Yucca Mountain News Clips - Sunday, June 27, 2004

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Sunday, June 27, 2004
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North County Times
June 25, 2004

House blocks Democrats from seeking larger refunds for power price gouging

By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House rebuffed a Democratic effort Friday to force regulators to order bigger refunds for electricity consumers in Western states who were victims of price gouging during the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001.

The move came shortly before the House approved a $28 billion measure financing energy and water programs for next year by a 370-16 vote. The overall bill provides far less than President Bush proposed for building a nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada, none of what he wants to develop new nuclear weapons, and more than he sought for local water projects popular with lawmakers.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., offered her election-year proposal to bolster federal energy regulators after recently released transcripts showed Enron Corp. traders crowing about manipulating power prices in California and elsewhere.

"This is an issue about greed, greed gone insatiably wild," she said, telling Republicans, "You have not used your power to bring restitution" to consumers.

But in a procedural move, the GOP-led House voted 209-182 against allowing a vote on her amendment. Republicans said her proposal was a political one that would do nothing to resolve problems like shortages in power supplies that have built up for years.

"You can't come down here and beat your chest in 2004 because it's a presidential election year and try to rewrite history" by blaming Republicans, said Rep. Doug Ose, R-Calif.

Eshoo's proposal would have required the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to order consumer refunds for the high power prices charged during the 2000 and 2001 energy crisis. It would have also forced the commission to open new investigations to pursue refunds and order reimbursements for any future manipulation.

By voice vote, the House approved one portion of Eshoo's plan -- requiring the commission to release documents relating to the 2000 and 2001 power crisis.

The overall bill provides $131 million for continued preparations for a nuclear waste storage site to be built at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Bush proposed $880 million for the project, which the government hopes to complete by 2010. But the bill ignores Bush's request to finance $749 million of the sum by taking it from a special nuclear waste fund, which comes from fees electric utilities charge their customers.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation on Thursday requiring that at least $750 million be taken annually from that fund for work on the Yucca facility. That bill's prospects are uncertain, especially in the Senate, where Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the chamber's No. 2 Democratic leader, opposes the Yucca plan.

The House-passed bill has $4.8 billion -- $700 million more than Bush -- for the Army Corps of Engineers and its dam, port, flood control and other water projects. While the bill finances no new studies or construction projects, it has money for hundreds of others from coast to coast -- and a noteworthy rebuke of the Bush administration by the GOP-controlled committee.

A report accompanying the bill says there is "an unwritten commitment on the part of Congress and the executive branch to meet the water resources needs of its citizens." Bush's request for water projects "demonstrates a surprising willingness ... to break such commitments," it says.

The bill has about the $9 billion Bush requested for the nation's nuclear weapons program.

But it lacks the $97 million he sought for several nuclear weapons initiatives. These include developing a "bunker buster" nuclear warhead that could penetrate underground targets, a low-yield small nuclear warhead, and a new plant for making plutonium triggers for the warheads -- and for accelerating nuclear bomb testing.

The measure also has less than Bush wanted for fuel cell technology, storage of high level nuclear waste, and efforts to help Russia secure its plutonium.

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Pahrump Valley Times
June 25, 2004

NYE COUNTY HISTORY

History of nuclear waste and Nye County: Part III

By BOB MCCRACKEN

(Editor's note: The following is the third and final chapter in a three-part series on the history of the Yucca Mountain Project.)

As a member of the Senate Energy Committee, Sen. Chic Hecht spent years studying nuclear energy and the nuclear waste disposal situation. He consulted with many of the world's leading scientists on atomic energy. He became good friends with Dr. Edward Teller, one of the great physicists of his or any generation. Moreover, Sen. Hecht, as one of President Ronald Reagan's strongest supporters in the Senate, also enjoyed a close relationship with the highest officials in the Reagan administration. He met often with Energy Secretary John Harrington. As a result, it can be said that Sen. Hecht was in the loop composed of those who knew the most about nuclear issues and those who were in a position to make things happen.

From what I have learned from Sen. Hecht and others, Nevada and especially Nye County have paid a heavy price for the state's hardheaded opposition to Yucca Mountain. For example, many observers in Washington believe that Nevada has long mortgaged much of what little political power it has because of its stand on Yucca Mountain. If this is not the case, then where in Nevada are the big-ticket federally funded programs and projects? They aren't to be found. They don't exist. Where are the jobs and infrastructure in Nye County based on federal money? As the old prospector said when the gold flakes he thought he had seen in his pan disappeared, "They went a-glimmering." To keep things in perspective, remember - the federal government wants to spend a billion dollars per year on a program in Nye County for decades into the future. And that is just for openers! The first job of any politician in Washington is to bring home the "bacon." Nevada gets very little "pork barrel" money. The state gets back only 73 cents for every dollar its citizens pay in federal taxes. On that measure, Nevada is one of the worst performers among the states.

In the late 1980s, a powerful representative from the nuclear industry asked an important and highly respected Nye County official what Nevada might take to accept the repository. The official said, "How about the supercollider [a $5-7 billion atom smasher that would have turned Nevada into a world science center]? "OK," was the response. "What else do you want?" "How about the superspeed train from Las Vegas to Los Angeles?" "OK, what else do you want?" "I'll have to get back to you," was the official's astonished reply. But given the anti-Yucca Mountain political climate that was being deliberately cultivated in Nevada, the offer was dead on arrival.

In my interview with Sen. Hecht, he spoke of an offer made to Nevada in about 1987 in exchange for the state's acceptance of the repository. When asked if he thought the offer was bona fide and deliverable, he replied he believed it would have been "forthcoming; very forthcoming." Secretary of Energy Harrington proposed to Hecht that if Nevada would accept the repository, Nevada would be given billions of dollars (remember, those are 1980s dollars) for "a large university in conjunction with UNLV." The institution would be so well funded, and its mission so important and prestigious, the secretary said, that in a short time it would employ more Nobel Prize winners than any university on Earth. Part of the focus of the institution - but not the only one - would be the study of nuclear power (including hydrogen fusion) and nuclear medicine. The Nevada Test Site, the senator was told, could become a huge laboratory for research on two problems that have plagued human beings since time immemorial: availability of energy and disease. Dr. Teller endorsed the idea. Imagine what this could have meant for the future of Nye County! A world-class research institute based at least in part in southern Nye County, a city of science on the desert.

After receiving the offer from Secretary Harrington, Sen. Hecht made an appointment to meet with the president of UNLV. At that meeting, the senator was told that "if any professor at the university [were] ... to endorse the ... [idea], they would not have a job the next day." Sen. Hecht reluctantly dropped the idea. The opportunity evaporated.

