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30 June 2006 -- The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee approved a FY07 $30.7 billion energy spending bill on June 27 that includes a plan to temporarily store nuclear waste on federal land.
"These provisions are the logical next step to managing our spent nuclear fuel….I remain firmly committed to Yucca Mountain as a permanent storage solution, but the opening of Yucca is a long way off. In the meantime, we need to aggressively explore recycling options," Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the subcommittee, said.
The program, called CAP for consolidation and preparation, authorizes the Department of Energy to store commercial nuclear waste from the country's 65 reactor sites and instructs the energy secretary, in consultation with states, to determine how many CAP sites will be needed and where they should be located. DOE can store commercial nuclear waste for as long as 25 years before it is recycled or stored at Yucca Mountain. The subcommittee allotted $10 million for the initiative.
"I am impressed by the GNEP program and happy to more than fully fund this promising program. With the CAP sites, GNEP and Yucca, I think we now have in place the near-term, mid-term and long-term solutions for our spent nuclear fuel. I hope we can finally unclog this drain."
The Nuclear Energy Institute's reaction was positive but cautious. NEI President Skip Bowman expressed his gratitude to the subcommittee for addressing the problem, but stressed that the federal program for the Yucca Mountain repository still needs to be the focus of government legislation and spending.
"It is very important to industry that, in addition to this new proposal, the legislation fully fund the Yucca Mountain repository program," Bowman said.
Domenici also provided roughly $380 million in the bill to support energy-related activities authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, including $148 million for solar, $213 million for biomass, the restoration of $22.5 million for geothermal research and development and $4 million to hydropower. For fossil fuel-based programs, Domenici allotted $547 million with a heavy emphasis on coal R&D.
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