Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, June 25, 2004

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, June 25, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
June 25, 2004

Pared-down Yucca budget set for OK

Bill would grant DOE $131 million

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

The House of Representatives was expected to pass a bill today that would give the Energy Department $131 million for work on Yucca Mountain next year, a fraction of what the department requested.

The Energy Department, which has fought for more money, has said cuts to its request of $880 million would mean 1,700 workers in Nevada would be laid off and work on the planned nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas would be slowed.

The House Rules Committee on Thursday night passed provisions that would make changing the budget very difficult. Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Jon Porter, R-Nev., lobbied for the restrictions to stop an attempt by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, to make an amendment to give the project $750 million.

A Barton spokeswoman said the congressman did not plan to offer the amendment today.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who is the chairman of the committee that oversees Yucca Mountain, pledged to continue to work for the repository.

"This is a program that this country has taken a position on," he said on the House floor. "We have to solve this problem. This is where the repository is supposed to go. We've spent a ton of money on it, and it's moving forward."

The Energy Department has said at $131 million for the project, it would have to lay off more than 1,700 Nevada employees and contractors working on the project. The department has also said that with that amount it would not meet its planned 2010 opening date. Nevada wants to stop the project any way it can, but the funding battle is not over yet.

"We continue to face an uphill fight against an administration and Republican leaders in Congress who care more about the profits of the nuclear industry than the do about the lingering scientific uncertainties that surround Yucca Mountain or the threat to the safety of millions of Americans that nuclear waste shipments will create," Berkley said. "Those working to see nuclear waste dumped in Nevada are already vowing to use the conference process to restore any shortfall in the president's record $880 million dollar budget request for Yucca Mountain. This is a daily battle as we move forward on spending bills that fund nuclear waste projects."

The budget will be decided later this year.

The Senate has yet to set a budget for Yucca Mountain and will take up work on the bill after the Fourth of July. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the top Democrat on the Senate committee that sets the energy budget, has regularly cut money from the Yucca Mountain budget.

The budget will be finalized by a conference committee made up of House and Senate members, which will determine the final bill.

Yucca Mountain proponents wanted to change the way Congress funds the project and let the Energy Department take money from the Nuclear Waste Fund, which comes from fees on users of nuclear power. But a House committee rebuffed that attempt, leaving the Energy Department with the lower amount.

As the energy bill neared the House floor, Nevada's three representatives then successfully lobbied the rules committee to prevent a last-minute change, which would have allowed a representative to put an amendment on to the bill for more money for Yucca Mountain.

Gibbons and Porter spoke before the Rules Committee last night. Gibbons said the project does not deserve a blank check, according to spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer. He had sent a letter to committee chairman Rep. David Drier, R-Calif., saying if the committee allowed an amendment that would change the budget rules "we would place not only the budget, but the safety of this nation at risk."

Gibbons wrote: "With every week that goes by and with every dollar spent in an attempt to make the Yucca Mountain waste repository feasible, additional flaws that should render the project unsuitable for licensing are exposed."

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., blocked a similar move in the Senate. Ensign sits on the Senate Budget Committee and did not let the change into the Senate budget resolution passed earlier this year.

Reid and Ensign will continue to fight the proposal and overall funding for the Yucca project.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, is trying to get nuclear ratepayers to pay more this year to make up the funding difference, so he would not have to take money away from other programs in the bill.

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Las Vegas SUN
June 25, 2004

Nevada officials lobby against direct funding for Yucca

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Rules placed on the Energy and Water spending bill debate taking place in the House today could make it hard for the Yucca Mountain project to get the money it needs.

Supporters of the proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas had sought to make money from a nuclear waste fund available directly to the project, without making it compete with other projects that Congress funds, but the rules will make that tough.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, had said he hoped to add an amendment to the spending bill that would provide $750 million directly to the Yucca Mountain project.

The Nevada House delegation lobbied the House Rules Committee, which can make it easy or difficult for amendments to get consideration, to make sure there was a level playing field during the debate on the spending bill.

Right now the Energy and Water spending bill contains only $131 million for the project, a severe cut from the department's $880 million request. The Energy Department has said at the lower funding, it would have to lay off more than 1,700 Nevada employees and contractors working on the project.