In the mid-1980s, according to Hecht, Sen. Bennett Johnson of Louisiana introduced legislation in the Energy Committee that would have given Nevada $100 million to $200 million per year for accepting the repository. The proposal was voted down in committee, Hecht said, because Nevada politicians showed no interest in the money. In 1987, Johnson proposed a grand compromise on Yucca Mountain to former Nevada Gov. Grant Sawyer and Bob Loux. In making his offer, Sen. Johnson said, "Maybe the people of that [Nye] County should never have to pay property taxes again; maybe they ought to have great schools provided by the federal government." Another offer gone a-glimmering.

We now have the benefit of a 20-year perspective on the Yucca Mountain issue. The world is a very different place from what it was when President Reagan signed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1983 - it is more interconnected and in many ways more fragile. Our future is more uncertain. The tens of thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste stored at 139 sites around the country are vulnerable to terrorism. We realize that our civilization's voracious consumption of fossil fuels is altering the planet's climate, placing an alarmingly large percentage of the world's species at risk, possibly including large numbers of human beings. World oil production seems likely to soon peak, and then begin to decline just as the energy needs of China and India begin increasing exponentially. Added to that is the potential unreliability of existing oil supplies. Wind and solar power will not prevent the coming energy shortage. Like it or not, the world's nations will need nuclear power, and lots of it, to stave off an inevitable energy crisis that may well be calamitous for civilization. That crisis may occur in 10 years or it could be 50 years, but it is coming.

One thing needs to be made clear in the debate on storage of high-level nuclear waste, whether at Yucca Mountain or somewhere else: Unreprocessed nuclear waste, the kind currently proposed for deposit at Yucca Mountain, is unlikely to remain buried in the ground for long. As Dr. Teller told Sen. Hecht on a number of occasions, "If Nevada ever does take the nuclear waste, make sure they take title to it. It will be enormously valuable in 50 to 75 years." The best and most rational way to deal with high-level nuclear waste is to reprocess and recycle it, and then bury the residue. This residue will remain dangerous for a much shorter period than unreprocessed waste, 300 to 1,000 years for reprocessed waste vs. 10,000-plus years for unreprocessed waste. After a few hundred years, reprocessed waste will be no more radioactive than naturally occurring uranium ore. It can then be safely stored in existing container technology. Moreover, future technology may find important uses for the residues left over from reprocessing.

It would seem that history shows Nevada has taken the wrong path on Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste storage. Nevadans have paid a substantial price for this unproductive approach, and Nye County has paid the heaviest price of all. What an enormous lost opportunity! But instead of paralysis on the issue, perhaps Nevada is yet destined to play a vital role in helping to solve some of the world's most important problems. Imagine a Yucca Mountain where nuclear waste is reprocessed and then re-burned in big reactors on the Nevada Test Site. The resulting pollution-free power goes into distribution throughout the West, making life better for all of us. And out in the Amargosa Valley sits a city of the future, a Science City, devoted to science research and the best that humanity has to offer. Perhaps it is not too late for Secretary Harrington's concept, proposed to Sen. Hecht nearly 20 years ago, to become a reality.

McCracken is the author of "A History of Pahrump, Nevada" and 11 other books about Nye County published by the Nye County Press.

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Pahrump Valley Times
June 25, 2004

NETH NOT SATISFIED

Nye gets $1.5 million in PILT

By DOUG McMURDO
PVT

Nye County this week received more than $1.5 million in Payments in Lieu of Taxes paid by the federal government as part of a record level of funding for Nevada counties.

PILT funding helps offset local government losses in property taxes due to nontaxable federal lands within specific county boundaries. Roughly 98 percent of Nye County's 18,400-square-mile land mass is under the control of one federal agency or another; more than 8.5 million acres of Nye land is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Forest Service, or the National Park Service. The bulk of that land, more than six million acres, is managed by the BLM. Nearly two million additional acres is managed by the Forest Service, and more than 100,000 acres are under the control of the Park Service.

Congress appropriates PILT payments each year using a formula based on population, receipt sharing payments, and the amount of federal land within an impacted county. While Nye County claims the most land under federal control in Nevada, by a wide margin, Clark, Washoe and Elko counties each received more funding.

Asked if the funding could be used to offset the county's $3.8 million budget deficit, Nye County Board of Commissioners Chairman Henry Neth said the money would be placed in the general fund, and that it had already been included in budget projections.

Neth said he has been in contact with Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who last year urged Congress to fully fund PILT. "There has to be a way to reconfigure the formula," said Neth. "There has to be a trade-off. We have the Nellis (Air Force Base) bombing and gunnery range, the Nevada Test Site, the Yucca Mountain Project, low-level waste storage ... and that's just for starters."

Nearly 57 million acres of Nevada land is managed by the federal government, including roughly 48 million by the BLM, six million by the Forest Service, 2.3 million by Fish and Wildlife, 775,000 by the National Park Service, and 88,000 by the Bureau of Reclamation.

Clark County, with 4.8 million acres under federal control, received roughly $1.9 million; Washoe County, with 3 million acres of land in federal hands, received approximately $1.9 million; Elko County, with 7.9 million acres under federal control, received around $1.8 million followed by Nye County's $1.5 million for 8.5 million acres.

Other Nevada counties and the amount received in PILT:

• Carson $65,236

• Churchill $1.183,436

• Douglas $379,254

• Esmeralda $82,671

• Eureka $148,228

• Humboldt $841,654

• Lander $467,597

• Lincoln $396,803

• Lyon $1,203,255

• Mineral $437,168

• Pershing $577,210

• Storey $20,246

• White Pine $642,701

Total (including Nye, Clark, Washoe and Elko counties): $13,495,376.

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Pahrump Valley Times
June 25, 2004

COMMISSION NOTES

Health, safety issues addressed

By PHILLIP GOMEZ
PVT

Commissioners meeting last week passed a number of miscellaneous agenda items affecting Nye County residents' health, safety and welfare.

A proposal by the town of Pahrump to prohibit heavy truck traffic on Malibou Street between Gamebird and Dandelion was approved. The action came upon the complaints of Malibou Street residents regarding the routine use of the street by trucks, their raising of dust and noise and the posing of threats to the health, safety and the public welfare of the community.

According to Samson Yao, the director of public works for the county, the byway has been the subject of numerous complaints in the past two years due to heavy truck traffic. Trucks hauling construction materials appear to use Malibou as a bypass from Dandelion to Gamebird, or vice versa, for some as a shortcut on which they can speed while avoiding the Nevada Highway Patrol.

The prohibition of trucks sets a precedent for Pahrump in that previously no designated truck routes or load restrictions on any county maintained road existed.

Yao and his staff say the designation of truck routes and restrictions will reduce unnecessary wear and maintenance costs on the streets.

In other items:

• Commissioners approved the fixing of Beatty's library roof, which leaks. Repair was made on the roof some time ago by the lowest bidder to contract for the job. He fixed the roof and then went bankrupt.

Commissioner Joni Eastley requested the board make the needed repairs before the roof caved in during the next soaking rain.

"This is one of the bad things that happens when government accepts the lowest bid," she said. Her motion passed unanimously.

