Leaked document reveals White House nuclear waste plan

The White House is pushing Congress to break a decades-long impasse around the handling of nuclear waste and entice states to get on board, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.

The Trump administration is seeking changes to federal law to allow the Department of Energy to partner with states willing to store waste generated at the nation’s nuclear reactors, according to the document laying out “legislative principles." It has been circulating on Capitol Hill and among nuclear industry leaders.

When asked about the document, a White House official said Monday that the administration "is always looking for ways to advance our civil nuclear energy sector."

The legislative blueprint comes as President Donald Trump pushes to quadruple America’s production of nuclear power over the next 25 years, despite there being no long-term solution for the waste piling up at active and decommissioned reactors across the country.

The document calls for scrapping Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nation’s sole site for storing high-level nuclear waste and instead allow states to step up.

The White House is seeking legal changes to allow DOE to choose one or more sites “in willing states” to host so-called nuclear life-cycle innovation campuses for nuclear activities — including fuel production, recycling and disposition.

The plan would allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to revamp the way waste is classified to provide states with more flexibility and restart a fee on nuclear generation for waste disposal that courts halted in the past.

In exchange for bolstering nuclear fuel production and storing waste, the White House indicated states could see a surge of new business, including nuclear power plants and energy-intensive data centers.

“This initiative will establish campuses across several states that will host a fully integrated nuclear fuel cycle including conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, recycling, and disposition as well as advanced reactors, data centers, and manufacturing facilities," the document states.

Further, the administration wants Congress to allow the federal government to “provide interim storage for reprocessing at the” campus sites, according to the draft.

While the administration has been telegraphing for months that it plans to seek changes to federal law, the draft document is the first list of distinct details officials are seeking.

DOE in January, for example, asked states to host these campuses as part of an effort "to modernize the nation’s full nuclear fuel cycle and strengthen America’s leadership in advanced nuclear energy."

“Change in legislation is a must,” said one industry official granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. “Current law only allows the federal government to dispose of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and only allows money to be collected and spent for Yucca Mountain.”

'Regional economic zones'

More than 95,000 metric tons of nuclear waste has accumulated across the country, mostly from the fleet of reactors built decades ago that provide the U.S. with a fifth of its electricity.

Congress sought to address the challenge in 1987, designating Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the sole spot the Energy Department could look at to host a federal repository.

It took another 15 years for Congress to formally approve the Yucca project — before it ultimately pulled the plug in 2012 by defunding the work amid sharp opposition from Nevada lawmakers, voters and tribal groups.

Still, Yucca Mountain remains the only legal option for permanently storing waste, reflecting Congress' inability in recent decades to agree on any bipartisan alternative that could pass into law.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright earlier this year said that 28 states had weighed in on the department’s life-cycle innovation campuses request. Utah and Tennessee both submitted proposals that included potential for waste storage and fuel reprocessing.

DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy recently told POLITICO the department expects it’ll make a selection announcement “later this summer.”

“It’s growing. It’s expanding. It’s not going to go away if we just ignore it,” Wright told members of Congress in April, referencing nuclear waste. “If we want a nuclear future in our country, we simply have to fix this problem.”

Bipartisan support for reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel has grown in recent years — though a small handful of lawmakers remain skeptical. The U.S. in 1977 under former President Jimmy Carter placed an indefinite ban on nuclear fuel reprocessing, a move reversed several years later by former Republican President Ronald Reagan.

“When the Indians popped their bomb in 1974, that changed everything,” said Lake Barrett, a former DOE official from the George W. Bush administration. “They did it through reprocessing, recycling the plutonium. All right. So all of a sudden, reprocessing, recycling became an international issue.”

Most nuclear experts say that reprocessing nuclear fuel does not eliminate the need for longer-term storage sites, like a repository.

“You’re going to need a long-term repository, even if you do reprocessing because there’s still waste products that derive from the reprocessing facilities that will need to be disposed of,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), co-chair of Congress’ Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus, said last month.

Pavan Acharya and Nico Portuondo contributed to this report.