Trump DOE requests $27.5 million in FY21, including for consolidated interim storage

From page 7 of U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette's written testimony to the U.S. House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, re: Fiscal Year 2021 budget requests:

For the Interim Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program, the budget requests $27.5M to fund the development and implementation of a robust interim storage program, DOE’s fiduciary responsibility for maintaining a safe and secure Yucca Mountain facility, and oversight of the Nuclear Waste Fund. Coupled with DOE’s funding for storage, transportation, and disposal R&D, the budget request supports the development of a durable, predictable yet flexible plan that addresses efficiently storing waste temporarily in the near term, followed by permanent disposal. In doing so the Administration will establish an interagency working group to develop this plan in consultation with States. The Department is committed to fulfilling the Federal Government’s legal and moral obligations to properly manage and dispose of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.

(Emphasis added)

Of the $27.5 million budget request, $20 million would be devoted to consolidated interim storage-related matters.

See the Subcommittee's website posting about the hearing, including Subcommittee Chairwoman March Kaptur's (D-OH) opening statement, Energy Secretary Brouillette's written testimony, as well as his biography. A recording of the hearing is viewable live, at the link provided above. Thanks to Robert Halstead, executive director, State of NV Agency for Nuclear Projects, for this "table of contents" for the recording:

Due to a delay for voting, the hearing begins at 1:01:00 of the archived video. Sec. Brouillette addresses the zero request for Yucca Mountain licensing and DOE proposal for alternative approaches to storage and disposal at 1:14:00. Rep. Simpson (ranking [Republican] member, [Idaho]) questions Sec. Brouillette about Yucca Mountain, the current law, and alternatives at 1:18:24. Chairman Kaptur [Democrat, Ohio] questions Sec. Brouillette about "innovative approaches" to waste management, especially interim storage, at 2:00:30. At 2:14:23, Rep. Newhouse (Republican, whose [Washington State] district includes the DOE Hanford site) strongly opposes the Administration approach, calls it "playing politics" with Yucca Mountain and indicates he "will fight this with everything I've got." Near the end of the hearing, at 2:37:37, Rep. Simpson suggests Sec. Brouillette avoid filling-in the tunnel at Yucca Mountain so that it might be available as a place to store all the studies that have been done. The hearing concludes at 2:40:00.

Interim nuclear waste bill boosted by Trump budget

As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Action urgently needed to block irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facilities!

In the decades-long "game" of radioactive waste whack-a-mole, when the Yucca dump goes down (see related entry, below), proposed consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs) pop back up with a vengeance.

(Proposed CISFs are very often environmentally unjust, radioactively racist. In the past, they targeted scores of Native American reservations. This time around, they target largely Hispanic communities in the Permian Basin, along the Texas/New Mexico border. The photo, below, was taken at a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) environmental scoping public comment meeting in Andrews, TX, re: the Interim Storage Partners CISF targeted at Waste Control Specialists, LLC located near there, right on the New Mexico border at Eunice.) 

In fact, in response to Trump's anti-Yucca dump tweet, the politically powerful chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee, the very pro-nuclear power U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (Republican-Tennessee), despite being a long-time proponent of both the Yucca dump and CISFs, cynically responded: "President Trump's decision to embrace alternatives to storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is welcome news. If we want a future with nuclear power that produces clean, cheap, and reliable energy and creates good jobs that keep America competitive in a global economy, then we have to solve the nuclear waste stalemate. There is bipartisan support for allowing consolidated nuclear waste storage at private facilities, and I look forward to working with the president to solve this problem." (Emphasis added.)

There is the very real danger that Sen. Alexander will revise his bill, S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act (co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Republican-Alaska) and Dianne Feinstein (Democrat-California)), to remove Yucca dump advocacy, but to redouble CISF advocacy. There are also multiple bills in the U.S. House (the foremost of which is the STORE Act, H.R. 3136), also advocating CISFs. And there is the distinct risk that a U.S. House equivalent of S. 1234 itself could be introduced.  