• For the commissioners' July 6 meeting a discussion of the former Tonopah Army Airfield, a federal property owned by Nye County, has been scheduled. The Army Corps of Engineers wants to be relieved of responsibility for the "Formerly Used Defense Site" that once contained hazardous waste storage tanks. The bureau is scheduled to present a final draft of its cleanup efforts. The commissioners are to review the disposition of the site and henceforth accept liability.

• The board rejected the opportunity to acquire the Jackass Aeropark in Amargosa Valley. The leaseholder vacated the property last week where five planes were formerly hangared. The cost of the lease would have been $64,000 per year, plus the cost of improvements, maintenance and operations.

Even downsizing the airport to a more manageable size would have cost $4,500-to $9,000 a year, according to county staff estimations. Problems associated with the runway's length and doubt as to FAA approval for so few planes at the site, as well as the underutilization of Nye County's three other airfields, all contributed to the decision.

The costs of the necessary upgrades were estimated at $100,000, with the present hangars being removed and rebuilt, plus the costs of development of a master plan and an airport improvement plan, estimated to range from $60,000 to $120,000.

"Cost recovery from the current three to five tenants to cover airport operations costs and liability costs would not be possible," said the staff report. FAA funds to support operations would have been unavailable and the current tenants would have had to bear a "substantial financial commitment." Even if the county undertook the upgrades and improvements there would not have been any assurances of FAA approval, the report said.

• The commissioners voted unanimously to support Round Mountain Gold Corp. in its proposal to the Bureau of Land Management to expand its mining operations into Gold Hill in the Big Smoky Valley.

The resolution states that Round Mountain has been "an excellent corporate neighbor to Nye County over its many years of continuous operation," that it "has maintained a consistently excellent environmental record and is a good steward of the land."

For reasons of economic well being and the general welfare of the county, if the BLM renders an adverse decision for Round Mountain's plans, Nye County would appear as a friend of the court in the appeal.

The commissioners commented on the financial impact of potential layoffs and the resulting loss of tax revenue if the project doesn't proceed.

According to Budget Director Charlie Rodewald Nye County collects $125 million in revenue from total mining activity within its borders, of which Round Mountain is the largest contributor. For every $25 million in net mining proceeds the county obtains, $250,000 is in valuated taxes, he said.

• Finally, the Department of Energy recently announced it intends to use rail transportation for delivering high-level nuclear waste to the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste disposal site. The department wants to study the Caliente Corridor for rail construction and has already held scoping meetings at several locations to obtain public comment on the proposal. The board of commissioners now has the opportunity to comment on the Caliente Rail proposal.

In May the board submitted a request for funding a research analysis of the technical and socioeconomic issues involved in selecting the proposed route. Some of the issues involve construction and operation concerns, availability to commercial shippers, public access along and across the route, right of way alignments, fencing and rail sidings and spurs to towns.

Last week Commissioner Joni Eastley suggested that an additional analysis be made for possible passenger rail use of the route.

Neighboring Esmeralda County commissioners voted a resolution at their June 1 meeting to support the realignment of the DOE's preferred route to the Yucca Mountain Repository along the west side of Nevada Highway 95. The new rail line is believed to promote new mining activity and industrial development, allowing companies to ship commercial and industrial products more affordably.

Esmeralda County hopes to reap a new source of employment and tax revenue from new mining, warehousing and federal contracting connected with the Yucca Mountain project. But Nye County commissioners don't believe that Nye stands to gain economically from the project.

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Pahrump Valley Times
June 25, 2004

Tech park gets small boost

BRADSHAW OFFERS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PARK UPDATE

By PHILLIP GOMEZ
PVT

Unanticipated infrastructure costs in finishing work on the foundation of the Yucca Mountain-related business park in Amargosa Valley led Nye County commissioners on Tuesday to appropriate $58,000 to complete the project.

Nye County's initiative establishing the Amargosa Valley Science & Technology Park - at what would be the main entrance to the Yucca Mountain Repository at Lathrop Wells in Amargosa Valley - came under review at the meeting, even as workers from the county's Public Works Department were on the ground with spades and heavy equipment to mark off the site's principal thoroughfares: Science Court, Technology Court and the Busted Butte Street entranceway.

The upshot, according to Bradshaw, was that the site's well is not working and the site as a whole lacks federally required infrastructures, such as a pump house for fire protection, water tanks and mains. Also, the street system needs a road base, and the Nevada Department of Transportation requires better construction materials and turn-lanes on Nevada Highway 95 before the county's contract with Rafael Construction can be called completed.

The extra work will cost the county about $56,200, Bradshaw said, but he asked for and received $58,000, just to be sure. The original project component had been reduced in scope to $920,000 in order to keep costs under budget.

Until now, the project was funded entirely by the U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration.

The original 1999 EDA grant was then the largest grant ever awarded in Nevada. Since then, the city of Fallon has received a larger one for its water problems, Bradshaw said.

The $6 million grant allowed the county to build and equip the Community College of Southern Nevada Pahrump campus at the high school and helped get the county's economic development agency, Economic Development Authority of Esmeralda and Nye, or EDEN, off the ground to boost economic activity in the county and increase the tax base.

The science and technology park is the third phase in the overall project.

The work will extend the construction for another two weeks, Bradshaw said. Upon completion the project would be a saleable concern to developers. Omitted from the county's work order are street paving, streetlights and electrical facilities.

The project is modeled on the federal nuclear facilities for Department of Energy contractors and their subs in Hanford, Wash., Bradshaw said. The strategic impetus for the project is to allow the county access to potential tax revenues that otherwise would go to Clark County.

Pahrump resident Sally Devlin called the project "another boondoggle" being foisted upon the public. She asked for the district attorney "to look into it."

But Pahrump resident Dan Simmons encouraged passage of the appropriation, saying the idea was for private enterprise to take over and develop the park.

"The first lot sale will more than recoup the $58,000," Bradshaw later said.

Buyers stand ready, said Commissioner Joni Eastley from Tonopah.

The commissioners voted to approve the measure 5-0.

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Pahrump Valley Times
June 25, 2004

Getting to know Nye County

By LES BRADSHAW
SPECIAL TO THE PVT

Nye County encompasses a huge area, some 11-plus million acres in all. Rhode Island, Delaware, Washington, DC, Massachusetts and New Jersey could all fit within Nye County.

It takes a bit of effort to get to know Nye County. If you headed north driving from Pahrump it would take about two-and-three-quarter hours to drive to Tonopah, the county seat. You would pass through the Nye County towns of Amargosa Valley and Beatty, and the Esmeralda County seat, Goldfield. From Tonopah you could drive another two to three hours to the Railroad Valley, Duckwater, and Currant Creek areas in northeastern Nye County, or drive two-and-a-half hours to Gabbs in northwestern Nye County via Luning and Mina, in Mineral County. Or from Tonopah head north an hour to Round Mountain. Nye County is a huge place.

