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U.S. House Slashes GNEP Funding
The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly yesterday to cut nearly half of the fiscal 2007 budget request for the White House nuclear fuel reprocessing program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 18). Lawmakers voted 404-20 in favor of an energy and water spending bill that contains $130 million for the fuel recycling initiative. The Bush administration had sought $250 million for the project. The Senate is expected to support at least that much funding, setting up a showdown when the congressional bodies meet in conference to balance the spending proposals. The House approved the full White House request for $545 million for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository in Nevada. That is $95 million more than budgeted in this fiscal year. Fiscal 2007 begins in October. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would involved increased research on recycling spent nuclear fuel so that it could be reused rather than immediately stored away. The United States would offer nuclear fuel to other nations, which would later return it for reprocessing, according to AP. Critics have not been convinced by administration claims that developing new technology that would not separate weaponizable plutonium would eliminate the possible proliferation dangers of recycling. The House Appropriations Committee also said the Energy Department has yet to supply specific information about the cost of the program, which is expected to reach billions of dollars over a period of decades, or whether the new technology is certain to be developed. “There’s only a guess of how much it’s going to cost … $3 billion to $6 billion for a demonstration project,” said Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.). While the recycled fuel might not function in a nuclear weapon, it would “not be too dangerous for terrorists to handle for a dirty bomb,” he added. Markey unsuccessfully sought to cut another $40 million from the program. Representative David Hobson (R-Ohio) backed the first reduction but said additional cuts could kill the program, AP reported (Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 24).
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