effective plan to address the nuclear waste storage 

problem. We owe the American people a plan that allows for nuclear waste to be stored securely in the manner that does not poison the environment and that presents no public health and safety 

concerns for local communities. 


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Questions about the soundness and safety of our current storage 

regime and facilities are not new. In recent years, we’ve seen several disturbing incidents that have brought into question our ability to safely store this dangerous material in communities across 

the land. 

Internationally, the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima plant 

caused by an earthquake and a tsunami is still a vivid and serious 

reminder of the dangers of nuclear power and escaped nuclear radiation. And it serves as a warning to all of us around the world of 

what can happen if we don’t keep safety at the very forefront of our 

concerns. 

So it’s troubling to me that the Trump administration is moving 

swiftly to advance the Yucca Mountain facility. The President’s proposed budget provides for $120 million to restart the licensing for 

this controversial plan. There are significant reasons why the repository at Yucca Mountain site originally selected 30 years ago 

has not yet been built. Yucca Mountain is seismically active and 

faces the possibility of continued and increased volcanic activity. 

Moreover, the facility comes with a known risk of radioactive waste 

leaking into the groundwater and contaminating the drinking 

water of nearby communities. Furthermore, the transportation of 

nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain would take it through 44 States 

and the District of Columbia, well over two-thirds of the country, 

nor have we fully considered the national security risks involved in 

transporting and storing this nuclear waste. 

These significant concerns cannot be swept under the rug in a 

mad dash to get Yucca Mountain licensed. All of these environmental, public health, safety, transportation, and national security 

questions must be thoroughly answered before we determine that 

Yucca Mountain is the best site for nuclear waste storage. 

There are so many difficulties involved in using Yucca Mountain 

to store nuclear waste that the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 

Panel is considering approximately 300 different contingencies. It 

seems clear we should be considering alternative sites to act as a 

permanent repository. Looking forward whether we are discussing 

short- or long-term solutions, we must continue to make the public 

safety a paramount priority, and this means carefully considering 

environmental implications of all the sites. 

As the people of Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands 

desperately try to recover from record-force hurricanes and flooding 

damage, we must take stock of the fact that climate change is dramatically increasing the ferocity and the perils of natural disasters. 

No plan to safely dispose of and store nuclear waste is remotely 

complete if it does not take into account changes in weather patterns. It is also imperative that the Federal Government works 

with State and local governments to develop and implement effective solutions going forward. 

I look forward to hearing today from people who are tackling 

these important issues. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. 

Without objection, other members will have 3 legislative days to 

submit an opening statement. Additionally, without objection, SenVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:32 Jan 08, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\27759.TXT APRIL

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ator Dean Heller of Nevada has also submitted testimony. And 

without objection, we’ll add that to the record as well. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Now I’d like to introduce our witnesses. 

We have Mr. Anthony O’Donnell, commissioner of the Maryland 

Public Service Commission, and chair of the Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues - Waste Disposal at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. We have Mr. Chuck Smith, a councilman in Aiken County, South Carolina, and chairman of the Energy 

Community Alliance. We have Mr. David Victor, professor of international relations and director of the Laboratory on International 

Law and Regulations at UC San Diego, as well as chairman of the 

Community Engagement Panel at San Onofre Nuclear Generating 

Station. We have Dr. Edwin Lyman, senior scientist of—at the 

Union of Concerned Scientists Global Security Program. And Ms. 

Katie Tubb, policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, Center for 

International Trade and Economics. 

We welcome you all. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn before 

their testimony. 

Would you please rise and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you’re about 

to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you God? 

Let the record reflect all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

And you all may be seated. 

We all have your preprovided testimony. So in order to allow 

time for discussions and questions, I’d request you limit your time 

for your verbal testimony to 5 minutes. The clock in front of you 

shows the time remaining. It will turn yellow when you have 30 

seconds remaining and turn red when your time’s up. If you go way 

over, I’ll start tapping the gavel to—in case you missed the clock. 

So with that, we’ll begin with Mr. O’Donnell. You’re recognized 

for 5 minutes, sir. 

WITNESS TESTIMONIES 

TESTIMONY OF ANTHONY J. O’DONNELL 

Mr. O’DONNELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good afternoon, Chairman Farenthold and Acting Ranking Member Raskin and other members of the Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and Environment. Thank you for the opportunity to 

testify today on the lack of progress on nuclear waste disposal and 

its effect on ratepayers. 

My name is Tony O’Donnell, and I’m a commissioner on the 

Maryland Public Service Commission. I also serve as chairman of 

the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, 

NARUC, Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues - Waste Disposal. Thank 

you for holding this hearing. 

State economic utility regulators are responsible for ensuring the 

safe, reliable, and affordable delivery of essential electric utility 

services in every State across this country. The success of the Federal nuclear waste management program funded by the consumers 

of electricity generated from the Nation’s nuclear power plants is 

necessarily of keen interest. Both NARUC and its member commisVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:32 Jan 08, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\27759.TXT APRIL

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sions have dedicated a tremendous amount of time and resources 

to ensure that electricity consumers receive the services they have 

paid for. 

State regulators agree that users of electricity for nuclear power 

plants should pay for the Federal—for the Federal nuclear waste 

management and disposal program, and the consumers have paid 

generously into this fund. 

Since 1982, more than $40 billion in direct payments and interest have been paid into the U.S. Nuclear Waste Fund. In fact, the 

$40-plus billion the consumers have contributed to the fund is only 

part of the entire amount they have spent on nuclear waste. 

First, consumers have paid for the original waste storage of facilities through the rates. Secondly, they paid into the Nuclear 

Waste Fund, as I just mentioned. Third, consumers paid to rerack 

or consolidate used fuel pools through the rates because the Federal Government failed to remove the waste by the statutory deadline. Fourth, they had to pay for onsite, out-of-pool dry cask storage 

through rates, again due to Federal failure. Finally, consumers 

paid a fifth time, through taxes paid for the Judgment Fund disbursements to cover damages caused by the failure of the Federal 

nuclear waste program. 

With respect to the judgement fund, taxpayers from every State, 

even those whose utilities have no stake in nuclear-generated electricity, continue to fund court-awarded damages from the Department of Justice Judgment Fund for DOE’s partial breach of its contracts with electric companies that required DOE to remove the 

used nuclear fuel. 

According to a September 2014 DOE audit report, $4.5 billion in 

damages have already been paid as a result of the Federal Government inaction. DOE estimates the total liability for the Federal 

Government will be about $27 billion, subject to check, maybe it’s 

$29 billion. But that estimate includes the unrealistic assumption 

that the Department can begin to accept used nuclear fuel by 2021. 

Industry estimates almost double that projection. Even former 

President Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission estimated that every 

year of delay in accepting used nuclear fuel will increase this liability by approximately $500 million. Yet for those billions, so far 

ratepayers in the country have nothing to show for it. 

The Federal Government missed its statutorily mandated deadline to start accepting nuclear mandate—nuclear waste in 1998. In 

the 1990s and early 2000s, at least the program had shown 

progress, notwithstanding the missed deadline. 

However, since that time, efforts to block funding for a geological 

disposal of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain as well as the U.S. 

Department of Energy’s unlawful refusal to support the project’s licensing application has kept the country in the exact same situation we occupied 30 years ago when Congress decided—I reiterate, 

Congress decided—that Yucca Mountain should be the first site 

considered for the United States permanent repository. 

The United States needs and—needs and consumers have paid 

for a permanent storage solution, and nothing less. To put it bluntly, the States and localities have the Federal Government’s waste, 

and the Federal Government has our money. 


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Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be part 

of this critical discussion. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. O’Donnell follows] 


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Testimony on behalf of the 

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) 

by 

The Honorable Anthony J. O'Donnell 

Commissioner, Maryland Public Service Commission 

Chairman, NARUC Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues-Waste Disposal 

before the 

United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy and Environment 

hearing entitled 

"Examining America's Nuclear Waste Management and 

Storage" 

September 26, 2017 

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners 

1101 Vermont Ave, N.W., Suite 200 

Washington, D.C. 20005 

Telephone (202) 898-2207, Facsimile (202) 898-2213 

http://www.naruc.org 
8 


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Good morning Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Plaskett, and members of 

the Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, & Environment. Thank you for the 

opportunity to testifY today on the lack of progress on nuclear waste disposal and 

its effect on ratepayers. My name is Tony O'Donnell, and I am a Commissioner 

on the Maryland Public Service Commission. I also serve as the Chairman of the 

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) 

Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues- Waste Disposal. 

NARUC is a non-profit organization founded in 1889. Our members are the public 

utility commissions in all 50 States and the U.S. territories. NARUC's mission is 

to serve the public interest by improving the quality and effectiveness of public 

utility regulation. Our members regulate the retail rates and services of electric, 

gas, water, and telephone utilities. We are obligated under the laws of our 

respective States to assure the establishment and maintenance of essential utility 

services as required by public convenience and necessity and to ensure that these 

services are provided under rates, terms, and conditions of service that are just, 

reasonable, and non-discriminatory. 

State economic utility regulators are responsible for ensuring the safe, reliable, and 

affordable delivery of essential electric utility service in every State across the 

country. The success of the federal nuclear waste management program, funded 

by the consumers of electricity generated from the nation's nuclear power plants, is 

necessarily of keen interest. Both NARUC and its member commissions have 

dedicated a tremendous amount of time and resources to ensure that 

electricity consumers receive the services they have paid for. 

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NARUC and its State Commission members were at the table when the Nuclear 

Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) was developed and passed. At that time, and 

today, State regulators agree that users of electricity from nuclear power plants 

should pay for the federal nuclear waste management and disposal program and the 

consumers have already paid generously into the fund. Since 1982, more than $40 

billion in direct payments and interest have been paid into the U.S. Nuclear Waste 

Fund (NWF). 

In fact, the $40 plus billion that consumers have contributed to the NWF is only 

part of the entire amount they have spent on nuclear waste. First, the consumers 

paid for the original waste storage at the facilities through their rates. Second, they 

paid into the NWF, as already mentioned. Third, the consumers paid to rerack, or 

consolidate, used fuel pools, again through their rates, because the federal 

government failed to remove the waste by statutory deadline. Fourth, they had to 

pay for on-site, out-of-pool dry cask storage, again through rates, again due to 

federal failure. Finally, consumers pay a fifth time, through taxes paid for 

Judgment Fund disbursement to cover damages caused by the failure of the federal 

nuclear waste program. A brief discussion of Judgment Fund disbursement will be 

discussed below. 

Yet, for those billions, so far, ratepayers- and the country -have nothing to show 

for it. The federal government missed its statutorily mandated deadline to start 

accepting nuclear waste in 1998. In the 1990s and early 2000s, at least the program 

had shown progress, notwithstanding the missed deadline. However, since that 

time, efforts to block funding for the geologic disposal of nuclear waste at Yucca 

Mountain, as well as the U.S. Department of Energy's unlawful refusal to support 

the project's licensing application, has kept the country in the exact same situation 

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we occupied 30 years ago when Congress decided that Yucca Mountain should be 

the first site considered for the United States permanent repository. 

In 2010, after decades of scientific study and an investment of over $11 billion in 

the Yucca Mountain repository, the Obama Administration- without any record of 

public process unilaterally declared the site not "practical" and "unworkable," 

purported to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application, and began 

dismantling the program, closing the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste 

Management. NARUC was one of many voices that opposed this attempt and was 

a petitioner in the mandamus action that required the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission to expend outstanding appropriations on the Yucca Mountain license 

revtew. 

Today, there is no nuclear waste program worthy of the name, despite the 

exhaustive studies and billions in ratepayer and taxpayer dollars spent. All that 

remains is the nuclear waste, which sits on site at nuclear reactors, some of which 

arc now closed. This is not only uneconomic. It undermines confidence in nuclear 

power. 

The repercussions of the previous Administration's failure to take possession of 

and remove nuclear waste, as well as develop the Yucca Mountain site have been 

substantial. Taxpayers from every State, even those whose utilities have no stake 

in nuclear-generated electricity, continue to fund court-awarded damages from the 

Department of Justice Judgment Fund for DOE's partial breach of its contracts 

with electric companies that required DOE to take title to used fuel. 

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Let's examine those damages. According to a September 2014 audit, $4.5 billion 

in damages has already been paid as a result of federal government inaction. DOE 

estimates the total liability for the federal government will be about $27 billion, but 

that estimate includes the optimistic assumption that the department can begin to 

accept used nuclear fuel in 2021. Industry estimates almost double that projection. 

Even former President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) estimated that 

every year of delay in accepting used nuclear fuel will increase this liability by 

approximately $500 million. All told, we are facing damages in the tens of billions 

of dollars. 

The 31 States with retired and operating nuclear reactors have an even greater 

incentive to press for some reform in how the federal program is funded. There are 

currently over 74,000 metric tons of commercial spent fuel at reactor sites in the 

US. America's nuclear power reactors continue to produce roughly 

2,000 tons of waste every year. The ratepayers in each of those States have 

contributed millions to the corpus of the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF). 

Access to the billions of dollars collected by the NWF is essential for any interim 

or permanent solution to nuclear waste disposal to succeed. As the BRC Report 

acknowledged, at 74: 

[F)or the waste management program to succeed, the nuclear waste funding 

mechanism must be allowed to work as intended so that the ability to implement the 

waste program is not subject to unrelated federal budget constraints. 

Congress holds the keys to make that progress happen. The budgeting and 

appropriations process for the waste disposal program must change. Currently, 

appropriations from the NWF are considered as part of the total federal 

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government budgeting process- not as allocation of the funds collected in the 

NWF. 

That means any appropriations will score and increase the deficit. Appropriations 

for the waste disposal program remain under the spending cap applicable to all 

domestic programs, even though the NWF is self-financed. 

This forces spending from the NWF to compete with other spending programs that 

never had a dedicated funding stream. This approach is unfair to ratepayers and 

inappropriate for a fund designed to finance the extremely protracted life-cycle of a 

capital-intensive disposal program. It makes no sense to treat funds collected 

specifically to support the disposal of used commercial reactor fuel as 

discretionary. Over the life of the program, this approach necessarily Jed to lower 

appropriations than were requested. (BRC Report at 72). Reduced funding 

contributed to project and schedule delays (and obviously undermined the Yucca 

Mountain license review process.) Inadequate funding can only hamper efficient 

scheduling and planning thereby driving up costs. 

NARUC believes that the NWF must be managed responsibly and be used only for 

its intended purpose. The program must have full access to the revenues 

generated by consumers' fee payments, if they resume, and to the balance of the 

NWF. This requires legislative changes to the NWP A. 

As related previously, the U.S. government has not lived up to the promises made 

under the NWP A and subsequent Congressional enactments. This is not a matter 

of opinion, but of legal record, and of particular relevance to any discussion of the 

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NWF is the November 2013 D.C. Circuit decision granting NARUC's request that 

the DOE suspend collection of the NWF fees. 

The NWP A required electricity ratepayers to fund a one mil (one tenth of a cent) 

per kilowatt-hour fee to fund the NWF. Under the NWP A, the Secretary of Energy 

is obligated to evaluate whether collection of the fee will provide su11icient 

revenues to offset program costs. In response to a suit filed by NARUC and the 

Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. 

Circuit reasoned that the Secretary was not only responsible for reviewing the fee's 

adequacy, but also had an affirmative obligation to conduct an annual fee analysis. 

The court examined the last DOE fee assessment and found the Secretary's 

"determination" legally inadequate. The court identified many flaws in the DOE 

analysis. Among other things, it specified that the Administration could not 

logically deem Yucca Mountain unworkable and in the same sentence utilize it as a 

proxy to estimate the fee. The court chose, however, to remand and give the 

Secretary six months to comply with the NWPA by producing a revised fee 

assessment. 

On January 16,2013, DOE released its updated fee adequacy analysis. NARUC 

and NEI immediately filed a motion to reopen the proceeding. The court 

determined the updated assessment was also flawed. Ultimately, on November 19, 

2013, in a sharply worded opinion, the court ordered DOE to request Congress set 

the fee to zero, rejecting its request for yet another chance to "redo" the assessment 

as "so obviously disingenuous that we have no confidence another remand would 

serve any purpose." The decision compares DOE's analysis to the musical 

"Chicago," where the lawyer sings "give them the old razzle dazzle." DOE's last 

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gasp request for both rehearing and rehearing en bane was denied on March 18, 

2014. The fee was suspended shortly thereafter. 

NARUC is open to the idea of interim solutions where nuclear fuel is stored, not at 

reactor sites, but at one or more central locations, pending the final development of 

a permanent repository once the application process begins again at the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission. However, this approach must not become the same kind 

of accidentally long-term approach that on-reactor-site storage has become, due to 

an Administration's unwillingness or inability to permit Yucca Mountain. The 

United States needs, and consumers have paid for, a permanent storage solutionand nothing less. To put it bluntly, the citizens of States and localities have the 

federal government's waste and the federal government has our money. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to be part of this critical discussion. 

7 
15 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Smith. 

TESTIMONY OF CHUCK SMITH 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Farenthold and members of—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Could you turn your microphone on, please, 

sir? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you for inviting me to testify today ensuring 

that the perspective of the local communities that host the government’s defense nuclear waste facilities is represented. I am Chuck 

Smith, council member of Aiken County, South Carolina, board 

member of the SRS Community Reuse Organization, and chairman 

of Energy Communities Alliance. 

Our communities have long played a key role supporting the Nation’s national security efforts. Indulge me, please. I have two canisters of high-level waste from different locations. Scientists will 

tell you that both are radiologically the same material, yet it costs 

$10 billion to manage this material and $100 billion to manage this 

material. Why? Because DOE regulations make no sense. 

I’d like to discuss defense high-level waste in an alternative path 

forward that can potentially reduce current cost estimates for addressing nuclear waste by upwards of $40 billion. 

DOE produced defense nuclear waste through its reprocessing 

programs carried out as a part of the Manhattan Project and during the Cold War. DOE has 332 underground tanks used to process 

and store liquid high-level waste. The large tanks sit at three locations: Hanford, Washington; the Idaho National Laboratory; and in 

my State, Savannah River Site. 

The defense high-level waste is ultimately destined for disposal 

at Yucca Mountain. ECA has long supported moving forward with 

the Yucca Mountain licensing process. A high-level waste repository is and remains essential. ECA also supports consolidated interim storage, but it must exist alongside a permanent solution and 

not instead of it. 

As the ‘‘kick the can down the road approach’’ continues, I must 

remind you that our communities are already de facto interim storage sites. In addition, DOE and nuclear power producers are already incurring large costs paid for by taxpayers in your communities. GAO reported this year that DOE’s environmental liability 

has doubled from a low of $176 billion in 1997 to an estimate of 

$372 billion in 2016. DOE has paid $6.1 billion in damages. That 

breaks down to 800 million annually, about $2.5 million per day. 

The cost of inaction is high. 

So what can we do? ECA believes one option is clarifying the way 

nuclear waste is classified. Our country’s radioactive waste clarification system currently relies primarily on point of origin rather 

than consumption or the specific hazards posed by its disposal. 

This approach does not make sense. Some defense high-level waste 

could technically qualify as transuranic waste, if based on its radioactive content. Only the U.S. classifies this nuclear waste this way. 

Just this month, ECA released a white paper outlining five nearterm actions we believe can help DOE cut years of operation: reduce the size and duration of storage facilities needed before a 

high-level waste repository is available, accelerate waste tank reVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:32 Jan 08, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\27759.TXT APRIL

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trieval and closures, and, as I mentioned earlier, realize savings of 

more than 40 billion. 

