A key Republican congressman yesterday charged that the Obama administration is breaking the law with its plan to close the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

"Quite frankly, I don't think you have the legal authority," Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) told Energy Secretary Steven Chu at an appropriations subcommittee hearing yesterday. The lawmaker added that he is seeking a legal opinion on the matter from the Government Accountability Office.

Chu and the Obama administration are planning to reprogram $115 million from the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and use the money to close Yucca Moutain in Nevada.

Frelinghuysen and other lawmakers say that the administration has no right to shift money away from the purpose for which Congress appropriated it. Lawmakers have also charged that the plan violates the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which they say orders DOE to construct Yucca.

Chu responded that his department's top lawyers have said they do have the authority to take the steps they have taken to close Yucca.

"I was told it was in our authority," Chu told the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

The face-to-face confrontation intensified the sustained congressional assault on the Obama administration's plan to scuttle the Yucca facility.

Nearly every hearing Chu has attended on Capitol Hill since the Obama budget was rolled out has been dominated by lawmakers lambasting the plan to close the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Many lawmakers in states with nuclear power plants and former nuclear bomb plants want Yucca to open and accept the waste material from those sites. Others say stopping construction of the nation's only nuclear waste repository undercuts the Obama administration's stated support for restarting construction of nuclear power plants.

Republicans have led the charge, but some Democrats have joined in.

Chu said to a frustrated Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.) that a panel of distinguished experts on a Blue Ribbon Commission will seek out alternatives to Yucca.

"The people who made the original decision, were they not distinguished?" Berry shot back.

Chu responded that the requirements changed to stipulate that the site be safe for 1 million years.

Five lawmakers first spelled out the accusation that the administration's plan violates the law in a letter last week, signed by one Republican congressman and four Democrats, including House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) (E&E Daily, March 24).

"We consider the department's actions contrary to the clear intent of Congress," the letter said.

Many of those same lawmakers introduced a resolution yesterday to stop the closure. The resolution of disapproval aims to stop DOE from using appropriated funds to end the project and save important project data.

Earlier this month DOE officially filed to withdraw its license application for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, with prejudice -- meaning the site could never again be considered for a repository (E&ENews PM, March 3).

At yesterday's hearing, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) questioned the wisdom of such a move.

"I get it. It's going to close," Simpson said. "Why not leave it on the table?"

But instead, the 15-member commission will review and consider alternative means to manage U.S. nuclear waste including interim storage, reprocessing and different geologic formations for a final repository.

That commission will hold its first meeting today and must produce a draft report in about 18 months.