Area-wise Nye is the largest county in the state and the third largest in the continental U.S. (send me an email if you know the two counties larger than Nye). The Nevada State Demographer says Nye's population of 36,651 is 7th in the State, behind Clark (1,620,748), Washoe (373,233), Carson City (55,220; Carson City is treated as a county because of a combined city-county form of government), Elko (45,805), Douglas (45,603), and Lyon (41,244) counties. In 2024 the state demographer says Nye will be 6th in population.

Nye County must provide government services over a very wide area. This necessitates having a greater number of county facilities than would be necessary were we all to live cozily together in a smaller geographic area. For instance, there are five high schools amongst the 17 schools in the county. We have full service government facilities, including courts and jails, in Tonopah and Pahrump, plus a small public safety/court facility in Beatty. We have numerous ambulance bays, fire stations, road maintenance facilities, and law enforcement facilities scattered throughout the county, all needed to give the level of service the public expects.

Most of the county's 11 million acres is administered by a number of federal agencies: the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs; the Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture; the Air Force; and the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Energy. Just 2 percent of the land in Nye County is in private ownership. Nye County must derive its tax base, and therefore its ability to provide services to its residents, from this very small percent of its total land mass.

Most of the federal land management agencies have resource management plans for their part of Nye County. The plans were, by and large, created independently, apparently with little 'big picture' coordination between the agencies. For instance, when the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) did its environmental impact statement for the Yucca Mountain Project on the Nevada Test Site, it did not take full cognizance of the resource management plan done by the department for the rest of the Nevada Test Site. Nye County worked hard to get OCRWM to take a 'big picture' view with only limited success.

In addition to not taking full cognizance of plans emanating from sister federal agencies, federal land management agencies often split Nye County into arbitrary resource management districts, forcing Nye County to deal with multiple but same-agency resource management plans. For instance, there are four BLM resource management plans covering parts of Nye County administered from Battle Mountain, Las Vegas, Ely and Carson City. Similarly, there are several Forest Service management plans operative in the county and at least two Department of Energy management plans on the Nevada Test Site. Dealing with this multitude of federal administrative divisions and subdivisions requires the county to spend a lot more money to field more staff and to travel more to take care of interactions with the feds.

One anecdote arising from the huge size of the county: When I was a prosecutor in the district attorney's office in Tonopah, I realized that south county residents called for jury duty in Tonopah had gotten up probably by 4 or 430 a.m. and driven for almost 3 hours in order to be in the district court in Tonopah by 830 a.m. In those days district court had to be held in the county seat. I often wondered if defendants, expecting a fair trail by an impartial jury, realized the extraordinary efforts made by some people on the jury panel just to be there, and how hungry, tired or grumpy they might be when the trial started the first day.

Now that district court can be convened in Pahrump serving on a jury doesn't require such extraordinary effort by potential jurors.

Another observation: Tonopah isn't really in northern Nye County. It is in the extreme west-central part. There is still a huge area of the county north and northeast of Tonopah. Send me an email if you know where the communities of Reese River and Sunnyside are.

Next time: Roads on the public lands; is there a railroad coming?

Bradshaw is the director of Nye County's Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities. He can be contacted via the Internet at lbradshaw@nyecounty.net

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Congresswoman Shelley Berkley
June 25, 2004

Berkley Leads Effort To Keep House Yucca Funding at Record Low

Late Night Work in Rules Committee Helps Preserve Fair Treatment For Nevadans

(June 24, 2004 – Washington, D.C.) “The $131 million in funding for Yucca Mountain included in this bill is a small fraction of what the White House had requested, but we are still not entirely out of the woods. Those who wish to see nuclear waste buried in Nevada are already vowing to use upcoming negotiations between the House and Senate to restore any shortfall in the President's record $880 million request for Yucca Mountain,’ said Berkley. “I can guarantee you there is no trick in the book that the boosters of Yucca Mountain are not considering in order to try and restore this money.’

Earlier this week, Berkley secured the backing of the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee -- Rep. Martin Frost (D-TX) -- to block any attempt to structure the House rule on the energy spending bill to favor allowing nearly $750 million to be added to the Yucca budget. The action by the Rules Committee preserved the right of Berkley and other lawmakers to raise objections against efforts to spend more on dumping nuclear waste in Nevada.

“Had it not been for the support of Rep. Frost and the Democratic members of the House Rules Committee, this bill could have easily allowed billions more to be spent on Yucca Mountain and limited Congressional oversight. At the same time, 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 they do about the scientific uncertainties that surround Yucca Mountain or the threat to the safety of millions of Americans that nuclear waste shipments will create,’ said Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV).

Although funding for Yucca has been set at $131 million in the House, the U.S. Senate must still pass its version of the energy spending bill. Differences between the two pieces of legislation would then be resolved in a joint House-Senate conference committee. Yucca supporters are eyeing the conference as an opportunity to try and restore the funds eliminated under the House bill.

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Congresswoman Shelley Berkley
June 22, 2004

Berkley Introduces Bill For On-Site Storage of Nuclear Waste Would Shift Funding Away From Yucca Mountain, Increase Safety, Reduce Terrorist Risk

(June 22, 2004 – Washington, D.C.) U.S. Representative Shelley Berkley introduced legislation Tuesday calling for storage of the nation´s high-level nuclear waste at the plants where it is produced and to block further expenditure of taxpayer funds to move ahead with the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.

"On-site storage of high-level nuclear waste is already taking place at nuclear power plants across the nation and it represents a safe and reliable alternative to a dump at Yucca Mountain. Experts on all sides of the debate, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, agree that waste can be safely stored at the sites where it was created for the next 100 years or more. My bill would invest resources in securing and expanding these storage facilities,’ Berkley said. “This solution will give science the time to develop advanced technological solutions to the nuclear waste problem.’

Plans for burying nuclear waste in Nevada call for thousands of shipments across the U.S., increasing the risk of an accident or a terrorist attack involving nuclear waste.

“A single accident or terrorist attack involving a shipment of high-level waste could expose those living in the affected area to high levels of radiation and cause millions of dollars in damage to our environment. On-site storage will also stop plans for thousands of shipments of nuclear waste through communities which are home to more than 50 million Americans,’ Berkley said.

Proponents of Yucca Mountain claim that a central repository will eliminate current nuclear waste storage sites found in dozens of states, an idea that Berkley disputes.

“The dirty little secret the nuclear industry doesn´t want the public to know is that even if Yucca Mountain opens, thousands of tons of nuclear waste will continue to remain on-site at plants around the nation, where it must be allowed to cool,’ said Berkley. “In other words, as long as nuclear power is being produced, there will always be some amount of nuclear waste stored on-site. Rather than reduce the number of locations where nuclear waste is stored, Yucca Mountain will only add one more to the list.’

Recent scientific findings demonstrate that the canisters used in Yucca Mountain will corrode and allow radioactive waste to escape and contaminate nearby water supplies. With the price tag for Yucca expected to climb to $60 billion or more, Berkley is backing on-site storage as the safest and most affordable solution to dealing with the nation´s nuclear waste.