What can you do? Please contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators. Urge them to oppose CISFs, as by blocking S. 1234, H.R. 3136, and any other congressional legislation that advocates de facto permanent, surface storage, "parking lot dumps," as currently targeted at southeastern New Mexico (Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance), and western Texas (Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists). You can be patched through to your congress members' D.C. offices by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Learn more at our Centralized Storage website section. 

 

Broad coalition intervenes against Holtec takeover of Indian Point for decommissioning & HLRW management

This includes the State of New York, the Town of Cortlandt, Village of Buchanan, and Hendrick Hudson School District, Riverkeeper, and Safe Energy Rights Group. These intervenors met the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Feb. 12, 2020, deadline for interventions. The NY Attorney General has issued a press release about its intervention.

A related public comment deadline has been extended until March 25 2020. Click here to see the NRC's public comment opportunity announcement, including ways to submit your comments.

See the Riverkeeper action alert, here. It provides a way to submit e-comments.

The Patch reports: "...[T]he Westchester County Executive announced that Holtec has agreed to a public meeting in March."

Re: the NRC public comment opportunity, Manna Green at Hudson River Sloop Clearwater put out the following call:

We are requesting folk from across the country to:

1) Request a public hearing re: the Indian Point License Transfer Application (LTA);

2) File comments by Feb. 24 to NRC on problems with Holtec at San Onofre CA, Pilgrim MA, Palisades & Big Rock Point MI, Oyster Creek NJ, etc. (You do not have to be an intervenor to file comments).

Indian Pt. LTA Docket Nos. 50-003 and 50-247 and NRC-2020-0021.  If you do file comments, please let us know that you have done so.  Please send a copy to me: <mannajo@clearwater.org>.

These challenges to the license transfer from Entergy Nuclear to Holtec International at Indian Point near New York City, for nuclear power plant decommissioning and high-level radioactive waste management (HLRW, irradiated nuclear fuel), are very similar to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' and Pilgrim Watch's interventions against the Entergy to Holtec license transfer at Pilgrim near Boston. In that case, NRC has shown its true colors, rubber-stamping whatever the nuclear corporations ask, and attempting to ignore state government and public watchdog demands for very serious health, safety, environmental, and financial concerns and risks to be addressed.

To learn more about the many skeletons in Holtec's closet, see the annotated bibliography compiled by Beyond Nuclear. Similarly, see the skeletons-in-the-closet listing by Beyond Nuclear about Holtec's scandal-ridden Canadian partner in decommissioning and irradiated nuclear fuel management, SNC-Lavalin. And learn more about Holtec's environmentally unjust irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facility scheme in New Mexico at our Centralized Storage website section. See also our website section about the Mobile Chernobyls, by the tens of thousands, that Holtec's CISF would launch, throughout the Lower 48, along truck, train, and/or barge routes that it has thus far kept largely to entirely secret, with NRC's complicity.

Nancy Vann, a watchdog on the Indian Point nuclear power plant, has published "rap sheets" on Holtec International and SNC-Lavalin, as well: 2/16/20 Holtec & SNC-Lavalin Profiles and "Rap Sheet".

Update on February 13, 2020 by admin

Record Online - New York AG: Indian Point deal 'very risky,' asks feds to let state intervene - By Thomas C. Zambito, The Journal News

Update on February 14, 2020 by admin

As reported by the Patch:

The Hudson Valley's representatives in Congress announced yesterday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the comment period to March 25, and the Westchester County Executive announced that Holtec has agreed to a public meeting in March.

Nuclear waste site near Carlsbad opposed by New Mexico House committee vote

As posted at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's "What's News?" page:

Updated - Tuesday, February 11, 2020

• Albuquerque Journal - Nuclear waste site near Carlsbad opposed by New Mexico House committee vote - By Adrian Hedden