Spent nuclear fuel has sat on the sand at San Onofre for more than a decade, and Rep. Mike Levin wants to make sure it doesn’t stay there forever.
The San Diego-area Democrat unveiled a new push last week to finally move the waste off the Southern California coast, standing above the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station as he laid out his plan to find a permanent home for the radioactive material elsewhere in the country.
“Since I’ve been in Congress, getting this spent nuclear fuel off our coast has been one of my top priorities,” Levin said, gesturing toward the Pacific Ocean and the rows of steel-and-concrete canisters that hold the plant’s used fuel rods. “I’ve spent eight years fighting this inaction on spent nuclear fuel.”
Levin is backing a federal proposal to build what are being called Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses — facilities in communities willing to recycle portions of spent fuel and store the remaining waste in exchange for economic development incentives. The U.S. Department of Energy says the campuses could draw substantial investment, boost domestic manufacturing and generate thousands of well-paying jobs in the regions that host them. Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho have all expressed interest in being considered as sites.
According to a report from Levin’s office, similar waste-storage efforts in Finland and Canada have moved forward with the support and cooperation of local communities. Finland expects to begin permanently disposing of its nuclear waste as soon as next year.
Levin said comparable U.S. facilities could be operational by the late 2030s, and he’s pushing to make San Onofre a top priority once a disposal and storage system is in place.
The San Onofre plant shut down in 2013 after a newly installed steam generator failed, rendering the facility inoperable. Demolition of the plant began in 2020, and crews have since hauled away roughly 700 million tons of construction debris from the site. Spent fuel rods have since been moved from cooling pools into dry storage casks on the beach, Levin said.
But no permanent repository exists for the waste, largely because of intense public opposition to past storage proposals.
“The federal government still hasn’t done what it promised back in 1998, so communities like ours have been left holding the fuel,” Levin said.
The federal government once designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nation’s long-term nuclear waste repository, but former President Barack Obama scrapped that plan in 2010 amid strong pushback from environmental groups, local residents and tribal nations.
With no long-term storage site available, the spent fuel has remained at San Onofre — a location that sits near active earthquake faults, along the coastline and adjacent to Camp Pendleton, raising concerns about vulnerability to natural disasters or security threats.
To address those risks, Levin introduced the Spent Fuel Prioritization Act alongside Reps. Darrell Issa, R-San Diego, and Young Kim, R-Orange County. The bill would prioritize removing and relocating fuel from nuclear sites that carry high seismic risk, sit near dense populations, or pose national security concerns — criteria that describe San Onofre closely. The legislation is currently awaiting action in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to Levin’s 2026 report on San Onofre.
Transporting the waste presents its own set of challenges. Levin said a specially engineered rail car known as the Atlas Railcar System is expected to finish testing next year and carry the first shipment of spent fuel from Virginia to Idaho. The 12-axle railcar is outfitted with sensors and monitoring technology and can haul nearly 225,000 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel, according to the Department of Energy. It took a decade to design and build, at a cost of $33 million.
Levin has also introduced legislation to establish a dedicated nuclear waste administration, require storage canisters to last 100 years instead of the current 40-year standard, and increase public input and safety oversight at nuclear plants undergoing decommissioning.
“I won’t call this a victory,” Levin said, “until the last canister is gone from San Onofre.”
Original source: CalMatters