“Given the dangers that Yucca Mountain poses to the health and safety of Nevada families, the terrorist threat that decades of waste shipments across the U.S. would unleash and the likelihood of an accident involving nuclear waste, on-site storage remains the only viable option to safely store the nation´s spent nuclear fuel.’

Highlights of HR 4627

The 21st century science for nuclear waste disposal act of 2004

If passed, the Berkley legislation would allow the Secretary of Energy to tap the existing nuclear waste trust fund to pay for the cost of research, development, and utilization in the United States of risk-decreasing technologies, with an emphasis on technologies that:

-- increase the length of time that nuclear waste can be safely stored;

-- reduce the amount of transportation necessary for nuclear waste;

-- reduce the level of radiation of nuclear waste.

The bill would prohibit use of the Nuclear Waste Fund for research, development, or implementation of a central high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel repository.

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Las Vegas SUN
June 27, 2004

Ex-Georgia senator rallies Nevada veterans to Democrat's cause

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The fight for Nevada's five electoral votes will be waged this week among those who know a thing or two about real battles.

Vietnam veteran and former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland will campaign in Reno, Las Vegas and Boulder City for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry later this week in an all-out blitz for the veteran vote.

Cleland, a triple amputee and one of the more visible Kerry surrogates, has a clear message: "George Bush is giving veterans a raw deal, and John Kerry is the real deal."

In a phone interview from his Georgia home, Cleland said Bush has cut funding for Veterans Administration hospitals and has increased the co-pay in VA hospitals.

"Veterans should vote for John Kerry because, number one, he's a great American, and number two, he has bled and almost died for this country," Cleland told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "He is one of them."

Cleland will begin his Silver State tour Friday morning with a news conference in Reno before coming to Las Vegas for a media event. He will take part in the 56th Annual Boulder City Damboree on Saturday morning, parading with Nevada Veterans for Kerry.

Cleland says that Bush administration officials and surrogates have questioned Kerry's military service, which he calls "the height of hypocrisy."

Cleland is still smarting from his 2003 defeat to Republican Saxby Chambliss and still lashes out about the way the race played out. Chambliss ran a television ad that began with images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and then stated that Cleland had voted against President Bush's homeland security bill.

Cleland supported a Democratic version of the same bill.

Cleland also has been criticized by conservative columnist Ann Coulter, who denounced him as not being a war hero. Cleland lost his right arm and both legs in a grenade accident in Vietnam. He also received the Silver Star for gallantry in action for his service in a battle at Khe Sanh.

Bush campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said the campaign "has never questioned John Kerry's patriotism."

"This election will be about where the next president takes our country, and John Kerry has demonstrated throughout his 19 years in the U.S. Senate a fundamental misunderstanding of national security issues," Schmitt said.

Schmitt also said Bush has been responsive to veterans, allowing the VA to enroll 2.5 million more veterans for health care services. She said outpatient visits increased from 44 million to 54 million and that 194 new community-based clinics have opened that are available to veterans.

Cleland said Southern Nevada's quickly growing veteran population will understand the difference between the two candidates, just as the average Nevadan can understand the difference between Bush and Kerry on Yucca Mountain.

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Las Vegas SUN
June 27, 2004

Columnist Jeff German: Bush plays us for state full of fools

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

Now that President Bush's whirlwind week of campaigning in Nevada has passed, there's time to think about how insulted we should feel.

We're being played for fools by the president of the United States.

Bush stumped in Reno last Friday and never once talked about Yucca Mountain or explained to reporters why he lied to Nevadans four years ago about his intentions to put the high-level nuclear waste dump in our back yard.

Vice President Dick Cheney was in Las Vegas on Monday and also never gave reporters a chance to question him about Yucca Mountain, which is 90 miles northwest of the city.

But someone within the campaign must have been feeling guilty about snubbing the state's reporters because, once Cheney was safely back in Washington, he decided to do an interview by satellite with KLAS Channel 8 anchor Gary Waddell.

Waddell is one of my favorite news anchors, but he blew this assignment.

Even though it was in a controlled environment, this was the first chance a Nevada reporter had to question Bush or Cheney on this subject since the president two years ago approved Yucca Mountain.

But it ended up doing nothing more than give the Bush campaign additional free exposure here -- at a time when the race against Democratic challenger John Kerry is said to be dead even.

Where's Jon Ralston when you need him?

Tracey Schmitt, a Bush-Cheney spokeswoman, said the six-minute interview, which Channel 8 billed as an "exclusive," was one of a handful Cheney gave television stations around the country from the comfort of the Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in the Washington area.

Waddell wasted valuable time asking Cheney about the economy, getting the same boring speech the vice president made here on Monday.

When Waddell finally got to Yucca Mountain, after setting up the question with talk that politics may have played a role in Bush's decision two years ago, the television anchor asked, "Do you think Yucca Mountain is a good idea? Should it go forward?"

If the vice president had said "no," as Kerry did during a campaign visit to Las Vegas last month, Channel 8 indeed would have had an exclusive. But, no small surprise, the vice president didn't say no.

Cheney again gave the standard ambiguous response that it was "the right decision" made for the greater good of the country (and the nuclear industry that's so close to Cheney.) He insisted the decision, as the president promised Nevadans four years ago, was based on sound science, but he offered no facts to support that contention.

And Waddell didn't bother to press the vice president on that subject.

If only Waddell had asked Cheney about concerns raised earlier this year by physicist Paul Craig, a former member of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, the watchdog over the government's plans for disposing of nuclear waste.

Craig, who left the board so that he could speak freely about the dangers of Yucca Mountain, said the multibillion-dollar project so far has been based on "bad science," not sound science.

The project is so poorly designed, he charged, it could end up leaking radioactive waste and pose monumental health risks for all of us.

This is why news organizations here have to stop letting themselves be used by the Bush-Cheney campaign, and it is why we have to stop letting the president of the United States play us for fools.

Until he puts a halt to Yucca Mountain, President Bush doesn't deserve our vote in November.

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Las Vegas SUN
June 27, 2004

Columnist Jon Ralston: State GOP is inept on Yucca

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION
June 26 - 27, 2004

Tell the truth: If you read the words "Yucca Mountain" in the newspaper, your eyes glaze over and you turn the page.

Like me, you probably suffer from Yucca Mountain Fatigue Syndrome (YMFS) -- an affliction caused by two decades of endless, overheated rhetoric by pandering politicians and the sense of hopelessness that D.C. developments have engendered. But before you stop reading this column, know that there is a much more important issue related to Yucca Mountain during this presidential race, one that goes to the integrity of the state's GOP leaders and to their abject political incompetence.

This comes to mind after the recent visits by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, both choreographed and scripted to avoid even the merest mention of Yucca Mountain. I have been seething in silence about this for some time, but I can no longer bear the banalities from the state's Republican doyens.

