Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, September 5, 2003
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Las Vegas SUN
September 05, 2003

Reid plans to hold up NRC selection

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will place a hold on President Bush's pick for a seat on the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the White House rejected his science adviser for another spot on the panel.

Bush officially nominated Navy Vice Adm. John Grossenbacher for the Republican spot on the NRC on Thursday, although he announced the intention to nominate him in July. Grossenbacher currently serves as commander of the U.S. sbmarine frces in the Atlantic, but is set to retire this year.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., sent a letter to the White House earlier this year recommending Gregory Jaczko, Reid's principal nuclear adviser, for another open seat generally reserved for a Democrat. Jaczko has worked extensively with Reid on efforts to defeat the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. DOE aims to store 77,000 ton of spent nuclear fuel there despite tremendous state opposition.

But Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said in April the White House sent a letter back rejecting his nomination, calling for another Democrat.

Reid said this morning that he placed the hold "because the White House has a decision to make."

"They can choose him, a well-qualified individual or they can pick their buddies with the utilities," Reid said.

Reid, who sits on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the NRC, said there is no plan to recommend any other Democrat than Jaczko.

"He's the best we can find," Reid said. "He's young, he's dynamic."

Reid said there is nothing specific about Grossenbacher he opposes and that he "looks good on paper."

Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the industry's objection to Jaczko's nomination is not personal but he is perceived as having a conflict of interest because of his work for Reid on Yucca Mountain.

"The most important thing is that no one has bias one way or another," Singer said.

The commission will be the regulatory body that will determine if the Yucca site will more forward. The department plans to submit its NRC license application for the site, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in December 2004. The commission then has three years to approve the site before construction could begin.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 04, 2003

Critic accuses DOE of using 'junk science'

Toxicity levels of radioactive waste at issue

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is using "junk science" in its bid to reclassify thousands of gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste and avoid the expense of reprocessing the material for disposal, an environmental leader said Wednesday.

The DOE has misrepresented the toxicity of liquids and sludge that would be left over after giant storage tanks are drained at nuclear reservations in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina, said Thomas Cochran, nuclear program leader at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Cochran said DOE is trying to portray high-level waste as low-level waste, an issue that is being contested in federal courts and might be debated on Capitol Hill this fall.

"The technical record is fairly clear," Cochran said in a presentation to an independent science panel. DOE "is not only engaging in junk science, they are misleading the courts, and now they're in the process of misleading Congress."

At issue are thousands of gallons of residue that would remain after the Energy Department finishes removing 85 million gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste stored in giant tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, the Savannah River site in South Carolina and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory near Idaho Falls.

The liquid waste is to be reprocessed into glass logs and buried at the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, in Boise, Idaho, ruled in July that the Energy Department did not have the authority to reclassify the remaining dregs as "low activity" material that could be encased in mortar and cement and remain stored at the sites.

The Energy Department appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham also has asked House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to pass legislation to reverse Winmill's ruling. Lobbyists and Capitol Hill officials said Wednesday it was too early to tell how lawmakers might respond.

In an Aug. 1 letter to Hastert, Abraham said the federal court's ruling could lead to "decades of delay in removing the waste from the tanks" and reprocessing "orders of magnitude more expensive than the $39 billion costs now projected."

Abraham also said the ruling could lead DOE to need disposal for far more material than previously assumed in the Yucca Mountain repository. As it stands, DOE officials have said, preliminary estimates indicate the repository as planned won't be able to accommodate all the logs from reprocessed liquid waste.

Officials from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought the lawsuit in Idaho last year along with local environmentalists and Indian tribes, discussed the matter in a presentation to a National Academy of Sciences board that monitors radioactive waste issues.

Cochran, accompanied by council attorney Geoffrey Fettus, urged the board members to "call DOE to task for using junk science methodology to support its policies."

Board chairman John Ahearne said the Energy Department was invited to give a presentation on the matter, but DOE officials canceled late Tuesday. A DOE spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Cochran said DOE wants to average the concentration of radioactivity of the residual waste in the tanks with the zero radioactivity of grout that would be poured on top of it.

"It is with the intent of misleading policymakers to average the material with the grout for purposes of claiing it is low activity material," Cochran said.