To make up the difference, Congress would have to take the money from other projects or pass a budget policy change to get money directly from the nuclear waste fund, the pool paid into by nuclear ratepayers for the project, without hurting other projects. The House was to vote on the bill later today.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., worked with their parties' leadership in the committee and in the House as a whole, urging them to reject any consideration of making money available directly to the Yucca project.

During spending bill debate, an amendment to make the change could still be offered but the rule on the bill allows for debate and a vote on it, Berkley spokesman David Cherry said. The rule creates a "disincentive" to bring up the amendment, since those who oppose it would challenge it, Cherry said.

Cherry said this came after a daylong plea with the Rules Committee that the change would not only be bad for Nevada but that there are more important priorities for federal funding and this project does not deserve special treatment.

Cherry said though that the rule just "dodges a bullet" and that things can still change.

Gibbons and Porter spoke before the Rules Committee Thursday night. Gibbons said the project does not deserve a blank check, according to spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer. He had sent a letter to committee chairman Rep. David Drier, R-Calf., saying if the committee allowed an amendment that would change the budget rules "we would place not only the budget, but the safety of this nation at risk."

"With every week that goes by and with every dollar spent in an attempt to make the Yucca Mountain waste repository feasible, additional flaws that should render the project unsuitable for licensing are exposed," Gibbons wrote.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., blocked a similar move in the Senate. Ensign sits on the Senate Budget Committee and did not let the change into the Senate budget resolution passed earlier this year.

Reid, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water spending bill, will also work to stop the change during that bill's debate and in conference with the House version.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 25, 2004

Yucca opponents win funding round

Tough ground rules set in House, limiting chances of project receiving more money

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers battled behind the scenes late Thursday night to shape a bill cutting funding to the Yucca Mountain Project so deeply that it could cripple the planned nuclear waste repository.

Finally, opponents of the repository announced they had prevailed.

As a result, supporters of the repository will have only a limited chance to seek more money for the program when the House debates an energy spending bill today, according to Reps. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

The bill contains only $131 million for the repository, 85 percent less than what the Department of Energy requested for 2005.

"We have won this battle," Porter said of the project's opponents, although the repository funding level will not be cemented until further votes today.

Lobbying on the House floor and in the hallways of the Capitol, both sides struggled for an upper hand through the evening as the House Rules Committee formed ground rules for today's debate, according to officials familiar with the process.

Republican supporters of the repository, which would be built 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, sought a rule making it easier to boost the allocation and establish new accounting rules to free up money for the program.

The White House also exerted pressure on behalf of the project, according to sources involved in the talks.

Porter, Berkley and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., lobbied to block them. Senior Democrats also worked against the repository effort, Berkley said.

"We have managed to limit the money going into the bill," she said.

Officials in Congress and in the Bush administration have predicted dire outcomes if the repository budget is not increased. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham predicted 1,700 layoffs later this year. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the program would be shut down "in three or four months."

Domenici has proposed legislation to increase Yucca Mountain spending through a one-year added fee on nuclear utilities. That plan might be debated next month, with Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., preparing to oppose it.

Except for Nevada lawmakers and a few dozen allies who oppose the Yucca Mountain Project, the House generally is supportive of the planned repository.

But a split developed over how to bail out the project from a shortfall this year, and how to preserve adequate spending in future years. The Energy Department has estimated it will need an average $1.3 billion annually for repository construction.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said the repository problems illustrated Bush administration budget mismanagement.

"Every project is put under the gun when you have massive deficits, and this is part of that story," Markey said.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
June 25, 2004

Panel OKs Yucca funding plan

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee approved legislation Thursday aimed at resolving a budget problem that threatens the proposed nuclear waste facility in Nevada.

The legislation, passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a 29-19 vote, would assure a steady stream of money for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project over the next five years. The measure would keep the project on schedule to open in 2010, assuming it gets a federal license.

Money for the project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas was cut recently to $131 million for next year, a fraction of the $880 million requested by the White House.

The House bill requires that at least $750 million collected into a special nuclear waste fund each year be spent on the Yucca project. This would allow lawmakers to come up with the additional money the Energy Department wants.

Lawmakers traditionally have used the nuclear waste fund to offset other spending and to help narrow the federal deficit. Many of them are reluctant to go along with any legislation that would change that practice.

The House bill also is certain to run into trouble in the Senate where it would need 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles.