By not speaking out, local GOP leaders tacitly are condoning what the president has done on the dump. But worse, at a time when the president needs every state he can get, their failure to force some kind of concession out of the mute chief executive is nothing short of political malfeasance. Never has the state had more leverage over an administration than this moment -- when Nevada is one of a dozen and a half battleground states the campaign must have.

Why have Gov. Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Brian Sandoval, Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter and Sen. John Ensign not informed Bush's campaign that their support is conditioned on some sort of reversal on Yucca Mountain?

Instead, they are so timid or so inept that they can't even persuade Bush to say anything about the dump when he comes here. And they have approved of the administration sending surrogates -- political guru Karl Rove and campaign chairman Marc Racicot -- who have offered up revisionist history and haughty comments that the Republicans here have let go unchallenged. But at least they got pictures with the president for posterity.

Rove repeated the canard that Bush used the proverbial sound science to make his decision, which is contradicted by history. And Racicot had the gall to say that Nevadans are fulfilling our "obligations and duties," as he told the Associated Press.

This is the elephant in the room the Republicans are choosing to ignore. Or worse, they secretly believe the dump is inevitable and thus their silence is even more insidious. "YMFS is running rampant in the state," they may have whispered to the Bush campaign, "so just don't address it. We have your back."

How much longer can anyone be expected to tolerate this "we agree to disagree" nonsense and the "we're disappointed in the president" blather. It reminds me of the old joke about the question addressed to the 16th president's wife after she and her husband attended the Ford's Theater production of "Our American Cousin" where he was assassinated: "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

As I hear Republican leaders offer their drivel about Ronald Reagan labeling as a friend someone who agrees with you 80 percent of the time, I ask: "Other than the fact that Bush lied to the state, humiliated the governor and its two senators and accelerated Yucca Mountain, how do you like the president?"

I know that since the Screw Nevada Bill 17 years ago, the canoodling metaphors have been overused. But permit me to say that these folks are not even playing hard to get and thus are the cheapest whores imaginable. They are giving it away for free -- and at their constituents' expense.

The history is so damning. A quick review: Bush ignores Nevada during campaign 2000. When Al Gore gets traction, Bush sends meaningless statement (written for him here) about "sound science" being his lodestar. Bush wins state by four percentage points. A year after he takes office, the president approves the dump -- less than a week after he grants a meaningless audience to Guinn, Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid. Guinn exercises meaningless veto. Congress overrides. Game over.

And now, offered a second chance, they are beating around the bush instead of beating on Bush for a concession. Never before have the state's GOP leaders had so much leverage. Nevada is one of a handful of states that could turn the election. I ask again: Why haven't any of those Bush backers conditioned their backing on some substantive action now by the administration? (And, no, I don't mean seeking benefits, which is political suicide. I mean something that would bring the process to a halt for legitimate reasons.)

Moral weakness I could accept. But they are simply bad politicians and history will record them as having missed their moment.

I know partisans out there will yelp that this is just some pro-Kerry screed. Not so. I actually believe that Kerry's pledge to stop Yucca Mountain is as hollow as Bush's faxed promise in 2000. He offers no specifics, and if he's elected, I don't believe he will lift a finger. Call it YMFS or just cynicism.

But that's not the point. Bush can do something and the state folks have the ability to extract something. Instead, they appear to be doing what Racicot said -- fulfilling their obligations and duties.

Even if they can't summon the political courage to publicly criticize Bush or get him to say something, anything about Yucca Mountain, Nevada Republican leaders cannot defend their absolute failure to get some kind of quid pro quo on the dump for their support as the president's campaign again takes Nevada for granted.

It is at best embarrassing and at worst unconscionable.

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Las Vegas SUN
June 27, 2004

Letter: 10th Amendment precludes dump
Las Vegas Sun
Weekend Edition

June 26 - 27, 2004

At least 99.9 percent of Nevadans do not want a nuclear-waste dump at Yucca Mountain or any other place in our state.

According to the 10th Amendment, we shouldn't have to accept this dump. It says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

We, as Nevadans, have the right to stop anything from being put in our state that we feel is harmful and dangerous.

Nevada will not be the only state affected. Many others will be at risk because of the transportation involved. People should write letters and make phone calls to our representatives in Washington, and encourage their friends and neighbors to do the same. We need to let Washington know that we object to Yucca Mountain, and we have a constitutional right to do so.

JACKIE MACFARLANE

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 27, 2004

Letter: Surreal spin on Yucca

To the editor:

I find it ludicrous that the Bush administration would send its political director Karl Rove to Nevada to proclaim that "politics" played no role in the president's selection of Yucca Mountain ("Bush adviser says Yucca decision did not violate pledge," June 13).

Despite Mr. Rove's surreal "spin," the truth is that candidate George W. Bush pledged in 2000 that "science" would guide his decision on whether to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

A report released shortly thereafter by the nonpartisan General Accounting Office (GAO) identified nearly 300 outstanding scientific and technical issues relating to Yucca Mountain.

The Review-Journal called the findings, "A stinging congressional audit," and noted that its authors had urged no recommendation be made on Yucca Mountain until the hundreds of outstanding questions could be resolved.

Less than two months later, President Bush brushed aside these warnings and gave Yucca Mountain his blessing.

Given the publicity surrounding the GAO's report, and the timing of Mr. Bush's decision, there is no question he approved the dump knowing that the science was shaky and that doubts had been raised about Yucca's ability to keep nuclear waste from polluting the environment.

In other words, Mr. Bush said what he needed to in order to win Nevada in 2000, but when the time came for him to honor that promise, he put politics above the safety of Nevada residents and the nation.

Mr. Rove asks what we should say to those states with stockpiles of nuclear waste. The answer is to store the waste in dry-cask storage at the sites where it was produced, a solution experts agree will keep the waste safe for the next 100 years. This alternative to Yucca Mountain would provide ample time for science to find real solutions to the nuclear waste problem.

Rep. Shelley Berkley

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The writer, a Democrat, represents Nevada's 1st Congressional District.

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Charleston Post Courier
June 27, 2004

Proceed with SRS tank cleanup

The Department of Energy's recent assurance that 99 percent of radioactive material will be removed from waste tanks at Savannah River Site should encourage Congress to allow the cleanup to proceed. It may fall short of a perfect solution -- the removal of 100 percent -- but it would go a long way toward finally dealing with highly radioactive material that has been stored on site for decades.

Under a proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., liquid waste would be removed from the tanks and turned into glass logs, in preparation for shipping them to a permanent waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Gov. Mark Sanford and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control support the plan. The governor has noted that, under the existing waste treatment policy, waste could remain in the tanks another 30 years.

As proposed by Sen. Graham, the cleanup would leave a relatively small amount of material, resembling a slurry, in the tanks. Because it has proven intractable to treatment in two tanks from which waste already has been removed, the slurry would be encased on site with a concrete grout, poured in and around the tanks.

