Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
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Reno Gazette-Journal
April 15, 2003
Your Turn: Bargaining for ‘benefits´ isn´t an option
Special to The Reno Gazette-Journal
I am responding to the piece by Donald Mausshardt titled “When Yucca suits fail, what will we do?’ (Your Turn, April 1).
Mr. Mausshardt — an Oregonian and a former employee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — contends that Nevada should position itself so that the state “could receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government in a negotiated settlement over Yucca Mountain.’
This is a perilous notion. There are no funds on the table for which Nevada may bargain, and there never have been. Even if there were, it is not an option: The proposed project is unsafe, and the road to it is paved with illegalities. To strike a bargain when the other side is breaking the law is unthinkable for an attorney general — and the people of Nevada.
While it is always nice to know that citizens from other states share concerns over Nevada´s future, it is abundantly clear here that Mr. Mausshardt has never read our lawsuits challenging the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. None of our cases has anything to do with cask testing or seismological issues, as he alleges. Rather, each case challenges serious violations of statutory law by the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Mr. Mausshardt´s former employer, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Each federal law at issue is intended to ensure the safety of the repository and Nevada citizens.
Mr. Mausshardt´s advice that the project is inevitable and that Nevadans´ concern for safety should be exchanged for “benefits’ is perverse, dangerous and, as I said before, simply not an option. To say it another way, Mr. Mausshardt´s attempt to solve Nevada´s budget problems from Oregon using money from Washington, D.C., in exchange for a lien on our health and safety is presumptuous — even offensive. We don´t want it for any amount of money.
It is because our lawsuits are strong that Yucca proponents have raised the volume on their “benefits’ propaganda. But what Mr. Mausshardt and other nuclear industry proponents really want is for Nevada to drop its lawsuits. Why? Because they have merit. Because it´s the only way they´ll be able to get away with sticking it to Nevada.
Dropping the lawsuits would be unwise for all Americans, not just Nevadans, as the transportation of nuclear waste to any site presents dangers for those along the routes. This raises the issue above the level of a “not-in-my-backyard’ argument. At current rates of production, by DOE´s own math, by the end of 32 years of transporting nuclear waste, the Yucca site will be full, and there will be at least as much nuclear waste stored at the present distributed sites as would be then stored at Yucca.
We are not going to tolerate agencies and project bureaucrats who demonstrate clearly their contempt for the law by rule-breaking and discriminatory treatment of Nevada through the application of standards unique to our state alone. Bringing lawsuits against lawbreakers is upholding the law, and that´s precisely what we´re doing because it´s our job.
I am committed to seeing our Yucca Mountain litigation through to success. In the interest of our public health and safety, I can promise nothing less.
Brian Sandoval is the Nevada attorney general.
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Contra Costa Times
April 15, 2003
Top law firm eyed for port casino study
Richmond study will not survey the community, address access and transit issues, or weigh the odds of Gov. Davis' approval
By Rebecca Rosen Lum
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
RICHMOND - A high-powered Los Angeles law firm with ties from Sacramento to Washington is the top choice of a City Council committee to do a $100,000 Richmond casino feasibility study, funded by the cash-strapped Port of Richmond.
The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, developer John Troughton and investors Kean Companies have proposed a casino/hotel complex on Port Terminal 3.
Faced with an increasingly grim budget picture and impending layoffs, the council's finance committee in February recommended against a casino study because the money would have come from depleted General Fund reserves.
The proposal to give Latham and Watkins the first-phase contract will come before the council at tonight's meeting.
The Latham and Watkins study will not survey the community about its desires or concerns.
Nor will it address access and transportation issues, or the odds of gaining California Gov. Gray Davis' approval. Davis has repeatedly said he will nix any proposals for urban casinos.
Councilman Nat Bates, an advocate for awarding local bids, said Richmond does not have the local talent to develop a high-caliber report, then negotiate the contract in Phase II if the city opts to proceed with a casino.
There has been no public discussion to date of how much Phase II would cost the city.
The port operates at a deficit, but was able to make the funds available "by shifting some money around," Bates said. "They simply delayed certain projects they otherwise would have done sooner."
Port Director Jim Matzorkis did not return phone calls Monday.
The council's ad hoc casino committee, which includes council members Bates, Richard Griffin, Mindell Penn and Jim Rogers, took a recent trip at their own expense to San Diego and Palm Springs to look at casinos, Bates said.
"I was particularly impressed by the Pechanga casino," outside San Diego, Bates said. "They had an eight-story hotel, just a huge amount of parking, and several very classy restaurants -- also a theater. The Smothers Brothers were coming in about a week after we left. There was a convention center where HBO sponsored a championship boxing match."
