ECA Update: June 7, 2012
Published: Thu, 06/07/12
House approves $32 billion Energy and Water spending bill
Pete Kasperowicz, The Hill June 6, 2012 The House approved a $32 billion Energy and Water spending bill that increases spending in 2013 above current levels, and includes some amendments that signal House GOP opposition to the Obama administration in several areas.
Members voted 255-165 in favor of the bill, and had the support of 48 Democrats. The bill, H.R. 5325, is the second 2013 spending bill approved by the House -- it approved a Veterans Affairs bill in late May.
Despite spending $87.5 million more than current year levels, the Obama administration has said it would veto the bill, since it's part of a Republican plan to spend $19 billion less in 2013 discretionary accounts than was agreed last year. The administration said last week that increases in the bill would have to be offset by unacceptable and deeper spending cuts elsewhere.
As approved by the House, the bill also includes several policy riders the Obama administration might also find objectionable.
In an overwhelming 326-81 vote, members approved language giving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) another $10 million. That vote was aimed at pushing back at what both parties said is a deliberate attempt to slow-walk an NRC permitting decision allowing the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste disposal site.
Senate Hears Recommendations on Siting Nuclear Waste Facilities (watch hearing live at 10am today) C-SPAN June 7, 2012 The Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety holds a hearing on "Recommendations For Siting of Nuclear Waste Storage Facilities" from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.
Senators will hear from two panels, the first of which includes Blue Ribbon Commission co-chair Brent Scowcroft and Per F. Peterson, a member of the commission and chairman of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, and whose research interests focus on problems in energy and environmental systems and high level nuclear waste processing.
A second panel features stakeholders from government agencies and nuclear industries and research labs.
Sen. Murkowski Delivers Speech to Nuclear Policy Forum Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Press Release June 6, 2012 WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today delivered the following speech at a policy forum on the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The commission issued recommendations in January for a new comprehensive strategy to manage and dispose of the nation's spent nuclear fuel. The federal government continues to incur financial liability due to its failure to provide long-term storage for the nuclear material used to generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity. Sen. Murkowski continues to press for the creation of interim storage sites as an initial step that could be taken to address the backend of the nuclear fuel cycle in the near term, while the issue of where to construct a permanent repository is resolved.
Sen. Murkowski's prepared remarks are below:
"The issue of nuclear waste management has been frustrating Congress, multiple administrations, utilities, and rate payers for many decades now. Efforts to address it through the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and further amendments remain unresolved. Taxpayers have paid over $2 billion in damages so far, all resulting from the government's failure to take title to the used nuclear fuel. The Department of Energy estimates that if title were to be taken by 2021 - just a few years from now, the total liability incurred would be over $13 billion. Some in industry are estimating that the total cost will be closer to $50 billion, if not higher.
Lab directors urged plutonium facility delay, former Biden aide charges Elaine M. Grossman, Global Security Newswire June 5, 2012 WASHINGTON -- A former White House aide on Monday said the directors of the U.S. national laboratories "came forward" during closed-door budget-planning sessions five months ago to propose a delay in building a plutonium research facility, a plan that has since drawn Republican fire (see GSN, May 29).
Lawmakers have taken great interest in what heads of the three main laboratories -- Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia -- think about the ramifications of delaying work on the $6 billion Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant because these institutions play a key role in overseeing the nuclear arsenal. The so-called CMRR building -- slated for location at Los Alamos, N.M. -- would replace a Cold War-era site that performs analytical chemistry and related research on plutonium cores, or explosive "pits," for U.S. nuclear arms. The facility would help ensure that new and existing nuclear-weapon pits would function, if needed, despite a decades-long moratorium on underground explosive testing. A study will explore Savannah River Site's potential role in devising disposal solutions for spent nuclear fuel.
"We want to look at everything, from cradle to grave, involving the nuclear fuel cycle, even things we may not even know about," said Rick McLeod, the executive director of the SRS Community Reuse Organization.
The CRO, a multicounty economic development consortium, is financing the $200,000 study, to be conducted by Timothy A. Frazier, a senior adviser to the Washington, D.C., firm of Dickstein Shapiro LLP.
