The Nuclear Waste Administration Act (H.R.9786): Don't be fooled by its apparent purpose!

by Sharon and Ace Hoffman
October 17, 2024

Representative Mike Levin is sponsoring bill H.R.9786 - Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2024 (hereafter NWAA 2024). The bill seeks to create a new federal agency called the “Nuclear Waste Administration” (hereafter NWA).

NWAA 2024 is a blatant attempt to circumvent the rules forbidding interim storage of nuclear waste until a permanent repository is established. Note the terminology: “pending completion” in the following quote from SEC. 102. Purposes:

“… to provide for one or more Federal storage facilities for nuclear waste pending completion of a repository …”

Levin’s bill ignores the fact that nobody, anywhere in the world, has a viable solution to storing nuclear waste for the millennia it will remain dangerous to living things. The only reasonable approach we’ve heard is rolling stewardship as described by Dr. Gordon Edwards:

1. Stop making more waste.

2. Store the existing waste in retrievable storage.

3. Plan to retrieve and repackage the waste on a regular basis.

4. When in doubt, refer back to #1.

Dr. Edwards anticipates that waste would be repackaged approximately every 10-20 years, and points out that the goal is preemptive maintenance, not waiting for a leak to contaminate the environment.

Levin’s bill proposes an entirely new government structure to “plan” for nuclear waste disposal. His bill will make it easier to license new nuclear plants, extend the licenses of existing plants, and reopen plants that have been closed such as Palisades and Three Mile Island.

The proposed new agency greatly increases the number of people whose jobs depend on nuclear power’s continued existence. Instead of two agencies (the NRC and the DOE) we will have three. Instead of one politically appointed commission (the five NRC commissioners) we’ll have two (the NWA will have its own 5-person Nuclear Waste Oversight Board).

Instead of acknowledging that the first step is to stop making more nuclear waste, Levin is misleading his local constituents, who desperately want to remove San Onofre’s spent nuclear fuel from the dangerous location it is currently at, on the Pacific coast in an earthquake zone. Perhaps Levin’s bill will succeed in removing San Onofre’s spent fuel, but only at the cost of allowing the continued creation of more nuclear waste. This is not just selfish, it is short-sighted.

All of the current attempts at “consent-based” nuclear waste storage translate directly to “Not In My Backyard” (“NIMBY”). People have recognized that NIMBYism is an elitist attitude since at least the 1970s, and should see Levin’s bill for what it is. (Despite this fiasco, we are in Levin’s district and will continue to vote for him, because the alternative candidate is much worse.)

NWAA 2024 also muddies the water concerning when a site can begin accepting waste. Consider the following from SEC. 103. Definitions:

“The term “emergency delivery” means nuclear waste accepted by the Administrator for storage prior to the date provided in the contractual delivery commitment schedule [and] may include, at the discretion of the Administrator, nuclear waste that is required to be removed from a Department of Energy facility … to eliminate an imminent and serious threat to the health and safety of the public or the common defense and security.”

Apparently, the Administrator of the new NWA will have the power to store nuclear waste outside of the terms of a legally-binding contract. What does that mean for the communities where the waste would be stored? This definition seems to allow the NWA to unilaterally move nuclear waste, from a DOE facility for instance, to a proposed consent-based site before a contract has even been signed.

NWAA 2024 also includes the following attempt to redefine spent fuel in SEC. 104. Rule of construction:

“The use of the term “nuclear waste” in this Act to mean high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel does not mean (and shall not be construed to mean) that spent nuclear fuel is, or should be, classified as or otherwise considered to be “waste” or “radioactive waste” for purposes of this Act or any other law, including the Solid Waste Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq.) (commonly known as the “Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976”).”

One possible interpretation of these verbal gymnastics is an attempt to reclassify spent fuel so that it does not have to meet the requirements for storing radioactive waste, which is ridiculous. A more likely and far more dangerous interpretation is that spent fuel has some “useful” purpose and therefore is not waste. This obviously is referring to Plutonium 238 for nuclear weapons.

Bad as Levin’s bill is, we did not expect to find a hidden agenda aimed at encouraging reprocessing of spent fuel. President Carter banned reprocessing of spent fuel from commercial reactors in 1977. Although, this ban has been rescinded, there are currently no commercial reprocessing sites in the United States.

Nobody should be deceived by distinctions the bill tries to make between interim and permanent storage. The fine print of NWAA 2024 includes clear indications that the prohibitions against creating interim storage before a permanent repository exists will disappear as described in SEC. 306. Repositories:

“In selecting sites for site characterization as a repository, the Administrator shall give preference and priority to sites determined to be suitable for co-location of a storage facility and a repository.”