U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is testing congressional sentiment on another way to give the project more money. He has proposed a one-time annual surcharge to collect an additional $446 million from electricity users to make up the shortfall for Yucca Mountain next year.

The nuclear industry has criticized Domenici´s plan, saying that electricity consumers already have paid $22 billion into the nuclear waste fund, $15 billion of which has not been spent.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
June 25, 2004

Missing deadline won´t delay opening schedule, officials say

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Missing a self-imposed deadline to certify Yucca Mountain project information for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission might not delay the Energy Department´s schedule for opening the national nuclear waste dump, officials said.

“I see a high quality license application in December,’ Joseph Ziegler of the Energy Department Office of Repository Development said Thursday in Washington, D.C.

The Energy Department had planned to provide millions of documents to the NRC by Wednesday — as required six months before applying for a license to open the nuclear waste dump in 2010.

Officials agreed this week the department faces few consequences if it still submits a license application in December to open the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to take at least three years evaluating the application. Regulations call for planners to certify that everything known about the project is in a database to be turned over to the commission to support the license request.

Ziegler told the NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste that about 50 scientific questions remain to be answered by August, and updates to other reports should be completed by September. He said department technical staff was up to the challenge and said there should be no technical errors.

Charles Fitzpatrick, a McLean, Va., lawyer handling Nevada´s opposition to the Yucca Mountain project, said he expects certification of the database will come in the next few days. That still would allow the license application to be submitted in December. Fitzpatrick said a larger delay could come if the commission finds the documentation insufficient.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
June 25, 2004

View From the Hill

By Ryan McGinness
Special to The Fallon Star Press

WASHINGTON D.C. – President Bush kicked off his western tour on Friday by speaking to a packed room at Fort Lewis, Washington. Prior to the start of his speech, the President acknowledged those elected officials who traveled with him to Washington, including Nevada´s John Ensign. Except that the President didn´t say Nevada. He said Nuh-VAH-duh.

To his credit, or perhaps thanks to Senator Ensign´s mid-air tutelage, the President opened the speech to his Nevada audience with gracious thanks to the people of Nah-VAA-dah.

It made me think about our need to educate the masses in the ways of Nah-VAA-dah.

One of the unique things about living in Washington is that, with few exceptions, everyone here is from someplace else. Consequently, you end up learning a lot about a lot of different places. And, on the flip side, you also get to teach others about where it is you hail from.

Unfortunately, the unholy trinity of drinking, gambling and prostitution is the only thing most folks associate with the Silver State. My friends, however, know that my hometown is the home of the Top Gun fighter school and is well known for its agricultural wares. Admittedly, the phrase “cantaloupe festival’ still draws snickers.

Home state politics is a perennial topic amongst newly minted (and temporary) Washingtonians. And while my friends may not all agree with me (especially the ones from nuclear-powered states), they at least understand why Nevada opposes the Yucca Mountain Project – and how ferociously they hold those opinions.

I´ve explained to them, however, that Nevada isn´t a single-issue state, as is apparent both by our status as a “battleground state’ for the 2004 election and the warm welcome received by Bush on his first visit since the designation of Yucca Mountain.

At a twenty-something gathering in Washington, you really do end up meeting the lifeblood of national politics – and (you may want to sit down for this) it´s us. You most likely didn´t elect any of us, but we´re there nonetheless: in the hallowed halls of Congress, the not-so-hallowed halls of the lobbying firms, or this year – the headquarters of both presidential campaigns.

Between now and November, half of us will be trying to convince Nevadans that Kerry will do great things for our state and country; the other half will be trying to convince Nevadans that Bush has already done great things for our state and country and will do even more.

I am thankful to have friends on both sides of this year´s main event. I enjoy that we can all sit down at the end of the day, have a drink and discuss what we´re working on without the nasty partisan fighting that plays out in the media.

Two weeks ago, Republicans and Democrats alike mourned the loss of President Reagan and lamented a congenial brand of politics they believed was long gone from this town. That´s not the case. That spirit is still very much alive, they just forget to look toward the young people handing them their speeches, researching their arguments, writing their bills and answering their phones.

Through this forum, I hope to be able to convey the politics of my generation and our unique place in this town. The leaders you send to Washington can´t do it alone; that´s where we come in.