Assistant Energy Secretary Jessie Roberson recently told a Senate committee that the department is confident the remaining waste left in the tanks will qualify as low-level waste once it is diluted with the grout mixture. A spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control tells us that has been the case with the two tanks already treated at SRS.

DHEC views the treatment plan as a way to finally deal with the 37 million gallons of waste in 49 tanks at the former weapons plant. DHEC Deputy Commissioner Robert King describes the existing storage as "the single most potentially hazardous condition to the environment and the people of South Carolina." Under Sen. Graham's proposal, the state would have to agree to cleanup plans for each tank, and maintain oversight of the process.

Amendments in both the House and Senate would require a National Academy of Sciences review of DOE's cleanup plan. The Senate amendment has the benefit of allowing DOE to proceed with the preliminaries while an academy review is undertaken. The provision for NAS review should act as a needed circuit breaker if DOE's plans are determined to be inadequate.

Sen. Graham's proposal has been criticized because it would allow DOE to leave radioactive waste on site. But based on the cleanup experience of two tanks on site, the level of radioactivity will be greatly diminished and will present a far less hazard in its immobilized state than the millions of gallons of high-level radioactive liquid that have long been stored in the aging tanks.

DHEC nuclear waste experts are convinced that the plan will work, and that there are adequate safeguards for the state. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has endorsed the idea, saying that the plan "would protect public health and safety." Sen. Graham points out that it would speed up the cleanup by 23 years and reduce the anticipated expense by some $16 billion.

If the National Academy Sciences finds a fatal flaw in the plan, it should have the opportunity to intervene, even under the timetable envisioned by the Senate. Otherwise, the long overdue cleanup of this lingering waste problem should finally commence.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 26, 2004

House energy bill sets low mark for Yucca funding

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The House passed an energy bill Friday containing $131 million for the Yucca Mountain Project, a record low sum that could threaten operations at the planned nuclear waste repository if it is not increased later this year.

The spending, in a bill that was approved 370-16, greatly complicates Department of Energy financing for the repository program, congressional and nuclear industry officials said.

Usually, DOE counts on House lawmakers to approve more generous sums for Yucca Mountain, which are then attacked in the Senate by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

This year, Reid could find much of his work already done. The Senate is scheduled to begin forming a Yucca Mountain spending bill the week of July 5.

Unless senators add money, "This would obviously put a big delay in the mountain. You will be left with a skeleton staff and activities until a time when funding could be restored," said Leslie Barbour, legislative program director at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The Energy Department had requested $880 million, saying the full amount was critical to complete a license application, continue devising a national shipping campaign, study a Nevada railroad corridor and work with utilities to prepare spent fuel for packaging and transport.

Instead, Barbour confirmed that the $131 million, the result of what lawmakers said were miscalculations by the White House and failure to get a budget amendment to the House floor, is the least the House has appropriated for Yucca Mountain since Congress designated the Nevada site for repository studies in 1987.

The Department of Energy had no comment Friday.

A spokesman referred to a letter Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham wrote last month saying that deep cuts would cause layoffs of up to 1,700 workers, shut down most activities and delay "indefinitely" a targeted 2010 repository opening.

The Yucca funding was part of a $28 billion bill setting 2005 spending levels for the Energy Department, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

There was little debate about nuclear waste after House leaders declined late Thursday to allow an amendment that aimed to free up millions of dollars in a special waste fund.

Instead, lawmakers who favor the repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas expressed frustration. They said they will try again later to secure more money to keep the project on track to open in 2010.

"At some point in the process, this will have to be fixed for the future of this country and the nuclear power industry and, more importantly, for the communities" where waste currently is stored, said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, the energy and water subcommittee chairman.

"I am outraged by certain people who put us in this position," Hobson said, referring to officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget who wrote this year's Yucca budget request in a way he said created the shortfall and led lawmakers to scramble for a fix.

For Nevada lawmakers who oppose the repository, it was an uncommon break in the House, where pro-nuclear sentiment usually prevails on Yucca matters.

"We worked hard, but we have to keep working," said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., "There's a long way to go."

"Rather than waste one more cent on this dangerous and ill-conceived white elephant, it is time that we put the health and safety of all Americans above the profits of the nuclear industry," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

Congressional and industry officials familiar with the negotiations that scuttled Yucca budget relief said there were deep splits among nuclear power advocates in the House on the size of the bailout, with some pro-nuclear Democrats arguing for even more money.

The issue also created divisions between leaders of budgeting and spending committees over whether to adjust accounting rules, a change that would affect congressional budget practices.

"Project opponents must be laughing their butts off," a nuclear industry executive said of the warfare within the pro-nuclear ranks. "Harry Reid in his wildest dreams could not have engineered something like this."

Sources said House leaders also wanted to help Porter, who is expected to face a tough re-election campaign.

"There is concern about Mr. Porter's race, and the leadership took his strong objections into consideration," Barbour said.

"I appreciate (Barbour) giving me credit, but it was a team effort," Porter said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 26, 2004

City audit criticizes Office of Business Development

By Michael Squires
Review-Journal

The city department responsible for attracting new business to Las Vegas lacks adequate measures to determine whether it accomplishes that mission, a city audit released this week concluded.

Unlike other cities, Las Vegas' Office of Business Development doesn't track the number of jobs created, acreage of land developed, increases in property taxes or capital investments that result from its efforts, auditors said in their report.

"I think that's mandatory for all city departments, to say, 'We're here for a reason,' and say what that reason is," said Chris Knight, the office's acting director. "Before the audit, we had identified that we needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program."

Other problems in the department included a lack of standard operating procedures and a failure to track projects.

The office has gone through several changes in leadership over the past year and is now operating under its second acting director. But a permanent director has been hired after a national search and will begin work in late August, officials said.

"It's hard to be consistent with a program when you have that number of transitions," Knight said.

The audit also recommended other city departments are better suited to handle the city's Yucca Mountain lobbying effort and assistance to the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission, which is seeking to build a magnetic levitation, or "maglev," train between Las Vegas and Anaheim.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
June 26, 2004

House cuts funding for Yucca Mountain

Doug Abrahms

WASHINGTON — Opponents of a plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain won a victory Friday as the House voted to slash next year´s budget for the project.

The move could slow down construction of the nuclear waste repository.

House members voted to reduce funding for the project to $131 million from last year´s $577 million, a step that could push back the opening date for the high-level nuclear waste dump beyond 2010.

“We do consider it a large victory,’ said Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno.

Gibbons and U.S. Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Las Vegas, and Jon Porter, R-Henderson, voted against an energy and water spending bill containing the reduced amount for the Yucca Mountain project because they oppose any money for the project. Yucca Mountain is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

“The $131 million in funding for Yucca Mountain included in this bill is a small fraction of what the White House had requested, but we are still not entirely out of the woods,’ Berkley said. “I can guarantee you there is no trick in the book that the boosters of Yucca Mountain are not considering in order to try and restore this money.’

