The proposal's possible impact on a planned temporary storage center in Utah, which would be operated by private owners, is unclear. But the House backers of a new public waste storage alternative want it in place before the Utah site is scheduled to be operating.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House subcommittee that sets the Energy Department budget, on Thursday added $10 million to the bill, directing DOE to select one or more above-ground sites that can store spent fuel by 2006.
The temporary site would address the need for storage until a permanent repository in Yucca Mountain, Nev., can be opened.
Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of electric utilities, has proposed a privately funded and operated fuel storage site on the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes Indian reservation. PFS is awaiting a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but is not expected to be operating before 2007.
Hobson's language also asks the Energy Department to study reprocessing spent fuel, and have a reprocessing technology selected by 2007.
Hobson told The Associated Press he wants to move the waste before the opening of Yucca Mountain, which would occur in 2012 at the earliest.
"We're incurring a lot of litigation when we don't get the spent fuel rods out from these power plants like we said we we're going to do," he said. "This way we could eliminate that, cut down on the security problems they have, and put them into some above-ground sites."
PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said she could not say for certain how Hobson's proposal might affect the Skull Valley proposal, assuming Hobson's aggressive schedule could be met.
"It doesn't really change our plans because you see how long it's taken to plan and go through the licensing process for our facility and it would probably take DOE just as long. . . . In the meantime, the [power plants] are continuing to run out of space," Martin said.
"I think it would be an important thing for Congress to approve, but it doesn't obviate the need for our facility at this time."
She said it could mean the Skull Valley site would not be in operation as long, adding "and that's fine."
The energy spending bill containing Hobson's storage proposal is still in the early stages. It still would require approval of the House Appropriations Committee, the full House and Senate and the president.
Thousands of tons of commercial reactor fuel and defense waste are scattered around 39 states.
The Bush administration is committed to moving it to Yucca Mountain, but a string of problems - most recently allegations that workers falsified scientific data - have delayed the project.
