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Senate Panel Backs U.S. MOX Funding By Jon Fox WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee yesterday approved a bill that increases funding for a U.S. mixed-oxide fuel production plant by $50 million but leaves the National Nuclear Security Administration budget $58 million below the requested level (see GSN, June 27). The House of Representatives in May passed its version of the energy appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007. That bill included no funding for the same MOX facility planned for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina (see GSN, May 26). The United States and Russia pledged in 2000 to each convert 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium to a mixed-oxide fuel that can be readily used in nuclear power reactors. The conversion would reduce the stockpile of fissile material that both governments and experts fear could be devastating in the hands of terrorists. Russia has plans to complete a MOX fabrication facility similar to the U.S. plant, but construction has been stalled by questions of liability for U.S. contractors working in Russia. Moscow has also demanded that the United States and its allies fully fund the Russian half of the project. The Senate bill pulls $35 million in funding that would have gone to the Russian project and redirects it to the facility in South Carolina. An additional $15 million has also been tacked on to the construction budget for the domestic fuel production plant. Funding for the entire fissile material program is budgeted at $653 million. The subcommittee’s version of the energy bill “reflects a growing frustration with the Russian government,” said panel Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.). “They seem to be less interested with providing operational funding for a MOX facility.” The Senate Armed Services Committee passed a defense authorization bill in May that fully funds the MOX program (see GSN, May 5). On the House side, the Armed Services Committee provided $174 million for construction of the South Carolina site, more than $115 million less than requested by the Bush administration (see GSN, May 4). At this point in the budget process, it is unclear to what level the MOX program would be funded, if at all. The Senate subcommittee’s version of the energy bill goes to the full Appropriations Committee tomorrow. The bill provides $24.7 billion for the Energy Department, a $650 million increase from this fiscal year. The department’s National Nuclear Security Administration is funded at $9.25 billion, $58 million below the budget request but up $158 million from fiscal 2006. Within the agency, weapons activities at national laboratories and plants in Texas, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina would receive a $78 million bump over the requested level to $6.5 billion. The agency’s nonproliferation work is budgeted at $1.57 billion, $152 million below the administration request. The bill requires the department to begin moving weapon-grade plutonium and uranium out of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory during fiscal year 2007 and to complete the relocation by 2010, two years ahead of schedule, Domenici said. Under the bill, funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program is up $35 million to more than $62 million, in order to speed up design activities. Within the program, $10 million would fund a second design competition to replace at least one of the existing warhead systems. The Los Alamos and the Lawrence Livermore national laboratories are currently competing to develop the United States’ first new nuclear warhead in decades (see GSN, June 13). The elimination of the life expansion program for the W80 cruise missile freed the additional funding for the warhead replacement program, Domenici said. The senator remarked on the “interest, enthusiasm and glee” he saw in the eyes of the “youthful scientists” working on the replacement program at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Funding to a program to enable the disposal of unneeded plutonium pits would be cut by more than half to $35 million. Funding for the production of the nuclear weapons triggers matches the budget request at $237.6 million. “Yucca Neutral”The committee’s bill would also create what Domenici called a “medium-term” solution for the storage of spent nuclear fuel. “This will not affect Yucca Mountain,” he said (see GSN, May 17). In 2002, Congress approved Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site of a nuclear waste repository, but the Energy Department has yet to apply for a federal operating license. An announcement on an application schedule is expected this summer. The current target date for opening the facility is 2018. A provision in the bill authorizes the storage of spent fuel at federally owned sites for up to 25 years. The bill also calls for creating a new Energy Department post, a so-called director of consolidation, to work toward the goal of finding a temporary, consolidated storage site for spent fuel. Senator Harry Reid (Nev.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, praised the bill. Reid, an opponent of the proposed repository at Yucca, said the legislation is “Yucca neutral.” “It neither directly helps or directly hurts my cause,” he said.
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