waste negotiator may be especially relevant because that effort was truly a consent-based siting process. i will close by observing that consent-based site selection process is in a consent-base d process. public trust in the institutions is essential. it is vitally important that potential host entities have confidence in the credibility of the process and the trustworthiness of the implementer of the program. i thank you very much and i look forward to questions from the committee. >> thank you so much for your testimony. mr. orel. >> chairman carper and ranking member barrasso and the distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify. my name is andrew orel, and regardless of how it's

pronounced, i am v the pleasure of serving as the director of nuclear -- >> so it is pronounced orel. >> orel, yes. now we can move on to the bigger problems. >> i still have the pleasure of serving as the director of nuclear energy and fuel cycle programs at sandia national laboratories. throughout my career work on the waste isolation power plan and the yucca mountain project, i've experienced firsthand the meaning of consent-based approaches to repositor projects and the cauldron of public controversy that can surround them. it is from this perspective that i offer my comments today, recognize anything such comments are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of the department of energy or of the sandia national laboratories. we're fortunate the united states contains many geologic formations that are considered to be technically suitable for deep geologic disposal of nuclear waste and even more locations technically suitable for interim storage. but challenges still remain to site facilities that are

socially and politically acceptable to both local communities, host states and the federal government. one exception has been the waste isolation pilot plan. while noting the success of the wh wip, no one could have designed the process ultimately followed ahead of time nor could not process ever be replicated. while the wip process can't be replicated exact three, does offer important lessons, especially in regards to the need for unquestioned credibility and integrity in both the institutions and individuals representing the federal interest. the placement of trust and credibility will be a prerequisite for success. which leads me to what i believe are other prerequisites that if addressed will enable and encourage more potential host communities and states to consider the siting of new nuclear waste facilities but if left unresolved can stifle or

confound any con-cent based siting process. the first issue to clarify in s the uncertainty of who will be the federal representative of a consent-based negotiation. the department of energy or as the commission recommended, a new government chartered corporation. complicating this uncertainty is the unresolved issue regarding whether or not to continue to c co-mingle the management of waste. finalize what the new disposal standards and regulations will be that govern the determination. the commission calls for the develop amount new generic disposal standard and supporting regulatory requirements that, quote, should be finalized prior to the site selection process, unquote. and we need to recognize that these are often a long lead time items. the third issue centers on when there will be a confidence that a geologic repositor for

permanent disposal of spent fuel and high level waste will be realized. the commission correctly notes, quote, the challenge of citing one or more storage facilities cannot be separated from the status of the disposal program. the lack of a discernible repositor development program can be expected to thwart the willingness some of communeities or states that consider the hosting of needed waste management facilities and perpetuate the moratoria on new nuclear power plant construction. simply, consent-based siting efforts will be stifled as long as potential hosts have uncertainty over who, what and when. who will be the organization representing the federal interest when negotiating for consent? what are the final regulations that will govern a determination of safety? and when will thereby a confidence over whether a geologic repositor for permanent disposal will actually be available? in a broad sense, the intent of

the brc recommendations are to open new opportunities for the federal government to meet its nuclear waste management obligations and to promote a larger number of opportunities for states and communities to willingly host needed storage and disposal facilities. the technical solutions for developing one or more storage and disposal facilities do exist or are readily gpd given the technical solutions to storage and disposal are readily available, the time frames of decades often suggested for facilities are thus rooted in the prerequisites. prom action on resolving the am yes noted will help minimize further delay and better enable this generation to meet its obligations for responsible nuclear waste management. i thank you for the opportunity to testify and look forward to answering your questions. >> i'd like each member of the panel to briefly react to what you just heard from mr. orrell. we'll start with you, mr.

fettus. briefly react. 15 seconds. >> i think it would be extraordinarily premature for congress to not take its time to do precisely what i outlined and what i think dr. peterson and dr. scowcroft outlines which is to work through the -- >> thanks so much. mr. wright? >> from what i heard, i tend to agree. i believe with a lot of what he's laid out. i mean, i think it's sensible. >> mr. howes? >> i would agree that what he's laid out makes a good deal of sense. >> okay. mr. metlay? dr. metlay? >> i would certainly agree, and my board has certainly taken the position that there are no technical impediments to developing a repository. >> another question for you dr.