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Newsday
September 04, 2003

Blackout Brings Abraham Out of Shadows

By Dee-Ann Durbin
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -- In the hours after the Aug. 14 blackout, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was working the phones from a London hotel room while back in the United States his predecessor was stealing the headlines.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, an energy secretary during the Clinton administration, was telling reporters the blackout could be blamed on the country's "Third World electricity grid."

Richardson got plenty of exposure on U.S. news programs over several days, while Abraham huddled with governors in Albany, N.Y.

Abraham's behind-the-scenes approach is typical for the 51-year-old former Michigan senator, who ran ads calling himself "a workhorse, not a showhorse" in his unsuccessful 2000 re-election campaign.

But as he faces what might be the defining moment of his tenure as energy secretary, some say Abraham must step out of the shadows and prove he's serious about preventing another blackout.

"This country is watching you -- and us -- and they expect us to act," Rep. Jim Davis, D-Fla., told Abraham at a hearing on the blackout Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

As a start, Abraham is heading up a U.S.-Canadian task force to uncover the blackout's cause. He'll be working with his Canadian counterpart, Herb Dhaliwal, as well as members of Congress, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electricity Reliability Commission, a private group set up to establish grid standards.

Abraham refused to speculate about the cause of the blackout Wednesday, saying the task force is still collecting information. He is also investigating related issues, such as why gasoline prices spiked after the blackout.

Scott Segal, an attorney who represents electric utilities and refineries, said he was impressed by Abraham's decision after the blackout to open a power line under Long Island Sound. The 24-mile cable had been permitted to operate only with the consent of the energy secretary during emergencies because of environmental concerns.

"Events like the recent blackout have shown a Spencer Abraham that really rises to the occasion and takes significant political heat," Segal said.

Abraham made his name as a hardworking policy wonk during his one term in the Senate when he ignored the social circuit and went home each night with a stack of homework. It may have cost him the job; in 2000, Abraham was defeated by Debbie Stabenow, a bubbly Democrat who cast Abraham as inaccessible.

Many in the energy industry had their doubts about Abraham. For one thing, Abraham twice sponsored legislation to abolish the Energy Department, saying it was an unwieldy mess with authority over too many issues. He has since disavowed that legislation.

Others believed Abraham, with his Detroit roots, would have been a better choice to lead the Transportation Department. But Abraham, a Harvard-educated lawyer, won over many doubters.

"He's bright and he's articulate ... and he very quickly understood what we were talking about," said Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

Scott Sklar, who heads a marketing firm that works with renewable energy interests, said Abraham was at first overshadowed by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney -- not Abraham -- chaired the National Energy Policy Development Group, which produced a report calling for more oil and gas drilling in May 2001.

But after Sept. 11, 2001, Bush and Cheney's focus turned to terrorism, and Abraham found his footing, Sklar said.

Abraham says he did work closely with Bush and Cheney, because "I happen to run a department where they have a great deal of expertise and knowledge." But he said Bush has given him plenty of flexibility, particularly after he successfully led the 2002 effort to open up Nevada's Yucca Mountain to nuclear waste.

Still, Sklar said, Abraham is a team player who doesn't stray far from the White House and interacts less with Congress than the gregarious Richardson did.

Environmentalists grumble Abraham is so entrenched that he hasn't included them in policy discussions.

"His tenure in terms of renewables is at best a mixed bag," said Ken Bossong of the Renewable Energy Policy Project, who said he requested meetings with Abraham about natural gas for six weeks but got no response. "We've had weak budget requests from the administration and limited political capital being expended."

Abraham points out the administration's support for research into hydrogen vehicles and clean energy technology.

Abraham says his efforts are often overshadowed because the issues he deals with are complicated. He hopes the blackout will focus more attention on his department, which spends only about 13 percent of its $23 billion budget on electricity issues. The vast majority goes to nuclear defense, scientific laboratories, oil and natural gas research and environmental cleanup.

In the end, Abraham hopes to be remembered not for the blackout, but for his nuclear nonproliferation negotiations with Russia or his acceleration of cleanup projects at Energy Department sites. Abraham said those sites will be cleaner 50 years sooner than they would have under an old department plan.

On the Net:

Department of Energy, http://www.doe.gov

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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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