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North Adams Transcript
June 25, 2004

Yankee Rowe meeting answers little

By Susan Bush
Special to the Transcript

BUCKLAND -- There were many questions but few answers last night as members of citizen groups grilled officials of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Yankee Atomic Electric Co. during a public hearing about a proposed Yankee Rowe nuclear power facility license termination.
About 60 people were present during the hearing held at the Mohawk Trail Regional High School. When asked before the hearing began just how much spent fuel is currently stored at the Yankee Rowe site, NRC Yankee Rowe project manager John Hickman said that he did not have specific information at hand.

"Relatively speaking, not much," he said, and added that the number of dry-storage casks containing radioactive material on site at Yankee Rowe is about one-quarter of that at the Maine Yankee site.

There are about 16 dry-storage casks containing radioactive material at the site, said Kelley Smith, a public information spokeswoman for Yankee. Smith was contacted before the hearing began.

The license termination plan is a 263-page, eight-section document; last night's plan overview presentation consisted of a brief slide show that offered little precise information. The full termination document is written in technical language; an acronym identification chart alone contains 58 terms and covers one full page and part of a second page.

The Yankee Rowe plant was shut down in February 1992, and a decommissioning process was launched in 1993. The decommissioning is entering its final phase, which includes dismantling on-site buildings, site restoration, and acquiring NRC approval of the license termination plan. According to information posted on the Yankee Rowe Web site, the area is expected to be ready for re-use in 2006.

The meeting was moderated by North Adams City Councilor Gailanne Cariddi, who is also a member of the Yankee Citizens Advisory Board. Cariddi said yesterday that Yankee Rowe officials are expected to attend a city council meeting later this summer to discuss an environmental study of the Yankee site.

Hickman, NRC Inspection Program lead inspector John Wray, Eric DeRoyce, a certified health physicist working for Yankee Atomic Electric Co., Greg Babineau, also of Yankee, and NRC official Claudia Craig shared one microphone as they attempted to answer questions and respond to comments during the hearing. Audience members repeatedly called out that they could not hear the officials responses to questions and comments.

William Perlman, a member of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments and the citizens advisory board, questioned the panel about the discovery of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen believed to be a cancer-causing agent, at the Sherman Dam. Perlman said he wants more information about possible tritium groundwater contamination and asked that any problem be defined. Tritium is a radioactive isotope.

Citizens Awareness Network member Deb Katz questioned the panel about tritium levels at the site. Katz noted that a spent fuel cooling pool hasn't been removed from the site and that tritium could be lurking in the pools. Katz noted the absence of state officials, such as those with the Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Public Health, and called for a meeting with representatives of all involved agencies in attendance.

No information about the on-site dry-cask storage of spent nuclear fuel rods was included in the NRC/Yankee presentation, but that situation was questioned repeatedly by members of the network and the New England Coalition. Both nonprofit grassroots groups are considered watchdog activist organizations that oppose nuclear energy and seek strict accountability standards for clean-up of nuclear pollution.

In response to questions about the safety of the dry-casks and a call to keep spent fuel rod cooling pools in place on the site as a back-up spent rod storage option, NRC and Yankee officials stated that the current plan is to remove the pools, known as "wet storage," from the site.

According to Hickman, the facility's license cannot terminate and Yankee cannot abdicate responsibility for the site until the spent fuel rods are removed. Speaking prior to the hearing, Hickman said that the about 2,200-acre property could be spilt, with the 10-acre industrial site that houses the rods separated from the remaining property. In that event, Yankee would remain licensed for the industrial site until the spent fuel is removed, Hickman said.

During the hearing, Hickman said that the public hearing focus was the license termination plan, not the storage and removal of the fuel rods.

Speaking yesterday from a Washington, D.C. office, NRC public information spokesman Scott Burnell said that the rods will not leave the Yankee Rowe site until a nuclear waste repository planned at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is built and approved.

The federal Department of Energy contracted with Yankee Rowe officials to remove the spent fuel and transport was scheduled to begin in 1998.

However, the DOE did not start moving the rods and a lawsuit focusing on the failure to remove the rods as agreed was subsequently initiated by Yankee officials. Meanwhile, said Burnell, the DOE is still assembling its license approval application for Yucca Mountain and expects to submit the application by the end of the year.

The NRC must review the application, which could take several years, Burnell said. The best case scenario would have the repository open and accepting nuclear waste by 2010, but Burnell said that in reality, approving Yucca and moving the radioactive material could take decades.