Our first two recommendations reflect a two-pronged approach. 

First, DOE should revise its order 435.1 to clarify that waste will 

be managed and disposed of according to characteristics rather 

than origin. DOE already has the authority to do this under the 

Atomic Energy Act. Congress should eventually provide statutory 

clarification to codify any clarification and reduce the chances it 

will shift over time along with politics and new administrations. 

However, any legislative language should support DOE’s efforts 

and not get ahead of them. My community has started to develop 

its own legislative language, but we need to ensure that resources 

are available for local and State representatives around each impacted site to engage with their constituents, State policymakers, 

and congressional delegations to provide education and build support. 

Our next two recommendations deal with WIPP. DOE must 

begin working with the State of New Mexico on a permanent modification—on a permanent modification for WIPP to allow some of 

the tank waste currently classified as high-level waste to go to 

WIPP if it meets waste-acceptance criteria. This could allow 2,300 

canisters of waste at Savannah River that are already destined to 

safely go to WIPP rather than sit onsite waiting for a high-level repository to be operational. Congress and DOE should provide full 

funding for WIPP so the full range of disposal capabilities can be 

resumed and capacity ultimately increased. 

And finally, DOE should begin to work on pilot projects and policy options to better understand alternative approaches. This includes considering how best to utilize private facilities such as 

WCS in Texas. Again, I caution it is imperative that DOE enter 

into discussions as early as possible with host communities and 

States to ensure there’s a full understanding of the risk and benefits of any proposal. Impacted stakeholders must have the resources and opportunities necessary to participate in planning and 

provide feedback into policymaking process. 

For many communities, trust in DOE has eroded over time, and 

transparency is paramount to our community’s ability to support 

DOE decisions. Clarifying waste definition is a large departure 

from current policy, but current policy has not served us well. 

There are safe options, and the Federal Government must seriously 

consider them. 

In closing, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you 

today. I did bring copies of our report. ECA calls on you to support 

our communities and the country to move forward using sciencebased, not politically science-based, decision. We need to stop 

spending millions of taxpayers’ dollars or fines rather than 

progress. It just makes sense. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, sir. 

Mr. Victor, you’re up for 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID G. VICTOR 

Mr. VICTOR. Thank you very much, Chairman Farenthold, Acting 

Ranking Member Raskin, Representative Gomez, members of the 

subcommittee. My name is David Victor. I’m a professor at UC San 


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Diego. I’m also a chairman of the Community Engagement Panel 

at San Onofre. This is a panel set up by Southern California Edison, the operator of the facility, to help steward the process of decommissioning of the San Onofre site, which is the largest commercial reactor site to be decommissioned to date. 

I’ve submitted in advance my written testimony. I want to just 

focus on three remarks in the 5 minutes that I have here today, 

remarks based on what I’m hearing from the communities on the 

front lines around these plants. 

The first comment is that the problem is now well-known. The 

Nation needs a solution. We do not have a solution to the long-term 

storage of spent nuclear fuel. But the situation today is radically 

different from what it was 10 years ago, and it’s going to get worse 

quickly. 

Today, there are 17 reactors at 14 sites on 11 States that are in 

the various stages of decommissioning, including the San Onofre 

plant. In the future, there will be more reactors in a similar situation. 

At these sites, the visibility and the problems associated with the 

lack of a solution to the spent nuclear fuel problem are much more 

visible because they’re an operating site, there’s always fuel onsite, 

and the reactor core and pools onsite at cask storage. And a decommissioned site situation is totally different. And the deal that the 

communities expect is that when the plants are removed and the 

benefits from that plant are removed, that the spent fuel will be 

removed as well. And that deal is not being fulfilled. 

The second of the three comments I’d like to make concerns 

Yucca Mountain. I understand that a lot of the politics around this 

issue in Washington are focused on Yucca Mountain. What I’m 

hearing from people on the front lines is very different. There’s attention to Yucca Mountain, but there’s much more attention to consolidated interim storage, or monitorable and retrievable storage, 

such as the sites mentioned in west Texas, another site in eastern 

New Mexico near the WIPP facility, and perhaps other sites in the 

future. 

Over the last 3 years, our panel has spent a lot of time on this 

issue. And what we have learned is that it’s important to view consolidated interim storage as a complement to Yucca Mountain. I 

understand that politically they can be complements, but the role 

of these interim facilities and helping get spent fuel out of these 

communities quickly is vital, because even with a restart of Yucca 

Mountain, there are going to be many delays. It’s going to take a 

long time. And interim storage is a much more rapid response option. 

In my testimony, I cite some of the work that’s been done on the 

economics. Interim storage, in addition to help save money when 

developed in tandem with Yucca Mountain or other permanent 

storage facilities, it also gives us more options as a country, so that 

if one option doesn’t work or if there are political troubles, the entire country is not held up by those difficulties as we have seen in 

the debate over the last few decades. 

We have spent more time on this issue around the San Onofre 

communities than any other topic that our panel looks at. And the 

number one ask from those communities is to help accelerate an 


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overall strategy that involves permanent repositories as well as 

consolidated interim storage. 

The third and last comment I’d like to make concerns all the 

progress that has been made in Washington and, to some degree, 

in the arms of the Federal Government around the possibilities of 

restarting Yucca and around making consolidated storage a reality. 

It’s really striking how much has happened in the last few years 

and how much in particular this body has done on the legislative 

front. Maybe not quite as much progress over in the Senate yet, 

but we can hope. 

I think the bill that’s working its way through here is a big step 

forward, but it’s a first step and additional work is needed. And I’d 

like to highlight two areas where we have learned about additional 

work that will be essential. 

One of those areas concerns the order with which spent fuel is 

removed from sites and sent to an interim storage facility or a permanent repository. Current procedures are ambiguous about this 

but seem to envision a scenario where the oldest fuel will be taken 

first from lots of different sites around the country. What we hear 

from not just our communities, but other communities around decommissioned nuclear sites is they would like those fuels to be 

moved first, because in decommissioned sites, there is especially no 

logic for continued onsite presence of spent nuclear fuel. 

And the other topic that needs more work is transportation. And 

current appropriations have some money needed for developing the 

railcar systems to move spent fuel. More work is needed on that 

front so we can develop a fleet of railcars, so that when real options 

appear, there are ways to get the fuel out of sites like San Onofre 

to permanent facilities. 

I thank you very much for your interest and attention to these 

issues. We in the communities around plants such as San Onofre 

are living this on a daily basis, and we are encouraged by the potential progress on solutions. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Victor follows:] 


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Testimony of Prof. David G. Victor, Chairman of the San Onofre Community Engagement 

Panel, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Interior, 

Energy and Environment 

Subcommittee Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Plaskett, and members of the 

subcommittee, including Representative lssa and Representative Gomez, thank you for the 

invitation to testify today about the national problem of storage and disposal of spent nuclear 

fuel. About 35 years ago Congress laid out a plan for long-term disposal of spent fuel from the 

country's nuclear reactors: the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982. Since passage of 

that law, the government has consistently failed to meet key deadlines to remove spent fuel 

from the 99 operating commercial reactors at 59 sites around the country. 1 Worse, there are 

now 17 reactors at 14 sites in 11 states that are no longer operating-reactors, such as at San 

Onofre in Southern California where the spent fuel will remain stuck onsite long after the rest 

of the site has been shut down and removed? 

The Department of Energy has collected upwards of $750 million annually from 

customers into a fund that amassed $46 billion dollars by late 2016, the most recent audit. 3 

These funds were intended to defray the cost of removal and long-term disposal of spent fuel. 

Instead, the funds sit essentially idle. A series of lawsuits has halted those payments for many 

utilities, and some utilities are now being paid damages from taxpayer funds to recover the cost 

of continued storage of their spent fuel beyond the time when it was supposed to be accepted 

by the government. 

For many years, this persistent failure to perform was, outside the nuclear utility 

industry, largely unnoticed. Nearly all reactors that were built kept operating. Unable to ship 

spent fuel to a permanent repository they left it on site-in pools and in dry cask storage. 

The situation today is completely different. While most of the US nuclear fleet 

continues to operate, a growing number of reactors are in the midst of decommissioning. For 

these sites, the inability to remove spent fuel is particularly deplorable. Local communities 

have seen most of the jobs associated with these reactors, along with many other benefits, 

disappear. They are watching massive deconstruction projects remove reactors domes, 

buildings and other facilities. Yet they are still left with the spent nuclear fuel onsite, without a 

proper home and without any indications as to when it will eventually be removed. Some 

solutions to this problem are coming into focus, but they require changes to federal law as well 

as new investments where Congress and the Administration must work together. 

1 Kim Cawley, "Testimony: The Federal Government's Responsibilities and Liabilities Under the 

Nuclear Waste Policy Act," Before the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, 

Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives (3 December 2015). 2 For detail see generally NUREG 1350. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/nuregs/staff/sr1350/ 

3 Office of the Inspector General, DOE, "Audit Report," OAI-FS-17-04 (December 2016). 

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I testify today as Chairman of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) 

Community Engagement Panel (CEP). SONGS Units 2 and 3 are the largest commercial reactors 

slated for decommissioning in the country, and the political environment around the plant is 

more intense than almost anywhere in the country. I serve in that role as a volunteer. I am 

also a Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) at UC San Diego where I am 

also an adjunct professor in Climate, Atmospheric Sciences and Physical Oceanography at the 

Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

Back in 2013 when the operator of the plant, Southern California Edison (SCE) decided 

to decommission the facility it also set up this panel to open a two-way conduit between SCE 

(and its co-owners, San Diego Gas and Electric, the City of Anaheim and the City of Riverside) 

and the communities that would be affected by the decommissioning process. Over the last 

three years the CEP has provided exactly that function. It has offered ways for SCE to learn 

about the concerns of the communities-for example; the impact of shrinking the SONGS 

emergency planning systems, now that the plant poses a lower hazard to the community, on 

the budgets of first responders, hospitals and other essential public services. It also offers a 

way for SCE to help inform the communities about how decommissioning will unfold; the 

economic and environmental impacts, and the various strategies being adopted to mitigate 

adverse impacts. We meet quarterly and have 17 members (with one vacancy)-all volunteers, 

drawn from the local communities and a blend of public officials, representatives from 

environmental NGOs, business, labor, and other stakeholders. We are not a formal decisionmaking body nor do we have official oversight functions-there are plenty of other bodies with 

those powers and responsibilities.4 I speak today as a private citizen who happens to be 

Chairman of the CEP, and I reflect on what we have learned over the three years of CEP 

operation. 

Without a doubt, one topic has attracted the most attention at our CEP meetings and in 

the local communities: spent fuel. As in any community, there are many different views about 

a technology like nuclear power. With the closure of SONGS, I thought, that many of those 

diverging viewpoints would become moot and the communities could come together and focus 

on the best plan for decommissioning. Instead, many people have been shocked to learn that 

decommissioning of the plant does not mean removal of everything-the spent fuel remains 

because there is no place to send it. By not offering a practical place and method to ship spent 

fuel the Federal government has, through inaction, created a whole new array of acrimonious 

debates and controversy within local communities about how best to steward the spent fuel. I 

have observed and been in the middle of those debates for three years and the rest of my 

testimony outlines what I have seen and learned. 

4 For more, including documents and video from every meeting, see 

www.songscommunity.com 

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The importance of moving the fuel out of local communities at decommissioned sites. 

First, I can't emphasize enough the importance of offering practical ways for 

decommissioned sites to move spent fuel out of their communities to other, more appropriate 

locations. Offering a practical route to that outcome would be enormously valuable to our 

communities. That route could involve finishing Yucca Mountain and allowing consolidated 

interim storage {CIS), also known as interim storage facilities (ISF), and I'll talk about that next. 

But people are most looking for is a viable plan that addresses an urgent problem-a problem 

that is not so pressing in communities with operating reactors but is vitally important to those 

where reactors are undergoing decommissioning and will have stranded spent nuclear fuel left 

with reduced security at the decommissioning site. 

We are particularly concerned that the current arrangements at the Department of 

Energy (DOE) are opaque about which spent fuels will ship first. This problem has not been 

important to solve over the last few decades because there was no place to ship. Today that 

might be different and I would urge Congress to help DOE develop a more coherent set of 

priorities. The current "standard contract" for fuel shipments, while ambiguous, suggests that 

the oldest fuel will ship first. That approach will create an inefficient and incoherent shipment 

pattern-with canisters moved across a patchwork of sites, and no site happy with the 

outcome. We should put the decommissioned sites first because those sites are no longer 

generating spent fuel, in most cases are removing reactors and support buildings, and gain 

much smaller economic benefit from hosting these facilities. By contrast, sites with operating 

reactors will always have spent fuel in their reactor cores, fuel pools and dry cask pads. For all 

these communities, it is important to have a viable long-term plan for spent fuel removal; for 

decommissioned sites the imperative is particularly compelling. 

Political Realism 

We in the San Onofre communities have learned that the politics of finding solutions to 

this problem are difficult. For years, Yucca Mountain has been a political lightning rod in ways 

that have made it exceptionally difficult-at times, impossible-to move forward with that site. 

The prospect of Consolidated Interim Storage might prove politically more tractable because, 

when combined with consent-based siting, it allows communities to nominate themselves to 

become storage sites. Following the guidance of the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) 

report, we are encouraged that a process of informed consent has emerged and led to two 

communities volunteering themselves for CIS facilities. Today, my sense is that one of those 

sites is viable and that it enjoys healthy support from much of the local communities. The other 

site is owned by a company that paused its licensing process due to a planned acquisition which 

most likely will leave their CIS operations by the wayside. The viable site is in New Mexico 

where the governor of New Mexico has given approval for this CIS facility. The local entity that 

owns the land Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) wants the facility that is set to monitor at least 

10,000 dry storage canisters in partnership with Holtec International. The ELEA is composed of 

cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and the counties of Eddy and Lea. The community purchased the 

1000 acres and has strong local support for the CIS facility. This is the model we must continue 

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to pursue of the government working with communities to find volunteers who want to help 

deal with the national crisis of stranded spent nuclear fuel around the country. Earlier this year 

we hosted officials from ELEA at a CEP meeting, and I was impressed by the level of planning 

and awareness. 

In the densely populated communities around San Onofre, our interest is to advance 

any responsible program that moves the spent fuel out of our neighborhoods as quickly as 

possible. For us, that means Yucca and CIS simultaneously. Over the last three years, we have 

learned three important things about how to pursue this goal. 

First, the nation does not benefit from monopolies. To some degree, the problems at 

Yucca Mountain are the result of the country having just one option. As that option has 

faltered the whole nation's industry, along with communities around nuclear power plants, 

have suffered. The original plan, way back when the NWPA was signed into law, was to have 

two sites. Expedience in public sector spending and noxious politics whittled that roster down 

to one, and that outcome has been harmful. I am very concerned that the same will happen 

with CIS. Overall, the nation and the communities that are hosting spent nuclear fuel would 

benefit from having many options. 

Second, and equally important, it is crucial that CIS be viewed as a complement to Yucca 

Mountain (and to other means of permanent spent fuel disposal-for example, deep borehole 

technology). I appreciate that over the last year that much of the newfound enthusiasm for 

acting on spent fuel is rooted in a desire to restart Yucca Mountain. But any realistic scenario 

for Yucca must deal with the reality that Yucca is still a long time coming. The site is not 

operational. Once operational, fuel will need repackaging so that casks with large numbers of 

fuel assemblies are put into smaller units with fewer assemblies and lower heat loads. All that 

will take time. 

For the communities around San Onofre, those realistic delays in starting Yucca create 

the imperative for CIS. We want the spent fuel moved. For the nation as a whole, those delays 

offer an important logic for CIS: safety and saving money. It is much wiser to store spent fuel 

at a small number of large sites, far from population centers, than dozens of sites scattered 

around the country. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have estimated the cost 

savings from a robust CIS program and found that we could avoid $15-30b in expenditure in 

light of expected delays in reopening Yucca Mountain. 5 Fiscal prudence demands that CIS be 

part of the overall strategy. 

5 For an overview see J. Jarrell "Does Consolidated Interim Storage Make Sense in an Integrated 

Waste Management System?" Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NEI Used Fuel Management 

Conference, May 2017, Savannah, GA. Numbers here are undiscounted. For discounting and 

sensitivity analysis see: Cost Sensitivity Analysis for Consolidated Interim Storage of Spent Fuel: 

Evaluating the Effect of Economic Environment Parameters (Cumberland et al., FCRD-NFST2016-000721, Rev. 1 ORNL/SR-2016/681) Available at https://curie.ornl.gov/content/costsensitivity-analysis-consolidated-interim-storage-spent-fuel-evaluating-effect-economic 

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Third, the political coalitions around nuclear power are in flux when it comes to spent 

fuel. There is a well-known debate about the role of nuclear power in the nation's future 

energy mix, and active industry efforts to improve performance to keep as many of the existing 

fleet operational. There are also well-known battle lines drawn for and against nuclear power. 

What has impressed me about spent fuel is that those battle lines have shifted. Many groups 

that have been skeptical or outright against operational nuclear plants-such as the Natural 

Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists-are aligned in favor of 

finding smart strategies for storing spent fuel, including CIS. It is really important that the 

larger, heated and probably irreconcilable differences about operational reactors not cloud the 

fact that many more communities are coming together to find solutions to storing spent fuel. 

For Congress, these three lessons suggest that the current efforts-far advanced in the 

House and still developing in the Senate-to amend the NWPA are profoundly important. As 

those efforts proceed it is important that the Yucca mission, which has attracted more 

attention and political energy, not leave CIS aside. 

Toward a Long-term Strategy: the Roles of Stewardship and Transportation 

Compared with three years ago, there has been striking progress, especially in the 

House, toward new legislation that would address many of the obstacles to restarting Yucca 

and also authorizing a new program of consolidated storage. While that is admirable, we also 

need to grapple with the consequences of a long delay in arriving at this point. It is also crucial 

to grapple with the fact that most people outside Washington are skeptical that Washington 

can organize and motivate itself to make practical changes in law and back those with 

reasonable appropriations. What I have seen in the local communities around San Onofre is 

concern that Washington is so broken that reasonable bipartisan legislation, such as smart 

amendments to the NWPA, can't survive the legislative process. 

This skepticism has three practical implications. First, while there are some actions that 

DOE or NRC can do to advance consolidated storage and promote smart stewardship of the 

nation's spent nuclear fuel, the most important actions require a change in federal law. Getting 

House {HR 3053) and Senate versions into conference is essential, lest Congress itself be seen 

as a central obstacle to progress in what has been, so far, largely an Executive Branch failure to 

deliver on promises made to the American people-especially the people living within the foot 

prints of nuclear reactors. I have testified at the NRC about their efforts to streamline the 

regulatory process, which are admirable.6 But the reality is that the NRC is already doing what 

it can; even without streamlining of the regulatory process for decommissioned sites those sites 

6 2014. David G. Victor. Decommissioning at San Onofre: The Community Engagement 

Experience. Testimony to the Nuclear Regulatory Committee. For more information see 

htt ps :/ /www. nrc. gov I read i ng-rm/ doc-coli ections/ com mission/slid es/2 0 14/20140715/victo r20140715.pdf 

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are finding ways to cope with NRC procedures through exemptions. What everyone is waiting 

for is enabling federal law. 

