President Barack Obama's proposals on nuclear energy do little to back up his pro-nuclear rhetoric. Most worrisome is his effort to terminate the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project.
His budget provides no funding for Yucca construction activities, and the Department of Energy (DOE) has filed a motion to permanently withdraw its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to construct the repository. Such action not only flouts existing statute but threatens to end America's nuclear renaissance before it even begins.
According to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982, as amended, the federal government was obliged to begin collecting nuclear waste by 1998. According to the Yucca Mountain Development Act of 2002, Yucca Mountain was to be the waste repository. Despite having collected over $30 billion in waste disposal fees from electricity ratepayers and spending $10 billion on Yucca development, no waste has been collected.
This has put the federal government in partial breach of contract even before the President decided to ignore existing statute and terminate the Yucca program. With over 60 suits already filed, the federal government has paid out $214 million in settlements. Without Yucca Mountain or any backup plan, this taxpayer liability will amount to over $12.3 billion through 2020 and $500 million annually thereafter.Terminating the program without regard to existing statute exacerbates these problems, and communities are already beginning to investigate the feasibility of pursuing additional legal actions.
The Heritage Foundation
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