July 17, 2003

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding this hearing today. Unfortunately, we are here once again on the all-too-familiar topic of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) management of its high-level nuclear waste cleanup efforts.

The question of how to properly dispose of the Nation’s nuclear waste, both commercial- and defense-related, is a political thicket that has ensnared this country since the dawn of the nuclear age. On the commercial front, we have made progress, but it has been hard fought over several years. We finally have a repository site at Yucca Mountain and there seems to be a firm commitment this year from the House appropriators to allocate the necessary funding for its construction. While we must remain vigilant on this front to ensure that America’s ratepayers get the service for which they have already paid, I am encouraged by our progress thus far.

Disposal of our defense-related waste is another matter indeed. Storage of such waste is primarily concentrated at three facilities in Hanford, Washington; Savannah River, South Carolina; and Idaho Falls, Idaho. DOE’s record at these facilities is less than impressive. Much of this waste is stored in tanks that have well exceeded their design life and have leaked unknown amounts of highly radioactive and toxic waste into the ground and potentially the groundwater.

Today the Subcommittee is presented with yet another report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) outlining concerns with the planning and management of DOE’s high-level nuclear waste program.

We learn from the GAO that the Department’s latest scheme to save money and speed cleanup of this waste is bedeviled on two crucial fronts: legal and technical.

On the legal front, DOE’s formula for magically transforming high-level waste into low-level or "incidental" waste was determined to be a violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and thus deemed invalid by the Federal District Court in Idaho. How will DOE respond? Will the decision be appealed? Will the Department request a legislative change in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and what would the implications be if the Act were re-opened?

On the technical front, the GAO finds that the Department is engaged in its familiar cart-before-the-horse approach on cleanup where DOE plans to employ technology without first doing the necessary testing to ensure that it will work. I note that we have been down this road before at the Savannah River site to the tune of $500 million in wasted taxpayer money and additional delays.

With that background I cast a skeptical eye towards the Department’s competence in dealing with this issue and hope that today’s hearing will find some recommendations to improve this badly mismanaged program.