Nuclear Waste Fund Fee Adjustment Background To offset the costs associated with high-level nuclear waste generation, nuclear utilities pay into a fund for the long-term costs of disposing of the waste. Since 1983, this payment has been a flat fee of one-tenth of one cent per kilowatt-hour (mill per kilowatt-hour). However, this rate of contribution will not cover the costs originally anticipated, let alone new costs. Indexing the Nuclear Waste Fund Fee for inflation would save taxpayers millions of dollars and make the market price of nuclear power more accountable to future costs.
Green Scissors ProposalIndex the Nuclear Waste Fund Fee for inflation and make recommendations on how to adjust the fee further to cover additional nuclear waste costs. Indexing the fund for inflation, according to a 1995 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis, would have saved $315 million between 1996 and 2000.
Project Hurts Taxpayers If the current rate of one mill per kilowatt-hour is not increased, there may be a shortfall of 10 percent of the funds needed for full cost recovery by the DOE, according to a GAO Study. A 1995 financial review commissioned by the DOE and the State of Nevada concluded that the funding shortfall would range from $8 to $12 billion in 1995 dollars. Even this huge amount is too conservative because the review assumed that reactors would operate for a full 40 years, which is proving to be untrue.
Project Hurts Environment Without adequate funds, finding and implementing a safe solution for the disposal of nuclear waste will be impossible. On the other hand, charging nuclear operators the full cost for nuclear-generated electricity would help to level the economic playing field for the use of cleaner, more efficient energy sources.
$315 million