Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, has introduced a new bill on Capitol Hill aimed at finally moving tons of nuclear waste off sites such as the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

And with a new Congress in session and a new presidential administration taking office, there’s a sense that after years of talk, some progress may be in the offing.

“We believe we’ll see some action on (the bill) in the early part of this year,” said Issa, who offered a similar piece of legislation in 2015. “We don’t have a guarantee it will be in the first hundred days, though.”

Called the Interim Consolidated Storage Act, among the bill’s features is a target to move waste from some sites across the country into a storage site in as soon as five years — provided the bill becomes law.


It would be expensive but under the bill’s provisions, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) would be allowed to use interest from the massive amount of money sitting in the government’s Nuclear Waste Fund.

The fund is worthat least $35.8 billion but has grown even larger because it earns an estimated $1.3 billion a year in interest income.

The money accumulated over the years by fees from electric bills — about 15 to 20 cents per month — paid by ratepayers in areas powered by nuclear plants. In 2014, after a court case, DOE stopped taking the fees from electricity customers.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, has introduced a new bill aimed at finding nuclear waste storage sites for spent fuel from facilities such as the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)


“We’ve got to remind everyone that this is money the ratepayer, you and I, paid San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison,” Issa said. “It’s not government money; it’s government trust money.”

Southern California Edison operates the SONGS facility, which is going through the long process of decomissioning. San Diego Gas & Electric has a minority stake of 20 percent.

Some 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste remains on the SONGS site, even though the facility has not generated electricity since January 2012.

That’s because there is no clear path to move the waste somewhere else.


The storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, where the federal government has spent about $15 billion, was designed to permanently house large amounts of nuclear waste from all over the country. But Yucca was taken off the table when Barack Obama took office, heeding calls from then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who despised the project.

While some Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for bringing Yucca Mountain back, another path is also being discussed — consolidated interim storage, where sites would be built in isolated locations where multiple plants could deposit their waste.

The co-sponsor of Issa’s bill, Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, represents a district in West Texas where a company is willing to receive nuclear waste.

Conaway said the bill will “cut through the red tape” and would give the Department of Energy the green light to move forward on consolidated storage sites.


“If the people who opposed Yucca don’t want to have it, then they better get on board with an alternative,” Issa said. “We understand that NIMBY, not in my backyard, is pretty common but … if people don’t want it in Nevada, great. Let’s put it somewhere.”

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Energy and Issa said Perry, if confirmed, would likely look favorably on the bill.

In addition to the site in West Texas, a company in eastern New Mexico has expressed interest in taking spent nuclear reactor fuel.

David Victor, chairman of the Community Engagement Panel at SONGS, has talked to lawmakers and government officials in Washington D.C. about consolidated interim storage sites and said he supports the bill.


“It is part of a process of building congressional support for the changes in law that are needed to make consolidated storage a reality,” Victor said in an email to the Union-Tribune.

Victor also said there appears to more momentum building for some kind of solution.

One reason stems from the sheer amount of waste stranded in facilities around the country, making it an issue for congressional members of both parties.

More than 76,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and radioactive byproducts have stacked up over the years.


“Unlike other topics that will pass on partisan lines, consolidated storage could easily pass with bipartisan support,” Victor said.

But the legislative process is filled with obstacles and a consolidated interim storage bill in the House would have to concur with comparable legislation in the Senate.

And along with a host of other issues, the prospect of transporting waste across state lines would be fraught with technical and political complications.

“We have an interim nuclear facility,” Issa said, referring to SONGS. “It’s just located on the edge of an ocean and one of the busiest highways in America … We’ll be paying for storage for decades and decades if we don’t find a solution. And that will be added to your electricity bill.”


rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski

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