Latham and Watkins, a Los Angeles-based powerhouse law firm with offices in 14 countries, is nothing if not politically well-connected. One of its fast-track Washington attorneys is Phillip Perry, who is son-in-law of Vice President Dick Cheney and who has joined the Bush Justice Department. Its attorneys have been named to judicial posts.
The firm specializes in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, technology law and litigation. It counts among its clients Amgen, AOL Time Warner, Lucent and Morgan Stanley.
In addition, Latham and Watkins is a registered California lobbyist.
"In the event that the council wants to move forward with Phase II (negotiating a contract), Latham and Watkins does have offices in Washington, D.C., and a lot of people in their firm that are familiar with casino issues," said assistant city manager Jay Corey.
Twenty-five of its lawyers donated nearly $12,000 combined to Davis in 1999, just weeks before Caltrans settled their lawsuit against the state with concessions to Latham and Watkins' clients, the owners of private express lanes in Orange and Riverside counties.
The firm was one of the top 25 contributors to Los Angeles political campaigns in 1993 and 1997. A group of its attorneys handed over $18,600 in campaign contributions to Davis in 2001-2002, and $25,000 in 2000-2001.
The firm represented San Diego Gas and Electric in its move to cut across Pechanga Indian tribal lands to install a power line. Its legal team included David Hayes, who served as deputy secretary of the interior during President Clinton's second term.
Bruce Babbitt, Clinton's former interior secretary, was another Latham and Watkins recruit who has represented two of California's largest coastal developers. He successfully championed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump on Shoshone lands in Nevada.
The firm pulled down $770 million in gross revenues in 2001, $118 million from its two Washington, D.C. area offices. According to American Lawyer, the Los Angeles office maintains a stranglehold on high-end corporate contracts in New York and Europe.
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Oak Ridger
April 15, 2003
Rules vary on transport of radioactive waste through Tennessee
Rules: All carriers, however, must follow packaging rules outlined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
by Russ Oates
The Associated Press
NASHVILLE ‹ The truck carrying uranium hexafluoride that overturned in Roane County was just one of hundreds of shipments of radioactive waste traveling on Tennessee roads each year.
Most of those shipments are classified as low-level waste, as were the five containers that overturned Thursday on Interstate 40 near Harriman. No one was injured in the accident and none of the radioactive material was released, said federal and state emergency officials.
Low-level waste, which includes material from hospitals and nuclear plants, is not escorted or tracked by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, officials said.
"There's no way to know where all the radiological material is being transported," said Elgan Usrey, who oversees radiological waste transportation for TEMA.
All carriers, however, must follow packaging rules outlined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Those whose containers pass a series of tests receive a certificate from NRC.
"This material, from a radiological standpoint, is not particularly dangerous," said NRC spokesman Ken Clark. "That's because it has not been irradiated."
David Bennett, executive vice president of Tri-State Motor Transit Co., which owned the truck that overturned Thursday, said carriers get an "ongoing permit" from the federal government to haul low-level waste.
Trucks, however, must carry the appropriate placards identifying what they are hauling, he said.
When high-level waste is transported, particularly spent nuclear fuel from reactors, TEMA is notified no less than 10 days in advance, Usrey said.
The material receives a state escort, is tracked its entire time and is limited to interstate highways, he said.
TEMA spokesman Kurt Pickering said the number of shipments escorted by the agency is "about 15 or so a year."
Both federal and state officials said radioactive materials have been transported for years in the United States without radiation releases.
Despite those assurances, transportation safety issues have hindered the government's plan to put a permanent radioactive waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert.
"The risks of transportation have to be weighed against the benefits of getting it to its intended destination," Lisa Gue, an energy analyst with the Washington-based consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
Gue knew few details of Thursday's accident, but she said it is interesting that it happened in Tennessee, where Louisiana Energy Services wants to put a uranium enrichment plant.
That plant, proposed for Trousdale County, would use uranium hexafluoride. If the plant is built, it will increase the amount of radioactive material on the state's roads, Gue said.
Will Callaway, executive director of the Tennessee Environmental Council, agreed. Callaway has been a leader of those opposed to the LES plant.
"This accident outside of Knoxville certainly points out why we are concerned," he said.
On the Net:
TEMA: http://www.tnema.org
NRC: http://www.nrc.gov
Public Citizen: http://www.publiccitizen.org
Tennessee Environmental Council: http://www.tectn.org
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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