Rapper Lupe Fiasco Thrown Off Stage For Anti-Obama Rant During Pre-Inaguration Concert

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Rapper Lupe Fiasco Thrown Off Stage For Anti-Obama Rant During Pre-Inaguration Concert

The $38 billion nuclear waste fiasco

Congress chose the site in 1987 as the country’s sole permanent nuclear repository. | AP Photo

Doing nothing often has a cost — and when it comes to storing the nation’s nuclear waste, the price is $ 38 billion and rising.

That’s just the low-ball estimate for how much taxpayers will wind up spending because of the government’s decades of dithering about how to handle the radioactive leftovers sitting at dozens of sites in 38 states. The final price will be higher unless the government starts collecting the waste by 2020, which almost nobody who tracks the issue expects.

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The first $ 15 billion is what the government spent on a controversial nuclear waste repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain until the Obama administration scrapped the project. The other $ 23 billion is the Energy Department’s estimate of the damages the government will have to pay to nuclear power utilities, which for the past 30 years have paid a fee to DOE on the promise that the feds would begin collecting their waste in 1998.

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Industry argues that the damages are closer to $ 50 billion — which raises the bottom line to $ 65 billion including the money spent on Yucca.

The cost of the refunds is little known to the public, but it’s such a huge liability that DOE tracks the figure closely. The government is still fighting the utilities’ claims in court, but utilities have been racking up a string of wins.

The costs of inaction don’t just include dollars. The lack of a final resting place for the waste means that each nuclear plant has to stockpile its own. Thousands of tons of waste are stranded at sites around the country, including at plants that have shut down.

(Also on POLITICO: Full energy and environment policy coverage)

“I’m trying to think of some fancy words but at the end of the day it’s just a massive consumer rip-off,” said Greg White, a regulator on the Michigan Public Service Commission who also heads the nuclear waste panel for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. NARUC, which represents state-level regulators, won a legal victory this month when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered DOE to stop collecting the fee.

Salo Zelermyer, a former George W. Bush-era DOE attorney who works at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, says the waste program has “plainly broken down” and that the government had made “no discernable progress towards its commitments.”

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz also expressed frustration this month, calling the system of storing nuclear waste at reactors sites “politically unsustainable.”

“For nuclear energy to be competitive here in the U.S. and ensure its safety and security abroad, we have to address the problem of disposition of used nuclear fuel and high-level waste,” Moniz said during a panel discussion at an American Nuclear Society meeting. He previously served on a blue-ribbon commission that advised Obama on changes to the nation’s nuclear waste policy.

But like others in the Obama administration, Moniz maintains that Yucca Mountain is not “a workable option.”

Congress chose the Nevada site in 1987 as the country’s sole permanent nuclear repository, but it continues to draw fierce opposition from many of the state’s residents and elected officials. One of its most powerful opponents is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who blocked funding for the project and pushed the Obama administration to kill it — something DOE did in 2010.

Reid and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have long argued that the studies supporting the project were discredited because Congress short-circuited the site-selection process to focus solely on Yucca. The administration says the government needs to start over with a new waste site — and this time, the selection process must be “consent based” to win public acceptance.

“When this Administration took office, the timeline for opening Yucca Mountain had already been pushed back by two decades, stalled by public protest and legal opposition, with no end in sight,” DOE spokeswoman Niketa Kumar said in an email.

The end is still far off. DOE’s latest plan calls for a repository to open in 2048, although the department would try to open a temporary storage site by 2021. Even Yucca couldn’t be finished until at least 2027 if the government were to revive it immediately, the Government Accountability Office estimated last year.

Meanwhile, DOE’s Nuclear Waste Fund has amassed more than $ 25 billion after utilities — and their customers — have paid $ 750 million a year since 1983 through a 0.1-cent charge for each nuclear-generated kilowatt-hour of electricity. The fund will continue to generate about $ 1 billion in interest each year, even though the appeals court zeroed out DOE’s further collection of the fee until Congress passes a new nuclear waste program or the agency dusts off Yucca Mountain.

When it became clear DOE wasn’t fulfilling its end of the bargain, utilities began demanding that the government repay them for the costs they’ve incurred to store the waste on their own. They include the costs for reconfiguring the increasingly crowded spent-fuel pools, moving and packaging the used fuel rods and providing maintenance services such as on-site security.

Utilities have filed at least 61 lawsuits in the past 15 years over the broken promise. And bills have ramped up quickly.

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The $38 billion nuclear waste fiasco

Can Coakley leave 2010 fiasco behind?

Coakley kicked off her run for governor this week. | AP Photo

Martha Coakley barreled into the Massachusetts governor’s race this week with an ace political team, loads of name recognition, solid poll numbers — and some hefty baggage.

The Bay State’s Democratic attorney general is back in the national spotlight, three years after her shocking Senate loss to Republican Scott Brown in one of the bluest states in the nation. Massachusetts observers say she will be a formidable gubernatorial candidate in the crowded Democratic primary — if she can convince voters and party insiders that she’s learned a thing or two from that defeat.

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“I knew Martha before 2010, I knew Martha after 2010,” said Deb Kozikowski, a vice chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee who is committed to another candidate in the race but spoke highly of Coakley. “The campaigner I saw before and after is the campaigner I was familiar with. What we saw in 2010 seemed to me to be an aberration. I sure hope it was.”

(PHOTOS: Governors’ offices up for grabs in 2014)

In her tussle with Brown, now a former senator, Coakley was criticized for appearing complacent, skipping handshake sessions and striking some voters as out of touch. She looks determined now to show that’s all in the past.

Coakley kicked off her run for governor this week with a frenetic few days of campaigning — “from Newton to North Adams,” a senior campaign strategist said — aiming to hit 18 stops in three days.

“That might eclipse any month she had during the Senate race, frankly,” said Boston-based Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh. “Actions speak louder than words. She’s showing people she’s learned some lessons.”

Coakley is competing against a slew of other highly qualified candidates in the primary, including State Treasurer Steve Grossman, who currently looks to be another top contender; Donald Berwick, a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, among others.

“The most significant challenge we face is creating jobs and economic security across the Commonwealth,” Grossman said in a statement. “I am the only Democratic candidate who offers a lifetime of proven leadership in strengthening our economy.”

Likely GOP nominee Charlie Baker, who served in the administrations of two Republican governors, is mounting another bid for the position after losing to Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick in 2010. Baker, a businessman, is a fiscal conservative and social moderate, and this time around is stressing his commitment to bipartisanship.

(Also on POLITICO: Gomez mulls rematch with Markey)

Gus Bickford, a longtime Bay State Democrat and former chairman of the state party, said Coakley’s candidacy will reshape the Democratic primary. She enters the contest near or at the front of the pack, he said.

“I think it’s a significant, it’s a very big game-changer,” he said. “She’s been polling as one of the most popular Democrats in the state. So it adds another front-runner to the race at the beginning. But it definitely sets a stage where the current treasurer, Steve Grossman, now has a significant opponent who is well-known across the state, which was not the case with the other candidates being mentioned.”

Bickford, who is currently unaligned in the race, dismissed concerns about the legacy of the 2010 Senate race as “inside baseball.”

“Voters don’t care” about her loss to Brown, echoed a senior national Democrat familiar with the race. “I think she will have to prove to those in Washington and Massachusetts who are cynical about her — and in part for good reason — that she’s learned the lessons of the Senate race. The first proof point you have to look at is the attorney general’s race.”

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Can Coakley leave 2010 fiasco behind?

The Instagram Terms Of Service Fiasco