Thursday, June 17, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's desire to have Congress change how it gives money to the Yucca Mountain project moved forward this week, but its chief supporter acknowledged that it will be tough to finalize the policy.
A bill passed by the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee on Wednesday would provide the Yucca Mountain project with $750 million a year in each of the next five years.
That was the first step in the complicated appropriations process that could allow the department to access more money than it has in the past for the nuclear waste storage site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
It will remain unclear what will happen with the funding until the House Energy and Commerce Committee takes up the bill and the House votes on the separate Energy and Water spending bill, which contains the Yucca budget. Both may take place next week.
The bill approved Wednesday allows Congress to get the $750 million from a pool of money funded directly by a surcharge on nuclear power, so the project would not have to compete with other programs for federal money and the money in the pool could not be used for anything other than the Yucca project.
The initial bill, offered by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, would have allowed the funding change until the department completed construction on the surface facilities at Yucca, but the subcommittee approved an amendment by Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, that limited the change from fiscal year 2005 through 2009. Congress would have to follow the regular appropriations rules for the project after that, unless it would approve another change.
This is a small but important step in the department's effort to fund the project, since other attempts to make the policy change have failed in the past. The department complains that the project is underfunded every year as the nuclear industry points to the $14 billion collected in the project pool that does not get used.
Critics of the plan, including state officials and Nevada's congressional delegation, say the step is bad for Nevada, since the department needs the policy change to keep the project on track for its 2010 opening date.
"The Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress are pulling out all the stops in their effort to fund Yucca Mountain," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "They are now attempting to change the law in order to guarantee that the majority of funding for Yucca Mountain does not have to compete with other national priorities such as clean water, flood control projects and renewable energy development."
"We should not spend another dime on Yucca Mountain until DOE adequately addresses nationwide concerns about the dangers of transporting nuclear waste across the U.S. and answers the hundreds of unresolved scientific questions surrounding the site -- including findings that canisters used in the dump will rapidly corrode and leak radioactive waste into southern Nevada water supplies," Berkley said.
It will get harder and harder for Congress to find money for the Yucca project as its budget grows to $1 billion and beyond in the coming years, unless the legislators want to take the money from other federal programs.
If the bill is finalized, Congress could provide at least $750 million without taking money from anything else. Anything above that amount would still have to compete for funding.
Barton, who leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee that will also have to approve the bill, said he wants to take it up in committee next week but said the "elephant in the tent" is that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev, will prevent the bill from moving through. He said it was unlikely to move because of Reid's opposition.
Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who already blocked the change from getting into the Senate budget policy, have clearly established their opposition to the policy. Reid is the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill and will be a member of the conference committee that will finalize the project's budget.
Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee approved the spending bill including the $131 million Yucca budget Wednesday. That marks a $750 million decrease from the department's $880 million request. The Senate has not taken action on its version of the budget yet.
Barton said he still might ask for a delay on the final House vote on the spending bill after his policy change gets through.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, strongly supports more funding for the Yucca project, but the schedule for additional action on the spending bill was not known Wednesday, Hobson's spokeswoman said.
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