US Senate panel takes up what to do with nuclear waste

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It’s been more than a decade since the U.S. government was supposed to begin moving spent nuclear fuel that has been piling up at dozens of commercial reactors around the country to a repository in the Nevada desert. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chairwoman of the Senate energy and natural resources committee, said Thursday that the failure of the federal government to move ahead is costing taxpayers more than $2 million a day and the liabilities from leaving the waste where it is will only increase. Geoffrey Fettus, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the senators that existing federal laws treat radioactive waste as a “privileged pollutant,” exempting it from the regulatory authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and states. Nuclear power generates about 20% of the nation’s electricity and represents more than half of its carbon-free sources, said John Wagner, who oversees the nuclear science and technology directorate at Idaho National Laboratory. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, said nuclear power will be key in addressing the climate crisis and that he’s confident scientists at the national labs and their partners can solve issues related to whatever storage sites are ultimately chosen.