US Senate panel OKs DOE funding bill with no Yucca Mountain money

The US Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a spending
bill for the Department of Energy that provides $10 billion in loan guarantee
authority for nuclear projects and, in keeping with the Obama administration's
request, eliminates funding for the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository in Nevada.
Overall, the bill, which passed on a party-line vote, 17-12, would give
DOE $28.3 billion for fiscal 2011, just slightly less than the $28.4 billion
that the White House requested, but about $1.7 billion more than the
department's fiscal 2010 funding level.
Most of that increase would go to nuclear weapons programs overseen by
DOE's National Nuclear Safety Administration.
Most of the reductions below the White House's requested amounts came
from DOE's science research and nuclear environmental clean-up programs.
The nuclear loan guarantee authority is less than half of the $25 billion
in authority a House subcommittee gave DOE last week. The Obama administration
had requested $36 billion in nuclear loan guarantee authority.