Nuclear Waste Fund

The Minnesota Legislature is poised to pass a bill that would allow the state to take full advantage of any relief granted by federal courts in pending cases over the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear waste disposal obligations.

State Senator Steve Murphy and state Representative Steve Timble introduced the legislation, which has support in both Houses. The legislation was introduced to ensure that state ratepayers would see immediate relief if ordered by federal courts in pending cases in the next several months.

Chair Murkowski Chews Out an Undersecretary. At a Senate panel on a bill calling for the Department of Energy to store nuclear waste short-term, opponents stacked up objections, even renewing opposition to a permanent site.

The "Nuclear Waste Policy Act," S. 104, is similar to a bill passed in the Senate last year. It calls for

construction of temporary storage, a safe way to transport the waste, and more studies leading to a permanent site 1,200 feet below the ground at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Already, $6 billion has helped bore an exploratory tunnel there.

A group of 40 state agencies has joined with 33 utilities and the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition (NWSC) to file a lawsuit in federal district court after the Department of Energy (DOE) reported that it would not comply with a federal court mandate to accept high-level radioactive waste for permanent storage as of January 31, 1998, and begin removing such waste from temporary storage at some 73 power plants in 34 states.

The D.C. Circuit had ruled against the DOE last summer. (See, Indiana-Michigan Power Co. v.

With President Clinton and the Department of Energy (DOE) staunchly opposed, the House of Representatives was expected to return September 4 from August recess to take up its version of a nuclear waste disposal bill that passed in the Senate on July 31 by a vote of 63-37.

Senate bill 1936 and its amendments call for a temporary storage facility at the Nevada nuclear test site near Yucca Mountain before the end of 1999.

The Senate subcommittee funding the Department of Energy (DOE) may use a carrot-and-stick approach this year to push DOE into finding a quicker solution to the long- and short-term nuclear waste crisis. The debate to get the waste stored safely underground promises an appropriations war that could rival the federal budget skirmish.

Current law authorizes only a permanent repository, not interim storage. Utilities, however, claim they're running out of room to cache their waste.

Over 300 bills were introduced in the first week of the new Congress that convened in January, among them a bill by Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-LA) aimed at correcting the government's seriously flawed nuclear waste storage program. Johnston heralded S.