Second, because of these delays-and skepticism about when they will be resolvedthe nation's nuclear sites are now gearing up to monitor and manage spent nuclear fuel casks in 

ways that were never intended. The original plan was that spent fuel would be removed from 

reactor cores, cooled in pools on site, and then put into canisters and casks for brief local 

storage and expeditious removal. Because that last step in the chain has never happened, the 

canisters and cask systems are now aging in place. At the urging of the CEP, SCE has developed 

an extensive program for monitoring the casks and inspecting the canisters while they are on 

site? Recent legal challenges and settlements have reinforced that effort8 We are fortunate in 

that other sites built dry cask systems before SONGS and we can learn from their aging 

management programs. To give you a sense of just how long the delays have extended, as of 

today several sites have seen the original 20 year NRC license for on-site dry cask storage run its 

course, with each getting a 40-year renewal. At the most recent CEP meeting we devoted the 

entire session to this topic.9 

Third is transportation. There is an understandable tendency in Washington to do what 

can be done. This tendency has generated legislation that focuses on Yucca Mountain and 

brings CIS along. But we must focus, now, on the reality that all of these strategies will not 

work unless there are viable ways to move spent fuel from reactor sites to CIS and/or 

permanent repositories. The US Navy safely ships defense spent nuclear fuel and related 

materials around the country on a regular basis-thousands of shipments-using an effective 

and credible government planning system and emergency training for its routes. This system 

must be available to the DOE as it takes authority over spent nuclear fuel transportation. The 

NRC has procedures ready for use in this area (NUREG 0725). Safe transportation of spend 

commercial reactor fuel is not a technical problem, but it is one that needs careful 

administrative planning and political awareness. 

A serious transportation plan would have several elements: 

• A program for testing and building railroad cars for moving spent fuel casks. This is a 

DOE responsibility, and with current appropriations DOE will test a prototype rail car 

(along with other support cars) over the next 2 years. That's good news, but there are 

7 2014. David G. Victor. Safety of long-term storage of spent nuclear fuels at SONGS. Report of 

the Chairman of the Community Engagement Panel of the SONGS. For more information see 

https://www .songscom munity .com/ docs/LongTermStorageofSpentFuel_120914.pdf 8 2017. Citizens Oversight, Inc. V. Southern California Edison. For more information see 

https:/ /www .songscommunity .com/ doc_library_settlement.asp 9 2017. 3QMeeting of the Community Engagement Panel. Oceanside, California. For more 

information see http://www .songscommun ity.com/091417CEPMeetingAgenda.pdf 

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no appropriations to build a fleet of these cars as will be needed to move spent fuel 

expeditiously. Elsewhere I have outlined the state of play and costs, which are small. 10 

• The states and regions must get ready. When DOE was planning to move waste from 

the nuclear weapons sites-such as in Colorado and Washington-state and regional 

officials got organized to help plan routes, safety and procedures. The states where 

these sites were shipping nuclear materials had an incentive to make this work because 

they wanted the sites cleaned up. By contrast, very little to none of the necessary 

spadework for local, state and regional planning of spent fuel shipments has been done. 

There is legislation in California that would help. 11 The CEPhas reached out to the 

California Energy Commission on this topic. 12 And the Western Governors Association 

could easily be tapped-as could regional state associations in other parts of the 

country. The problem is that nobody has believed that serious solutions for spent 

nuclear fuel would be forthcoming. Now that they are, the transportation planning 

processes must gear up-with a key role for the Federal government. 

All the authority needed to fix this problem does not rest with Congress but many are 

looking to Congress for leadership and initiative in getting the process started. A good start 

would be to ensure that a title on transportation is included in NWPA Amendments (inserted, 

presumably, in Conference), appropriations to build the needed railcar system are included in a 

timely way (probably starting next fiscal year), and the states are encouraged if not mandated 

to get organized. Under plausible yet optimistic scenarios, CIS facilities could be open in the 

early 2020s. Spent fuel at SONGS (and many other sites) would be ready for shipment then. It 

would be a pity if all the work done to open storage and permanent disposal facilities falters for 

lack of attention to transportation. 

Final Words 

In a large and diverse nation such as ours, there always seems to be a more pressing and 

urgent matter that captures political attention. Meanwhile, critical questions about the nuclear 

industry and its infrastructure remain unanswered for decades while leaving un-spent billions 

of dollars. Inaction has pushing these questions to future generations to answer. 

These delays only succeed in creating distrust in the ability of government to find a 

workable solution, anger towards the plant operators and creates an impossible future for 

those communities that involuntarily host these sites. All we ask is that those who can act and 

make a difference, do so with all possible urgency. 

10 David Victor, Tim Brown and Dan Stetson, "Participants in 12 June telephone call with DOE to 

discuss transportation of spent nuclear fuel," 26 June 2017, see www.songscommunity.com 11 2017. Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017. For more information see 

https:/ /www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3053 12 letter from David Victor, Tim Brown and Dan Stetson to Robert Weisenmiller, Chairman of 

the California Energy Commission, 12 December 2016. see www.songscommunity.com 

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A plan for smart removal of spent nuclear fuel from the nation's commercial reactors is 

now coming into focus. It will require new legislation and a new focus by the federal 

government, as well as the states and regional planning authorities. 

I see three steps as essential. First, the political deal must be done that allows for 

consolidated interim storage, and that deal as far as I can tell centrally requires restarting the 

Yucca Mountain process. Yucca and CIS should be seen as complements to each other. 

Politically they are combined; economically and technically they are also combined because 

interim storage allows for a more rational long-term strategy that includes opening a 

permanent storage facility. Second, a fresh look at the priorities for removing spent fuel is 

needed. When options for sending the fuel become viable there will be much more fuel ready 

to move than the system can handle. We think decommissioned sites should be high in the 

queue. Third, a viable strategy for transportation is needed-a topic that has been orphaned 

by the lack of suitable places to send the fuel. Transportation requires some funds (small, 

mainly for rail cars and planning) and crucially that federal, state and other officials begin 

working together on strategies. 

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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Victor. 

Dr. Lyman, you’ve got your 5 minutes, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF EDWIN LYMAN 

Mr. LYMAN. Thank you, Chairman Farenthold and Acting Ranking Member Raskin and the other distinguished members of the 

subcommittee. On behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, I 

would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. 

And before I begin, I would just like to extend our sympathies 

and best wishes for a swift and full recovery to the people of Texas, 

the U.S. Virgin Islands, and all the other areas that have been so 

deeply affected by Harvey, Irma, and Maria. 

UCS has more than half a million supporters united by a central 

belief we need sound scientific analysis to create a healthy, safe, 

and sustainable future. We are neither pro nor anti nuclear power, 

but we have served as a nuclear power safety and security watchdog for nearly 50 years. In this regard, it is critically important 

that spent fuel be managed safely and protected from terrorist attack until it can be buried in a geological repository. But a sustainable nuclear waste disposal strategy must have broad public acceptance at local, State, and national levels. 

The witnesses today were asked to focus on the needs and challenges of communities currently holding nuclear waste. While we 

do agree these communities must have a major stake in the process, a sound nuclear waste policy should also reflect national priorities and look to protect future generations as well as ours. The 

problems that actions may appear to benefit some communities in 

the short term can penalize others and may even be harmful to the 

long-term interests of the U.S. as a whole. 

To be clear, in our view, spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely 

and securely at reactors and dry cask facilities for many decades, 

provided that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, conducts rigorous oversight, which has not been the case to date in all 

respects. 

Nevertheless, risk acceptance varies from one community to another, and it is understandable why some representatives would 

support legislation to facilitate moving spent fuel in their districts 

out as soon as possible. This is why Congress needs to come together to develop a new and science-based national nuclear waste 

management policy in order to allocate risks and benefits as fairly 

as possible. 

This policy should include a process to establish and maintain 

political momentum for development of repositories; a process for 

repository site selection that is consent-based, fair, and technically 

sound; requirements that spent fuel be managed safely and securely at reactor sites until a repository becomes available; and requirements for safe and secure shipment of spent fuel from reactor 

sites to repository. Current laws and regulations do not adequately 

address any of these issues. 

Unfortunately, the one game in town right now, which is H.R. 

3053, has a number of flaws and avoids many of these questions, 

or exacerbates them. We expressed our concerns about it in the 

draft version earlier this year in testimony. And now if there’s a 


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version that’s been reported out, it’s a little improved. In some respects it’s even worse. 

So I’d like to focus on the linkage between siting monitored retrievable storage facilities and a geologic repository. The current 

version of H.R. 3053 weakens that linkage; in fact, would allow 

DOE to immediately contract with a private company to spend public funds on developing a monitored retrievable storage facility up 

until the step of actually operating it. So they could pay to site, do 

all the reviews, and build a facility, but they can’t move fuel there 

until NRC makes a decision whether or not to authorize construction of a repository at Yucca Mountain. 

Now, we can see what the problems with this are. Even with 

that latter condition, we think this would undermine the geologic 

repository program, because of the way we read the bill, even if the 

NRC were to deny a construction authorization for Yucca Mountain, DOE would be allowed to keep building MRS facilities indefinitely, each one capped at 10,000 tons, but could build as many as 

they wanted. So there would be no impetus for actually going forward with the geological repository. And that, we think, would be 

a bad outcome primarily because of the security concern of leaving 

spent fuel aboveground indefinitely. 

Over time, spent fuel in aboveground storage is not only a risk— 

poses a risk for sabotage but eventually will become a risk for nuclear terrorism because of the plutonium contained in the spent 

fuel. That spent fuel becomes more vulnerable over time because 

of the decay of the radioactive barrier that protects it. So we do believe there need to be mechanisms to not provide an escape valve 

that would allow DOE to abandon a search for geologic repositories. 

In the meantime, work does need to be done on increasing safety 

and security of spent fuel at reactor sites. That would include expediting the transfer of spent fuel from pools to dry casks and also 

upgrading the security requirements for dry cask, because they are 

also vulnerable. 

And finally, transportation is the weakest link in the chain. We 

agree with the other speakers that this must get more attention 

than it has in the past to facilitate safe and secure transport of 

spent fuel in that final management system. 

So the U.S. can afford to allow the NRC to take its time reviewing Yucca Mountain because there is a window of safety. But there 

is no urgent need to rush forward to a less-than-optimal approach. 

And so Congress should take the time to get it right. 

Thank you, and I apologize for exceeding my time. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Lyman follows:] 


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SUMMARY OF UCS TESTIMONY 

• UCS believes that spent fuel can be managed safely at reactor sites for decades, but only 

if spent fuel is expeditiously transfen·ed from cooling pools to dry casks to reduce the risk 

of catastrophic spent fuel pool tires, and that the security of dry cask storage is enhanced. 

• Congress should not weaken the linkage between monitored retrievable storage (MRS) 

facilities and geologic repositories established in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act unless it 

also acts to ensure that MRS facilities do not become de facto permanent repositories. 

• Many people believe that nuclear waste disposal is only a political problem, and not a 

technical problem. In fact, it is both. One should not underestimate the technical 

challenges of designing and building a repository that will effectively isolate nuclear 

waste from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. The foundation of such 

an effort is good science. One of the most effective ways that Congress could improve the 

prospects for a geologic repository is to fully support the scientific work needed to 

establish the technical basis for its safety and security. 

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Good afternoon. On behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, I would like to thank Chairman 

Farenthold, Ranking Member Plaskett, and the other distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee for the opportunity to provide our views on nuclear waste management and 

disposal policy in the United States. 

Before I begin, I would like to extend our sympathies and best wishes for a swift and full 

recovery to the people of Texas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and all the other areas that have been so 

deeply affected by Hurricanes Harvey. Irma and Maria. 

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has more than half a million supporters, united by a 

central belief: that we need sound scientitlc analysis to create a healthy, sate, and sustainable 

future. UCS is neither pro- nor anti-nuc!ear power, but has served as a nuclear power safety and 

security watchdog for nearly fifty years. Combating the threat of global climate change is one of 

our priorities, and we have not ruled out an expansion of nuclear power as an option to help 

reduce greenhouse gas emissions-provided it is affordable relative to other low-carbon options 

and that it meets high safety and security standards. These considerations apply as well to the 

management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel. which contains long-lived, highly radioactive 

fission products and weapon-usable plutonium. It is critically important that spent fuel be 

managed safely and protected from terrorist attack until it can be buried in a geologic repository. 

But a sustainable nuclear waste disposal strategy must also have broad public acceptance at 

local, state, and national levels. 

The witnesses today were asked to focus on the needs and challenges of communities currently 

holding nuclear waste. While we agree that those communities must have a major stake in the 

process, we believe that a sound nuclear waste policy should also reflect national priorities and 

look to protect future generations as well as ours. The problem is that actions that may appear to 

benefit some communities in the short term can penalize others, and may even be harmful to the 

long-term interests of the U.S. population as a whole. 

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To be clear, in our view, spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely and securely at reactors in dry 

cask facilities for many decades, provided that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 

conducts rigorous oversight. Nevertheless, risk acceptance varies from one community to 

another, and it is understandable why some elected representatives would support legislation that 

would expedite the shipment of spent nuclear fuel out of their districts or states. This is why 

Congress needs to come together to develop a new and science-based national nuclear waste 

management and disposal policy--one that allocates risks and benefits as fairly as possible. 

The main elements of such a policy should include (I) a process to establish and maintain 

political momentum for development of geologic repositories; (2) a process for repository site 

selection and approval that is consent-based, fair and technically sound; (3) requirements that 

spent nuclear fuel will be managed safely and securely at reactor sites until a repository becomes 

available; and ( 4) requirements for the safe and secure shipment of spent nuclear fuel from 

reactor sites to a final repository. Current laws and regulations do not adequately address any of 

these issues. 

Unfortunately, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, by voting in June of this year to 

report out the flawed H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of2017, appears 

determined to avoid confronting these questions. UCS expressed our concerns about a draft 

version of this bill earlier this year in testimony before an Energy and Commerce subcommittee. 

We disagreed with the draft bill's limited scope, its weakening of the linkage between monitored 

retrievable storage facilities and geologic repositories. and its Yucca Mountain-centric approach. 

The amended bill reported out of committee was little improved, and in some respects is even 

worse than the original. 

Establishing and Maintaining Momentum for Repository Siting 

The first version ofll.R. 3053 weakened the critical linkage between the DOE's authority to 

store nuclear waste at consolidated monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facilities and the 

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development of a geologic repository, as established by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act 

(NWPA). The bill as amended has further weakened this linkage. 

The NWPA rightly imposed tight constraints on MRS facilities because of the concern that 

sending nuclear waste to interim storage facilities away from reactors could derail political 

efforts to develop geologic repositories and result in the interim facilities becoming de facto 

permanent disposal sites. 

The NWPA currently prevents the DOE from constructing an MRS facility until the NRC has 

issued a construction license for a geologic repository. H.R. 3053 would sever this linkage by 

allowing the DOE to immediately contract with a private company to develop an MRS, provided 

that state and local governments consent. This means that the DOE could use public money to 

pay for MRS siting, environmental reviews, licensing. permitting, site preparation, development 

of transportation links, and construction; all activities short of operation. However, the DOE 

would not be allowed to store nuclear waste it owns at such a facility until after the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC) decides whether or not to authorize construction of a repository 

at Yucca Mountain (or declares that such a decision is "imminent"). 

Even with the latter condition, we believe this MRS authorization would likely undermine the 

geologic repository program. If the NRC denies a construction authorization for Yucca 

Mountain, H.R. 3053 would not require the DOE to search for another geologic repository site, 

and would allow it to store nuclear waste in MRS facilities indefinitely. The quantity of nuclear 

waste at each MRS would remain capped at I 0,000 metric tons. But if the NRC were to reject 

Yucca Mountain, we read the bill as then allowing the DOE to build as many MRS facilities and 

enter into as many MRS agreements as needed (and contingent on funding). 

We also note that even if the NRC were to approve Yucca Mountain, H.R. 3053 would allow for 

consolidated interim storage of a large and possibly unlimited quantity of nuclear waste for an 

indefinite period. The bill would raise the statutory cap for Yucca Mountain from 70,000 to 

II 0,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. While this seems like a pragmatic change, given that the 

United States has already accumulated well over 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, raising the 

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cap would further postpone the need to find a second repository site. Moreover, in this case as 

well, the MRS provision in H.R. 3053 would authorize the DOE to build as many MRS facilities 

as needed, eliminating the need to site a second repository at all. In either case, the outcome 

would be dangerous for both environmental and security reasons. 

Why is there a security concern? First, an MRS facility is vulnerable to sabotage attacks that 

could lead to dispersal of radioactive materials. Second, spent fuel in retrievable storage will 

eventually become an attractive material for terrorists seeking to obtain nuclear weapons. Spent 

fuel contains plutonium which can be extracted by reprocessing. However. for many decades 

after removal from a reactor, spent fuel is highly radioactive and very difficult for terrorists to 

steal and reprocess. But as the fission product cesium-13 7 decays away over time and the spent 

fuel becomes less radioactive, the plutonium it contains will become more accessible. 

Under the NRC's rules, when the level of radioactivity from spent fuel drops below a certain 

threshold ( 100 rem per hour at 3 feet). physical protection measures for spent fuel would have to 

be increased to the same strict standard that applies to separated plutonium. This would require a 

significant security upgrade for spent fuel in retrievable storage. Some commercial spent fuel 

will reach this point as soon as seventy years after being removed from the reactor. This is one 

reason why the nation must focus on the goal of building a geologic repository for spent fuel and 

making it irretrievable as soon as it is safe to do so. Once spent fuel is sealed within a deep 

underground facility, it will be much harder for terrorists to access. 

We also note that even from the point of view of an MRS supporter, the promises offered by 

H.R. 3053 ring hollow. By allowing the DOE to contract for the construction of an MRS 

immediately but preventing the facility from operating until the NRC has made a final Yucca 

Mountain decision, the government could spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the near term 

on a facility that may not be used for many years, if ever. While H.R. 3053 also requires the 

NRC to make a final decision on Yucca Mountain within 30 months after its passage, it cannot 

enforce this mandate. After all, under the NWPA the NRC was required to make its decision no 

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later than October 2012. That didn't happen because the DOE stopped supporting its Yucca 

Mountain license application in 20 I 0. Given past experience, there is no guarantee that future 

administrations will adhere to a pro-Yucca policy. 

In addition, a recent GAO study outlined the formidable hurdles that would have to be overcome 

if the DOE decided to reactivate its Yucca license application. 1 There are nearly three hundred 

technical contentions that would have to be adjudicated before the NRC Atomic Safety and 

Licensing Board. However, the GAO noted that the DOE will need time to reconstitute a team of 

experts who can defend the application at the NRC. Although the GAO report is careful not to 

give its own estimate of how long the licensing process would actually take to complete, the 

report cites an NRC estimate from 2014 of 5 years to resume and complete the adjudication. 

Given my own experience with NRC adjudications, a period of30 months, or anything close to 

it, does not seem realistic. 

To address the possibility that the NRC may ultimately reject Yucca Mountain or never come to 

a final decision, a comprehensive nuclear waste management bill should contain mechanisms to 

ensure that DOE will not abandon searching for alternative repository sites. Congress should 

restore linkages between MRS facilities and geologic repositories, perhaps including a limit on 

the time that nuclear waste can be stored in any MRS facility and a limit on the combined 

capacity of all MRS facilities. 

A More Equitable and Science-Based Repository Siting Process 

UCS strongly supports the development of geologic repositories for direct disposal of spent fuel. 

