Courtney Joins Bipartisan Effort to Move Forward with Yucca Mountain Safety Study | Congressman Joe Courtney
Skip to main content

Courtney Joins Bipartisan Effort to Move Forward with Yucca Mountain Safety Study

September 27, 2013

WASHINGTON—Today, Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-2) joined a bipartisan coalition of 80 members of the House in sending a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chair Alison Macfarlane to urge the NRC to pursue completion of safety evaluation reports for the proposed nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

“When the license review process was shutdown in a misguided decision by your predecessor, NRC staff worked to complete one volume of the SER and completed technical evaluation reports without recommendations for three of the other four volumes,” the representatives wrote. “It is our firm belief that completion of the SER will settle the debate and provide scientific data confirming what we have known for many years – that Yucca Mountain is a safe location for a permanent repository.”

In a recent decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to re-start its work on the licensing process for a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. Currently, the agency has about $11.1 million remaining to conduct licensing activities. Rather than trying to restart every part of the licensing process, the bipartisan letter urges the NRC to focus on completing the Safety Evaluation Report (SER), a key part of the review process.

Congressman Courtney has strongly supported efforts to restart the review process for a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel. In 2010 he joined bipartisan opposition to the Energy Department’s plan to shut down the Yucca review process. In 2011 and 2012, Courtney helped pass bipartisan amendments in each year to provide additional funding to support resumed work on the licensing review of Yucca Mountain as a permanent disposal site. And, earlier this year, he supported a bipartisan coalition to defeat a proposal to eliminate funding for continued review of the project from the 2014 energy appropriations bill. The full text of the letter follows:

Dear Chairman Macfarlane:

As you are aware, on August 13, 2013 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a Writ of Mandamus requiring the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to continue its work on the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada. In your response to a question for the record from a hearing on July 24, 2012 and testimony at a September 10, 2013 hearing, you indicated your willingness to follow NRC procedures in making a final determination on the Yucca Mountain licensing issue. Now that a Writ of Mandamus has been granted, we ask that you follow through on that commitment and focus the limited available NRC resources on completion of the safety evaluation reports (SER).

In the years since Yucca Mountain was chosen as the location as the permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste, there has been much debate about the adequacy of Yucca to fill that role. When the license review process was shutdown in a misguided decision by your predecessor, NRC staff worked to complete one volume of the SER and completed technical evaluation reports without recommendations for three of the other four volumes. It is our firm belief that completion of the SER will settle the debate and provide scientific data confirming what we have known for many years – that Yucca Mountain is a safe location for a permanent repository

As we noted above, we understand that the NRC does not have the funding to complete the entire licensing process for Yucca Mountain. Given that limitation, we urge the NRC to do the most with the little it has remaining. In previous testimony given by the NRC, it is NRC’s estimate that it may take six to eight months and approximately $6.5 million to complete the SER. Because the licensing process has been dormant a number of years, it is understandable that it may take additional resources to restart the SER process. As the House of Representatives continues to work in a bipartisan effort to secure additional funding for the NRC, we hope that the NRC will act as good stewards of the funds already appropriated and accomplish as much as possible and start by completing the SER.

We know you share the same hope we do of completing a permanent repository for our nation’s nuclear waste. Such a goal is in the best interests of ratepayers, taxpayers, and our national security. We hope you will focus your remaining resources on completing the critical step of the safety evaluation report and help move us one step closer to our shared goal.