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Summary:
Nuclear energy policy issues facing Congress include the implementation of federal incentives for new commercial reactors, radioactive waste management policy, research and development priorities, power plant safety and regulation, terrorism, and the Price-Anderson Act nuclear liability system. The Bush Administration has called for an expansion of nuclear power. For Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear energy research and development, the Administration requested $389.9 million for FY2006. The FY2006 Energy and Water Development appropriations bill signed by the President on November 19, 2005, provides $420.2 million (P.L. 109-103, H.Rept. 109-275). The bill provides an additional $157.4 million to DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology from other appropriations accounts, for a total of $557.6 million -- about $44 million more than the Administration's total request. Significant incentives for new commercial reactors are included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-58), signed by the President August 8, 2005. These include production tax credits, loan guarantees, insurance against regulatory delays, and extension of Price-Anderson. The act also authorizes $1.25 billion for the design and construction of a nuclear-hydrogen cogeneration plant at Idaho National Laboratory. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States raised concern about nuclear power plant security. The new Energy Policy Act includes several reactor security provisions, including requirements to revise the security threats that nuclear plant guard forces must be able to defeat, regular force-onforce security exercises at nuclear power plants, and the fingerprinting of nuclear facility workers. Disposal of highly radioactive waste has been one of the most controversial aspects of nuclear power. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA, P.L. 97-425), as amended in 1987, requires DOE to conduct a detailed physical characterization of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent underground repository for high-level waste. Upon releasing the civilian nuclear waste program's FY2006 budget request on February 7, 2005, DOE officials announced that the opening of the Yucca Mountain repository would be delayed at least two years from the previous goal of 2010. Subsequent delays have cast further doubt on the waste program's schedule. The program's funding request of $651.4 million was about 14% above the FY2005 level. The FY2006 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act provides $500 million for nuclear waste disposal, with $50 million set aside for DOE to develop a spent nuclear fuel recycling plan. Whether progress on nuclear waste disposal and other congressional action will revive the U.S. nuclear power industry's growth will depend primarily on economic considerations. Natural gas- and coal-fired power plants are currently favored over nuclear reactors for new generating capacity. However, some electric utilities are seeking approval of sites for new reactors, and nuclear industry officials have predicted that the incentives in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 will lead to the first new U.S. reactor orders since 1978.