However, we do not have the geological expertise on staff to assess the technical suitability of 

the Yucca Mountain site, or for that matter, any other potential site in the United States. With 

regard to political suitability, we concur with the assessment of the Blue Ribbon Commission 

Report that the process by which Yucca Mountain was selected was flawed and contributed to 

1 Government Accountability Office (GAO). "Commercial Nuclear Waste: Resuming Licensing of the Yucca 

Mountain Repository Would Require Rebuilding Capacity at DOE and NRC, Among Other Key Steps," GA0-17-

340, April 2017. 

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the erosion oftrust in the program that caused it to stall. Congress should pursue a different and 

less adversarial approach that will be more likely to lead to selection of sites that are both 

technically suitable and publicly acceptable. Once a process is in place, Yucca Mountain could 

then compete with other repository proposals on a level playing field. 

In order to increase the likelihood of success, Congress needs to find an approach for repository 

siting that could facilitate local and regional cooperation, rather than heighten already entrenched 

opposition. However, H.R. 3053 goes in the wrong direction with a heavy-handed attempt by the 

federal government to resolve disputes by preempting state authority instead of promoting 

dialogue and cooperation. The state ofNcvada, predictably, opposes the bill. While it may be 

unrealistic to hope for an all-inclusive ·'consent-based" siting approach, as first proposed by the 

2012 report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (BRC), there is surely 

a way to develop a process that at least is perceived by all stakeholders as fair, even though they 

might not all agree with the outcome. 

Many people believe that nuclear waste disposal is only a political problem, and not a technical 

problem. In fact, it is both. One should not underestimate the technical challenges of designing 

and building a repository that will effectively isolate nuclear waste from the environment for 

hundreds ofthousands of years. The foundation of such an effort is good science. One ofthe 

most effective ways that Congress could improve the prospects for a geologic repository is to 

fully support the scientific work needed to establish the technical basis for its safety and security. 

Safetv and Securitv of Spent Fuel Storage at Reactor Sites 

A comprehensive strategy for nuclear waste management must also address the safety and 

security of spent fuel storage at reactor sites. Even if Yucca Mountain were to receive a license 

tomorrow, constructing the repository and transportation infrastructure would take time, and 

large quantities of spent fuel would likely remain at many reactors for decades to come. Also. for 

operating reactors, there will be a need to store recently discharged spent fuel on site. 

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Unfortunately, the NRC allows spent fuel to be stored in dangerously overloaded spent fuel 

pools, which exposes millions of Americans to needless risk. 2 If an earthquake or a terrorist 

attack were to damage a spent fuel pool at a lJ .S. reactor, causing it to rapidly lose its cooling 

water, the spent fuel could heat up and burn. releasing a large fraction of its highly radioactive 

contents into the environment. The consequences of such an event would be truly disastrous. A 

recent Princeton University study calculated, using sophisticated computer models, that a spent 

fuel pool fire at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant in Pennsylvania could heavily contaminate over 

30,000 square miles with long-lived radioactivity and require the long- term relocation of nearly 

20 million people, for average weather conditions. Depending on the wind direction and other 

factors, the plume could reach anywhere from Maine to Georgia. The impact on the American 

economy would be profound, and likely far worse than the estimated $200 billion in damages 

caused by the much smaller release of radioactivity from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant, 

or the estimated $180 billion in damages resulting from Hurricane Harvey's devastation. 

The consequences of a terrorist attack or earthquake would be greatly reduced if nuclear plants 

thinned out their spent fuel pools by transferring the older fuel to dry storage casks. Yet the NRC 

has refused to require nuclear plants to do so, insisting in the face of all evidence that the risk is 

tolerable. And the industry will not voluntarily spend the money to buy additional dry casks, 

despite their modest cost in relation to the potential economic damages from a pool fire. 

To this end, we urge Congress, as part of any nuclear waste management reform package, to 

address the unacceptably high risk of a spent fuel pool fire by either requiring nuclear plants to 

thin out their densely packed spent fuel pools by expediting transfer to dry cask storage, or by 

creating strong incentives for nuclear plants to do so on their own, such as a reduction in future 

Nuclear Waste Fee assessments. This requirement would have a valuable side benefit by adding 

good jobs in the dry cask storage construction industry. 

2 E. Lyman, M. Schoeppner and F. von Hippe!, ·'Nuclear Safety Regulation in the Post-Fukushima Era,'' Science. 

May 26,2017. 

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While the risk of a large radiological release is greatly reduced when spent fuel is moved from 

high-density pools to dry casks, it does not go down to zero. One must also be concerned about 

sabotage attacks on dry storage casks. Indeed, during security reviews that it ordered following 

the 9/11 attacks, the NRC discovered ways to sabotage dry storage casks that could cause 

significant radiological releases. Accordingly, it began developing new requirements for 

protecting dry cask storage facilities-both at reactor sites and at centralized sites-from 

sabotage. However, in 2015 the NRC delayed development of these new requirements for at least 

five years, citing resource constraints. Any new nuclear waste legislation should contain 

provisions to ensure that these vulnerabilities are promptly addressed. 

Safetv and Security of Spent Nuclear Fuel Transportation 

In nearly any future system for spent nuclear fuel management, large quantities of spent nuclear 

fuel will need to be shipped long distances by road, rail, and waterway. Plans for ensuring that 

the public and the environment will be protected during such transportation are simply not 

adequate. Safety standards for nuclear waste transportation have changed little over the decades 

despite major evolutions in the nation's transportation system, such as highway speed limit 

increases. In the early 2000s, the NRC planned to carry out a study to evaluate whether the safety 

requirements for nuclear waste casks provided sufficient levels of protection, but the project was 

never carried out. Congress should mandate that the NRC resume this study, and provide 

sufficient funding for it. 

Security of spent fuel during transport is also a great concern. Transportation is the weakest link 

in the security chain. Shipping casks may be vulnerable to the same types of attack modes as dry 

storage casks (and in fact some casks are designed for both transport and storage). Yet the NRC 

has no requirements to harden shipping casks to resist such attacks. Congress should require that 

the NRC shipping cask study consider these issues and whether new security standards are 

needed. 

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The United States can afford to allow the NRC to take its time in reviewing the safety of Yucca 

Mountain and for the DOE to locate and characterize other possible repository sites. Provided 

that nuclear plants thin out their high-density spent fuel pools by expediting transfer to dry casks, 

and other necessary upgrades are carried out, spent fuel can be stored safely and securely at 

reactor sites for many decades. There is no urgent need to rush forward with a less-than-optimal 

approach for the long term. 

Thank you for your attention. I would be happy to answer your questions. 

11 
39 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Oh, that’s all right. No, you didn’t go too badly. 

We had somebody this morning use 5 extra minutes. 

Ms. Tubb, you’re up. And please don’t use 5 extra minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF KATIE TUBB 

Ms. TUBB. My name is Katie Tubb, and I’m a policy analyst for 

energy and environment issues at the Heritage Foundation. And 

the views I express today are my own. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today and for your interest in examining nuclear waste management issues. 

Rather than a problem, I believe nuclear waste management is 

an opportunity for growth and innovation in the nuclear industry, 

if we can get policy right. As requested, I hope to briefly cover how 

we got to the current dysfunction, the consequences of stalled action, particularly to taxpayers, and where we are on the issue 

today. 

According to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended, 

the Department of Energy entered into contracts with commercial 

nuclear power companies to collect and store nuclear waste at a 

long-term repository at Yucca Mountain. It was required to begin 

collecting waste by 1998. 

In 2008, the DOE applied for a license with the NRC to build a 

facility at Yucca Mountain. But shortly thereafter, and lacking any 

technical or scientific justification, the Obama administration unilaterally walked away from the Yucca Mountain license and declared it not a workable solution. 

Following a series of court cases, the NRC was ordered to review 

the Yucca Mountain application until funds were exhausted, and 

the DOE was required to stop collection of the nuclear waste fee. 

These pivotal court decisions, in essence, bring matters back to 

where they were in 2008. 

Stalled action has had costs, and a voice too often left out is that 

of the taxpayer. Because the DOE has failed to collect nuclear 

waste as contractually obligated, it has been found in partial 

breach of its contracts with nuclear power companies. Over $6 billion in settlements have been paid to nuclear utilities from the 

Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund. And put simply, this 

means the DOE budget takes no hit for its negligence. The nuclear 

industry is made whole through the Judgment Fund. Taxpayers 

cover the bill. 

The DOE projects liability to be $24.7 billion, based on DOE’s 

2016 December financial report. But this is misleading because it 

assumes construction of a pilot interim facility in 2021 based on 

the Obama administration’s original plan. The nuclear industry estimates liability of upwards of $50 billion. 

Another expense to taxpayers is a result of how the Nuclear 

Waste Fund is accounted for in Federal budgets. As mentioned, the 

DOE stopped collecting the nuclear waste fee in May 2014 as the 

courts directed. However, CBO continues to assume the Federal 

Government is collecting $385 million simply because the DOE 

could continue—or reinstate the fee. OMB has also used this budget tool. In other words, the Nuclear Waste Fund has been used to 

disguise the cost of budgeting choices, perpetuating the myth that 

Congress is fully paying for new spending. 


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The current and future nuclear industry faces considerable uncertainty after the past decade of political mismanagement. Despite 

a new administration willing to follow the law, Congress has not 

appropriated for the Nuclear Waste Fund since 2010. American is 

at a crossroads where Congress has the opportunity to set nuclear 

waste management on track. There have been notable legislative 

efforts; however, none have addressed the underlying issues with 

the current system. 

First, responsibility for nuclear waste management ought to belong with nuclear power operators as an aspect of commercial nuclear power generation in the same way that other industries such 

as healthcare, mining, manufacturing, farming all take care of 

their own waste streams. 

If waste management were a dynamic part of the utility’s bottom 

line, the nuclear industry would naturally be interested not only in 

efficient nuclear waste disposal, but also cost-effective predisposal 

decisions such as interim storage options, fuel types, and reactor 

technologies. 

When nuclear power companies are responsible for waste management, regulatory agencies can been seen exactly as that: Disinterested regulatory agencies interested in protecting health and 

safety. As both regulatory and repository operator, the government 

appears to have a bias, whether that’s real or just perceived. 

Further, a potential host community can then be a truly equal 

partner in negotiations with the industry, rather than an inferior 

party submitting to the Federal Government in a David-Goliath 

battle to locate a repository. 

Secondly, nuclear waste policy reforms should replace the previous flat nuclear waste fee with accurate pricing. Prices are critical to any functional and efficient marketplace and provide suppliers and customers with data to determine the attractiveness of 

a product and service. Prices also give potential competitors the information they need to introduce new alternatives. 

Nuclear waste management is not an inherent government activity. It is primarily a business activity related to commercial production of electricity. Reform must work off of these two principles of 

industry responsibility and market prices. It also must recognize 

that a long-term geologic repository is needed and that in order to 

progress with the Yucca Mountain, the State of Nevada must have 

more say in the matter. 

I think a possible way forward is to treat existing waste under 

the political realities of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and to approach new ways under a market-based policy. At the very least, 

Congress needs to provide enough funding for the DOE and NRC 

to complete the license review of Yucca Mountain. Finishing the review merely brings all the information together for Congress, Nevada, and the industry to make prudent decisions about the next 

steps. 

Thank you for giving me 38 extra seconds. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Tubb follows:] 


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CTiieHefitage Foundation 

CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY 

Examining America's Nuclear Waste Management and Storage 

Testimony before 

Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and Environment 

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

United States House of Representatives 

September 26, 2017 

Katie Tubb 

The Heritage Foundation 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today and for your interest in examining nuclear 

waste management issues. While managing nuclear waste has been a source of much heated debate, 

false starts, and exasperation, it is a solvable challenge. Rather than a problem, I believe nuclear 

waste management has the potential to be an opportunity for growth and innovation in the nuclear 

industry. 

As requested, this testimony covers how America got to the current dysfunction in nuclear waste 

management policy, the consequences of stalled action particularly to taxpayers, and where we are 

now on the issue including principles I believe will get nuclear waste management on track. 

How We Got Here 

According to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the Department of Energy (DOE) entered into 

contracts with commercial nuclear power companies to collect and store nuclear waste. After 

evaluating alternative sites, Congress amended the Act in 1987 to designate Yucca Mountain as the 

site for a national repository should the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approve a license. 

This and the DOE's failure to collect nuclear waste or license a repository have been the major 

touchpoints for contention. Despite nearly 60 years of nuclear power generation the DOE has yet to 

begin collecting waste, though it was required to begin doing so by 1998. 

A nuclear waste fund was designed under the Act to ensure that the entire costs of nuclear waste 

disposal were borne by the nuclear industry and their ratepayers. Appropriately, it is nuclear power 

operators and ratepayers, not federal taxpayers, who cover the costs of managing waste from 

214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE • Washington, DC 20007 • (202) 546-4400 • heritage.org 
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CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY 

electricity production and use. 1 This is done through a fee on nuclear power generation, which while 

being collected by the DOE accumulated roughly $750 million annually. Congress would then 

appropriate from the nuclear waste fund as a means of protecting both t<L'<payers from subsidizing 

nuclear waste management and providing accountability over the DOE's use of funds. 

In 2008, the DOE applied for a license with the NRC to build a facility at Yucca Mountain because 

the site "brings together the location, natural barriers, and design elements most likely to protect the 

health and safety of the public, including those Americans living in the immediate vicinity, now and 

long into the future."2 

Despite the clear direction of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act as amended, and lacking any technical or 

scientific justification, the Obama Administration unilaterally decided that Yucca Mountain was 

"not a workable option," and attempted to withdraw the license application.3 The Obama 

Administration disbanded the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) 

responsible within the DOE for the license, and refused to use funds as appropriated by Congress 

from the nuclear waste fund to advance the DOE's application. Nevertheless, the Administration 

attempted to continue collecting the fee on nuclear operators while advancing its own strategy.4 

Following a series of court cases, the NRC was ordered to finish reviewing the Yucca Mountain 

application while funds existed or until Congress directed otherwise, 5 and the DOE was required to 

stop collection of the nuclear waste fee.6 The nuclear waste fund currently holds $38.8 billion in 

industry fees and accumulated interest; interest amounts to roughly $1.4 billion annually. 7 To put 

this in perspective, the House of Representatives requested an initial $120 million for the DOE and 

the NRC to continue the Yucca Mountain licensing process. The last collection to the nuclear waste 

fund was made in May 2014. 

These pivotal court decisions in essence bring matters back to where they were in 2008, when the 

DOE first applied for a license. The NRC technical staff finished its safety evaluation report oft he 

DOE application in January 2015 and concluded that a repository at Yucca Mountain would be 

technologically feasible and safe. However, contentions with the license application remain to be 

heard before the licensing board and there must be a licensable entity within the DOE for the NRC 

1 See section lll(b)(4) and again Sec. 302(a)(4) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. 2 U.S. Department of Energy, "Recommendation by the Secretary of Energy Regarding the Suitability of the Yucca 

Mountain Site for a Repository Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982,'" February 

2002, http://energy .gov/sites/prod/files/edg/media/Secretarv s Recommendation Report.pdf (accessed September 22. 

2017). 

3 U.S. Department of Energy, Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, "Statement of Steven Chu Secretary of Energy BefOre 

the Committee on the Budget," U.S. Senate, Washington, DC, March 11,2009, http://energv.gov/articles/statcmentstcvcn-chu-sccretarv-energv-comrnittee-budgct (accessed September 21. 2017). 

'

1 The Obama Administration pursued a number of "'fact finding missions" and alternatives excluding Yucca Mountain, 

among them its Blue Ribbon Commission. the Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and 

High-Level Radioactive Waste, consent-based siting, and deep boreholes. 5 Katie Tubb, "'Court Kicks Yucca Mountain Review Back in Motion," The Daily Signal, August 13, 

20 13, http:/ I dailvsi gnal.com/20 13/08/13/court -kicks-vucca-rnountain-revi ew-back -in-motion/. 6 Katie Tubb, "DOE Can't Collect Fees for Not Managing Nuclear Waste," Daily Signal, May 16, 2014, 

http://wvvw.hcritage.org/energy-economics/commcntarv/doe-cant-co\lect-fees-not-managing-nuclcar-waste. 

7 U.S. Department of Energy, "'Audit Report: Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Fund's Fiscal Year 20 !6 Financial 

Statement Audit,'" Office of Inspector General, December 20 !6, pp. 5, 10, 

https://encrgy.gov/sites/prod/tlles/20 16/12/f34/0Al-FS-17-04.pdf (accessed September 21, 2017). 

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CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY 

to evaluate. This presumably would be the statutorily required Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste 

Management. 

Costs of Inaction to Taxpayers 

Stalled action has had costs. The nuclear industry and local communities offer important 

perspectives. However, a voice too often left out is that of the taxpayer. 

Because the DOE has failed to collect nuclear waste as contractually obligated, it has been found in 

partial breach of its contracts with nuclear power companies. Today, the federal government remains 

liable for over 76,000 tons of commercial nuclear waste.8 This liability grows as America's nuclear 

power reactors produce roughly 2,000 tons of nuclear waste every year as part of providing nearly 

20 percent of the electricity used in the US. 

According to the DOE's most recent count, $6.1 B in settlements have been paid to nuclear utilities. 

Another $161.5M will be paid in 2017.9 This money comes from the Treasury Department's 

Judgement Fund as a "permanent, indefinite appropriation." 10 Put simply, the DOE budget takes no 

hit for its negligence and the nuclear industry is "made whole" through the Judgement Fund. 

Taxpayers are left to cover the bill. 

The DOE projects future liability to be $24.7 billion, but this is misleading because it assumes 

construction of a pilot interim storage facility by 2021 as previously called for by the Obama 

Administration without the approval of Congress. 11 The nuclear industry estimates at least $50 

billion in liabilities. 

Another expense to taxpayers is as a result of how the nuclear waste fund is accounted for in federal 

budgets. As mentioned earlier, the DOE stopped collecting fees from industry for the nuclear waste 

fund in May 2014 as directed by the courts. However, the Congressional Budget Office continues to 

assume the government is bringing in $385 million annually simply because the DOE could reinstate 

the fee. 12 The Office of Management and Budget has also used this accounting trick in its budgets. 13 

No such money has been collected, yet Congress uses this assumption to offset $385 million in 

increased federal spending. In other words, the nuclear waste fund has been used by Congress to 

8 Nuclear Energy lnstitutc, «On~Site Storage of Nuclear \Vaste;~ httrs://www.neLorg/Know!cdge-CcnteriNuclearStatistics/On-Sitc-Storagc-of.-Nuc!ear-Wastc (accessed September 21, 2017). 

"U.S. Department of Energy, ·'Fiscal Year 2016 Agency financial Report,"November 15. 2016, pp. 82-83. 

https://v.;ww .energy .gov/cfo/downloads/fv-20 16-doc-agencv-tinancial-reoort (accessed September 2l, 20 I 7). 10 Bureau of the Fiscal Service. '·Judgment Fund.'' U.S. Dcpatimcnt of the Treasury. 

https:/hxww. tisca!.treasurv .gov/fsscrviccs/gov/pmt!idgFund/judgemcntFund homc.htm (accessed September 22, 20 17). 11 DOE. "fiscal Year 2016 Agency Financial Report;• pp. 82-83. 

$385 million is roughly half of the $750 million per year the DOE collected from nuclear power plants while the fee 

was in place. Kim Cawley. "The Federal Government's Responsibilities and Liabilities Under the Nuclear \Vaste Policy 

Act." testimony before the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy. Energy and Commerce Committee. U.S. 

