WASHINGTON, DC – The Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, chaired by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), today received an update on the nation’s nuclear waste management policy, hearing from a panel of diverse witnesses who underscored the urgent need to deal with this pressing problem.

Chairman Shimkus called today’s hearing following his visit last month to the site of the Yucca Mountain repository. Shimkus led a bipartisan delegation to Yucca to examine the site after the Obama administration unlawfully terminated the project and to help inform Congress’ efforts to establish a workable, long-term solution to our nuclear waste management. “The site is an invaluable national asset isolated in the Nevada desert, removed from all population centers, and co-located with the Nevada National Security Site. Since my previous visit in 2011, the landscape has notably advanced to support the development of this permanent repository,” said Shimkus.

Josephine Piccone, Director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Yucca Mountain Directorate, provided a progress report on NRC’s licensing process, which was restarted by the U.S. Court of Appeals decision. The first and most important order of business was completing the Safety Evaluation Report. Testifying on the findings of that report, Piccone said, “Notably, in the Safety Evaluation Report, the NRC staff finds, with reasonable assurance and expectation, that DOE’s design and analysis of the proposed repository complies with the performance objectives and requirements both before and after the repository is closed.”

Washington State is currently suing the Department of Energy over the federal government’s failure keep its promise to store the nation’s nuclear waste as required by law under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. “Our greatest near-term concern is getting high-level waste retrieved from storage and treated. Right now, that waste is in various forms of liquid, sludges, and solids. Nearly 30 million gallons of the waste is stored in single-shell tanks that are failing and have already leaked to soil and groundwater,” said Andrew Fitz, testifying today on behalf of Washington State’s Office of Attorney General. “The federal government’s efforts to abandon Yucca Mountain have ignored and by-passed the careful process Congress set forth in the NWPA for developing a national repository.”

Greg White, Member of the Michigan Public Service Commission, provided testimony on behalf of National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). “Since 1982, more than $40 billion in direct payments and interest have been paid into the U.S. Nuclear Waste Fund. And for all of those billions of dollars, so far, the ratepayers have nothing to show for it. Under the current state of the nuclear waste management program, we have absolutely nothing to show for this vast collection of ratepayer’s money. The efforts to shut down the Yucca Mountain Licensing project—the nation’s one and only permanent repository for high-level spent nuclear fuel authorized by law—puts the country in the exact same status we occupied 33 years ago in 1982. Federal officials continue to ‘kick the cask’ down the road— eliminating any impetus for real progress on the waste problem.”

Steve Kuczynski, Chairman, President and CEO of Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., expressed that “it is imperative for our nation to move forward with the national repository at Yucca Mountain,” and said, “The nation has come too far and invested too much to abandon it now, particularly in light of the recent NRC safety reports demonstrating that it is a safe location for these purposes. Electricity customers around the country have, for several decades, paid billions of dollars in nuclear waste fees, but the government has yet to live up to its end of the bargain (or its obligation under the law).”

Chairman Shimkus is exploring options to get our nation’s nuclear future back on track. Among issues under consideration is working with all affected parties to identify the incentives and considerations necessary to move Yucca Mountain forward. He questioned the witnesses about this plan and asked what these incentives should include. Watch HERE.

Shimkus concluded, “I am committed to working with state and local stakeholders in Nevada who will engage in a constructive conversation to resolve the current impasse. Just saying no is not an option.”

Many of the witnesses agreed that the time has come to move the spent fuel away from reactors as soon possible, and a potential for interim storage was mentioned. “Recently there has been renewed interest and urgency in solving our nuclear waste management system deadlock. Breaking this deadlock will likely require legislation. Some suggest an interim storage program, intended to take title to commercial spent nuclear fuel and move defense nuclear waste on an accelerated timeframe,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) added. “But we must ensure that spent nuclear fuel will not be stored in an ‘interim’ facility forever.”

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