The Senate has voted to permit the Dept. of Energy to reclassify some high-level nuclear waste as "incidental to reprocessing." The 2005 defense reauthorization bill now pending in the Senate includes an amendment from Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) that would allow the waste reclassification and could affect Dept. of Energy facilities in Idaho, South Carolina and Washington state. Supporters say the change would speed up cleanup of the Savannah River site in South Carolina but critics argue that it would allow some of the waste stored in tanks there and the other DOE locations to be covered with concrete and grout.

On June 3, opponents of the Graham provision suffered a setback when a proposal by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to strike reclassification language failed on a 48-48 vote.

DOE Deputy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said the department is "very pleased that the Senate approved DOE's scientifically sound plans to empty, clean, stabilize and dispose of nuclear waste stored in tanks at its Savannah River Site...."

In a May 20 letter to Graham, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) said that with the reclassification, the estimated cleanup time at Savannah River would be trimmed by 23 years, and save $16 billion.

Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, contends that the Graham provision "is a cruel trick that allows the Bush administration to leave a legacy of radioactive pollution that could endanger drinking water for millions of Americans."

If the underlying defense bill clears the Senate with the Graham language intact, the measure would have to be reconciled with the version that the House passed on May 20. The House bill requests a National Academy of Sciences study on DOE plans to manage the type of waste at issue.

A federal district court in Idaho ruled last July that DOE violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act by issuing a 1999 order that said incidental wastes didn't have to be stored in a geologic repository. The case is Natural Resources Defense Council v. Spencer Abraham.