Reopening the entire question of where to site a “permanent repository” basically resets the clock and allows the nuclear industry to continue producing waste by pretending that at some (unknown) date in the future, the government will provide a way to store that waste. This is exactly how the false promise of Yucca Mountain enabled the nuclear industry for decades. While Yucca Mountain was the supposed solution, one of the rules governing scientific studies was that no other site could be considered. Levin’s bill will make all sites (with the possible exception of Yucca Mountain) eligible again and every attempt will be made to have the waste end up on Indigenous land.

Another concern with NWAA 2024 is who gets to decide where to put the waste. The bill repeatedly references three groups the NWA Administrator will need on his or her side:

* The Governor of the State in which the site is located

* The governing body of the affected unit of general local government

* The governing body of any affected Indian Tribe

We should be particularly worried about governors being considered as decision-makers in this context. Giving any governor this much power subverts the state government and potentially lets a very small number of people decide something that will impact everybody (including people outside the state that is the potential waste site).

The definition of “the affected unit of general local government” is also vague at best. Could this mean the mayor of a small town? The board of county supervisors? A homeowners association? A group of neighbors in an unincorporated area? What is the minimum number of people who can “approve” a nuclear waste site under this legislation?

NWAA 20224 also further blurs the line between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The following text is a red-flag that so-called commercial nuclear waste will be co-located with Defense Department waste. From SEC. 309. Defense waste:

“The Secretary [of Energy] shall arrange for the Administrator [of the NWA] to dispose of defense waste in a repository developed under this Act; and may arrange for the Administrator to store defense waste in storage facilities developed under this Act pending disposal in a repository. … The arrangements shall be covered by a memorandum of agreement between the Secretary [of Energy] and the Administrator [of the NWA].”

In case anybody is under the impression that a nuclear waste repository will be available soon, or that a waste disposal site anywhere could not impact people everywhere, consider the following text from SEC. 310. Transportation:

“The Administrator shall provide financial and technical assistance to a State or Indian Tribe … at least 5 years before the anticipated date on which the transport of nuclear waste through the jurisdiction of the State or Indian Tribe is to begin. ... monetary grants and contributions in-kind to assist States and Indian Tribes through whose jurisdiction the Administrator plans to transport nuclear waste for the purpose of acquiring equipment for responding to a transportation incident involving nuclear waste.”

Just what does it mean to provide equipment and training in case of a “transportation incident”? The nuclear industry has long ignored the reality that transportation accidents are inevitable, and clean-up is virtually impossible. What kind of equipment or training would be useful when a nuclear waste transport vehicle is trapped in a fire like the one that occurred in a Baltimore tunnel in 2001? What type of transport casks could survive a collapse such as the one that occurred on the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in 2007?

Even if the rest of Levin’s bill made sense, how long would it be before the first ounce of nuclear waste would be moved to a new site? Several decades seems like a very conservative estimate, and in the meantime, all the existing nuclear plants and new nuclear plants the government is determined to build will be producing more waste.

Levin’s bill, however, is confident that the NWA can do what nobody else has done in the past 80 years – find a place to safely store the waste, a technology to safely store the waste, and a way to safely move the waste as specified in SEC. 504. Mission plan:

“ ... operation of ... a storage facility not later than December 31, 2034; and a repository not later than December 31, 2060;”

NWAA 2024 mandates an operating interim storage facility in just over 10 years, and a permanent repository in less than 40 years. The initial date is obviously designed to convince people that nuclear power can play a role in meeting 2035 and 2050 climate-change milestones. The nuclear fuel cycle has no role in mitigating climate change. Furthermore, financial commitments to nuclear reduce available funding for clean energy technologies.

The bill’s timeline is unrealistic and ridiculous, but it’s also dangerous. The timeline enables the nuclear power and nuclear weapons industries to continue producing nuclear waste. It also lets the nuclear industry pretend there is a solution to an impossible problem and that the waste is a resource.

The very last section of NWAA 2024 tells us that Levin and his co-conspirators do not expect any limit to the production of nuclear waste. From SEC. 509. Application of volume limitation:

“The volume limitations described in the second and third sentences of section 114(d) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (42 U.S.C. 10134(d)) shall not apply to any repository to the extent that the consent agreement applicable to the repository provides for the disposal of a greater volume.”

The bill text is available here:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/9786/text/ih