Hanford may store more nuclear waste

WASHINGTON — The House voted yesterday to begin temporary storage of commercial nuclear waste at one or more federal facilities, fearing further delays in a proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada.

The directive was included in a $29.7 billion measure funding the Energy Department and came over the objections of lawmakers from Washington and South Carolina, two states where the waste from commercial power reactors might be located.

An attempt by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., to strip the bill of $10 million for the interim storage program failed 312-110. The House passed the spending measure last night, 416-13.

While the legislation leaves it up to the Energy Department to select one or more interim storage sites, a report accompanying the bill suggested the Energy Department's Savannah River weapons facility in South Carolina, the Hanford complex in Washington state and a facility in Idaho as possible locations. It also said the department should consider other federal sites, including closed defense bases.

The bill calls on the energy secretary to produce a plan for interim storage four months after the bill becomes law and begin accepting waste before the end of next year. The legislation still must be considered by the Senate.

Washington and South Carolina lawmakers said that if their states are chosen, they feared the interim facilities could end up as permanent waste repositories. They worried that establishing interim waste dumps might reduce pressure to open Yucca Mountain.

"The state of Washington does not want to become ... a nuclear-waste dump more than we are already," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. "Interim, in geologic time, could mean several lifetimes."

The interim storage proposal comes amid delays in opening the proposed Yucca Mountain project in Nevada, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Last year, a federal court questioned its proposed radiation protection plans. More recently, concerns surfaced over allegations that government workers on the project falsified data.

The bill provides $661 million for continued development of the Yucca Mountain facility, which must still get a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the Appropriations energy subcommittee, said that he strongly supports development of the Yucca Mountain facility but that interim storage is needed because of the delays. He said the government faces an estimated $500 million in additional liability costs for every year it fails to accept waste. By law, the Energy Department was supposed to begin taking commercial used reactor fuel in 1998.

More than 50,000 tons of nuclear waste is now kept at reactors in 31 states.

The spending bill also contains $4.7 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, most of it devoted to waterways, dams and flood control projects. That is $414 million more than requested by President Bush but $294 million less than current funding.