House of Representatives, December 3, 2015, hJlps://w\~w.cbQ,llQli;;il\',l{<,Mault/[llcs/114th-congrcss·2015-

2016/reports/51035-NuckarWaste Testimonv.pdf (accessed September 21. 2017). 13 See for example, Office of Management and Budget, Budget Q/the US. Government. Fiscal Year 2017. February 9, 

20 I 6, p. 1 30 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gmhites/d.:IUu!t!f1ics/omQ/hudgct!t\20 17 /assctslbudgct.pdf (accessed 

September 21, 2017). 

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CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY 

disguise the cost of budgeting choices, "perpetuating the myth that Congress is fully paying for 

new ... spending." 14 

Finally, stalled action on nuclear waste management is contributing pressure to clean up of 

radioactive waste from Cold War and WWII weapons sites under DOE's Environmental 

Management (EM) portfolio. Without a long term repository for nuclear waste, many of these sites 

cannot complete cleanup. The DOE estimates total taxpayer liability for the EM mission to be 

$371.7 billion. 15 This is necessary work and an appropriate function of the federal government to 

tackle cleanup of these sites. However the lack of a final repository for defense related waste 

certainly factors into and puts undue pressure on this liability. 

Where We Are Now: Appropriations Deadlock 

The current and future nuclear industry faces considerable uncertainty after the past decade of 

political mismanagement. Despite a new administration willing to follow the law Congress has not 

appropriated from the nuclear waste fund since 2010. Congress's failure to appropriate funds to 

complete the Yucca Mountain permitting process only prolongs the DOE's failure to collect nuclear 

waste. 

Far from the intent of protecting the fund's use from political whims, appropriations from the 

nuclear waste fund have become a principle lever for impacting nuclear waste management policy. 

Further, changes in federal budgeting rules over time also have unduly complicated use of the 

nuclear waste fund, thwarted reform of nuclear waste management, and enabled abuse by Congress 

and presidential administrations to disguise federal spending. Given the division of the nuclear waste 

fund between mandatory receipts and discretionary appropriations, Congress faces considerable 

barriers to use or reform the fund and therefore to make any progress on nuclear waste management 

policy, let alone progress on a repository at Yucca Mountain. 

As stated aptly by former longtime Office of Management and Budget analyst Joseph Hezir, ''The 

actual experience with implementation of the [nuclear waste fund] bas been virtually opposite of the 

original Congressional intent."16 

Congress currently appears to be in a deadlock. Senate leadership seems unwilling to appropriate 

from the nuclear waste fund to complete the Yucca Mountain license process in an election year but 

is interested in DOE interim storage options. 17 The House has routinely appropriated funding for 

Yucca Mountain and wisely has not pursued interim storage without commensurate progress on the 

Yucca Mountain licensing process. 

14 Justin Bogie, "Budget Gimmicks Increase Federal Spending and Mask True Costs of Legislation," Heritage 

Foundation Backgrounder No. 3234, July 26, 20!7, http://www.heritage.orgibudget-and-spending/reportlbudgetgimmicks-increase-federal-spcnding-and-mask-true-costs. 

15 DOE, "Fiscal Year 2016 Agency Financial Report," p. 72. 16 Joseph Hezir, "Budget and Financial Management Improvements to the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF)," Background 

Report to the Blue Ribbon Commission, May 2011, 

https://curie.ornl.gov/svstem/filcsidocuments/not%20yet%20assigned/brc hezir nwtbudget 0515ll.pdf (accessed 

September 22, 20 17). 17 Dan Leone, "Simpson Tags Senate Leadership for Yucca Holdup," Exchange Monitor, September 15,2017, 

http:/ /v.'\vw .ex chan gemonitor .com/publ ication/rwm/si mpson -tags-senate-leadershi p-vucca-holdup/?printmode= I 

(accessed September 22, 2017). 

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Next Steps for Nuclear Waste Management Policy 

America is at a crossroads where Congress has an opportunity to set nuclear waste management on 

track. There have been some notable legislative efforts to make progress and at least a dozen 

attempts since 1984 to fix the nuclear waste fund alone. 18 From these attempts, at least two 

cautionary tales surface. 

First, so long as nuclear waste management remains a function of the government, Congressional 

accountability through appropriations is absolutely necessary. Congress's power of the purse should 

not be legislated away. Oversight through appropriations is necessary in order to protect both 

ratepayers and taxpayers with all the necessary checks and balances of a democratic government. 

Granted, keeping nuclear waste management as a publically-managed, congressionally appropriated 

activity has challenges. This was known almost from the start with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act's 

passage. As Thomas Cotton of the now defunct Congressional Office of Technology Assessment 

then testified: 

"In short. it appears to us that there is an inherent conflict between a stable commitment to a 

long term fixed schedule for a complex technical project such as waste disposal on the one 

hand, and a high degree of external annual budgetary control on the other. 

... striking a balance between the independence that appears to be needed to ensure steady 

and predictable progress towards timely achievement of a longterm goal, and the degree of 

oversight and control required in a democratic society. may be one of the most difficult 

challenges involved in devising a comprehensive waste management program." 19 

This is all the more reason why nuclear waste management policy in the US must be re-imagined 

altogether. 

Secondly. recent legislative attempts to tix nuclear waste management policy have emphasized the 

option of interim storage. Regardless of what happens with Yucca Mountain, the scientific 

community and global experience have supported deep geologic storage as critical to any waste 

management plan. Interim storage, by itself and under the current policy is settling for the bare 

minimum requirements to alleviate the government's liability for commercial nuclear waste. This 

stop-gap measure would eliminate a powerful incentive for the government to make good on its 

long-delayed promise to manage and dispose of the nuclear waste it is legally responsible for under 

the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. And it would dampen incentive to install the greater policy reforms 

necessary for nuclear waste management. 

Most operating and decommissioned nuclear power plants are currently functioning as what the 

NRC calls Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSI). As commonly designed in the U.S., 

an interim storage facility is little more glamorous than an expensive concrete pad for large concrete 

encased casks of spent nuclear fuel or keeping fuel in existing pools for longer than planned.20 The 

18 See appendix A ofl-lezir, "Budget and Financial Management Improvements." 19 As quoted in Hczir~ "'Budget and Financial Management Improvements.'' p.32. 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Typical Dry Cask Storage System," April !3, 

20 15, h1!tE/.{\VW!,\'_,_nrc.gov/w~~J£till_~nt- fu~l-stor~_gfls,H~_::'!Y.Qi~~l-drv-ca~_k:..mt~m.htm! (accessed September 22. 

2017). 

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CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY 

NRC has determined,21 and the DOE itself recognizes, that "nuclear waste is safe and secure in these 

locations."22 In other words, the U.S. already has an interim storage system which the NRC has 

determined is secure. 

However, the biggest hurdle to a long-term storage facility and robust nuclear industry is that the 

federal government, per the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, is responsible for managing and 

disposing of the nuclear waste produced by private businesses. Legislative efforts have not 

addressed the underlying problems of the current system connected to this- namely, that nuclear 

power plants are not responsible for waste management, and that there is no meaningful pricing 

system.23 

First, responsibility for nuclear waste management ought to belong with nuclear power operators as 

an aspect of producing commercial power, in the same way that other industries, such as health care, 

mining, farming, or manufacturing, are responsible for managing their own wastes. If waste 

management were a dynamic part of a utility's bottom line, the nuclear industry would naturally be 

interested not only in efficient nuclear waste disposal. but also in cost-effective pre-disposal choices, 

such as interim storage options, fuel types, and reactor technology. 

Making industry responsible for the nuclear waste they produce does not remove the government's 

role altogether, as it is appropriately responsible for regulations protecting health and safety and 

taking final title to waste and a decommissioned repository. 

When nuclear power companies are responsible for waste management, regulating agencies can then 

be seen as simply that-regulators with a disinterested goal of protecting health and safety. But as 

both a regulator and repository operator, the government appears to have a bias. 

In this situation, a potential host community can then be a truly equal partner in negotiations with 

industry rather than an interior party submitting to a federal government's will to locate a repository 

in a David and Goliath battle. Former Governor Mike Sullivan's reflections on the consideration of 

an interim storage site in Wyoming are telling. Governor Sullivan ultimately vetoed the proposed 

interim storage facility because "it was a federally controlled process of a serious issue [and] it 

seemed to me we would rapidly lose control.. .I wasn't sure we could trust the federal government to 

do what they said they were going to do, and if we stepped into this we'd be dancing with a 900 

pound gorilla, and I didn't think that was in the interests of the state."24 

In contrast, a system with appropriately assigned waste management responsibilities for both 

industry and government is not just a theoretical ideal but is being accomplished in Finland. Finland 

21 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel.'' July 25. 

2015, http://vvww.nrc.gov/wastcispcnt-fucl-storagc/wcd.html (accessed September 22. 2017). 22 Franklin Orr, ··finding Long-Term Solutions for Nuclear Waste." U.S. Department of Energy, December 21. 

20 15, http:/1\.V\vw.cnergv .gov/articlcs/finding-long-tcrm-solutions-nuclear-wastc(accessed September 22. 20 17). 03 Katie Tubb and Jack Spencer, "'Real Consent tor Nuclear Waste Management Starts with a Free Market," Heritage 

Foundation. Backgrounder No. 3107. March 22, 2016~ hl!g.://\V\lli.heritage~prg/environment/report/rcal-consent-nuclear­

'vastc-managemcnt-starts-frce-market. 

24 Greg Fladager, ·'Nuclear Plan in Wyoming? Committees I>ass Bill for Legislation Consideration,'' Casper Journal. 

November 5, 2012, http://casperjo;!f!:>al.co_tnlbusincsslarticlc c0d78ba3-73ab-5dc7-9521-cb5a0f5de6X5.html (accessed 

September 22. 20 17). 

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provides a particularly instructive example because the community housing a long-term repository 

was originally overwhelmingly opposed to a facility. 25 

Secondly, nuclear waste policy reform should replace the previous flat fee to the nuclear waste fund 

with accurate pricing. Prices are critical to any functional and efficient marketplace and provide 

suppliers and customers with data to determine the attractiveness of a product or service. Prices also 

give potential competitors the information they need to introduce new alternatives that meet unique 

operator and community needs. Nuclear utilities would then have incentives to consider new 

technology and fuel types tied to their waste management decisions. 

Nuclear waste management is not an inherently governmental activity. 26 It is a primarily business 

activity related to the commercial production of electricity. Until market forces are introduced into 

waste management in America, solutions will at best be prolonged in unrelated political battles and 

narrow in focus rather than an innovative part of the nuclear industry. 

Reform must work off of these two principles of industry responsibility and market prices. It must 

also recognize that a long-term geologic repository is needed, and that in order to progress with 

Yucca Mountain the state of Nevada must have more say in the matter. 

Moving forward, a possible way out of the nuclear waste management and Yucca Mountain 

conundrum is to treat existing waste under the political realities of decisions made by Congress 

under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and to approach new nuclear waste under a market-based 

policy. To this end, amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act (HR 3053) could be 

made with options for Nevada regarding Yucca Mountain that give Nevada complete control and 

still allow the DOE to meet its obligations for existing nuclear waste. And, an option could be made 

for the nuclear industry to manage future waste through escrow accounts and through the transfer of 

title to waste to third parties licensed by the NRC. 

There are also concrete, intermediate steps that ought to be made expeditiously by Congress. At the 

very least, Congress needs to provide enough funding tor both the DOE and NRC to complete the 

license review ofYucca Mountain. This includes standing up the Office of Civilian Radioactive 

Waste Management within the DOE.27 Finishing the review merely brings together all of the 

relevant information for Congress, Nevada, and the nuclear industry to make prudent decisions about 

next steps. 

The approach to waste management as described by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is narrow and 

riddled with dysfunction. Opening waste management to the nuclear industry opens the possibility of 

a diversity of options and a thriving domestic market. Government management of nuclear waste has 

achieved neither public consent nor permanent waste disposal. While progress is slowly being made 

to determine the viability of a permanent site at Yucca Mountain, it is high time that Congress got to 

work mending the broken system. 

Tubb and Spencer. "Real Consent. .. 26 Hezir. ·•Budget and Financial Management Improvements.~· p. 13. 27 Katie Tubb, "Yucca Mountain: The Department of Energy Should Take Steps Now While Awaiting Funding," 

Heritage Foundation, Issue RriefNo. 4705, May 17,2017, http://www.heritage.orglnuclear-energv/reportlyuccamountain-the-department~cncrgy-should-takc-step~-now-while-av.·aiting. 

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section 50l(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is privately supported and receives no funds from any government 

at any level, nor does it perform any government or other contract work. 

The Heritage Foundation is the most broadly supported think tank in the United States. During 2014, it had 

hundreds of thousands of individual, foundation, and corporate supporters representing every state in the U.S. Its 

2014 income came from the following sources: 

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Foundations 12% 

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Program revenue and other income l 0% 

1be top five corporate givers provided The Heritage Foundation with 2% of its 2014 income. The Heritage 

Foundation's books are audited annually by the national accounting firm of RSM US, LLP. 

Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals discussing their own independent research. The 

views expressed are their own and do not reflect an institutional position for The Heritage Foundation or its board 

of trustees. 

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49 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. You are very welcome. 

We’ll now proceed with questions. Since I will be staying through 

the whole hearing, I’ll reserve my questions to bat cleanup. So we’ll 

start first with the gentleman from Kentucky. 

Mr. COMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It’s my understanding that taxpayers across the country have al- ready paid over $6 billion in damages because the Federal Government has failed to honor its commitment to remove spent fuel from 

nuclear reactors around the country. Additionally, it’s estimated 

that the final tab that taxpayers are responsible for could rise to 

$30 billion. 

What immediate actions can be taken by this Congress to get a 

feasible used fuel program operating so that the taxpayer liability 

can be limited and hopefully eliminated going forward? It’s up to 

anybody. 

Mr. O’DONNELL. I’ll take an open crack at it, Congressman. I appreciate the question. 

I think the first thing, from a regulatory standpoint and a State 

regulator, is there’s been an application made to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And the first thing this Congress can do is to 

fund that application going forward, either through the Department of Energy reasserting itself as the applicant, which it hasn’t 

been doing. So they’ll need some money to do that. The President’s 

submittal contains money. So we need to get that funding stream 

going, as well as the NRC needs to be fully complemented and 

ready to take this application back up. 

As a State regulator, if we get an application, Mr. Chairman, for 

somebody who wants to do something under our purview, we can’t 

just suspend that in contravening our own law. We have to run 

that to ground, and we have to get an answer to that application. 

And so one way or another, we need that answer. That’s where the 

scientific-based solutions will occur. And I think that’s what this 

Congress can do immediately, is get some funding going and get 

these programs stood back up so that we can continue down the 

path of getting the NRC doing the scientific evaluation of the application. 

Mr. COMER. Okay. 

Mr. Victor? 

Mr. VICTOR. I’d agree with what Mr. O’Donnell said. But let me 

add the vital importance of interim storage. I recognize Representative Issa, he and the congressional delegation in California spent 

a lot of time with us around this. 

We can begin the process of restarting Yucca Mountain in a permanent repository. And I understand the imperative of that. But 

there’s also a very large cost savings that comes from not storing 

spent fuel at lots of sites all around the country, but at a smaller 

number of sites. And so for people who are concerned about the 

cost of all this, in addition to a variety of other objectives here, interim storage is a vital role to play here, as does a smart—Dr. 

Lyman pointed to a smart transportation program so that we can 

efficiently, once we have places to send it, and ideally as many 

places as possible so we have competition, an efficient transportation system so that—which is really a DOE responsibility in the 

end as well as State and local planning—an efficient transportation 


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system so that we can move as many of these shipments to those 

facilities as possible. 

One last comment here briefly, which is we get regular updates 

on the status of all the canisters at San Onofre. And what’s striking to me is that there are dozens of canisters that are already 

ready to ship. And in the next few years, there will be dozens more. 

And so we and many other sites are ready to go as soon as there’s 

a place to send it. 

Mr. COMER. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. O’Donnell, it’s great to have you here today in your role as 

chairman of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioner’s, subcommittee on nuclear waste disposal. I was made 

aware that you previously worked at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear 

Power Plant just down the road in Calvert County, Maryland. So 

you are very familiar with the issues we’re here to address today. 

It’s my understanding that electricity ratepayers, who are also 

constituents of ours, have paid billions of dollars to their electricity 

bills to have nuclear waste removed from the reactors around the 

country. However, as we all know too well, they’ve got nothing in 

return. 

On behalf of the ratepayers around the country, can you speak 

to how—exactly how much money they have paid into the nuclear 

waste fund? 

Mr. O’DONNELL. Congressman, the estimates that I’ve been given 

are the corpus of the Nuclear Waste Fund payments and the interest that has accumulated over time on those payments into the corpus is $40 billion. So it’s a lot of money. 

I can tell you, in my home State of Maryland, the estimate—and 

we have State-by-State estimates. The ratepayers in Maryland 

alone have paid $800 million into this fund. And that’s a very, very 

significant payment for a small State like Maryland with 5 or 6 

million citizens. So every State has this problem, every State has 

paid a lot of money, and all of our constituents deserve some action 

for that payment. 

Mr. COMER. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. 

Mr. Raskin indicates he’s going to stick with me and bat cleanup. 

So I will now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Gomez. 

Mr. GOMEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Acting Ranking Member 

Raskin. 

We all know nuclear waste is a serious health hazard. It threatens the health and safety of Americans from 329 congressional districts across 44 States and the District of Columbia. But we haven’t 

come up with an effective plan for what to do with this waste for 

decades. 

As it stands right now, most of our nuclear waste is stored at facilities ill-equipped to do the job. Nowhere is this truer than at the 

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in southern California 

where 3.5 million pounds of nuclear waste sit atop of a fault line 

next to the Pacific Ocean. Our inability to find an effective repository for our nuclear waste is a shortcoming that we can no longer 

ignore. Waiting for a nuclear waste crisis is a recipe for disaster, 

and I’m glad that this subcommittee is here today to explore this 

issue further. 


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I believe that safety needs to be the top priority in selecting a 

permanent site for our nuclear waste. This might sound obvious to 

some, but our plan in southern California for the better part of the 

last 50 years has been to store nuclear waste in an area known for 

earthquakes, and that’s just not very smart. 

As someone who grew up in southern California, in Riverside, 

and actually would go surfing in the San Onofre State—or tried to 

go surfing in the San Onofre State beach, I’m well aware that most 

people are just concerned about the safety of the facilities and what 

to do with the nuclear fuel once the facilities are no longer generating electricity. 

So this question would—goes to Dr. Lyman. Can you briefly describe some of the safety hazards involved with the storage of nuclear waste for the shortterm and the longterm? 

Mr. LYMAN. Yes, Congressman. Thank you for your question. At 

reactor sites, spent nuclear fuel is stored in two main ways. One, 

in the water-filled pools where it’s put immediately after discharge 

from the reactor, and also in what are called dry storage casks, 

which are smaller structures which house a smaller amount of 

spent fuel and do not require water or—for cooling. And typically, 

spent fuel can be moved from the pools to the dry casks after a period of about 5 years once the decay heat is decreased so that can 

be done safely. 

So both of those pose problems but in different ways. So the 

spent fuel pools are overcrowded in this country. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows them to densely pack the fuel. And as 

a result, those pools are vulnerable in the event of an earthquake 

or a terrorist attack that could cause the water to drain out rapidly, leading to a large-scale fire in the pool and a large release of 

radioactive material. Colleagues of mine have done calculations 

that showed an event like that in the United States could affect 

millions of people hundreds of miles away from the reactor for a 

very long time. 