The dry-storage casks endured extreme condition testing and are safe, Burnell said.

"Even if there were to be an armed attacker who used an explosive, it would be difficult to crack a cask," Burnell said.

Burnell said that if all the Yankee Rowe casks were cracked, the release of radiation would be very low-level. Burnell said that the rods have been "out of use" for 13 years or longer, spent five years in a cooling pool before being placed in dry storage, and a release would not require a mass evacuation or pose a wide-scale threat to human health. Burnell did say that "some evacuation" and "some clean-up and remediation" might be necessary if a cask were to leak or be cracked open.

Speaking last night before the hearing commenced, Peter Alexander of the coalition disagreed. According to Alexander, videotapes exist that demonstrate how a weapon can break a cask, and when told that state-governed evacuation plans were terminated when Yankee Rowe began decommissioning, Alexander said the move was a "mistake."

"You don't have a core meltdown, and it would take a significant event, but if it [a cask] opened, there'd be big problems," he said, although he added that he did not have enough information to articulate what those problems might be.

Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency spokesman Peter Judge said yesterday that security measures to protect Yankee Rowe against terrorist attack and other situations are in place.

Judge said that security drills involving the National Guard, state police, and other forces occur annually. Judge, Cariddi and North Adams Commissioner of Public Safety E. John Morocco all said that they believe there is no longer a need for mass-scale evacuation plans involving Yankee Rowe.

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Guardian
June 24, 2004

House Panel Approves Yucca Mountain Bill

By H. JOSEF HEBERT

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A House committee approved legislation Thursday aimed at resolving a budget problem that threatens the proposed nuclear waste facility in Nevada.

The bill still faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

Money for the project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas was cut recently to $131 million for next year, a fraction of the $880 million requested by the Bush administration.

Lawmakers traditionally have used the nuclear waste fund to offset other spending and to help narrow the federal deficit. Many of them are reluctant to go along any legislation that would change that practice.

The House bill also is certain to run into trouble in the Senate where it would need 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is testing congressional sentiment on another way to give the project more money. He has proposed a one-time annual surcharge to collect an additional $446 million from electricity users to make up the shortfall for Yucca Mountain next year.

The nuclear industry has criticized Domenici's plan, saying that electricity consumers already have paid $22 billion into the nuclear waste fund, $15 billion of which has not been spent.

The department hopes to submit a permit application for the Yucca project with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December and open the facility by 2010.

The underground facility would have room for 77,000 tons of defense waste and used reactor fuel now at commercial power plants and government sites in 39 states.

(Corrects spelling of Domenici in 9th graf, The nuclear, and corrects number of states to 39, adding government sites, in last graf)

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Las Vegas SUN
June 24, 2004

Missed deadline for documents may not delay Yucca schedule

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's failure to meet a document deadline for the Yucca Mountain project Wednesday may not delay the project's schedule by much.

The department did not finish sending millions of documents to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last night as intended, but a close reading of commission rules shows that the department faces few consequences if it still submits a license application in December.

The department needs to submit its license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by December to stay on track to open the repository in 2010.

Under commission regulations, the department must "certify" all of the technical documents it will use to support the application six months before the submission of the application. Simply put, the department has to tell the commission that everything it knows is in the database.

The department aims to get the license application to the commission by a self-imposed deadline of Dec. 23. This made Wednesday the six-month mark to get the documents into the database, but it did not complete it.

"I see a high quality license application in December," Joseph Ziegler, of the department's Office of Repository Development told the commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste today.

Ziegler said about 50 key technical issue agreements, or scientific questions, remain that will be answered by August and updates to other reports that should be completed by September -- all while completing chapters of the license application.

"I won't tell you that is not a challenge but this is where we wanted to be two years ago," Ziegler said. "I don't want to downplay the challenge, but they (department technical staff) are up for it."

"We certainly don't expect wrong answers across the board," Ziegler said. "There should be no technical errors."

Charles Fitzpatrick of Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch and Cynkar, the Virginia law firm hired by Nevada to handle Yucca Mountain legal issues, said it looks like the department created a "cushion" for itself by not picking a deadline at the end of the month.

