TRANSPORTATION SAFETY PROGRAM FUNDING Section 180(c) of the NWPA requires OCRWM to provide technical and financial assistance to states and Indian tribes for training public safety officials in jurisdictions through which the Secretary plans to transport spent fuel or high-level waste to an NWPA-authorized facility. DOE’s Office of General Counsel has interpreted Section 180(c) as applying only to “training- related activities.” The states strongly believe that OCRWM has an obligation to cover all costs related to repository shipments, including the operational activities of the state transportation safety programs. The WIPP program provides a model for funding state transportation safety programs. One of the major unresolved issues around OCRWM’s plans to ship spent fuel and high-level waste to a repository is that, to date, OCRWM has not committed to funding the states’ operations-related activities connected with shipments. The TEC/WG Section 180(c) Topic Group worked intensively in 2004 and 2005 to develop a series of recommendations on Section 180(c) policy (see the section on Section 180(c) Implementation ). Comprised of numerous parties with an interest in OCRWM’s transportation program, the Section 180(c) Topic Group was able to reach consensus on eight issues related to Section 180(c) policy. One of the three issues on which consensus could not be reached was how to provide funding for operational activities (TEC 180c TG 2005, Executive Summary, p. 2). The states will incur significant costs in connection with OCRWM’s shipments, including inspections, tracking, escorting, and public information activities. Shipment-related activities carried out by the states directly contribute to safe, routine transportation and public acceptance of OCRWM’s shipments. If OCRWM does not fund these activities, the states will be left with the choice of paying for their transportation safety programs with tax dollars, foregoing these operational activities, or charging fees to recoup their costs. The Nuclear Waste Fund was established to “… ensure that the costs of carrying out activities relating to the disposal of… waste and spent fuel will be borne by the persons responsible for generating such waste and spent fuel” (NWPA Section 111(b)(4)). For this reason, the states feel their operations-related costs should be covered by the Nuclear Waste Fund. Other DOE shipping programs have set the precedent of providing funding to states to cover operational activities. For example, the WIPP LandWithdrawal Act, passed in 1992, directed DOE to“provide technical assistance and funds” for training, equipment purchases and operational safety programs. Section 16 of the Act directs the Secretary of Energy to“provide in-kind, financial, technical, and other appropriate assistance to any State or Indian tribe through whose jurisdiction the Secretary plans to transport transuranic waste to or fromWIPP, for the purpose of WIPP-specific transportation safety programs” (WIPP LandWithdrawal Act, Section 16). The states have long argued that OCRWM should provide funding for transportation safety programs related to OCRWM shipments, just as the Carlsbad Field Office does for WIPP shipments. This
funding could be made available to states through Section 180(c) or some other mechanism. The TEC Section 180(c) Topic Group recommended that OCRWM commit to funding the same kind of transportation safety programs that are in place for WIPP shipments (TEC 180c TG 2005, Appendix J, p.2). Some states, including seven in the Midwest, have enacted fees on shipments of radioactive materials, including spent fuel and high-level waste (MRMTC 2010b). Fee revenue is used to fund state programs for escorts, inspections, and emergency response, among other activities. In the absence of OCRWM funding for operational activities, it is possible that states will increase these fees and more states will impose fees on shipments to cover the costs of their transportation safety programs. In a paper presented at the Waste Management conference in 2009, Lisa Janairo compared possible awards under the Section 180(c) program to the revenue the states could feasibly generate through fee programs. The analysis showed that most states would “likely derive greater benefit from Section 180(c) grants than they would from fees” (Janairo 2009, p. 1). The states that could fare better with fees would be those with the highest projected shipment numbers. According to Janairo, compared to Section 180(c) assistance, “fees offer states the advantages of relative simplicity compared to the [180(c)] grant application process, greater certainty of the revenue source, and flexibility in using the fee revenue” (ibid.)
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