metlay. you mentioned in your testimony that u.s. nuclear waste negotiator, which was established, i think, in a 1987 amendment to the nuclear waste policy act. i don't think you mentioned this in your testimony. but take a minute if you will and talk more about the negotiators' intended role and is this something that we should or could pursue this time around? if you could. and be fairly brief in your response. >> excuse me? >> be brief in your response. >> certainly. the negotiators, as you said, was established as part of the 1987 amendments act. he was given a broad charter to negotiate with any state or native american tribe. and an agreement to host either a repository or an interim storage facility. after many years of efforts, that task proved unsuccessful and i believe it was in 19 --

1993 that congress decided to get rid of the office of negotiator. certainly the idea was a useful one and other countries have tried it. with success or not? >> not so much. >> okay. all right. fair enough. thank you. for mr. orrell and commissioner wright, the blue ribbon commission recommends pursuing consolidated storage facilities in parallel to a disposal program. some in congress believe we can pursue interim storage first without also pursuing a parallel disposal program. based on your experience and knowledge how easy or difficult would it be to get consent at all levels of government if interim storage is pursued without pursuing a disposal program. that would be for you, mr. orrell and mr. wright. >> well, my personal -- >> again, i'll ask you to be brief. >> my personal opinion is at the

moment, without a robust discernible repository development program, the enthusiasm for moving early on consolidated storage will probably be short lived. >> thanks. mr. wright? >> what he said. >> you guys are getting good at this. might invite you to come back. you could be our third panel today. this is one for the entire panel. and if all of you were in our shoes, what would be your first action to get this country started and on a consent-based approach toward finding a final resting place for our spent fuel? and what should congress' first step be, and is there any action we shouldn't take that we should rule out at this stage? that would be my question. do you want to go first, mr. fettus? >> you should start by doing what you're doing today with these tineer kinds of hearings.

have additional hearings on the issues that will be complicated like fees. the issue of site selection process, the issue of the standards, and finally, i think the one mistake you could make is to commence a selection process right now where you start down the road of an interim storage site that jumps ahead of the line in all of this. >> good. mr. wright, somewhat longer response than you gave to my last question, but not a lot longer. >> there are actually two things that jump out right away. the first is to pursue the fed corp because you've got to do something with the fee to make things happen. and transportation, moving the decommission sites right away can happen and needs to happen so these sites can be put back to productive use. >> thanks. mr. howes? >> we agree -- the yankee companies agree the dual track makes sense, however, the repository could be quite a

number of years away. and so we're very appreciative of the language in the senate appropriations bill that calls for a pilot project for decommissioned plant fuel, and we think that there's a good deal of lead time both for transportation and other planning that needs to go into that along with developing a consent-based approach for identifying a volunteer host community and so we think there are near-term actions that the department of energy with congress' support could certainly get started on while we work out some of the naughtier issues down the road. >> dr. metlay? just very briefly, please. >> based on the international experience, it's clear that those countries that have had a successful siting program have figured out the problem of distributing power between the central government and the periphery. countries like germany, japan and switzerland, where you have a federal system, have had a much more difficult time. >> all right. thank you. mr. orrell?

>> two issues. one, make the fundamental decision about whether to use fed corp as the blue ribbon commission recommends. it is a fundamental issue that translates to all of the other recommendations in some form and then, two, i would encourage the promulgation of the new disposal standards and regulations as these tend to take very long periods of time. >> all right. good. thank you all very, very much. senator barrasso? >> all right. he's going to yield to you, lamar. >> he already did that once. i'm getting in his debt. this has been very helpful and very interesting. mr. howes, let me ask you about the yankee companies. you have three sites, right? how many reactors? >> the reactors are -- the sites are fully decommissioned.

>> so all you have stranded fuel. >> we have stranded nuclear fuel at three of our sites. the reactor, all of the buildings have been removed. they are fully decommissioned. >> and so you've got the fuel that we're supposed to be taking care of. >> our fuel is licensed by the nrc for both storage and transport. it's ready to go when the federal government comes to pick it up. >> well, the suggestion, and you mentioned the language in the appropriations bill which comes from an impulse to -- these things take awhile. the stalemate has been 25 years. it takes congress a little while to pass any kind of legislation. so our thought with the appropriations bill was can we -- can we take a step or two while we work out the comprehensive piece or legislation? which would then take over the whole process. do you think that's reasonable? >> yes, we do. we think that there are near-term actions that could be taken.

