NEWS OF THE WEEK
LOOKING PAST YUCCA MOUNTAIN NUCLEAR WASTE: Blue-ribbon panel calls for interim storage of spent fuel Yucca Mountain is no longer the target site for nuclear waste. DO E
HE U.S. SHOULD BUILD a network of interim
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storage facilities to hold the nation’s growing amount of nuclear waste, as well as one or more permanent geologic repositories, a presidential commission says in a draft report issued on July 29. The White House established the 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future last year to recommend options for disposing of waste from the 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S. An estimated 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel are now held at reactor sites in 33 states. In 2009, President Barack Obama canceled plans to build a permanent repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The site was strongly opposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other politicians from the state. “The Obama Administration’s decision to halt work on a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is but the latest indicator of a policy that has been troubled for
SCIENCE AND THE DEBT DEAL POLITICS: Compromise includes cuts that will hit science agencies over the next decade
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Obama last week to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a default on government loans presents a mixed bag for science. The deal includes more than $900 billion in cuts over the next decade to federal discretionary funds—money that includes support for science agencies. In terms of an immediate impact, the Budget Control Act of 2011 sets the discretionary spending limit for fiscal 2012 at $1.04 trillion. This is the amount of money Congress can dole out to agencies for the next fiscal year. It is actually $24 million above the amount the House of Representatives set for its 2012 spending limit. Having this essentially flat cap on spending in place provides agencies with some certainty that there will not be huge across-the-board cuts in 2012, a White PETE SOUZA/WH ITE HOUSE
President Obama signs the Budget Control Act into law on Aug. 2 at the White House.
EGISLATION SIGNED by President Barack
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decades and has now all but completely broken down,” the report concludes. The report says it is pointless to try to “force a topdown, federally mandated solution” to nuclear waste storage, and it calls for a “consent-based” approach. “This means encouraging communities to volunteer to be considered to host a new nuclear-waste management facility,” the report says. The report recommends that a government-chartered corporation be established to run the disposal program, taking over the task from the Energy Department. The new entity would negotiate with communities and then construct and operate the sites. “The overall record of DOE and of the federal government as a whole ... has not inspired confidence or trust in our nation’s nuclear waste management program,” the report says. The nuclear power industry supports the commission’s recommendations. But Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), vice chairman of the House Science, Space & Technology Committee, asserts that there is no scientific evidence to support the White House’s move to kill the Yucca Mountain project. “The draft report states that the ‘American nuclear waste management program is at an impasse.’ We would not have this impasse,” Sensenbrenner says, “but for the President’s politically motivated decision to close Yucca Mountain.”—GLENN HESS
House official says. As a result, agencies can begin making preliminary spending decisions for 2012. Business leaders also appreciate the certainty the measure provides. Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, says the agreement, “while far from perfect, ... begins the process of getting America’s fiscal house in order and was necessary to avoid a default that would have resulted in an economic catastrophe.” But all federal agencies will face cuts over the long term. Congress will need to make tough spending decisions to comply with the legislation. The impact on science funding remains unclear. “Everything is subject to being cut,” noted Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) at a press briefing last week. A bipartisan, bicameral “supercommittee,” said Whitfield, chairman of a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee, will closely scrutinize all federal spending. As Congress irons out the details, the science community will be watching closely. “Budgets for fiscal 2012 and future years will be impacted by mandated reductions in the debt-ceiling deal,” notes Glenn S. Ruskin, director of the Office of Public Affairs at the American Chemical Society. “But how those reductions will be spread out over the agencies is not at all clear right now. ACS will continue to advocate on behalf of predictable and sustained funding for key R&D agencies.”—SUSAN MORRISSEY, GLENN HESS, AND RAJ MUKHOPADHYAY
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