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Case 1:99-cv-00447-CFL

Document 267-4

Filed 01/08/2007

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EXHIBIT C

E&E Daily -- Thursday, September 14, 2006 Edition Case 1:99-cv-00447-CFL Document 267-4

Filed 01/08/2007

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Printable version:Thursday, September 14, 2006

6. APPROPRIATIONS: Hobson demands new GNEP budget numbers before conference
Mary O'Driscoll, E&E Daily senior reporter The top House energy appropriator wants a new budget estimate reflecting the Energy Department's reconfigured cost of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership by the end of the month so he can negotiate a final fiscal 2007 spending package later this year. But the request does not mean Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, has seen the light on GNEP. After a lengthy nuclear oversight hearing yesterday, Hobson told reporters his budget information request does not necessarily signal he wants to restore funding to the ambitious program, which the House cut to $120 million form a requested $250 million. Hobson, in fact, was vocal in expressing his continued skepticism of the effort. At one point in the hearing, he dismissively told Dennis Spurgeon, DOE's assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy, that predictions having the first GNEP reprocessing and recycling plant operational by 2020 really mean "it will be 2050 at the earliest and 10 times the cost, based on my experiences with the department. I worry about that stuff." The hearing provided Spurgeon with an opportunity to sell the new GNEP program to the lawmakers. GNEP is a major international research and technology development initiative that would put the United States back into the nuclear waste reprocessing business. DOE asked for $250 million for the first year and said the program could cost $2 billion over three years before officials would have to make a final decision on whether to actually pursue the technology. Estimates of total program costs have ranged from $20 billion to $40 billion over anywhere from 20 to 40 years. Some critics say the costs could really amount to $100 billion or more. But since the House vote, DOE has made some significant changes to GNEP, putting it on a two-track approach to demonstrate reprocessing and recycling technologies. First is deployment of commercial-scale facilities for which advanced technologies are available "now or in the near future." The second focuses on further national laboratory R&D on transmutation fuels technologies. Without providing specific dollar figures, DOE officials have said the scheme will require more up-front spending but lower expenses overall, and could be completed in a shorter time frame with the first reactor ready by 2020. While the House cut the program by more than half, Senate appropriators, led by Energy and Water Development Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), voted to fully fund the GNEP program and added about $30 million in earmarks. That set up an expected appropriations showdown during the post-election lame-duck session that both Hobson and Domenici, whose subcommittee today will hear from DOE officials about changes to GNEP, have acknowledged will likely be grueling. Hobson says he intends to get a final bill. A long-term continuing resolution, which would fund DOE and related agencies at fiscal 2006 levels, is out of the question, he said. And an omnibus "is a last resort. It's not one I like to do." Though he insisted he has an open mind on GNEP funding, Hobson noted that fully funding both GNEP and the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the fiscal 2007 spending package could be problematic.

http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/print/2006/09/14/6

1/8/2007

E&E Daily -- Thursday, September 14, 2006 Edition Case 1:99-cv-00447-CFL Document 267-4

Filed 01/08/2007

Page 2 of 2 Page 3 of 3

"I don't know where we get the money," Hobson said. "Where do we take the money from, the university nuclear research program? Yucca Mountain? Those guys are going to want to fight for those things." Going into an appropriations conference with the Senate, Hobson said, "It's important we know what the new numbers are. If DOE comes up with different numbers, we'd better be educated on that."

MOX concerns
Hobson's openness to discussing the GNEP program has not translated into a similar tack on DOE's program to convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants. Under the program, DOE would set up a facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to mix oxides of plutonium and uranium into a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in an effort to get rid of 34 metric tons of plutonium. The requirement was mandated under the U.S. portion of a 2000 nonproliferation deal with Russia. But prompted by Russia's recent decision to not pursue its part of the international deal and cost overruns that have pushed the cost of the project to about $4.7 billion, the House's fiscal 2007 energy spending bill eliminated funding for the program. And Hobson said yesterday he is not interested in negotiating. "I don't hear anybody saying, 'Whoa,'" Hobson said of the new MOX program cost estimates. And though National Nuclear Security Administrator Linton Brooks told the House Armed Services Committee in July that DOE is committed to the MOX program and intends to break ground on the facility this fall, Hobson says the department cannot do that because there is no funding for it. "They have to understand. Until this is resolved, you don't move forward," Hobson said.

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http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/print/2006/09/14/6

1/8/2007