So the first thing that needs to be done is a policy to reduce 

the—store the density of spent fuel in the pools. And that can be 

done onsite by increasing the amount of dry cask storage at reactors. 

Now, dry cask storage is safer because—for a number of reasons, 

but it’s not completely invulnerable. And there are a number of 

ways where the NRC could take action to increase the safety and 

security, especially at sites that are more vulnerable than others, 

let’s say on the San Onofre. But it’s a more manageable problem. 

And so I do believe that there is some time, if those issues are addressed, to store spent fuel and dry cask safely at reactors until a 

better national solution is come up with. Thank you. 

Mr. GOMEZ. Thank you, Mr. Lyman. 

This is a question for Dr. Victor. Is it fair to say that one of the 

major concerns of members of the San Onofre community have 

about this nuclear waste remaining onsite is safety? And what are 

some of the concerns of the—what are some of the specific concerns 

about keeping it there? 

Mr. VICTOR. Thank you very much, Representative Gomez. I’d 

agree with what Dr. Lyman said here. We—there’s a range of 

views about the concerns on the onsite storage of spent nuclear 


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fuel. There are some people, a minority, and I think not well informed, that think the dry cask systems are not safe. I think all 

the evidence points to exactly what Dr. Lyman said. 

For the longterm, what people are concerned about is two things. 

One is they’re concerned about making sure that there’s a longterm program for monitoring and—the canisters and their integrity. And as long as we’re stuck with it there, we want to make 

sure it’s being monitored, there are programs in place to detect any 

faults and so on. We’ve had, at our most recent meeting, extensive 

briefings about this. There’s been a lot of work in this area. I am 

encouraged that there’s been a lot of progress in that area. 

The other concern that people have is less tangible, but I think 

maybe even more important, which is that people are seeing the 

rest of the site being dismantled, and they don’t understand why 

it is that the spent fuel is stuck there. And they’re really angry 

about that. Because the deal that was made was we paid the Federal Government to remove it, and it’s not being removed. And 

that’s a—that’s a palpable anger and sentiment in the community. 

Mr. GOMEZ. Mr. Victor, Mr. Lyman, thank you for your testimony. I’m out of time, so I yield back. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Gomez. 

I see Mr. Issa from California has arrived. Without objection— 

Mr. Issa is a member of the full committee—will be authorized to 

participate in this subcommittee hearing. Without objection, so ordered. 

Up next is a gentleman from—Mr. Palmer. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to go back to some questions that Mr. Comer brought up 

about the amount of money that is being spent. I have a document 

here on the cost of an actual nuclear waste management—I’d like 

to have entered into the official record, if I may, Mr. Chairman— 

that shows that since 2009, the Federal Government’s liabilities 

have escalated from $12 billion to over $30 billion. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Without objection. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Tubb, the Federal Government has spent more than $6 billion on settlements to utilities for the failure to collect nuclear 

waste, and this amount grows every year. Additionally, the DOE 

estimates that future liabilities will exceed $25 billion. 

What would it cost to make Yucca Mountain operational so that 

the taxpayers are not continuing to be on the hook for these settlements? 

Ms. TUBB. The DOE last gave a lifetime—life cycle cost estimate 

in 2008. In 2017 numbers, I think that estimates up to $97 billion 

over 125 years. 

Mr. PALMER. I’d like to point out, as we’re operating in a deficit, 

that’s money we have to borrow. 

Can you give us some idea of the way that CBO treats money 

that was paid to the Nuclear Waste Fund? 

Ms. TUBB. Sure. CBO, unfortunately, doesn’t do Congress many 

favors with the Nuclear Waste Fund. Money comes in as mandatory receipts. And so the fund offsets mandatory spending. It goes 

out as discretionary appropriations, and so the Nuclear Waste 

Fund has to compete with other congressional priorities. And so 


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each of these baskets of money is treated under different budgeting 

rules. It makes it very difficult to either reform the Nuclear Waste 

Fund, which is the principal mechanism for moving forward with 

Yucca Mountain or any other plan, and it also makes it very difficult to actually spend money for Yucca Mountain or any other 

plan. 

I would also add that when DOE spends money to reduce that 

taxpayer liability, CBO does not recognize that taxpayer savings. 

And so, again, when DOE spends money, it can’t offset that in savings to taxpayer liability. 

Mr. PALMER. So basically, what we’re doing is spending the fees 

that have been collected on other projects. 

Ms. TUBB. Correct. So the Nuclear Waste Fund is funded by ratepayers and utilities. There’s no taxpayer contribution to the Nuclear Waste Fund, and yet the Nuclear Waste Fund has to compete 

with taxpayer priorities based on these budget rules. 

Mr. PALMER. So to make the taxpayer whole in respect to the 

Nuclear Waste Fund, Congress, at some point, will have to appropriate money to make it up, or does the tax—does that—do we just 

leave that money off the table? 

Ms. TUBB. The only way the taxpayer is liable is for paying the 

Department of Energy’s legal fees. So as far as providing for the 

nuclear waste management services, that’s all on ratepayers and 

utilities, as it should be, and as according to the Nuclear Waste 

Policy Act. Taxpayers are on the hook for DOE’s delinquency and 

being found in courts. 

Mr. PALMER. Let me change directions a little bit here and continue with you. The Department of Energy’s license application for 

Yucca Mountain has languished at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 2008. What are the barriers that are holding this up? 

Ms. TUBB. Principally, it’s politics. It’s no secret that the Obama 

administration was not supportive of Yucca Mountain. And a lot of 

it has to do with former Senator Harry Reid. I would also say that, 

you know, there are scientific technical contentions, many of which 

are offered up by the State of Nevada. And as mentioned, I think 

we need to move forward with those and air those, you know, as 

the law requires. And if there are problems with Yucca Mountain, 

that needs to be known. And that’s part of completing the Yucca 

Mountain licensing process. 

Mr. PALMER. Just less than a half a minute left. 

How long would it take for Yucca to become operational if the license were approved? 

Ms. TUBB. Not being an engineer, I don’t have a good answer on 

that, so I’ll have to pass. 

Mr. PALMER. All right. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

I’ve just been informed that votes will be scheduled around 3:15. 

We’re going to see how far we can get and then determine what 

we’re going to do at that time. 

I’ll now recognize Mr. Clay for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Raskin and other members, for extending me the opportunity to 

join you this afternoon on a matter of great urgency to our Nation 


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and also to the region that I represent in St. Louis: The safe disposal of nuclear waste. 

And some might wonder why I am cosponsoring this bill to finally establish a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, and the answer is simple: The U.S. Government created a nuclear waste problem 75 years ago, and we have a responsibility to 

finally clean it up. And that long story began in my congressional 

district. 

In 1942, the water department secretly contracted with 

Mallinckrodt Chemical in St. Louis to enrich yellowcake uranium 

from the Belgian Congo to fuel the Manhattan Project. That enriched uranium was used to fuel our Nation’s first atomic bombs 

created in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the Met program, which existed from 1942 to 1945 was essential to winning World War II. 

But the nuclear waste that was generated from the manufacturing 

of those original atomic bomb and others that would follow forged 

a curse of radioactive contamination that is still inflicting pain and 

suffering across this country. And the waste from our Nation’s nuclear power plants has compounded this problem. 

In Missouri, several failed attempts to clean up the original nuclear waste caused dangerous radioactive contamination at sites in 

downtown St. Louis; at Lambert St. Louis International Airport; at 

Latty Avenue in North St. Louis County; at Coldwater Creek, 

which is a tributary that flows into the Mississippi River. And finally, in 1973, approximately 50,000 tons of that same nuclear 

waste was illegally dumped at West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, 

Missouri, and mixed with other debris. That nuclear waste includes 

radioactive uranium, radioactive thorium, radioactive barium sulfate, and other toxic contaminates. 

Unbelievably, that radioactive toxic mess dumped illegally at 

West Lake 44 years ago is held in an unlined limestone landfill 

near the Missouri River, near a major hospital, near Lambert St. 

Louis Airport, near schools and interstate highways. And most 

troubling of all is the appalling fact that 1,000 of my constituents 

live less than 1 mile away from this illegal nuclear waste dump. 

And it would be almost impossible to find a dumber, more dangerous, more completely irresponsible place to dump nuclear waste 

than West Lake Landfill. And if you think this potential environmental disaster couldn’t get any worse, you’re wrong. 

For the last 5 years, we have also been dealing with a creeping 

underground landfill fire at the adjacent Bridgeton sanitary landfill, which is owned by Republic Services and is under the supervision of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. And that 

underground fire is less than 1,000 feet away from the buried nuclear waste. 

My friends, the U.S. Government created this radioactive mess, 

and we have a clear and unavoidable responsibility to finally clean 

it up. That is what opening up the Yucca Mountain registry—repository is all about. 

So let me say this to all of you. When the U.S. Government creates a problem, when we put citizens at risk, when we disrupt their 

lives, when we destroy the peace and property values of their 

neighborhoods, and when we allow the health of innocent citizens 

to be harmed because of our own inaction, we must make it right. 


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And I was the first Member to ask that all of the waste be removed, and I will continue to do that. 

And I see my time is up. But, Mr. Chairman, I mean, I would 

support this bill because I think that the waste needs to be removed and put into a safe place, and it’s the government’s responsibility. 

I yield back. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, very much. 

I will now recognize the vice chairman of the subcommittee, the 

gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing today. 

Nuclear energy is one of the most reliable and stable energy 

sources in the world, and we should continue to look to advance 

further development in the secure storage of used materials. Nuclear power and the subsequent waste that comes from spent nuclear fuel is an issue which in my district I am very familiar. The 

Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Maricopa County is the largest 

nuclear generation facility in the United States. Palo Verde provides 35 percent of the total energy in Arizona, employs over 2,000 

full-time workers, and has roughly a $1.8 billion economic impact 

on the State. And while I could speak to volumes of the benefits 

of nuclear power and plants across the U.S., the facts remain that 

temporary storage onsite of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radio 

waste from such power plants is a costly and hazardous practice. 

Mr. O’Donnell, first to you. I want you to be very concise. Can 

you give us a breakdown of the incurred cost to the consumer since 

the enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act? 

Mr. O’DONNELL. I am a recovering elected official from Maryland, 

so I will try to be as concise as possible, Congressman. 

So the five times the consumers have paid just for waste storage: 

The original construction. And then, after original construction, the 

Nuclear Waste Fund. And then, after the Nuclear Waste Fund, because we didn’t meet our statutory deadlines of reracking of the 

spent fuels that were already paid for, number one. So those first 

three things. And then, also, we have paid into the Judgment 

Fund. And I am missing one. But there are five impacts. 

And the fund itself is $40 billion. And the untold billions of liability that the consumers have, just it is mind boggling. 

Mr. GOSAR. So, Mr. Smith, can you describe for us what you believe is the best solution for the long-term storage of existing spent 

nuclear fuel and high-level waste currently stored at nuclear facilities around the country. 

Mr. SMITH. So I represent mostly defense waste. But finishing 

the licensing process of Yucca Mountain will give us a final determination on whether that facility can hold the high-level waste and 

the commercial material that we have. And if it doesn’t, then we 

have got to find other alternatives, which is what we are discussing 

today. And that is, you know, the classification of high-level waste 

and changing that so that we can reroute some of this waste to 

other locations around the country. 

Mr. GOSAR. So we have looked at other areas, have we not, Mr. 

Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. We have. We are working with the Department of 

Energy right now to open up opportunities at WIPP for other mateVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:32 Jan 08, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\27759.TXT APRIL

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rials that could be classified as transuranic waste as opposed to 

high-level waste, and that is one of the things that we are dealing 

with at this point. 

Mr. GOSAR. We looked at a space in Texas, did we not, that was 

deemed geologically unsafe? Is that true? 

Mr. SMITH. I’m not sure about the geological—— 

Mr. GOSAR. The salt domes? 

Mr. SMITH. I’m not sure about the geological status of that, but 

they’re continuing to look at waste control specialists for storing 

additional wastes at their community. 

Mr. GOSAR. Are you aware—where are these other sites? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOSAR. Okay. So, Ms. Tubb, what would you suggest to legislators as the best way forward to ensure the success of a long-term 

nuclear waste depository? What would be the steps, and how would 

you facilitate those? In what order? 

Ms. TUBB. I think the first step is completing Yucca Mountain 

licensing process. Getting an up or down decision on that brings a 

lot of valuable information to the table. 

Assuming the NRC approves Yucca Mountain, I think we need 

to engage the State of Nevada. You could consider a situation 

where DOE essentially contracts with the State of Nevada, giving 

Nevada a lot of control over that situation for existing waste. I 

think we need to look and reimagine how we treat future waste. 

As I talked about, creating market incentives and giving the nuclear waste industry—I am sorry—the nuclear industry a say in 

how they manage nuclear waste. So a system for existing waste, a 

system for future waste. 

Mr. GOSAR. Would you agree with that, Mr. Victor? 

Mr. VICTOR. Yes. I think the Yucca process should restart. We 

don’t know what the outcome of that is going to be. And so I think 

it’s really important that we not continue to put all of our eggs in 

one basket. That’s why we’re so keen on interim storage as well. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you. 

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

We will now recognize Mr. Raskin. 

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Dr. Lyman, let me start with you. What do you think are the 

specific dynamics and consequences of climate change today that 

should be informing our short-term and long-term approaches to 

dealing with the nuclear waste storage problem? 

Mr. LYMAN. Yes. Thank you, Congressman Raskin. 

UCS is very concerned about the threat of climate change in a 

number of different ways. With regard to nuclear power, obviously, 

the estimates that the NRC has made in the past for the vulnerability of nuclear reactor sites and waste sites to natural phenomenon, including flooding, has to be revisited. And that is true 

both for operating reactors, and for the waste stored there and also 

for any new waste storage facilities. 

Unfortunately, the process for updating information on climate 

and the ability to look forward and to be anticipatory instead of reactive are problems that the NRC has had. So there needs to be 

a greater realization of the uncertainty that is created by the poVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:32 Jan 08, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\27759.TXT APRIL

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tential for increased hazards at nuclear reactors and at waste facilities. And that needs to be incorporated into the planning. When 

you’re talking about nuclear waste, which has a potential hazardous lifetime of millions of years, obviously, there is only so 

much you can do. But certainly you do need to address those uncertainties and ensure that you have enough safety margin to accommodate a potentially significant increase in hazard at those sites. 

Mr. RASKIN. Great. 

And similar question for Dr. Victor. The country is reeling now 

from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and Jose, and people are still 

recovering from Katrina and Sandy. The San Onofre nuclear power 

station is located on the California coast. Are you concerned that 

natural disasters like tsunamis or earthquakes could threaten the 

safety of nuclear waste that’s stored at that facility? 

Mr. VICTOR. So, broadly, yes. The disaster matters. So there has 

been a lot of analysis of the different kinds of disasters. As a general rule, the tsunami risk there happens to be lower. The earthquake risk is high. And that’s why the system at San Onofre is engineered to withstand a much higher seismic event, earthquake, 

than typical dry cask facilities. And I think, over the long term, sea 

level rise is a really significant—and storm surge—is a really significant concern. I think everybody has agreed that they want to 

move it out of—the safest place for the San Onofre site is in dry 

cask. And the safest, best long-term solution is out of San Onofre, 

end of story. 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you. But I have had several conversations 

with my colleague, Congresswoman Titus from Nevada, who is very 

interested in this question of consent. 

And, Dr. Lyman, let me come back to you. In considering longterm alternative solutions to the Yucca Mountain possibility, do 

you believe that we should seek to get approval from the local communities and State government wherever a site may be located? 

Mr. LYMAN. Yes, I think, generally speaking, the concept of consent-based siting is a good one. Unfortunately, it’s hard to fully understand how to implement that. 

And so there certainly needs to be greater recognition of State 

and local concerns. However, that also has to be, as I said, in the 

context of a national solution. So we can do more. I don’t know 

what the answer is at this point. But certainly there has to be a 

different process than the one that led to the selection of Yucca 

Mountain where the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and its amendments 

were rigged, essentially, for the rest of the country to gang up on 

Yucca Mountain. So the flaws of that process have to be examined 

and—— 

Mr. RASKIN. But the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Nuclear 

Future, in 2012, did recommend placing consent-based siting at the 

center of successful planning in going to the future. 

Dr. Victor, back to you. Do you think that we are going to be able 

to successfully resolve this problem if we don’t use this principle of 

local consent? 

Mr. VICTOR. I think the principle of local consent is vitally important, you know, with the caveats that Dr. Lyman laid out. We need 

to have a national strategy. We need to set this up so that any particular interest can’t hold up the entire process. 


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To me, what’s most interesting is we have had in west Texas and 

in eastern New Mexico—especially in eastern New Mexico—a tremendous amount of progress on this front. We’ve had representatives from the eastern New Mexico site come visit our community 

engagement panel. There’s informed consent about opening that 

site up, and people are ready. 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you very much. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Raskin. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Montana, Mr. 

Gianforte. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for the panel today for your testimony. This is an 

important issue, and I appreciate your input. 

Ms. Tubb, I had a question for you. What’s been the practical effect of the last administration’s closing the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management? And how has that impeded the efforts 

to move forward with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the will 

of Congress? 

Ms. TUBB. Well, we certainly lost a lot of time. As I said, we’re 

basically back to where we were in 2008 when the Department of 

Energy first submitted its application. It’s going to take a lot of effort to bring back the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. I think that’s very doable, having talked with people who 

were originally involved in the license, that people are passionate 

about this project and want to see it move forward. So it’s definitely doable. It will just take time and money to bring those resources and those people back together. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. And as that office was closed, can you be more 

explicit about what it actually impeded? What did it shut down? 

What has the impact of that been? 

Ms. TUBB. Well, I mean, a lot of people have moved on and been 

replaced within the Department of Energy. That’s a lot of institutional knowledge around this specific project that’s very unique 

that has since been spread across the country, spread within DOE. 

Some of them have even retired. And I think a lot of that can be 

brought back. But that takes effort. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. Yeah. Okay. And then do we know what the previous administration did with the funds that were allocated for this 

office? Did that get returned to the Treasury, or did it go someplace 

else? 

Ms. TUBB. So a lot of it just did not get spent. Department of Energy has now roughly $20 million left from the Nuclear Waste 

Fund that was appropriated from Congress. The Obama administration just chose not to use that money both in DOE and NRC, 

and that’s what some of those court cases were about. 

With OCRWM, a lot of those institutional functions were spread 

within the Office of Nuclear Energy or just atrophied. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. Okay. Great. And I have no further questions. 

I yield back the remainder of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. 

I now recognize the former chairman of the full committee, the 

gentleman from California, Mr. Issa. 


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Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for including me 

here today. 

As Mr. Victor said, I represented and have represented San 

Onofre for 16–3/4 years. During most of those years, they produced 

between 1100 and 2200 megawatts every day, 24 hours a day depending upon whether one or two of the reactors were online. And, 

of course, more than half the time, two reactors were online. 

With an ill-fated non-nuclear portion of the plant, that being the 

steam generators, arriving defective, it was prematurely shut 

down. So one thing, Mr. Victor, if you’ll describe briefly the situation that we deal with because all of the spent rods had to be removed, brand new ones, from two reactors, unexpectedly and then 

put into water storage. 

