US Govt Charged Electricity Consumers $40 Billion For Unbuilt Nuclear Waste Dump

The U.S. Department of Energy has been ordered to end a 31-year-old scheme that had charged electricity consumers for the future construction of a nuclear waste dump, after collecting over $40 billion over the years placed into a trust fund.

Last Friday, the Energy Department finally removed the fee from electric bills having fought with power companies and state regulators over the issue, with a federal appeals court calling the fee “quite unfair”.

The U.S. Department of Energy has been ordered to end a 31-year-old scheme that had charged electricity consumers for the future construction of a nuclear waste dump, after collecting over $40 billion over the years placed into a trust fund.

Last Friday, the Energy Department finally removed the fee from electric bills having fought with power companies and state regulators over the issue, with a federal appeals court calling the fee “quite unfair”.

Since 1983, the U.S. Energy Department have been charging one-quarter of a cent on each kilowatt hour of electricity used, with the intention of building a facility to store nuclear waste.

Currently, the fund still holds $31 billion, after the government spent $12 billion on a failed effort to open a nuclear repository at the Yucca Mountain in Nevada. No other nuclear facility is currently being planned.

Although the fee barely amounted to 15 to 20 cents on the average monthly household electric bill, it still managed to earn more than $750 million a year. Interest income means the fund will continue to grow by about $1.3 billion a year, added CNN.

For Michigan Public Service Commissioner Greg White, who fought the fee for years, the court victory is “bittersweet.” The lawsuit, White says, primarily was intended to prod the federal government into solving the nuclear waste issue.

“From the very infancy of the commercial nuclear power industry, the federal government has always stated that it would take responsibility for the (disposal) of high-level nuclear waste, and that hasn’t happened,” White said. “The waste all sits at the plant sites where it was generated, despite the collection of some $40 billion.”

[quote]”I don’t see how it is a terrific win for anybody,” added Marta Adams, the chief deputy attorney general in Nevada who led the state’s legal efforts to block Yucca Mountain. “It relieves consumers of this charge but it doesn’t get rid of the waste.”[/quote]

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White said that the fee was “a consumer rip-off.”

“When you’re paying a fee, you should be getting something for what you’re paying for,” he noted.

But he said the court ruling was an imperfect victory.

“A perfect victory would have been that the court would compel the federal government to do the program as required by law,” he said.