i think as was mentioned earlier, before you could actually move to consolidate interim storage you'd have to amend the nuclear policy waste act to do that. there are a number of things leading up to that including beginning the transportation planning, identifying the roots f routes for moving this material. even if you aren't sure where it's going york pretty much know the routes going out of the sites. so, yes, we believe it's imminently feasible to get started on this. a law would have to be passed. so i would guess that the law that would be passed would be the comprehensive next step forward. from your company's point of view, how would such moving ahead with such a consolidation

site affect your -- the yankee companies? >> well, i mean, as i indicated, there are any number of steps that need to take place. for example, we -- a transportation task doesn't yet exist. the department of energy would need to provide a transportation cask to move our material. all of this -- there are years of lead time to do this and so our -- i mean, our sense is that there are things that can be done within existing authority at the department of energy to get started on this track with the hope that congress will in fact, make the needed changes to the nuclear waste policy act to allow this to move forward and -- >> mr. wright, do you agree or disagree that if we in the congress, try to move as aggressively as we can to pass a legislative comprehensive piece of legislation that it's prude tonight go ahead with the

language in the appropriations bill that allows the department of energy to begin the process of identifying a consolidation site? >> yes, i am -- i believe -- we're in favor of doing that. >> i know. but i just wanted to get you to say that. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> and what are the advantages to it if you are in favor of it? >> i think it does a number of things. it proves you can move it. and the government is on the hook for a lot of money liablewise and this may start to reduce their exposure to some of that. >> mr. fettus, you are not in favor of that? >> no. >> and the reason? >> the reason quite simply is that we think that not treating the storage process -- by the way, as was sited here today by mr. howes, we don't have objection to the stranded fuel potentially going to an operating reactor site as a

consolidated storage. we think that that makes imminent sense. and we have said that repeatedly for years. that said, within the structure of where we are now and after the 20-some years of gridlock, if you don't set the chess board properly for the next set of steps going forward, we think you could prematurely choose sites that either may not be suitable, will not fall into the consent-based process that congress is going to have to very arduously try and build. >> thank you. sometimes we do things better step by step than we do comprehensively. henry clay nearly killed himself trying to pass a compromise and went to nantucket to recover and senator douglas from illinois picked up the compromise and offered each piece of it separately and they all passed with senator houston being the only senator to vote for each piece. so some -- we don't want to -- we don't want to go so fast in

identifying a consolidation site that we -- that we don't -- don't do an appropriate job on the second repository, but we've been stuck so long on the yucca stalemate that my hope, mr. chairman, is that we can find prudent ways to move ahead on the consolidation site while at the same time being very careful as we work through the authorization legislation to go aggressively for a repository. and let the processes learn from one another and eventually be the same process. and that will not be derailed by the yucca debate. it's a -- we have conclusively demonstrated we have a big difference of opinion over yucca mountain. and i don't think we need 25 more years to do that. so we also, i think, have everybody here. and if anyone disagrees with

that, hope you'll say so. even if we opened yucca mountain, we'll soon need or maybe immediately need a second repository for the material we already have. and so we need consolidation sites, and we need a second repository or more. and so we're looking for a prudent way to get on with it. so that -- this hearing is a good help to that and the testimony today has been very useful. >> i agree. i agree. senator udall? >> thank you, senator carper. this question is to mr. orrell and mr. fettus. i'm trying to drill down a little bit because the brc on this issue of parallel versus what we have in the law now and what we -- as you all know, d.o.e. can't open an interim or consolidated site unless a permanent site is already

opened. and so the brc talks about parallel. how far along in your opinion do we need to be towards a permanent site before you start opening an interim side or consolidated side. >> i'm very happy to begin a lot further along than we are now. i'll start with that. i think, and as i outlined extensively in my written testimony, there's a long and i think it's safe to say tortuous history of the repository program as well as sputtering attempts at an interim storage program. and as the doctor outlined today, it's the countries that are having any progress are countries that have resolved the allocations of power. and if we don't do that and i have a set of suggestions in my

testimony as to how we begin to do that in a more thoughtful way that avoids the mistakes of the past, i think we could do it. but congress has a significant amount of work to do before we do anything remotely related to site selections or moving forward on that front. and that includes storage or that includes -- >> final proposal? >> well, as it was noted earlier, this somewhat hinges on definition of consent and how you would secure that. if a host community needs consent on allowing interim storage or consolidated storage facility, and it would like to have knowledge that there is a repository program behind it, it will probably define what the level of progress would be. but one other measure might be simply an uncontested waste confidence decision. we have a recent waste confidence decision from the nrc that unfortunately has been