Mr. VICTOR. Very briefly, essentially, the entire fuel load that 

has ever been in those two reactors, plus unit one originally, is still 

onsite, with a couple of exceptions. 

Mr. ISSA. Right. But some are in dry cask. 

Mr. VICTOR. And some are in dry cask. They are currently building a facility to take the rest of the fuel that’s in the pools and remove it. That process is on track, and as far as I can tell will be 

done by the end of 2019, at which point nearly all—not all, but 

nearly all—those canisters will be ready to ship if there is a place 

to ship them. 

Mr. ISSA. So, with the early demise with the plans to build an 

above-ground—and I call it above ground, but it’s slightly below 

ground—a holding area a few hundred feet from Interstate 5, a few 

hundred feet from San Onofre surfing area, the Trestles, and on 

earthquake fault, we will have 30 years of three reactors worth of 

spent rod sitting in dry cask from more or less—and I will use 

2020, if you don’t mind—for 10,000 years if we don’t find a solution. Is that correct? 

Mr. VICTOR. That’s correct. 

Mr. ISSA. And in your estimation, with your expertise and your 

involvement in this—and I’ll go to the others also—is there any 

question in your mind that anywhere, anywhere on Earth that is 

dry, not near populated centers, not near earthquake faults, even 

if above ground, would be safer than that location in a 10,000-year 

calculation? 

Mr. VICTOR. Anywhere, that’s a strong standard. I mean, the 

middle of this room is probably not a good idea. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, let me take, for example, one that I personally 

witnessed. We did underground testing at Area 51, the nuclear test 

center in Nevada, not Yucca but another place. Anyone can Google 

Earth and see mounds left over from those underground tests. That 

location, is it or is it not safer than on an earthquake fault in a 

populated area on the edge of the ocean? 

Mr. VICTOR. Absolutely. And there’s an extraordinary number of 

sites that would be dramatically safer and better for the communities than where it is now. 

Mr. ISSA. So, as we look at places in which there are little or no 

population for as much as a hundred miles in this country, areas 

that are dry, that have no apparent aquifers, including Area 51— 

and I will also say Yucca, but I use Area 51 because it already has 

underground nuclear materials, we have a large amount of places 


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that are better—maybe not perfect, but better. So my question to 

each of you is, with the current science we have, even Yucca mountain and all proposed, currently proposed, interim storage sites, in 

your opinion, aren’t every one of them safer than on the edge of the 

ocean, whether in Humboldt Bay, Diablo Canyon, or San Onofre, 

where we have a total of five reactors? Three are offline; two more 

will go offline. 

And I’ll start with Ms. Tubb. 

Ms. TUBB. It certainly sounds like that to me. I am not a nuclear 

engineer, but I would say likely. 

Mr. ISSA. Doctor? 

Mr. LYMAN. Yes. Well, not—— 

Mr. ISSA. We’re not looking for perfect. I’m just asking the question of better. 

Mr. LYMAN. Yeah. I realize that. It’s just—on the record, of 

course, there are aquifers at the Yucca Mountain site. In fact, when 

I went to the—— 

Mr. ISSA. Is the water as close as it is at San Onofre? 

Mr. LYMAN. No. But it’s not completely dry. And so it’s a subtle— 

you know, there are issues. And, of course, there are short-term 

places where, if you could move all the fuel right away, then there 

would be a lower risk. But you do have to then take into account 

the transportation risk as well. So, you know, you really need to 

look at an integrated program, and that’s the complication. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. Well, and I’m not trying to cut you off, but for 

everybody there, when I look at a current location that’s starting 

in—let’s call it January of 2020, we would be able to move, by sea, 

if we chose, without ever going through a populated area, all of 

those dry casks somewhere else. From the moment it gets on to a 

barge, in my estimation, it is safer than where it is. Is there anyone that disagrees that there aren’t a number of places inherently 

safer, starting in 2020, and it would be reckless to leave them in 

the least safe place that one could describe, on an earthquake fault, 

in a populated area, between an interstate and the ocean? 

Mr. Victor? 

Mr. VICTOR. No. I completely agree. There are a lot of places that 

would be a lot smarter. And, to me, what’s striking is I can understand why people are concerned about permanent repositories and 

making sure that the science is done properly there. And that takes 

time. But these interim facilities are now getting geared up, and 

I think that’s a crucial part of this. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. So the Santa Ana River site sits on a geological fault, 

and we store thousands of canisters and waste tanks with single 

capability in terms of insulation. 

Mr. ISSA. Single wall, the earlier—— 

Mr. SMITH. Single-wall insulation. And we’re now double-stacking canisters. And while we do what I consider a very safe job, as 

time moves on, you know, that’s going to become much more problematic to my community. So I certainly think a geological repository—and if you have ever been to Yucca Mountain, it certainly 

seems to be the best fit for that material. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. O’Donnell. 


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Mr. O’DONNELL. Thank you, Congressman Issa. I will say this. 

I’ve been to Yucca Mountain. I’ve looked at the national laboratory 

experiments. I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes, and I can tell you 

that every part of my nuclear-trained background and mind tells 

me that, if you can’t do it there, you’re going to have a hard time 

finding any place to have a deep geological repository in this country. You have to be able to do it there, and I think we have proven 

that by the national laboratories. 

Additionally, we need to make sure that we don’t allow interim 

solutions—and I’m certainly open to interim storage, not onsite but 

consolidated. But we have to make sure that that doesn’t become 

the new bottleneck simply kicked down the road for the next generation to solve, because, sir, I have to tell you, I honestly believe 

that we have a moral imperative to solve this problem and solve 

it now. And that begins with both short-term solutions and longterm solutions, permanent solutions, and a repository. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, if I can close briefly with a short statement. In 

my district, just a few miles from San Onofre, for 40 years, we 

stored a rather controversial gas and detergent mixture that was 

used during the Vietnam war. And that was brought in by regular 

trucks, and it was shipped in and out. As the years went by, what 

we discovered was it was a hundred million dollar massive effort 

to eliminate what was basically gasoline. But, unfortunately, over 

time, environmental determinations can change. I fear that if we 

do not find interim storage that give us, you know, consolidated 

areas, that what the taxpayers will find—and this is probably the 

premier committee of taxpayers—is that that estimate, which only 

goes out 95 billion for 125 years of a 10,000-year cycle, will prove 

the following: The fund will be evaporated. Taxpayers will pay hundreds of billions of dollars if we do not act and act now in a responsible way. I know for an absolute certainty the taxpayers are already on the hook at this point for tens of billions of dollars over 

the next century. But this is a 10,000-year problem in need of a 

low-cost, safe solution. 

And I really want to thank you and the ranking member for 

holding this hearing. It’s a great first step. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. 

And as we’re in the middle of a vote and running out of time, 

though I do have some questions, I’m just going to simply state this 

is a problem that definitely needs to be solved sooner not later. I’d 

like to find a long-term solution because I do think there are potential risks in moving the stuff twice. But moving it twice is certainly 

better than leaving it in. As we learned even in the district that 

I represent, a nuclear power plant in the path of a hurricane, 

though thank the Lord it performed admirably with zero safety 

concerns, that may not always be the case. So, again, I wish we 

had time for questions, but I don’t want to hold you all for 45 minutes just to ask you 5 minutes of questions. 

So I’m going to thank the panel for participating, thank Mr. 

Raskin for filling in for Ms. Plaskett, and ask that we all do keep 

Ms. Plaskett and her constituents and all those affected by these 

disasters in our prayers. 


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And, with that, without objection, the committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD


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KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 36 here 27759.036

Testimony of Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) 

Tuesday, September 26, 2017, at 2:00PM 

Before the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and Environment 

Hearing Entitled: "Examining America's Nuclear Waste Management and Storage." 

Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Plaskett, Members of the Committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony for the record for today's hearing. 

Since 1987, the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository has been a thorn in 

Nevada's side. Due to political antics, not science. Nevada quickly moved to the federal 

government's number one targeted location to permanently store all of the nation's 

nuclear waste. Our state has been fighting this misguided proposal ever since, and we're 

not finished. 

Although I recognize both the crucial role nuclear power plays in our nation's 

long-term energy strategy and the need to properly store expired nuclear fuel, I remain 

strongly opposed to any efforts to restart licensing activities for Yucca Mountain. This 

ill-conceived project would not only cause significant harm to the well-being of my home 

state and all Nevadans, but also poses a national security risk that is too great to ignore. 

My position remains clear: Yucca Mountain is dead. I encourage this Subcommittee in 

today's hearing to move past failed proposals of the past and look to solutions of the 

future. 

We can all agree today that it is in the best interest of our nation that a program to 

dispose of and store spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste be implemented 

as soon as possible. Rather than attempting to force this project on the people of Nevada 

a state that currently does not have any nuclear power plants of its own I believe 

taxpayers' dollars would be better spent identifying viable alternatives for the long-term 

storage of nuclear waste in areas that are willing to house it. 

Failure to do so will only result in a waste of more taxpayer dollars and a delay in 

moving forward with any type of a lasting solution concerning the long-term 

management of high level nuclear while this issue is litigated by the State of Nevada. 

Governor Sandoval has made clear the State of Nevada will contest over 200 elements of 

any license application, which will take years to resolve and cost the federal government 

billions of dollars. This is in addition to the Department of Energy's (DOE"s) estimates 

that an additional $82 billion would be needed to license, litigate, build, operate, 

decommission, and eventually close Yucca Mountain. With respect to what has already 

been spent on the repository that adds up to more than $96 billion for the total system life 

cycle cost for the project. 

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As a small government, fiscal conservative. I believe taxpayer dollars would be 

better spent identifying viable alternatives for the long-term storage of nuclear waste in 

areas that are willing to house it. In fact, 2012 DOE cost estimates show that all other 

costs being equal, walking away from Yucca Mountain, and starting with a new 

repository site in a deep salt bed or a deep shale formation, could save between $12 

billion and $27 billion over the life of the repository. Before Congress spends any more 

U.S. taxpayer money on Yucca Mountain, I encourage this Subcommittee in its oversight 

efforts to ask the DOE what they have learned about repository costs in its previous 

studies. Furthermore, I believe we need new cost studies on geologic disposal in 

repositories, studies that include the lessons learned from recent progress with 

repositories in Europe. 

With respect to the economic impact on the State of Nevada, moving forward with 

Yucca Mountain will cripple my state's tourism economy. Yucca Mountain is located 

just 90 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada- the world's premier tourist, convention, and 

entertainment destination. Last year, Las Vegas welcomed nearly 43 million visitors. 

Over the past decade, the Greater Las Vegas area has been one of the fastest growing in 

the U.S. with a population that now exceeds 2.1 million people according to an estimate 

from the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Any issues with the transportation of nuclear waste to the site, or issues with 

storage there, would bring devastating consequences to the local, state, and national 

economies. Mr. Chairman, would you want to come to Las Vegas knowing that high 

level nuclear waste is being transported very likely through the heart of the strip? 

But let me outline for you the vitally important role tourism plays for the Greater 

Las Vegas area. This industry accounts for close to 44 percent of local workforce, 

providing close to $17 billion dollars in local wages and an estimated $60 billion dollars 

in local impact. Without tourism, every household in Southern Nevada would pay close 

to $3.000 more in taxes. That is a significant amount of money to individuals and 

families working to make ends meet. 

And people visit not only as tourists, but as business professionals for conferences, 

meetings, and trade shows generating another $12 billion in local economic impact. 

Las Vegas has three of the 10 largest convention centers in North America, and has been 

the number one trade show destination for 23 consecutive years. This economic driver 

within the state is a critical component of another related industry that is vitally important 

to the state of Nevada, namely the gaming industry. 

This industry in Nevada alone supports over 430,000 jobs, pays more than $18 

billion in wages, and generates close to $8 billion in federal, state, and local tax revenues. 

Mr. Chairman, the reason I draw the Subcommittee's attention to these numbers is for the 

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fact that Yucca Mountain will have very real negative economic consequences for 

Nevadans. 

This is due to the fact that we cannot guarantee that we can safely transport that 

volume of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain without the threat of a transportation 

accident along the proposed routes. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, we as a nation 

are looking at shipping 9,495 rail casks in 2,800 trains, and 2,650 trucks hauling one case 

each to Yucca Mountain over 50 years. If the capacity limit at Yucca is more than 

doubled as has been discussed, DOE would ship about 21,909 rail casks in about 6,700 

trains 5,025 truck casks to Yucca Mountain. 

I ask this Subcommittee, do you really believe that over the span of 50 years that 

there won't be one single transportation accident with an ensuing radiological release? 

And under DOE's proposal, these shipments would use 22,000 miles of railways and 

7,000 miles of highways, crossing over 44 states and the tribal lands of at least 30 Native 

American Tribes, the District of Columbia, and 960 counties with a 2010 Census 

population of about 175 million. Between 10 and 12 million people live within the 

radiological region of influence for routine shipments. That is within one-half mile of 

these rail and highway routes. In effect, these rail and highway routes would impact most 

of the nation's congressional districts estimates show close to 330 districts. 

Moreover, if there was a spill or an accident, questions remain within the DOE 

regarding its response time for emergency radiological exposure. This is not to even 

mention the issue of private ownership of rail rights-of-way, making it uncertain who 

would even control accident sites. 

\Vhat we do know is that the local communities would be the ones forced to suffer 

any type of long-term effects of radiation exposure. This is in a state that was home to 

our nation's nuclear test site, and the surrounding communities have suffered for years 

from resulting exposure. I ask this committee, should Nevadans be forced once more to 

shoulder this burden? 

I believe that states, like Nevada, should have the ability to decide for themselves 

as opposed to having the federal government tell them what to do. Mr. Chairman, I come 

to the table today with a bipartisan, bicameral solution that ensures that states have a 

meaningful voice in this process. 

My Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act would allow for the construction of a 

nuclear waste repository only if the Secretary of Energy has secured written consent from 

the governor of the host state, affected units of local government, and affected Indian 

tribes. This is consistent with the consent-based siting initiative to site waste storage and 

disposal facilities initiated by the DOE in late 2015. 

Identifying communities that are willing hosts for long-term repositories, rather 

than forcing it upon states, is the only viable solution to our nation's nuclear waste 

problem. I encourage this subcommittee to focus its efforts on that worthwhile initiative. 

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Failing to do so would just squander more time and resources that would be better spent 

pursuing viable solutions to this important public policy challenge. 

Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Plaskett, and members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you again for the opportunity to submit testimony today. I stand 

ready to partner with you to find a viable solution to this problem once and for all. 

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The Costs of Inaction on Nuclear Waste Manag;ement: 

Spent Nuclear Fuel Litigation Costs Overview 

Summary: When the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) was enacted, Congress set a statutory deadline 

of January 31, 1998 for the Federal govemtuent to pick up spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power 

plants for petmanent disposal. Nuclear utilities signed a contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) 

requiring this deadline to be met In 1987, Congress amended the NWPA to select the Yucca Mountain site as 

the location of the first repository, partially out of concern with meeting the statutorily required deadline. 

Projected Total Cost of 

Spent Nuclear Fuel 

Litigation 

($Billion) 

':: 11111111111111111 

Projectedfuture litigation costs if the Federal government does not open Yucca Mountain 

After DOE missed its deadline, utilities sued the government to 

recover costs associated with managing used fuel. Coutts ruled 

in favor of the utilities and awarded financial damages in a series 

oflegal decisions. 

These legal payments are paid fi·om an account known as the 

"Judgement Fund,'' which is a permanent, indefinite fund that 

pays damages resulting from claims against the United States. 

il!Mill!l!llafrom·thistund m,not.subjeeuo budget caps or atutual 

@!!lfOP11ialiipn. 

35 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

Spent Nucleat· Fuel Yearly 

Litigation Costs ($ Billion) 

II I 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 

F!scalYeJf 

Future liabilities 

Approximate Annual Payments for Spent 

Nuclear Fuel Liti ation ($Millions) 

Year Payment 

2009 $567 

2010 $274 

2011 $759 

2012 $1,000 

2013 $1,100 

2014 $800 

2015 $800 

2016 $800 

Slnce•·'2009;··the· "FMersl"''gtivet~~ments'S' 

1!allilffles•l:!ave 'e§ealated':fi'Otu••$H~·biliioo4 
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The Nuclear Waste Fund, Scoring, Historical Context and Legislative Fix 

35 Years of "Pay Something for Nothing:" The Creation of the Nuclear Waste Fund 

·The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) established a "fee-for-service" financing mechanism in which those 

that benefited from electricity generated by nuclear power paid the federal government for a 

multi-generational program to dispose of the spent nuclear fuel (SNF). 

o Ratepayers, through utilities, paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF), which set the authorized 

level of spending for the program, while spending from the NWF was subject to annual 

appropriations by Congress. 

o The NWPA initiated a one mil per kilowatt-hour fee, or tenth of one cent, on nuclear-generated 

electricity (Fee), to support the NWF. 

Vital Numbers: 

W(cli<lcll'l>llll~~olll!~,'ll;~ey ratepayers paid 

~erai'!JI)vemmentsince1983 to slta,col!struct; 

d operate the Yucca Mountain ntposito,.Y. 

~(.~!?c.mllli<>fl: Amo.ul¢of_.,.oyprevi~>IISIY paid to DOE r~tepay~.le~yearto fUnd 8 ri:Udelu'Wastt 

r~a~rnent-program llfeqrdecttst. 

],, billion: Total amount of money spent 1" Yucca Mountain to date. 

Tons of spent nuc~ar fuel that DOE 

taken ownership for disposal. 

Spending Nuclear Waste Fee on Anything but Yucca: CBO Accounting Rules 

·A series of actions since 1982 altered the NWF collection and use away from original intent 

by Congress and resulted in a mismatched way the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

and the Congressional Budget Office (CBOJ count receipts and spending. 

o The current CBO accounting rules have taken the money that was paid for nuclear waste 

and spent it on other government programs. 

o In 1985, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act separated out"mandatory" spending 

and receipts from "discretionary:' 

o Revenues from the Fee were classified as mandatory receipts and CBO scoring policy applied 

that funding to "deficit reduction" the year in which the money was collected. 

o Spending on nuclear waste programs was subject to annual appropriation, therefore 

is classified as discretionary spending. Discretionary spending is subject to annual budget caps 

and only scored the year in which money is spent. 

·Because spending was classified as discretionary outlays, each dollar that was spent on 

nuclear waste management counted against the budget cap and directly competed with other federal 

spending priorities, such as projects by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, social programs, or any budget 

account funded through the annual appropriations process. 

o The NWPA directed the NWF to be invested in U.S. treasuries to accrue interest from maturities. 

However, CBO considers the interest generated on the NWF to be an intergovernmental transfer 

and does not credit the U.S. Treasury with any new revenue. 
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Waste Fund, which is the total 

all ratepayer contributions and 

ounting for annual interest accrual. 

,1 bi!Hon: Interest generated from 

Investment in U.S. government 

urities during FY2016. 

Phantom CBO Baseline: 

How Congress Spends Money Thot Doesn't Exist 

:m biliion: Amount of money taxpayers are liable for because 

urt··or<ile,..<l cl!ainiSdue to the lack of Yucca Mountain 

not subject to budget caps and paid out 

a special separate Treasury Fund. 

Actual new revenue to the federal government 

the NWF during FY2016. 

j; 9: Yean past the statutory deadline to dispos 

"~tf nuclear waste. 

• In 2013, following the Obama Administration's termination of the Yucca Mountain Project, 

the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that DOE could no longer collect the fee, as the secretary had no 

credible cost estimate to justify the collection of the fee. 

