Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s decision to scuttle the nuclear waste repository project at Yucca Mountain faced rare bipartisan condemnation at a House hearing on Wednesday (see GSN, May 16).

Chu didn’t testify, but one of his top aides did -- Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Peter Lyons -- and he got an earful from virtually every member who questioned him.

“Regardless of who the administration is, the abject failure to follow federal law here is most disturbing, and it’s unacceptable,” Representative Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) bellowed at an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. “It’s unacceptable by any administration of any party.”

Inslee hails from a state that houses nuclear waste once intended for Yucca Mountain. Lyons confronted similar criticism from other Democrats with a less direct stake in the project, including Representatives John Dingell of Michigan and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina. More liberal Democrats like Energy and Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman of California, did not question Lyons, although Waxman was at the hearing early on.

The members charged that the administration is breaking federal law -- the Nuclear Waste Policy Act -- by terminating Yucca Mountain based in part on local objections to the project. The project has taken nearly 30 years of the government’s time and cost taxpayers about $15 billion, according to a Government Accountability Office report issued last month that was critical of the administration’s decision to end the project.

The unused money that utility commissions are collecting for the Nuclear Waste Fund is another reason lawmakers like Butterfield seem frustrated with the administration.

“I’m embarrassed to tell my constituents that their contributions have amounted to very little,” said Butterfield, whose constituents have paid (via their electricity bills) almost $2.8 billion in fees to the Nuclear Waste Fund.

Lyons struggled to respond. He repeatedly said he was not a lawyer and thus couldn’t answer many of the questions. He kept referring to testimony Chu has made saying the administration was going to find a more workable solution based on technical criteria and “social acceptance.” Lyons struggled to justify local objections as a legal grounds for terminating the project. He said the department’s application for the project submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2007 was technically and scientifically acceptable.

In 1987, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act designated Yucca Mountain as the nation’s permanent nuclear waste repository. Shortly after taking office, President Obama zeroed out funding for the project and appointed a commission to find another long-term solution for nuclear waste. The commission will issue an interim report in July and a final report next year. The legality of the decision to terminate the project is being examined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and in the courts, but it’s unclear if or when a final decision will come from either venue.

In House Republicans’ fiscal 2012 Energy-Water spending bill, introduced on Wednesday and slated for a markup Thursday, Republicans restored $35 million in funding for Yucca Mountain, including $10 million for the NRC to continue its review of the license. The bill includes provisions to forbid the use of funds to close the program.