As nuclear waste piles up, Congress is at a standoff over where to store it

Lawyers were arguing earlier this month before the Supreme Court over permitting facilities to handle temporary nuclear waste storage when Justice Neil M. Gorsuch pointed to the skunk in the room.

That would be the lack of a single permanent facility where the government could dump radioactive waste by burying it deep in the earth and, with any luck, out of mind for generations to come.

Congress had an idea for a location, as far back as the 1980s: Yucca Mountain in Nevada, where the waste was to be stored in tunnels in which scientists said it would be safe for at least 10,000 years.

It was supposed to have been completed by the end of the last century. Instead, its construction was stalled by court battles and powerful local politicians.

Today it remains unfinished and virtually shuttered: Rather than consolidating the risk in a single repository in the deserts of Nevada, the country now spreads it around, storing spent nuclear fuel at more than 70 sites in 35 states.

“The feds have been working on it since 1982. So, it looks like, to me, if they never get anything done, we become the permanent storage. It’s a joke,” Wyoming state Rep. Reuben Tarver, a Republican, told The Washington Times in an email after his Legislature debated and shot down a bill to explore state storage. “If the people really want nuclear power, we need to address these issues immediately.”

The case before the justices involves a dispute over a private company that was licensed to store waste temporarily. Texas and the federal government also are involved in the litigation, with Texas arguing that nuclear waste will be transported hundreds of miles to temporary storage sites if the facility starts operating.

Texas makes that argument under the 1980s-era law, which is still on the books. Yucca Mountain is supposed to be the destination.

But the late Sen. Harry Reid, who was Democrats’ leader in the chamber at the time, got Congress to pull money from Yucca Mountain 15 years ago.

The result is conflicting directions from Congress. Yucca is still the goal, in theory, but there’s been no money to advance the idea.

“Yucca Mountain was supposed to be the permanent solution,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said during this month’s oral arguments over temporary facility permitting. “We spent something like $15 billion on it, and it’s a hole in the ground.”

“Do you have a prediction of when there might be a permanent storage facility?” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked Brad Fagg, a lawyer for Interim Storage Partners, the private company.

“I would be kidding myself and the court if I said I had a date,” Mr. Fagg responded.

Texas Solicitor General Aaron L. Nielson said that stalemate can’t be the end.

“The only way we’re going to get a national solution to this problem is by Congress to get everybody there and figure it out,” Mr. Nielson said. “They tried to do that with Yucca Mountain, and it didn’t work. But the answer isn’t, ‘Well, I guess we’re just going to put it on Texas now.’ No, Congress needs to go back and fix the law.”

Power plants use the heat from radioactive rods to create steam that turns electricity-producing turbines. When the still-radioactive rods no longer produce enough heat, they must be carefully discarded to prevent potentially cancer-causing exposure, among other problems. Burying the nuclear waste has been deemed the safest course.

While Yucca was under construction, nuclear power plants paid a fee toward the storage project. The fee was paused once Congress put Yucca on hold.

The fund has reached about $50 billion, though the cost for a permanent repository is expected to be more than double that amount.

Franklin Rusco, director of the Government Accountability Office’s Natural Resources and Environment team, said he cannot comment on the pending Supreme Court case. But he noted that Congress is at a standoff now that there is no funding for the Yucca Mountain project.

“Congress is at an impasse. Some people on the Hill say, ’Nope, the law says it is Yucca Mountain, we are not budging. It’s Yucca Mountain, we are going to hold out for that.’ And the other side says, ’We got to do something, so let’s give up on Yucca and start looking elsewhere.’ They haven’t been able to come up with an agreement so the law still says it’s Yucca Mountain,” Mr. Rusco said.

“It is costing a lot of money the longer Congress fails to act,” he said.

For now, Capitol Hill isn’t talking.

Senators from states with the most nuclear waste — North Carolina, Nevada, Washington and New York — did not respond to requests for comment. The top Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the House and Senate committees that oversee energy policy also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. has accumulated 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste over the decades: The Energy Department says that would fit in a 10-foot-high pile on a football field. The U.S. adds 2,000 tons each year.

“There is so much of it,” Mr. Rusco said. “We are a long way from having the stuff stored, we don’t have a permanent repository and it would take decades even if we did to move it all so it is going to keep costing money.”

• Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.