He expects the certification will come in the next few days and that will allow the license application to be submitted in December, so the missed deadline Wednesday will not have much of an impact on the project. It would mean a bigger delay if the commission found the amount of documentation was not sufficient and told the department it needed more.

Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, agreed that nothing in the rules prevents the department from still submitting a license application in December, even though it missed Wednesday's deadline.

Fitzpatrick said the regulations say the department "shall" submit documents six months prior to the license application. "Shall" isn't the same as "must" in legal terms, but the only consequence if is that the commission will not put the application on its docket until at least six months after the certification.

Bechtel SAIC, the project's main contractor, will get $15 million it if finishes the application for the department by Nov. 30, and $22 million if the commission puts the application on its docket by March, so that provides an incentive for the company to get the application in on time, Fitzpatrick said.

Once the department certifies its documents, the commission has 30 days to turn in its own documentation while the state and other parties allowed to participate in the process have 90 days to get their documentation online.

Nevada will object to several aspects of the license application and needs to include everything upon which it will base its arguments.

Loux said the state will still have 90 days to gets its documentation together, but the longer the Energy Department waits, the less time the state will have to review the documents before the application goes to the commission, if the department still submits in December. If the department had gotten all its documentation in by Wednesday, Nevada would have had nine months to study documents until the commission would make a docketing decision in March, but now that amount decreases every day the department waits.

Once docketed, a three-year review clock starts for the commission to decide whether the storage site could be built. The department can ask Congress for an additional year if needed.

Yucca Mountain Project spokesman Allen Benson on Wednesday would not specify why the department did not meet that day's deadline and would not say when the department plans to submit the documents.

"We're working hard to get it done," Benson said. "The whole issue is to do it right. We are hoping it will be shortly and I can't say more than that."

Benson said the department is reviewing documents and making sure everything it submits is correct. The law specifies what needs to be sent.

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Las Vegas SUN
June 24, 2004

Bill advances to change way Yucca funds can be obtained

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bill today that would allow Congress to get $750 million for the Yucca Mountain project directly from a pool of money funded by a surcharge on nuclear power for the next five years.

The bill changes the usual federal budget rules that would keep the project under a limit put on the Energy and Water Development spending bill. Through the bill the project would be considered separately.

Critics of the project say the bill limits congressional oversight and makes it too easy to funnel money into a dangerous project.

"This is an inappropriate way to fund federal projects, especially a project that is clearly mismanaged, facing pending legal challenges, and ignoring unresolved safety issues," according to a letter signed by seven groups, including Judy Treichel of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force. "The problems with the Yucca Mountain Project are deeper than funding and cannot be solved by throwing more ratepayer money at the DOE (the Energy Department)."

But the nuclear industry wants Congress to be able to tap into $15 billion in the pool earmarked for the project. Nuclear ratepayers pay a fee into the fund but the money goes unused when Congress cuts the budget.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 24, 2004

Yucca deadline missed

Tardiness by DOE could delay project

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy missed a self-imposed deadline Wednesday that could cause delays for the Yucca Mountain Project.

The department had set June 23 as its target to finish certifying 1 million or more documents for posting to a special government Web site, an early milestone toward licensing the Nevada nuclear waste repository.

But Allen Benson, an Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management spokesman, said Wednesday that DOE was not ready to declare legally that its task was complete.

Benson said the hold-up would be "days at this point, but I don't want to speculate. It's got to be done right, and so we're working on it." He declined to give details explaining the delay.

Federal rules require DOE to certify its contributions to the "licensing support network" six months before it files an application to build a repository. Therefore, delays past June 23 probably will mean delays beyond the Dec. 23 target that DOE officials have set to file a Yucca Mountain license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, officials said.

Dan Graser, the NRC administrator of the licensing database, said DOE officials told him they would be ready to certify their contributions on Friday or Monday.

"We can turn on the DOE collection when it is time to do it," Graser said.

A short delay in license filing would have little practical effect in December, except to complicate Christmas vacations for workers who will be putting finishing touches on the paperwork, according to Nevada officials who scrutinize the Yucca program.

But DOE's failure to meet its goal for the Internet network suggests that managers are struggling to get the job done, said Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"They clearly are having problems with the NRC regulations," Loux said. "We knew this was coming."

Benson said he could not confirm that a December license application would be delayed, but Loux said the rules are clear. "There's no question that every day they delay means a day beyond Dec. 23 that they can't file," Loux said.

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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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