What vast support for Yucca amendment in House could mean for Nevada Karoun Demirjian, Las Vegas Sun June 7, 2012 Nevada's House delegation stood firm against an appropriations bill that would pump $35 million toward the Yucca Mountain project Wednesday, registering its disapproval of the bid to revive the waste dump even as the bill passed the House with a strong majority.
The final vote on the annual Energy and Water appropriations bill was 255 to 165. But far more striking was the 326 to 81 vote on an amendment, presented by Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois to push $10 million toward the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the instruction that it be used to press forward with the Yucca Mountain licensing process.
The NRC's decision to stop that process under outgoing Chairman Gregory Jaczko is the subject of a federal appeals court process in the District of Columbia. Jaczko had argued for the past few fiscal cycles that when Congress zeroed-out Yucca funding, it clipped the NRC's ability to proceed with licensing as well; supporters of the waste dump who brought the initial lawsuit argue the NRC is obligated to spend every last bit of the $10.4 million they have left over from previous appropriations until they can claim the licensing process is dead.
Installing a small modular nuclear reactor at the site of Energy Northwest's never-completed WNP-1 nuclear power plant north of Richland is being proposed.
A small modular reactor could be used to provide power to the Hanford vitrification plant and possibly also Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, according to a letter of support from Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire to Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
It also could help offset the loss of jobs as environmental cleanup progresses at Hanford, which previously was used to produce weapons plutonium, she said in the letter.
EM Publishes Federal Register Notice of Intent to Prepare Supplement to Long-Term Mercury Storage EIS EM News Flash June 6, 2012 WASHINGTON, D.C. - EM on Tuesday published a notice of intent in the Federal Register to prepare a supplement to its January 2011 Environmental Impact Statement for the Long-Term Management and Storage of Elemental Mercury to analyze additional alternatives, in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act.
As required by the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008, the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to identify a facility or facilities for the long-term management and storage of elemental mercury generated in the United States. DOE intends to prepare a supplement to the January 11, 2011 Environmental Impact Statement for the Long-Term Management and Storage of Elemental Mercury (Mercury Storage EIS) to analyze additional alternatives.
The Mercury Storage EIS evaluated seven candidate locations for the elemental mercury storage facility, as well as the No Action Alternative. Those candidate locations are: DOE Grand Junction Disposal Site near Grand Junction, Colorado; DOE Hanford Site near Richland, Washington; Hawthorne Army Depot near Hawthorne, Nevada; DOE Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho; DOE Kansas City Plant in Kansas City, Missouri; DOE Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina; and Waste Control Specialists, LLC, site near Andrews, Texas. Since publication of the Final Mercury Storage EIS, DOE has reconsidered the range of reasonable alternatives evaluated in that EIS. Accordingly, DOE now proposes to evaluate two additional locations for a long-term mercury storage facility, both near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which is located approximately 26 miles southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico. SCOPING MEETING LOCATIONS
The public is invited to attend scoping meetings or to submit written comments on the scope of the supplemental environmental impact statement to: Mr. David Levenstein, Document Manager, at the address listed below or via the Mercury Storage EIS website at http://mercurystorageeis.com. June 26, 2012
Skeen-Whitlock Building Auditorium U.S. DOE Carlsbad Field Office 4021 National Parks Highway Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220 Open House 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. Scoping Meeting 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. June 28, 2012
Crowne Plaza Albuquerque 1901 University Blvd. NE Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102 Open House 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. Scoping Meeting 6:00 - 8:30 p.m. For More Information:
U.S. Mail: David Levenstein, Document Manager Office of Environmental Compliance (EM-11) U.S. Department of Energy Post Office Box 2612 Germantown, MD 20874-2612 EM Officials Join Environmental Management Advisory Board to Celebrate 20th Anniversary EM News Flash June 5, 2012 IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Tracy Mustin joined other officials last week to mark the 20th year of the independent, volunteer advisory board that offers the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Environmental Management guidance on critical issues involved in the world's largest nuclear cleanup.
Mustin thanked the 14 current members of the Environmental Management Advisory Board (EMAB) and emphasized the value of their contributions and input from their independent, external perspectives. She called the board's two decades of service an impressive milestone.
"This body has sustained and been effective for 20 years," Mustin told the board members, who have backgrounds in government and non-government entities, private industry and scientific and academic communities. "Your perspectives help us as we sort through the challenges of our program.
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