Senate committee reviews NLIC program, nuclear waste policy

On September 23, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works held a hearing to discuss past, present, and future efforts to manage the nation's nuclear waste, including the Department of Energy's Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses (NLIC) program.

The hearing, "Updating America's Nuclear Waste Management Policy," focused on identifying the biggest challenges that an initiative like the NLIC program might face. Committee members also attempted to determine the most pressing issues for Congress to address as part of any legislative work to update the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), which committee chair Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) described in her opening statement as having "failed to achieve its goals."

The committee demonstrated broad support for finding a permanent disposal solution for more than 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel being stored at sites throughout the country, with Sen. Lisa Alsobrooks (D., Md.) saying, "A permanent solution is crucial if nuclear deployment is to continue with credibility."

Members also agreed on the need for community support for permanent storage sites and for transparency, particularly at the federal level, regarding the requirements for waste disposal at any facilities that might be established through the NLIC program.

Testifying before the committee were three expert witnesses:

• Lake Barrett, chair of the American Nuclear Society's Nuclear Waste Policy Task Force.
• Katrina McMurrian, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition.
• Kathryn Huff, professor and chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Funding waste disposal: In their opening statements to the committee, both Barrett and Huff commented on increasing interest in the full nuclear fuel cycle, including the back end. Barrett stated that the interest of several states in hosting facilities to support what he called the integrated fuel cycle presents opportunities for growth, while Huff noted that the permanent storage of spent fuel was generally considered to be a more economically valuable activity when connected to other "sustained economic activities" instead of standing on its own as an obligation.

Despite the potential economic benefits of initiatives like the NLIC program, committee members and witnesses alike remarked on the difficult issue of funding any future waste disposal efforts. Capito specifically mentioned that, to date, even though utility ratepayers have paid over $50 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF), "Congress did not appropriate sufficient funding, and the licensing, regulatory, and program costs [for a disposal program] were never fully covered."

McMurrian also highlighted this in her opening statement, reminding the committee that, under the NWPA, the DOE was supposed to take possession of the nation's nuclear waste on January 31, 1998. The department did not do so, and since then, taxpayers have covered the costs of temporarily storing spent fuel on-site at reactors and other facilities.

When Capito asked the three witnesses how the NWF should be managed going forward, all three stressed that it was their hope that Congress could help the DOE obtain predictable and regular access to the NWF to develop a storage solution that would allow it to meet its obligations.

Open and collaborative: Another provision of the NWPA that was discussed was Yucca Mountain-the site that, under the act, would have become the nation's only permanent repository for nuclear waste. Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) described it as a project that failed due to Congress not securing approval from local communities in Nevada.

Huff replied to Markey's question for the need for community buy-in by saying, "There is no robustness to a system that has a lot of lack of community support, or state support, or federal support." Huff also responded to a question from Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D., Del.) about building trust by encouraging Congress to provide communities with resources to perform independent oversight of any local nuclear programs.

Barrett similarly touched on social dynamics when asked by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R., Wyo.) what the United States could learn from countries like Finland and France, which are developing their own deep geologic nuclear waste repositories. Barrett observed that even though the federal-state dichotomy seen in the United States is not present in Finland, that country (along with France) has employed a collaborative, consent-based siting approach, which the United States can use in a way appropriate to its own culture and political structure.

"In the past, [with] Yucca Mountain, it was almost all technical, and there was not enough of a sociopolitical side to it. Now we must have a balanced program that has both," he said. "Without the sociopolitical viability, we are not going anywhere."

Recycling as an option: Although permanent disposal was the part of the fuel cycle's back end that elicited the most questions, several attendees brought up recycling as a topic of interest.

Huff and McMurrian both included recycling in their opening statements. Huff encouraged the government to pursue it, saying that spent fuel "contains recoverable energy and useful isotopes" and should be reused to encourage sustainability. McMurrian, meanwhile, emphasized the idea that recycling should be considered a complementary process to disposal instead of a substitute, and cautioned that considerations remain regarding recycling's cost-effectiveness and the new waste streams it might produce.

Sen. Jon Husted (R., Ohio) expressed enthusiasm for using recycled fuel to meet the nation's energy needs. However, Barrett and McMurrian stressed that additional work and further demonstrations are still needed.

Regulations and roles: Perhaps the greatest focus of the questioning was the nature of the partnerships that would be established with the DOE through the NLIC program and the regulatory frameworks for their oversight.

Barrett explained that under the NLIC program, the DOE would instigate projects for which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would serve as the independent safety regulator. States would be essential partners but could protect their interests and pursue transparency through contractual agreements, as could private entities working on NLIC campuses.

Huff noted that the NRC serves as the primary nuclear regulator but would not be the only regulator. Agencies such as the Department of Transportation, for example, would also contribute to the regulatory framework.

Barrett brought attention to the fact that, currently, regulatory standards exist only for disposal at Yucca Mountain; that regulatory process would need to be adapted and established for other, forthcoming sites. The NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency would also need to work with states to ensure each site's safety.

Despite the complexity of the challenges that future disposal efforts like NLIC present, the witnesses all appeared to believe that waste management policies developed in partnership with participating states are worthwhile pursuits. "I think that having that [permanent disposal] solution, for the country, is going to serve all the states interested in new nuclear endeavors well and will definitely address the trust issues that have been questioned," said McMurrian.