Friday, Sept. 12, 2003 | 11:22 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain project will be delayed and transportation plans compromised should a pending budget cut in the Senate go through, the White House told the Senate Thursday.
In a letter sent to the Senate, the Office of Management and Budget said the administration "strongly objects" to a proposed $166 million reduction in the project budget.
OMB said such a cut would continue problems caused by the $134 million left out of the 2003 budget "and would cause up to a year's delay in the scheduled December 2004 submission of the repository construction license application."
The letter also says the cut would delay waste transportation system plans nationwide as well as in Nevada and "postpone initial operations beyond the current target of 2010."
DOE spokesman Joe Davis said this morning that the department is still shooting for the 2004 and 2010 deadline.
Davis said the department has told Congress numerous times that "if they don't provide the necessary resources" there was bound to be delays.
The department says it needs to move the 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from sites across the country to Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress approved the site last year for a high-level nuclear dump, despite strong opposition from the state.
Budget battles are common to the Yucca debate. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee that oversees the project's budget, helped cut the funding to $425 million, marking the $166 million decrease from the department's $591 million request. The House approved $765 million in July.
Reid often used his seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee to trim funding from the project, which he, like other members of the Nevada delegation, strongly opposes.
In 2003 DOE requested $527 million for the program and later asked for an additional $66 million after Congress approved the site. The House Appropriations Committee approved $525 million. The Senate put the funding at $336 million and a conference committee came to a compromise of $460 million.
Supporters of the project, such as the industry group the Nuclear Energy Institute, nuclear utilities and the DOE, have fought for full funding in the past, but this is the first time the White House has admitted the 2004 license application and 2010 opening dates could be missed due a lack of money, according to Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
The Senate began debate Thursday on the Energy and Water Development spending bill, which funds the Yucca Mountain.
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