Conference Report on H.R. 2419, Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2006
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2419, ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - November 09, 2005)
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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that the conference report has deleted all funding for the nuclear bunker buster program. This action reflects the second time that the Congress has decided to reject the Bush administration's request for this dangerous and unnecessary weapon, and I am hopeful that this action will end the debate on this issue once and for all.
The United States faces a serious national security threat from the proliferation of nuclear weapons materials and technologies, most notably in North Korea, Pakistan and Iran. The pursuit of new nuclear weapons such as the Bush administration's proposed nuclear bunker buster sends a dangerously mixed signal to the rest of the world and erodes our nonproliferation credibility. Nations that see the U.S. expanding and diversifying our nuclear arsenal are encouraged to seek or maintain nuclear deterrents of their own and ignore nonproliferation obligations. Additionally, a U.S. move toward expanding and diversifying our nuclear stockpile is contrary to our legal obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT, which clearly requires the United States to work toward reducing our nuclear arsenal.
In light of the adverse impact of the pursuit of the nuclear bunker buster and any other new nuclear weapon on international nonproliferation efforts, the fact that the bunker buster would inevitably spread high levels of radiation above ground, and existing U.S. earth-penetrating and other conventional weapons capabilities, the Bush administration's proposed nuclear bunker buster study and the development of any new nuclear weapons are a dangerous and wasteful use of taxpayer money.
While I am pleased at the outcome on the bunker buster, I am very concerned that this appropriations bill provides $80 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative--an increase of $10 million over the amount requested for this program. In addition, the bill provides an additional $50 million in nuclear waste disposal funding to support development of a spent nuclear fuel recycling plan. These proposals are aimed at reviving nuclear reprocessing--an idea that Congress has considered and rejected in the past.
The conference report contains language that directs the Department of Energy to use this money to
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accelerate the development of a separations technology that can address the current inventories of commercial spent nuclear fuel and select the preferred technology no later than the end of fiscal year 2007.
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Essentially, the Appropriations Committee is telling DOE that it doesn't believe Yucca Mountain will ever be opened, so it now wants the Department to instead embark on a crash program to start reprocessing nuclear waste.
I warned back in 1987 that the decision to limit the search for a deep underground repository to the Yucca Mountain site and to bar examination of other alternative sites was a risky one. If Yucca Mountain proved unsuitable, or if it could not meet the NRC's licensing requirements, then our country efforts to find a solution to the nuclear waste problem would be forced back to square one.
Now, it appears that my warnings are being borne out. The Yucca Mountain repository is falling apart in the face of serious scientific and technical problems. But rather than come back to Congress and ask for legislation that would reopen the search for a permanent repository, which the nuclear industry and its supporters in Congress know would be politically hazardous, the appropriators now appear to be effectively abandoning the notion of deep underground burial. Instead, they want to reprocess the waste and store it in above ground ``interim'' storage facilities.
Now, you would think that such a fundamental rewrite of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act would actually require action by the committee that actually has jurisdiction over the act in the first place. In the House, that would be the Energy and Commerce Committee. However, in this bill the directive to prioritize reprocessing is being made without any participation by the Energy and Commerce Committee. The committee doesn't even get a copy of the report mandated by the Appropriations conferees.
Yes, there was language in the Energy Policy Act which authorized R&D on reprocessing. I opposed that language, and sought unsuccessfully to remove it from the bill. But R&D is far different from moving to full-scale engineering of reprocessing technologies with a short-term deployment objective. That is what is being proposed in the bill before us today. This conference report is actually talking about setting a target for site selection in fiscal year 2007, and a target for initiation of construction of one or more integrated spent fuel recycling facilities in fiscal year 2010.
This has enormous implications for the future of efforts to permanently dispose of the Nation's nuclear waste in a deep underground repository. It effectively means that there will be no deep underground repository. It effectively means that there will be no deep underground burial of waste in our lifetimes. So, all of the billions paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund over the years will soon see those funds be diverted over to supporting this new unproven and risky scheme of reprocessing.
This is a huge policy shift. Since the 1970's we have had a policy in this country against reprocessing spent fuel, both because of the risk of nonproliferation and because reprocessing is not economical. In recent years, Republican leaders in Washington have decided they want to undo that policy, however.
I am fundamentally opposed to reprocessing, because I believe that a revival of domestic reprocessing would undermine America's nuclear nonproliferation efforts, cost us enormous amounts of money, will not solve the nuclear waste problem, and won't increase nuclear safety.
