In 1982, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act established a deadline for the Department of Energy to begin moving spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to Yucca Mountain. Today, January 31, 2008 marks the 10^th anniversary. This delay is largely attributed to Senate appropriators under-funding this program for decades.

Fact: After spending 26 years and $8 billion dollars, DOE remains at least 9 years away from meeting that obligation in its most optimistic scenario. Yet appropriators cut $108 million from the Administration’s FY’08 budget request of $495 million. Who benefits from this?

Not electricity ratepayers.  They’ve paid $27 billion over the years for a service they still haven’t received. Ratepayers continue to pay about $750 million every year.  As Jim Kerr, member of the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) and President of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) testified before the EPW Committee on October 31, 2007,

 “If the repository solution is abandoned, what do we tell the communities adjoining the 72 reactor sites in 35 States where the spent fuel is stored today? What do the utilities seeking to invest in new nuclear power plants tell their prospective neighbors? What do we tell the ratepayers that have already invested more than $27 billion? When will they get a refund?”

Not the taxpayers.  They are footing the bill for the delay starting with $94 million spent on government lawyers to litigate 67 lawsuits, $290 million in damages that have been paid, $420 million in damages that the government lawyers are appealing, and projected damages that would likely total about $7 billion if DOE moves spent fuel in 2017 or $11 billion if they don’t move anything until 2020.

 

Not the states coping with the Cold War legacy of nuclear waste.  Without a repository to dispose of that legacy waste, clean-up can’t be finished. That means ANOTHER $500 million per year cost to taxpayers to fund continued storage of wastes that can’t be disposed of. Senator Craig (R-ID) addressed this issue on the Senate Floor this week, saying,

“There is no other disposable option for our Navy's high-level waste. Because of the configuration of the waste, of those reactor fuel rods, they cannot be reprocessed. So they, unlike the commercial reactor spent fuel rods, have to go into a permanent home and permanent waste. Idaho, South Carolina, and the State of Washington are all relying on Yucca Mountain for permanent disposal of this waste. So it is critical that this Senate, this Government, doesn't put aside the issue of Yucca Mountain, but that we deal with it in a forthright way, that we recognize there is truly a need for some geologic storage of our types of waste, especially our military waste that, in many instances, is stored in South Carolina, Washington, and my State of Idaho.”

Not the government employees.  Thanks to funding cuts for fiscal year 2008, 250 Nevada citizens will lose their jobs. A letter to the editor in the Las Vegas Review Journal from an employee who recently lost their job, sums it up best:  

“I am a victim of his $100 million budget cut, but I am not a disgruntled employee. I just speak from experience and the truth. I am too young to draw full Social Security benefits and too old to find another position. My only recourse is to sell my house in the depths of a housing depression and move to a more affordable state in the Midwest… I will not argue here about whether you are for or against the project -- the science speaks for itself.”

Perhaps the only ones benefiting from this delay are a handful of politicians using this issue as a way to score political points in one particular state.