skip to navigation | skip to content
Inslee listens to a constituent.

Montage of Wing Point in Bainbridge Island and the Edmonds Ferry.

Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District

Home > Issues > Environment >Spent Nuclear Fuel

Issues

Environment

Inslee Opposes Proposal to Store Spent Nuclear Fuel at Hanford

24 May 2005

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee announced that a bill that passed the House today includes a dangerous provision that would allow the Department of Energy (DOE) to explore storing spent nuclear fuel at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and other sites throughout the country. Inslee offered an amendment with U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rush Holt (D-NJ) that would halt the proposal, but this was voted down mostly along party lines. The Energy and Water Appropriations bill includes a Committee recommendation that calls for the DOE to establish a centralized, consolidated interim storage site for commercial spent nuclear fuel, and specifically cites Hanford, Idaho National Laboratory and Savannah River (South Carolina) as possible locations where waste could be stored. This is waste that has been intended to be transferred to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but would be stored at these sites due to delays in the Yucca project.

Commenting in opposition to the plan, Inslee said "We will not allow Washington State to become a national repository for spent nuclear fuel. This is a hazardous and capricious idea that does not take into consideration the environmental, safety and health impacts of storing such waste in the ground near the Columbia River. There have not been any hearings or public input into this idea, which is an obvious backdoor attempt to circumvent long-standing bipartisan policy. Congress would need to thoroughly vet any such proposal to store spent nuclear waste."

Inslee continued, "What is even more audacious is that the Bush Administration would dump this waste in Washington State on the heels of their attempts to reclassify the most dangerous nuclear waste and at a time when the President has attempted to cut funding for cleanup at Hanford. This is not the first time the Administration has targeted Washington State as a sacrifice zone for nuclear waste. Washington State residents will reject this idea and stand firm in refusing the Energy Department's continually bad plans for nuclear waste at Hanford."


Text of the spent fuel committee recommendation accompanying the Energy and Water Development Appropriations for FY 2006 (H.R. 2419):

The Federal government should establish one or more centralized interim storage sites for commercial spent nuclear fuel. Interim storage would make the most sense co-located with the permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, but the Nuclear Waste Policy Act specifically prohibits siting an interim storage facility or a Monitored Retrievable Storage facility at the same location as the permanent repository. Other possible alternative DOE sites include Hanford, Idaho, and Savannah River, all of which presently store government-owned spent fuel and high level waste and both of which already have extensive site security measures in place. Should these or other DOE sites prove impractical, the Department should investigate other alternatives for centralized interim storage, including other federally-owned sites, closed military bases, and non-federal fuel storage facilities. The Committee encourages the Department to maximize use of existing NRC-approved designs for storage casks and independent spent fuel storage installations. The Committee also encourages DOE to consider making use of existing European capabilities for reprocessing, vitrification, MOX fuel fabrication, and interim storage.

DOE should take prompt action to take title to some commercial spent fuel and begin to move that fuel from the reactor sites to one or more centralized interim storage sites. There is an established queue that defines the order in which DOE is to take title to commercial spent fuel. However, there can be legitimate arguments to move fuel other than that with priority in the queue, such as spent fuel from reactors that are already decontaminated and decommissioned, or fuel from a utility which agrees to settle, drop, or otherwise limit its claim against the Federal government. The Committee defers to the Secretary's judgment on which fuel can and should be moved first.