With respect to the proliferation risks--just look at North Korea. It has been reprocessing spent fuel from its reactors to use in nuclear bombs. In response, President Bush has asked the Nuclear Suppliers Group to limit access to reprocessing technology, arguing that:
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This step will prevent new states from developing the means to produce fissile material for nuclear bombs.
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At the same time, the U.S. is confronting Iran over its plan to develop a full uranium enrichment program. How are we going to credibly ask the rest of the world to support us when we tell Iran or any other nation that they cannot have the full fuel cycle or reprocessing when we have one here at home? It just won't fly.
America cannot preach nuclear temperance from a barstool. We cannot credibly tell other nations that they should refrain from reprocessing or other nuclear fuel cycle activities abroad when we are engaging in these same exact activities here at home. That is why President Gerald Ford called for an end to commercial reprocessing back in 1976, and why no President since then has successfully revived reprocessing.
In addition to the serious adverse nonproliferation consequences, reprocessing also is not economical. A MIT study put the cost of reprocessing at four times that of as once-through nuclear power. The current price of concentrated uranium ``yellowcake'' in the spot market is about $53.00/kg. For reprocessing to be economical, there must be a sustained 8-fold increase in the long-term price of uranium. That is not likely to occur anytime soon.
On top of that is the cost of building a plant. As a benchmark, Japan's nearly completed Rokkasho reprocessing plant--20 years in the making--costs on the order of $20 billion. I have seen some cost estimates for a U.S. reprocessing program that run as high as $65 billion. That is not something that is economically viable at a time of huge Federal budget deficites.
Moreover, reprocessing will not really alleviate the nuclear waste problem. Talk to the folks at Savannah River where over 30 million gallons of high-level were left behind from reprocessing. Under this bill, Savannah River may be targeted again for interim storage for spent fuel, awaiting reprocessing. So might Hanford and Idaho or other Federal sites.
The conference report states that funding in the Nuclear Waste Disposal Account will be used:
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to prepare the overall program plan and to initiate a competition to select one or more sites suitable for development of integrated recycling facilities (i.e., separation of spent fuel, fabrication of mixed oxide fuel, vitrification of waste products, and process storage) and initiate work on an Environmental Impact Statement. The site competition should not be limited to DOE sites, but should be open to a wide range of other possible federal and non-federal sites on a strictly voluntary basis.
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These reprocessing sites will become de facto nuclear waste dumps. Which State is going to ``volunteer'' to become a nuclear waste dump? Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, such a site cannot legally be located at the Yucca Mountain site. So, where is it going to go?
How long will the waste be stored there? The spent nuclear fuel cannot even be handled to be reprocessed for 5 to 15 years--it is so radioactive. So we know already that ``interim storage'' could last for a very long time.
And if we construct these ``interim'' waste dumps, what happens next? What will happen to all this waste when the hard reality of the disastrous economics combined with the fact that our government is already too deep in deficit that it will be unable to subsidize such a program forever? There are simply too many unanswered questions.
It is also not accurate to suggest, as some do, that reprocessing is safe. Twenty tons of highly radioactive material leaked from a broken pipe at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in the United Kingdom in April of this year. Senior officials at the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the Sellafield reprocessing have pushed to close THORP altogether, arguing that it is more cost-effective to close the plant now rather than repair the problems only to decommission the plant as planned in 2012. Is that the kind of mess we want happening over here?
When the House version of this bill was being debated on the House floor last summer, I offered an amendment which would have transferred the $15.5 million appropriated for reprocessing and interim storage to several energy efficiency priority programs that were underfunded in the bill. Unfortunately, my amendment was defeated.
I continue to be opposed to the reprocessing language in the bill. I intend to continue raising questions about this proposal, both in the Energy and Commerce Committee and on this floor.
Finally, on another matter, I am very concerned about the cuts that have been made in energy efficiency programs in this bill. We are in the middle of an energy emergency. We had a hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee last week that showed the impact that these high prices are having across the board, in every sector of the economy. The Senate will be holding a hearing today on price gouging by big oil companies and the $100 billion in oil company profits projected for 2005. There are things that we can do in this area. What we are seeing is missed opportunities.
The House Bill for the fiscal year 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations provided $41 million for the State Energy Program. The Senate bill provided $41 million for the State Energy Program. Now we go to conference and the conference report provides $36 million, which is $8 million below fiscal year 2005 levels--almost a 20 percent cut. We are in the midst of an energy crisis. This program implements energy efficiency programs and energy emergency preparedness activities in every State in our country. A recent National Laboratory study concluded that for every $1 invested, we get $7.22 in return in energy savings. This makes no sense. We should be increasing these programs, not cutting them.
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