Energy secretary gets heat on Yucca funding
Chu says the administration has years to decide on a permanent storage site.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu came under fire Thursday from Senate Energy and Natural Resources Republicans, who questioned the White House budget's elimination of funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
"When the president called for more nuclear energy, I took that to mean his agency would support a waste repository, such as Yucca," said Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. "This leaves us without a viable repository option at this point."
Chu said the department can afford to do a longer review because it has decades to come up with a permanent storage site.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said that even with the fiscal 2011 budget increasing loan guarantees for new nuclear plants to $36 billion, a standstill in waste disposal policy would prevent companies and shareholders from investing in a new plant.
"We've got to pick a path and go for it," Burr said.