legally contested and that brings at least suspect whether or not we have a sufficient progress on our repository program. >> thank you. mr. fettus you recommend removing the exemptions from state environmental authority. why would giving states more authority over a nuclear waste site make consent based site siting more likely? and what does the w.i.p. experience tell us about state authority? first, in answering this question, i want to respond briefly to senator carper's admonition that these things are seen as dumps. they are. some of the most toxic and radioactive waste that will be dumped for hundreds of years. and it's why the scientific consensus for over half a century has been deep geologic

disposal. this is a difficult matter with extraordinarily dangerous waste. that said, i am informed by my work for senator udall when he was the attorney general of new mexico, the only meaningful time that states felt in any measure comfortable in terms of accepting this kind of facilities no matter the borders. no matter the incentives. if it were simply a matter of monitory incentives or structural, then yucca mountain would have been built a long time ago and built and operating a long time ago. what it is is when states essentially have a measure of skin in the game. and a governor and attorney general, congressional delegation can say we can make a deal here because we have control with, of course, the federal floor that i'm quite sure e.p.a. and the nrc or whatever new entity can h

harmonyize. and when that's the case, there's a potential for this kind of very complicated difficult decision to go forward. without that, it's not going to happen in our federal system. i think the evidence bears me out on that. >> thank you. >> i'd ask senator barrasso if he feels prepared to bring us home and be our last question. and he's up to it. take me home. >> i'm concerned how long it's taken to address the long-term storage and nuclear waste. the process began three decades ago, we're no closer to a solution. with regard to interim storage,

you talk about wanting to see the timely implementation of the blue river commissions. blue river where people go skiing, it's a great place to do a number of things, but the recommendations, what's your opinion? would it be a timely? what would be timely timely? you talk about how to timely implementation to see these recommendations implemented. >> well, we recognize that nothing proceeds very quickly when we're talking about nuclear waste. i think the brc, the blue ribbon commission recognized there were long lead times for developing any of the consolidated storage options including looking at transportation and other issues. the blue ribbon commission, i believe, said this might be able to be done in a decade or so. i think that would be a

wonderful thing. i think it may be optimistic. we're prepared to, you know, work with other stake holders to get this done as rapidly as possible. but we're not naive enough to think it's going to happen overnight. >> and mr. wright? you said in your testimony that you have long favored consolidated interim storage but find the report vague as to the quantity, the duration, and the cost. so -- i mean, these have very big issues to solve. could you elaborate a little more on that point. what details we have on this committee and the public at large need to see here. what do we need to see from this commission and the administration before signing off on a plan? >> well, i do believe you see things better now than what has been -- and i guess mentioned in years past. you really are starting to focus on it and i've been very gratified with what i've heard today. it's still -- and i agree with

mr. house, it's going to take lead time and ten years has been thrown out on some of that stuff. there's hoops that have got to be jumped through. the bottom line i think for the confidence of commissions and states and the utilities that we serve and regulate is, you know, the money. making sure that the money is used what it's supposed to be used for. and that trust that needs to be built with any partnership with the federal government and states and communities that you're going to be dealing with. i think that's huge. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i'm going to ask one more question if my colleagues want to ask one more question, they're welcome to. sometimes when we have a panel, this has been a real good hearing and i appreciate all y'all being here and our colleagues. one of the things as my colleagues recall, i like to look for consensus. and from a panel. and you all agree on some things

and disagree on some things. but maybe just to start with you mr. orrell, one major point you think there's consensus from this entire panel. what might that be? >> well, i would say that the general feeling of the time has come to take action. >> okay. >> my board has written and it's one of its publications, it would be a shame if we temperize. >> okay. >> the federal government needs to fulfill its obligations. >> mr. wright? >> it's probably time to move the decommission plant site waste and get that moved to consolidated place. >> all right. thank you. mr. fettus? >> and i think there's an acknowledgment that a

consent-base process is what has to come out of congress now. there are very different views on how that could come about, but there's an acknowledgment that that has to be first. >> alexander? anything else? >> no, i hope you'll stay. i hope we'll have more of these when it's appropriate and i hope all of the other hearings are as useful as this win. thank you very much. >> and i would echo that. i think our colleagues have -- how much time? laura, how much time? two weeks. our colleagues some of whom were not able to be here would like to ask questions of you. they have two weeks to do that and we ask when you receive the questions, you respond to them in a prompt manner. great to be with all of you. thanks for all of your participation today and for your help. thanks. and with that, this hearing is adjourned.