·Then Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz set the fee to zero, as directed by the court. 

However, CBO continues to score collection of the Fee as "50-50" because law does not prohibit the fee from 

being reinstated. Therefore, CBO's baseline projects Fee collection every year. 

$3 biUlon~ Amount of money ratepayers paid 

m October 2010 through May 2014 to the 

d~:~~;~;:~~~~:~: after President Obama rn a Mountain work. 

I $3.5billion;; CliO's total projected Fee revenue Jn Its 

scoring window that is included in the 

2018 Budget Resolution. 

much Fee collected 

May 2014 through today. 

How does H.R. 3053 fix this? 

bi!Uon: Amount spent on other government 

ograms from 2014-2017 because ofCBO's 

ntom "'baseline" nuclear waste fee. 

H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, would reform the Nuclear Waste fund to 

protect ratepayers. These commonsense fixes to the broken financing mechanism outlined above include: 

·Prohibiting collection of the Fee until the federal government finally gets an answer whether the 

Yucca Mountain repository can receive a license; 

• limiting future ratepayer payments to the federal government to 90% of what is spent annually 

to end CBO's accounting gimmicks; and, 

·Assuring long-term funding for the repository will be available over the course of the multi-generational 

infrastructure project by making portions of previously collected funding accessible to DOE for specific actions at 

the Yucca Mountain site during specific time periods. 
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Reponses to Questions for the Record from the Honorable Anthony .J. O'Donnell 

Commissioner, Maryland Public Service Commission 

Chair, NARUC Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues-Waste Disposal 

On Behalf of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) 

For the 

United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and the Environment 

Hearing Titled "Examining America's Nuclear Waste Management and Storage" 

Held on September 26, 2017 

Questions for the Record submitted by Chairman Blake Farenthold 

1. Question: Can you elaborate on the financial burden placed on consumers that have 

already paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund? 

O'Donnell Answer: The financial burden placed on the consumers varies by State. 

Cost of Interim On-Site Storage: In both restructured and traditional electricity markets, all the 

costs of constructing. decommissioning and ongoing operations, including on-site cooling pools 

intended for the interim storage of waste, are recovered through rates. Consumers pay those rates. 

Cost of Unmet Federal Solution: In 1982, Congress decided that the consumers that benefit from 

the electricity generated from nuclear generating plants must pay the costs of the federal nuclear 

waste program in exchange for the Department of Energy (DOE) taking the waste from the pools 

and disposing the waste in a permanent geologie repository. To fund the development, licensing, 

construction. and operation of the repository, DOE was given authority to collect annual fees from nuclear 

power plant operators. That fee was set at one mill (one-tenth of one cent) for each kilowatt hour generated 

by each plant. The plants were entitled to recover those costs in their electric rates. While the I mill 

fee was suspended in 2013, since 1983, Consumers have invested approximately $47 billion 

dollars. 

Cost of Additional On-Site Storage: Due to the federal government's failure to site, license, 

construct and begin collecting the nuclear waste for disposal as expected, and as contracted for, by 

the date required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (January 31, 1998), plants were forced to 

consolidate the waste on site. The cost of "re-racking" the fuel in the spent fuel pools was 

necessary to keep the nuclear units operating safely until the federal government removes and 

disposes of the waste. As a result, the nuclear plants began to run out of space in storage pools 

and had to lind alternative storage options. Most opted to construct above ground storage facilities 

and move waste to dry cask storage on-site. Again, consumers paid through their rates for the 

costs to build these storage sites, purchase casks, move the fuel from pools to the casks to the 

storage site, and maintain and secure the new storage facilities. 

Cost of the Judgement Fund: Some unanticipated costs associated with the continued storage 

of nuclear waste from nuclear plants may not necessarily be recoverable in rates. This, coupled 

with a need for increasing existing on-site storage capacity for operating units, caused the utilities 
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to sue the federal government for monetary damages caused by the failure of the federal nuclear 

waste program. Many State regulators supported the utilities legal action. These legal actions 

have now cost not only ratepayers, but ALL taxpayers over $4.5 billion thus far and that tally 

grows by about a half billion per year. 

b) Question: Is there any financial relief in sight? 

O'Donnell Answer: No 

Follow up question: Do you have any suggestions for alleviating this burden? 

O'Donnell Answer: To help stop the bleeding, we need a decision on a permanent repository 

quickly. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued staff safety evaluation reports 

that indicate the Yucca Mountain site will work. Congress must allocate funds, and the DOE must 

actively pursue, expeditious review of the Yucca Mountain license application. Until the NRC 

issues a decision, based on sound science, as to whether or not the Yucca Mountain site is viable, 

serious progress is not possible. The prosecution of the license will provide ongoing checks on 

the urgency for finding another suitable pennanent disposal site and on decisions of the 

costs/benefits associated with any possible interim storage solution. 

Questions for the Record submitted by Chairman Blake Farenthold On behalf of Rep. Jody 

II ice 

1. Question: When the D.C. Circuit ordered the Department of Energy to suspend the 

collection of the nuclear waste fee, electricity consumers in my home state of Georgia 

had paid over $862 million into the Nuclear Waste fund. The total $46.7 billion 

balance in the fund is now generating $1.5 billion in interest annually. I am very 

pleased that the current Administration plans to use the fund for its intended purpose. 

Do you believe that the nuclear waste fee should be reinstated and under what 

condition? 

O'Donnell Answer: In terms of the NWF, given the interest it generates, it is not clear that 

additional funds would be needed any time soon. In my opinion, any decision to restart the fee 

must consider the annual interest the fund already generates. However, it seems likely that at 

some point the fee will need to be reinstated. Before reinstatement can be justitied on any grounds, 

the NRC must complete the review of the Yucca Mountain license application and make a final 

determination on its suitability. 

Moreover, it is crucial before reinstatement, that some mechanism be incorporated into law to 

avoid current problems with how fees are collected and disbursed today. The provisions in Mr. 

Shimkus's bill which only allows the government to collect up to 90 percent of what has been 

appropriated by Congress for that year in fees is a necessary prerequisite to reinstatement. 

2. Question: The courts have found the I>epartment of Energy liable for tens of billions 

of dollars for on-site storage costs under lawsuits filed by utilities based on DOE's 

failure to meet the 1998 contractual deadline to begin moving waste from reactor 

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sites. As a state commissioner, would the continued reimbursement of these costs be 

acceptable to you in the long-term, or do you believe that a permanent repository for 

nuclear waste is still required? 

O'Donnell Answer: The fact that taxpayers must continue to fund billions in damages from the 

Judgement Fund for DOE's partial breach is unconscionable. The costs of securing waste at both 

operating and retired facilities, of continuing to block other economic uses of non-operating sites 

because of the presence of stored waste, as well as the transactional costs associated with litigation 

required for operating plants to access the judgement fund, is a wasteful and inefficient burden on 

all taxpayers. However, these damages must be paid until DOE meets its legal obligation by 

accepting the waste AND removing it from retired and operating reactor sites. Moreover. 

notwithstanding Judgement Fund payments, a permanent repository for nuclear waste is not only 

necessary, it is required by federal law. 

3. Question: Until the federal government meets its obligation to accept and move spent 

nuclear fuel from reactor sites, utilities will be forced to store spent fuel on site. Are 

you convinced that this can be done safely? 

O'Donnell Answer: Yes, it has been done safely for at least 50 years. However, while the waste 

is being stored safely, on-site storage was never intended to be a long term solution. The longterm safety could become an issue at some point in the future, if the federal government continues 

to fail in its charge to remove the waste from the plant sites and place it in a permanent repository. 

b) Question: How do utilities decide to move fuel out oftheir storage pools and build 

"dry cask" storage, and how much does it cost? 

O'Donnell Answer: In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the need for alternative storage was 

recognized as pools at many reactors began to fill up with stored spent fuel. Utilities began looking 

at options like dry cask storage to increase on-site waste storage capacity. Dry cask storage allows 

spent fuel that has already been significantly cooled in the spent fuel pool to be stored surrounded 

by inert gas inside a cask. Each cask is designed to hold 2-6 dozen spent fuel assemblies, depending 

on the type of assembly. Water and air are removed and the canister is filled with inert gas, and 

sealed. Because there are different types of dry storage cask system designs, the cost of the 

systems vary depending on when purchased and when deployed. The cost of adding above ground 

storage is also impacted by many other factors, including but not limited to, above ground storage 

capacity (i.e. available acreage), number of casks necessary, location of the above ground storage 

site, etc. Additionally, federal licensing and safety analysis costs are not an insignificant 

component of total dry cast storage costs. I have been unable to locate verifiable estimates of 

average costs for dry cask storage. 

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Energy 

Communities 

Alliance 

ANSWER FROM THE ENERGY COMMUNITIES ALLIANCE 

QUESTION FOR THE RECORD FROM CHAffiMAN BLAKE FARENTHOLD 

ON BEHALF OF REP. JODY HICE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

OCTOBER 24, 2017 

Congress is considering legislation to establish a consent-based program for a 

monitored retrievable storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Before state and local 

officials agree to host such a facility, they have to trust that the federal government 

will actually live up to its obligations. Do you have any suggestions on how the 

federal government can increase the level of trust that its commitments to these 

communities will be met? 

One of the great challenges in regard to new nuclear policy and facility development is 

trust. Trust is paramount and an integral part of fairness. Without trust, public acceptance 

and political support will be difficult to develop and, as importantly, maintain over time. 

Any potential host community needs to know that its interests, concerns and priorities are 

being meaningfully considered and will be addressed. 

The Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) highlighted the degradation of trust in DOE 

throughout recent Congressional and Administrative efforts to develop a consent-based 

siting process. DOE's decision in 2010 to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license 

application, the effort to terminate the MOX project in South Carolina and the failure to 

meet cleanup milestones across DOE's nuclear weapons complex, each is an example of 

a decision that negatively impacted public trust that DOE can manage and dispose of 

nuclear waste or enter into a legally enforceable consent-based siting agreement. 

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ECA has eight recommendations that it submitted to DOE over seven (7) years ago for 

developing a consent-based siting process that can be supported by a local community. 

Several of ECA's members have volunteered to host nuclear waste disposal activities 

(Yucca Mountain, Waste Control Specialists, Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, Carlsbad, 

Nevada Nuclear Security Site): 

1. Provide Resources to the Community to Educate the Community and State: 

As part of a consent-based siting process, Congress/ Administration must provide 

resources and funding for education, outreach, feasibility studies and research and 

development aspects for waste management and disposal. In addition, DOE must 

use this funding to assist local governments and communities interested in hosting 

sites or involved in waste management and disposal missions to educate the local 

community and hire independent third party scientists and engineers. A local 

government needs to have a full understanding of the benefits and risks that are 

associated with siting, constructing, operating and hosting a nuclear waste storage 

facility. 

2. DOE should develop a list of suitable disposal mediums (salt, granite, etc.) 

and indicate where they exist to inform potential public interest and 

feasibility studies. 

3. DOE should develop an initial list of the types of incentives/compensation the 

federal government is willing to offer for host communities for taking on this 

mission. 

4. DOE must work with local governments to define and identify components of 

"consent" to host a facility. 

5. Finish the Yucca Mountain licensing review and modify the Nuclear Waste 

Policy Act (NWPA) to authorize consideration of alternative sites for interim 

storage or permanent disposal - including Yucca Mountain - as identified 

through a consent-based siting process. 

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6. Identify the necessary process- including the order that each step should be 

accomplished -to move the siting process forward. 

7. A new entity should be created or DOE program office1 established to focus 

solely on implementing the nuclear waste management program, provided it 

has clear legislative authority, appropriate autonomy, oversight mechanisms, and 

access to full, required funding. 

8. DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA) should begin to develop scientifically based health 

and environmental standards, model state laws and regulations to guide the 

siting process. 

In addition, ECA recommends that if tangible progress cannot be made in a timely 

manner, the federal government should provide funding to the communities that 

have become de facto interim storage sites for both defense high-level nuclear waste 

as well as commercial spent nuclear fuel to offset the impacts of storing waste 

beyond the timeframe originally expected. This will not only ensure the continued 

security of nuclear waste stored onsite and support emergency response training, it will 

demonstrate the federal government understands that it has failed to deliver on its 

responsibilities and perhaps encourage a real sense of urgency. 

Ultimately, a consent-based siting process can be deemed "trustworthy and fair" if a fully 

infonned community volunteers itself to host a nuclear waste facility and chooses to enter 

into a legally enforceable consent-based agreement. 

ECA supports Congressional efforts to address the nation's high-level nuclear waste and 

spent nuclear fuel. As a push to develop consolidated interim storage rhoves forward, 

however, ECA notes it is our policy that any effort to site, construct and operate a interim 

storage facility must be part of a permanent solution and occur in parallel with efforts to 

site, construct and operate one or more geologic repositories. 

1 Previously, DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) was 

responsible for disposing of the nation's civilian and military nuclear waste and spent nuclear 

fuel. However, the office was shutdown in 2010 but could be re-established for this purpose. 

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In January, ECA will host another meeting of the sites that have proposed to host these 

sites and will continue to update the committee as we continue to work on these issues. 

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rfie .. 

Hetitage Foundation 

October 23, 2017 

214 Massachusetts Avenue. NE 

Washington. DC 20002 

(207) 546-4400 

heritage.org 

To: Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and Environment 

Attention: Kiley N. Bidelman 

From: Katie Tubb 

Subject: Responses to Questions for the Record of a Hearing held by the Subcommittee on the 

Interior, Energy, and Environment, September 26, 2017, "Examining America's 

Nuclear Waste Management and Storage" 

Please see below my answers to the questions submitted for the record following the hearing 

conducted on September 26, 2017 by the Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, and 

Environment regarding nuclear waste management in America. 

Questions submitted by Chairman Blake Farenthold 

l. Looking back at the minimal success the Nuclear Waste Policy Act has had over the last 

35 years, do you think Congress has a responsibility to intervene? Why or why not? 

Yes. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act has all but failed to develop a coherent nuclear waste 

management pathway in the US. Nearly every feature of the law has ground to a halt, from 

Department of Energy (DOE) management, to the selection and licensing of a facility at Yucca 

Mountain, financing the project through the nuclear waste fee, and Congressional appropriations 

from the nuclear waste fund. However, this ignores the fundamental problems with the Act, 

some of which -like appropriations from the nuclear waste fund were recognized even before 

the law was passed. 

No one benefits in the long term from the current situation. Though the nuclear industry can at 

least recover its expenses by suing the government (the taxpayer), the current and future nuclear 

industry faces considerable uncertainty after the past decade of political mismanagement. 

Communities cannot repurpose shut down nuclear facilities and face pressure from citizen 

groups concerned about stored nuclear waste at nuclear power plants, which have become de 

facto interim storage sites. Yucca Mountain has become a needling political liability for all three 

branches of the federal government. Further delay and mismanagement also threaten the prospect 

of Americans to continue benefitting from a reliable source of electricity that currently provides 
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almost 20 percent of the electricity Americans use. Nuclear power has little to no future if waste 

cannot be properly managed and disposed. 

Certainly, Congress could approach this challenge by trying to make the Nuclear Waste Policy 

Act work better. However, there are fundamental flaws with the Act, which misaligns 

responsibility for waste management. A better approach would be to reevaluate the Nuclear 

Waste Policy Act to include principles of free enterprise. There are companies and technologies 

that exist that could provide interim and long-term storage options for the nuclear industry 

outside of or in addition to Yucca Mountain. Yet DOE management of commercial waste as 

designed by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act does not incentivize solutions or innovation. 

Connecting the front end of nuclear power production with the back end of waste management in 

a properly aligned system bound by market forces will push technology and business forward to 

generate new solutions. 

Recognizing that the past cannot be changed, Congress should move forward to complete the 

review of a license for Yucca Mountain. But it should also revise the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 

or introduce new legislation to allow innovation in nuclear waste management options for the 

future nuclear industry. Such revisions should include industry responsibility for waste 

management decisions and market pricing. Reportedly, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

(NRC) is currently predisposed not to review alternative long-term options, instead considering 

the DOE to be the only applicant for waste disposal services. Congress should examine this and 

if necessary clarify that the NRC may review non-DOE waste management applications should 

companies request permits. 

2. The new administration has seemed keener on addressing the stalemate with Yucca 

Mountain. Is there anything Congress can do to support their efforts? 

Yes. At a bare minimum, Congress must appropriate enough funds to the DOE and the NRC to 

complete the license review of a long-term nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. Doing 

so does not constitute an irreversible decision to construct Yucca Mountain. Finishing the review 

merely allows contentions with the permit to be heard and brings together all of the relevant 

information for Congress, Nevada, the Trump Administration, and the nuclear industry to make 

prudent decisions about next steps. Failure to appropriate money to these activities is a choice by 

default that Yucca Mountain is not suitable, yet a choice made without having given Americans, 

the nuclear industry, or the executive branch reasons as to why. 

3. You mentioned a need for greater work with the state of Nevada in order to get the 

necessary licensing and approvals to complete Yucca. Given the state's past animosity 

towards this project, including 218 filed contentions with the NRC, what specifically do you 

feel would be beneficial with respect to this issue, both in terms of DOE action as well as 

potential legislative fixes? 
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I would like to focus particularly on what Congress could do to work with the State of Nevada. 

First, Congress should appropriate funds to complete the Yucca Mountain licensing process: the 

State's and others' contentions with the DOE's application should be addressed. 

Secondly, the voices of all Nevadans must be heard, including those in the nine counties 

supporting completion ofthe licensing process. To this end, I agree with the approach ofH.R. 

3053 to use amounts in the nuclear waste fund to support local governments in their participation 

and review during the remainder of the licensing process. 

Third, many Nevadans believe a nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain is of little value to the 

state and is instead a major health and safety liability over which the state has no control. Other 

states have shared these concerns in other waste management activities considered, like siting 

interim storage and deep borehole facilities. Congress should consider how to tum nuclear waste 

management into an asset for Nevada. 

One way to do this is to give Nevada access to the entirety of the nuclear waste fund and interest 

accumulated through May 2014 (the last time the nuclear wa~te fee was collected). The sum total 

is $38.8 billion with roughly $1.4 billion in annual interest. 1 This could be apportioned out in 

mandatory annual payments of $1.05 billion in perpetuity or until the fund is depleted. In return, 

Nevada or an entity approved by the state would agree to take the total volume of commercial 

nuclear waste generated before May 2014 in a contract with the DOE once a license is approved 

by the NRC. Under this arrangement, the DOE would not be relieved of its contractual 

obligations with the nuclear industry, but would be contracting with Nevada (or a state approved 

entity) to manage existing nuclear waste. In essence, Nevada would have both financial control 

and regulatory control within the confines of NRC regulations. This would also set Nevada up to 

accept future waste at a price it determines if the state chooses to do so. It should be noted that 

Congress should develop a new approach for nuclear waste produced after May 2014, an 

approach that as mentioned would include industry responsibility and market pricing. 

Fourth, it could perhaps go a long way to acknowledge that Congress could and should have 

approached the 1987 amendment to Nuclear Waste Policy Act (which designated Yucca 

Mountain alone as the site for a repository should the NRC approve it) differently. 

1 U.S. Department of Energy. "Audit Report: Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Fund's Fiscal Year 2016 

Financial Statement Audit," Office oflnspector General, December 2016, pp. 5, 10, 

https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/20 l6/12/G4/0AI-FS-17-04.pdf