Some House members vowed to restore the money during negotiations between the House and Senate on the energy and water bill. And Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has floated a plan to add a small surcharge on electric rates of nuclear power users for a year to boost money for Yucca Mountain.

“There´s quite a few options available’ to restore the funding, said Leslie Barbour, director of legislative programs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents utilities. “Obviously, the next step is to turn to the Senate.’

But if the full funding isn´t restored, work on the Yucca Mountain project would be delayed, she said.

Energy Department officials said in a statement that it is still early in the budget process and that they plan to work with the House and Senate to boost funding for the Yucca Mountain project in the final energy and water legislation.

Bush administration officials are partly to blame for the shortfall in funding for the project. They requested only $131 million because they wanted Congress to vote to let the Energy Department gain direct control over the $14.5 billion in the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund, which utility consumers have been paying into for decades.

But Congress didn´t pass such legislation, and the House Republican leadership imposed spending caps that prevented adding substantial money for any project, including Yucca Mountain.

“We have to solve this problem — the country has taken a position this is where the repository has to go,’ said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio. “At some point in this process … this will have to be fixed for the future of this country and the nuclear power industry.’

But Nevada´s Agency of Nuclear Projects, which is working to block the Yucca Mountain project from moving ahead, hopes the project´s funding shortfall will continue.

“It would be quite a help to the state´s battle to stop this project,’ said planning division administrator Joe Strolin.

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Nevada Appeal
June 26, 2004

House OKs $131 million for Yucca

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The House on Friday approved a $28 billion measure financing energy and water programs that provides far less than President Bush proposed for building a nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada.

The bill, approved by a 370-16 vote, provides $131 million for continued preparations for the nuclear waste storage site to be built at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Bush proposed $880 million for the project, which the government hopes to complete by 2010. The bill ignored Bush's request to finance $749 million of the sum by taking it from a special nuclear waste fund, which comes from fees electric utilities charge their customers.

Nevada's three House members, Republicans Jon Porter and Jim Gibbons and Democrat Shelley Berkley, all voted against the bill Friday.

"The $131 million in funding for Yucca Mountain included in this bill is a small fraction of what the White House had requested, but we are still not entirely out of the woods," Berkley said in a statement. "Those who wish to see nuclear waste buried in Nevada are already vowing to use upcoming negotiations between the House and Senate to restore any shortfall in the President's record $880 million request."

"We're not happy unless it's zero," said Gibbons spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer. "But we were pleased to see that the House did not entertain the idea of taking the Yucca Mountain project off-budget and removing congressional authority."

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KLAS
June 26, 2004

House Votes to Limit DOE Funding for Yucca

Edward Lawrence, Reporter

The House of Representatives voted to severely restrict the budget for the Yucca Mountain repository. Nevada lawmakers hope to crush the Yucca Mountain Repository project by under funding it. The vote Friday gave the project only $131 million when the Department of Energy asked for about $880 million. This was one battle, but the war still wages on.

Representative Jon Porter says, "Forty states want Nevada to be the dump site for Yucca Mountain. What we were able to do as a team today is make sure that the bill that passed was at $131 (million)."

House Republicans Porter and Jim Gibbons worked with Democrat Shelley Berkley to restrict the funding. Representative Berkley adds, "This is a self fulfilling prophecy. I don't know how many times we have to tell the Department of Energy that Yucca Mountain is not an appropriate project for this nation."

Representative Gibbons said he won't, "...be satisfied until the Yucca budget is zero. This vote makes sure that the Department of Energy doesn't have a blank check."

The celebration will be short lived. This vote only restricts the project funding for next year from one utility trust fund. Utility companies pay into that fund through a fee charged to customers. It has $15 billion available.

"There are a lot of other avenues that they can find for the funding. That is why we are taking this as a huge win for the battle, but the war continues." says Representative Porter.

In fact this vote isn't the final say on this matter. It now goes to the Senate where the budget could be restored. Senator Harry Reid says in a statement, "We are still putting our bill together. Senator Ensign and I are working to stop Pete Domenici's budget ploy. I have every expectation that ultimately Domenici will fail." Senator Domenici represents New Mexico. He's the chairman of the Senate committee that develops Yucca Mountain's budget.

Eyewitness News should know what the final version of the bill looks like in a couple of months. If the funding is cut the project is not dead. It just means the Yucca Mountain Repository may not open in 2010, as it is scheduled to do.

The Department of Energy said they will lay off 1,700 people if hey don't get the funding. Representative Jon Porter points to our low unemployment rate and says those workers will get other jobs.

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Washington Post
June 26, 2004

Bill Omits Funds for Nuclear Waste Storage

By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer

A long-standing federal plan to permanently store waste from the nation's commercial nuclear reactors under a Nevada mountain was thrown into question yesterday when the House passed a key spending bill containing no funds for that purpose in 2005.

The White House and congressional supporters of the proposed waste repository beneath Yucca Mountain launched a hectic last-minute effort to add money for the project. But the attempt failed after Nevada legislators and fiscal conservatives expressed strong opposition.

Funding for the huge project, which could eventually cost as much as $60 billion, may yet be salvaged. The Senate has not taken up its version of the legislation, and ways could be found to solve the problem when House and Senate negotiators reconcile their bills later this year.

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) has a plan to impose a one-time surcharge on electricity users to raise an additional $440 million to continue development of the site next year.

"Yucca Mountain is a national priority," said Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee panel that approves the Energy Department's annual budget. "This needs to be resolved at some point. We've spent too much money already on it."

Hobson's state is home to several major nuclear utilities that are running short of secure storage space for spent fuel rods and other radioactive materials from their operations. Creation of a single repository away from urban areas is a top priority of numerous power companies that are major contributors to Republicans.

But supporters acknowledged yesterday that they face serious problems after the House, 370 to 16, approved a $28 billion energy and public works bill that includes funds for Yucca Mountain. The measure allocates $131 million to continue designing facilities at Yucca Mountain for Defense Department nuclear waste, but nothing for further work on permanent storage of materials from 72 commercial reactor sites in 33 states.

Hobson and other supporters of Yucca Mountain blamed the White House budget office for "miscalculations" that led to the situation.

The Energy Department requested $749 million for non-defense nuclear waste disposal in 2005, a substantial increase that it figured would put the Nevada project on firm long-term financial footing.

But the White House budget office assumed that Congress would make the sharply increased resources available from fees that the nuclear utilities pay annually into a Nuclear Waste Fund, set up in 1982 to deal with the problem.

That legislation, however, has not been forthcoming, and a report prepared under Hobson's supervision declared that "at best, the Office of Management and Budget made an unwise budget calculation; at worst, it took a foolish political gamble" by assuming Congress would enact the needed legislation this year.

In an eleventh-hour attempt to help on Thursday, the House energy committee rushed through a bill making available $576 million to Yucca Mountain from the utility fees. But a GOP plan to offer it as an amendment to the Energy appropriations bill was abandoned after opposition from Nevada lawmakers and GOP fiscal conservatives.

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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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